Month: October 2004

DigitalDream.com == spammer

I guess this is a sign that a marketplace for services is arriving, but when I get “signs” by being smacked in the face, I’m not very happy about it. This morning, I received unsolicited email from [email protected] offering to help me solve “the problem with feeds — RSS bandwidth usage.” Yes, someone is jumping on a new opportunity… may even be a real one. I know some folks who think so, but I don’t want to tar any good companies by mentioning them in this post. Nor will I link to those who did the spamming. I’m hoping that by publicly calling them out, the negative effect will override the ‘positive’ effect of just mentioning their name and services.

The spammers at DigitalDream.com provide News Interceptor, a Windows newsreader that sits in your taskbar. OK, join the crowd. And is it spyware? That may not be a fair question, but if you spam like this, you’re calling into question your ethics in other areas.

Now, calling themselves D2Soft Technologies, they are offering RSScache.com. The spammers at Digital Dream (yes, I’m repeating myself) call this service “the bandwidth saver solution for your RSS feeds.”

In some instances, feed crawling has caused concern (too many possible links, so none), and I guess enough angst for someone to say “I can help scratch that itch.” I guess the business model is to sell the software, since they offer an enterprise installation. But with a business that includes spamming, are you really going to install something on your server from these guys? I’m know somewhere in the Slashcode is the Apache module that controls outrageous crawlers — that’s battle-tested code.

Here’s the domain registry info for RSSCache.com and DigitalDream.com, both for proof that they are connected (email wasn’t spoofed) and to help other share their thoughts with the spammers.

Domain Name: RSSCACHE.COM
Digital Dream (VVTIXPTLUD)
CP 206, Succursale Ahuntsic
Montreal, Qc H3L 3N9
CA

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Digital Dream (20605077O) [email protected]
(same address as above)
1-514-335-2132 fax: 1-514-335-2134

Record expires on 26-Sep-2006.
Record created on 26-Sep-2004.
Bulk whois optout: Y [ed., nice of him/her to opt out of spam]

Domain servers in listed order:
NS.PIXELWEB.NET 207.183.36.4
NS2.PIXELWEB.NET 207.183.36.8

Domain Name: DIGITALDREAM.COM

Same info as above, except for:
Berube, Benjamin (BB2467) [email protected] [ed. adds his handle]

Record expires on 13-Sep-2005.

Record created on 14-Sep-1996.
Bulk whois optout: Y

Here’s the spam, in its entirety (well, with my email address and details removed):

From: [email protected]
Subject: RSS bandwidth usage problem with your site?
Date: October 14, 2004 9:14:05 PM PDT
To: REMOVED
Return-Path: [email protected]
Delivered-To: REMOVED
Received: (qmail 55443 invoked by uid 13075); 15 Oct 2004 04:44:08 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO blade.d2soft.com) ([209.5.105.122]) (envelope-sender [email protected]) by REMOVED; 15 Oct 2004 04:44:08 -0000
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=”—-=_NextPart_000_003C_01C4B24B.E1F38220″
X-Mailer: Microsoft Office Outlook, Build 11.0.5510
Thread-Index: AcSybWjhmM8IOwC5S86JsXh1vlRvsA==
X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441

Hello,

We have seen that you offer a RSS feed on your site “clock — watching time, the only true currency”.æ You are probably already aware of the problem with feeds: bandwidth over usage.æ You might even be reconsidering your feed because of your bandwidth cost.æ RSScache.com is the solution to save more than 90% on your bandwidth usage.

You can start using RSScache.com in less than 10 seconds.æ It’s free and requires no installation at all.æ You just need to add “my.rsscache.com” in your feed URL, like this:

my.rsscache.com/REMOVED (since I don’t want to be associated with these folks in search engine snippets)

Simply replace your current link on your Web site with this link.æ Check out our site for information on our new technology and how it works (www.rsscache.com).

Best regards,

D2Soft Technologies Team
www.rsscache.com

I see that at least three others have noticed this spam:

• Neil Turner, whose feed I read
• Adam Kalsey, found via Neil’s post
• Chris Pirillo at Lockergnome, also found via Neil

Glad to see I’m not the only one to rush to publicly shame them for this effort.

Update: Had to edit the post because Radio made the links active automatically. Edited to avoid that.

So I unbuckled the seat belt a little earlier than I should have this evening, as we were rolling into the garage. Behind me came a similar click… the boy had followed my example. I told him that I made a mistake, and that he needed to wait until we were fully stopped. His response?

You shouldn’t do it because then I’ll do it. You made me do it.

Hmmmm.

Do as I say, not as I do. It’s tough to be caught as a hypocrite by someone under the age of four!

I visited Fort Collins, Colorado for the first time ever this past weekend. (Thanks, Sam & Mike!) I’m still musing over the combination of parks and sprawl. In a short 20 minute drive across town, we passed several city parks on our way to this new park, Fossil Creek. Great facility, and it was busy on a sunny Sunday around lunchtime. The surrounding sprawl — lots of new houses and developments around the city, not just in this area — isn’t offensive. The houses are nice, if not unique. American commercial development isn’t really a surprise to anyone anymore: we have the space, in most places, so we fill it. Yet it’s striking for just how repetitive different developments can be. In many cases, these tracts are the same generation. Time heals most wounds, and what’s really telling between older and newer developments is how the thickness of the trees gives away the depth of the community’s roots. I saw saplings and old growth, but rarely in the same place.

Overall, I was impressed. Fort Collins has a history, a large university, a location tucked up against the foothills, and a pattern of development that encourages (or requires) numerous bicycle lanes and parks of various shapes and sizes. The downtown has some life and diversity. While I didn’t get a chance to see much of the university, I like the human energy that gathers around big educational institutions. It’s not always well directed, but there are guaranteed to be some interesting people and diversions which become part of the community at large. I’ll be curious to learn more over time, as I’m likely to visit again.

On a separate (related?) note, I travelled e-470 twice during the trip from and to the airport. The road has its own website because, well, the road is a private toll road. I guess these are more and more common around the country (or so I’ve read), but this was my first experience. Friday night, 10pm… empty. No one else willing to pay the ~$4 toll, I guess. Is this really the way of the future? From the FAQ:

Will E-470 reduce the tolls or offer discount tolls?
Our per mile toll costs are in line with other brand new start up toll roads constructed in the last decade.æ Our construction costs and debt payments are much higher since we are paying much higher costs for materials and labor today, compared to the older toll roads built in the 1950’s and 1960’s.æ E-470 currently has $1.2 billion in debt, over $3 billion with interest.ææ Traffic and revenue analysis have shown that reducing the tolls or granting discounts at this time, will not guarantee the increase in drivers that E-470 would need, to collect the revenue necessary to pay our bonds.æ Having opened the newest section of our road in January 2003, we can now go about watching the growth of traffic and attempt to estimate at what point the new segment is achieving its forecasted traffic levels.æ At the point we reach these levels, we will analyze alternative pricing models, including toll elasticity to demand analysis, hoping to offer some alternatives to our daily customers.æ We won’t begin these studies until 2004.
When will the bonds be paid and toll removed?
The bonds are scheduled to be paid off in approximately 2035 and after E-470 has established a perpetual maintenance fund to take care of E-470.æ At that time, the tolls will end and the road will be turned over to the Colorado Department of Transportation.

“Toll elasticity to demand analysis”??? So much for Eisenhower’s legacy, the true military gift to our nation… highways to connect us all. (Current version = the internet.) Now, instead of public investment for the greater good, for later privatization (perhaps), we’re starting with privatization and then transferring ownership to the public at a later date. I hope the private organizations which are created for these purposes don’t gain the power of Robert Moses’s Triborough Bridge Authority in New York City, even if that organization has been subsumed by the MTA. (You have read The Power Broker, haven’t you? You must!) Only time will tell, but I sure felt like I was in different world, between the parks, the sprawl, and the toll road.

I need to take care of many other things before I go to bed, but I am glad to say that the iMac G5 (17″) is up and running. Brief frustration last night when, for still unknown reasons, the Bluetooth wireless mouse was not recognized… but all is well now. Also, the Setup Assistant, for transferring everything from the 400Mhz G4, was smooth like butter. I may well run into problems with something, but a quick check of the basics (my email, my wife’s email, NetNewsWire, Safari, work VPN, printing, and now Radio) leaves me satisfied. Now I just need to order another 512MB of RAM to supplement the 512 I started with. Here endeth my geek post of the night. Probably will stay quiet around here with other priorities, personal and professional, but been glad to follow lots of the buzz over at Web 2.0, thanks to colleagues, friends, and Jeremy Zawodny. I don’t think Yahoo PR could buy the kind of press/buzz Jeremy creates. Sure, it’s an “inside baseball” audience, but I’m in that game.