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Comment Re:So taxpayers are paying (Score 1) 32

For the same reason we pay public servants to write Security Configuration Guidance documents, post YARA rulesets for malware campaigns, etc. It's a public service. I'd call it progress: in years past, data like this was frequently only circulated to select enterprise partners. This product will be directly accessible to the public.

Comment Re:AltaVista, here we come! (Score 1) 70

You aren't kidding.

I have an old Gmail account loaded into my IMAP client. Haven't accessed the Gmail web interface in a few years, and even that was just long enough to enable logins with a third-party client. Today I had the misfortune of loading Gmail in a browser and couldn't believe it; it's like they're stuffing a whole operating system onto the page. There was a chat pane, something about phone calls, various widgets that apparently were assimilated from Hangouts, a drop-down menu to switch between standard and Dvorak keyboard layouts... I could barely see the email for all the other bullshit they've cluttered Gmail up with. Sliding or minimizing the various panes didn't put a dent in the CPU load or network traffic they were generating. I really can't see how people put up with that interface for using email every day.

Comment Re:You don't understand (Score 1) 205

Take off your rose colored glasses for minute. First of all, no-reply emails are a means to notify a customer of something. They are one-way.

I am writing to "notify" you that any business using with this attitude is run by shitty people and deserves to fail. You don't get to dictate what I'm "meant" to do!

Please direct all responses to no-reply@gofuckyourself.com

Comment Re:And one other thing... (Score 1) 205

Sometimes when I have a choice of companies to buy a product from, Ill send an email or fill out the web form asking the same question to multiple companies.

And that's the other asinine thing about bullshit web forms: they force you to send the message to one recipient at a time. As a slightly different example, say I want to write my Congressmen about something. Instead of just writing an email and putting three names in the To: field, now I have to answer a slightly disjoint set of (potentially) invasive questions three times over. It's not that it's hard or even that time-consuming; it's that it's galling because I shouldn't have to jump through hoops like that.

Comment Re:You're nobody. (Score 1) 205

Think about it - if you were running a very large company, would you rather: a) have a catch-all email that runs the gamut of issues, feedback, etc. b) have a way to submit categorized feedback via web forms?

If I were running a very large company, I would want everyone to be forced to just give me their money instead of having to go through the trouble of actually selling something to them in return.

But I wouldn't be entitled to that -- just like how companies are not entitled to be able to dictate communications terms to their customers, either!

Comment Re:Reset the password on the accounts. (Score 1) 565

Let me see if I got it right... when you're being sent emails from a particularly spammy entity, you go ahead and click on a link on their email that confirms that your email address is, in fact, active?

Yes. They already know the email address is active by virtue of the fact that their messages aren't bouncing, and they're already sending me emails. The worst that can happen is they send me more emails. I'll live with the risk.

Comment Re:Reset the password on the accounts. (Score 5, Insightful) 565

Yes, exactly. I have the same problem with my Gmail account. Over the years many hundreds of people have mistaken it for their email address, distributed it far and wide, and entered it into all sorts of things. Sometimes I just let it go, especially if a site only sends one "thanks for registering" email. I hit delete and move on. But if the service is a particularly spammy one, I'll use the "forgot password" link, login, change the password, turn off all email-related options, etc.

I used to look for an option to delete the account entirely, but that invariably led to the same people signing back up for the same services again. Occasionally I'll try to do the other guy a favor and tell the sender that they have the wrong address. It usually isn't worth the effort. Someone has a Royal Bank of Scotland account registered to my email and no amount of emailing, filling out their contact form, or tweeting at them ever did any good so I just filtered that domain out.

Not much you can do about people sending random unsolicited communications, though. I've received some really interesting misdirected mail over the years, including some stuff from the European Space Agency, and being cc'd on an NFL player's contract negotiations with a new team.

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