VBD Auctions

[Tinman]

Thanks for the good advice Mick. The flood of spam seems to have slowed to a trickle so maybe they are beginning to realize that they are wasting their time trying to post their junk here.

While you are sleeping, I get rid of a bunch of it each night.

[nickjones]

The thing that really gets me is why there is so much spam from people trying to sell us bl**dy handbags.
Matchbox must have a completely different meaning in chinese.

[SMS88]

The thing that really gets me is why there is so much spam from people trying to sell us bl**dy handbags.
Matchbox must have a completely different meaning in chinese.

All of the spam here that I have seen has been written in Chinese characters - what kind of seller thinks we can read Chinese or would bother to use google translate to read their daft sales pitch ????

[Martin Avis]

The odd thing is that the IP addresses of much of the spam is either Kansas City or some place in Florida.

[Tinman]

The odd thing is that the IP addresses of much of the spam is either {some text deleted} some place in Florida.

Col. Klink ... I know Nothing!

[Tinman]

There has been some spam in plain ole English.

Handbags are high profit and high demand. In one "Factory Outlet" shopping center (not too far from where I live) there is five different stores all selling designer handbags. Many (probably most) of the handbags from these Chinese spammers are counterfeit products.

I will have to admit to selling fake Rolex an Gucci watches back in the 1980's. I didn't deceive anyone and all my customers knew they were fakes (however, that didn't make it exactly legal). They were dirt cheap when bought in bulk and you could easily mark them up 400% or more. I would sell out of them as fast as I would get them. All too soon, a crack down dried up the importers and that was the end of that.

In those days, I thought of big corporations as evil profit mongers out to get the working man (still think that about some evil big corporations) and that it was a victimless thing. I now have a greater respect for that type of property rights. I also thought that information and signals sent through the airwaves belonged to all of us. This lead me down a wicked path of "free" bootleg cable TV and many hours of "free" premium channels (such as HBO).

I was becoming so good at tapping into the cable company equipment and using their own safeguards to shield my bootleg connections that I never suffered a disconnect on my place or that of friends (whom I fixed up).

I continue to digress from the original topic (sorry). I was also good at doing my own telephone wiring and could avoid the ringer impedance test which the phone company used to detect unauthorized additional telephones (prior to deregulation in the U.S.). And back in the days when Long Distance calls would rack up an expensive phone bill ... I had a little black box for that too.

I remember another scam to get a free telephone. When you moved into a new place you could opt for a "party line" that you shared with others. After a month, you would then call up and have the line disconnected. It was so simple to reconnect your self at the junction box. Your phone then became an extension of you neighbors phone. If you picked up the phone and it was in use, no one with a party line thought twice about it. In a digital world, these things are much more difficult ... but the analog days now seem like the wild west for those who hated the big monopoly companies.

[Moyboy]

I well remember those phone fiddles Joe - another in the UK in the days of the red phone box and black phone was to tap out the number on the dial - pulses sent worked as well and you got though. We also had a free line in all exchanges - unmonitored so great for overseas calls until a few idiots wired their house lines up to them and that was the end of that.
I still get spammers trying to join but all come through me now and when I click on the link and see 'Who Made Matchbox Cars' answered as qytwujdndjjrfjr' , same for the country you are from, I know when to ban the email - I just ban as *@ whatever email and you usually find some kind of selling address or sicko porn one ( I've gone from sicko kiddy porn to beastiality ). Its very rare that you ban a genuine ISP but if you leave the email address open and just ban the user, as sure as chips is chips, more will follow from the same email, just a different name.
The Chinese guys just genuinely want to sell their cheap crap (I think) but being the greatest government hackers on the planet who knows so they all go.

[SMS88]

I bought my house from an electrician and he showed me how he by passed the then mechanical electicity meter.Very clever but now its all digital and online 24-7 his tricks cant be hidden.........all good clean fun against the greediest people on the planet before the loophole was closed......

[Tinman]

I well remember those phone fiddles Joe - another in the UK in the days of the red phone box and black phone was to tap out the number on the dial - pulses sent worked as well and you got though.

That was a good trick and one I often used to bypass those old pay phones. I got pretty good at tapping out numbers.

[Tinman]

I bought my house from an electrician and he showed me how he by passed the then mechanical electicity meter.Very clever but now its all digital and online 24-7 his tricks cant be hidden.........all good clean fun against the greediest people on the planet before the loophole was closed......

Yes, same here digital power meters all controlled from "Downtown." The local utility company was one we never messed with. They were notorious for discovering such "fixes" and prosecuting offenders.

Years ago, the meters were sealed with a little round lead seal crimped over a wire to make a loop. For a short time, I worked at a place called Selley & Sons. They made lead castings of people and accessories for "O" & "HO" trains. One of the mold makers made a neat tool that reproduced the crimp or mark on the little lead seal. You could remove the meter and place it in upside down and it would run backwards. After a week or ten days of that, he would flip it around upright and redo the lead seal. Unfortunatly for him, he he lived in a duplex. When his neighbor moved out, the meter man came in the middle of the month to turn off the power in the now vacant unit beside his. He got busted when the meter man noticed the upside down meter (both meters are side by side in a duplex). Police actually came and arrested him at work.