You can get all the e-mail you want at Alice's Restaurant
You can get all the e-mail you want at Alice's Restaurant
SPAM just once, you'll regret it a lot; half a gig o' e-mail from the
anti-spam 'bot;
Yeah, you can get all the e-mail you want at Alice's Restaurant Anti-Spam
Massacre
Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago it's on two years ago on Thanksgiving when my friend and I logged in to visit Alice on the Web but Alice doesn't live on the Web (though it seems like it sometimes), she uses her ISP to log onto the Web, the bell tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And usin' the bell tower since they signed up for a whole year, they got a unlimited access and disk space account and havin all that disk space, seen as they paid for a year up front, they decided that they didn't have to empty their e-mail inbox for a long time.
We got up there found all the spam in her inbox, and we figured it'd be a friendly gesture for us to clean the spam outta there for her.
So we took the half a megabyte of SPAM and put it on a a red floppy disk, took whois and dig and traceroutes of domains and logged on to the local NOC. Well we got there and there was a big banner and a MOTD saying closed on thanksgiving. We'd never heard of a NOC closed on thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we logged off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.
We didn't find one. Until we came upon Alice's laptop, and on the alt boot of the laptop there was copy of LINUX installed and the root account of this install had no password, but it did have an inbox clogged with SPAM. And we decided one big pile of SPAM is better than two little piles, and rather than copy that one onto our floppy we decided to copy our floppy onto it's /tmp partition.
That's what we did, and logged out back to the church, had a thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from sysadmin Obie. Said "Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a megabyte of SPAM, and just wanted to know if you had any information bout it". I said "Yes Sir Admin Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that e-mail with that SPAM."
After speakin' to Obie for about forty-five minutes on the telephone, we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and he said that we had to go down and delete all the SPAM, and also had to go down and speak to him at the NOC SysAdmin Station. So we logged onto the Redhat Linux laptop with whois and dig and traceroutes of domains and then headed on toward the NOC Sysadmin Station. Now, friends, there was only one of two things that Obie could've done at the NOC Sysadmin Station, and the first was that he could've give us a medal for bein' so brave and honest on the telephone (which wan't very likely, and we didn't expect it).
And the other thing was that he could've bawled us out and never to be seen' copying garbage onto other peoples machines in their domain again, which is what we expected.
But when we got to the NOC Sysadmin Station, there was a THIRD possibility that we hadn't even counted upon, and we was both immediately process arrested, dis-usered, and I said, "Obie, I can't clean up the disk drive with the account disabled."
He said: "Shut up, Kid, and stand behind that console." And that's what we did--stood behind his console, and while he logged into the quote SCENE OF THE CRIME unquote.
I wanna tell you 'bout the ISP in town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where this is happenin'. They got modem servers, two NOC Sysadmins, and one sysadmin workstation, but when we got to the scene of the crime, there was FIVE NOC Sysadmins and THREE sysadmin workstations, bein' the biggest crime of the last fifty years and everybody wanted to get in the USENET post about it.
And they was usin' up all kinds of sysadmin equipment that they had hangin' around the NOC Sysadmin Station. They was greppin' mail, tracin' Path-IDs, more'n the messages file and syslog, and they eventually came up with twenty seven e-mail messages, and they printed each one of 'em out and put circles and arrows and highlights on 'em and a paragraph on the back of each printout explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. They took archives of the approach, the getaway, the activity in our home directories and /tmp, and the spool directories, and I already mentioned the mail grepping.
After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was gonna put us in a cubicle. He said, "Kid--I'm gonna put you in a cubicle. I want your floppies and your belt."
I said, "Obie, I can understand your wantin' my floppies, so I don't have any removable media in the cubicle, but what do you want my belt for?" And he said, "Kid, we don't want any hangin's."
I said. "Obie, did you think I was gonna hang myself for e-mailin'?" Obie said he was makin' sure, and, friends, Obie was, 'cause he took out the VMS documentation so I couldn't hit myself over the head and die from concussion. And he took out the LA36 paper so I couldn't wedge the joint of the cubicle, roll the paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie was makin' sure.
It was about four or five hours later that Alice--(remember Alice? There's a song about Alice) Alice came by and, with a few nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of the cubicle, and we went back to the church, had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat.
And didn't get up until the next mornin' when we all had to go to court. We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the with the twenty seven e-mail message printouts with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down.
Man came in, said "All rise!" We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty-seven e-mail printouts, and the judge walked in, sat down, with a seein' eye dog and HE sat down. We sat down.
Obie looked at the seein' eye dog--then at the twenty-seven e-mail message printouts with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry.
Because Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't nothin' he could do about it, and the judge wasn't gonna look at the twenty-seven e-mail message printouts with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was, to be used as evidence against us.
And we was fined fifty dollars and had to clean up the e-mail--using a vt52. But that's not what I'm here to tell you about. I'm here to talk about the SPAM.
They got a buildin' down in New York City called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected!
I went down and got my physical examination one day, and I walked in, sat down (spent the night with the AISIG in the hottub the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in the mornin', 'cause I wanted to look like the Uber-Computer-Geek from DECUS.
I wanted to BE the Uber-Computer-Geek from DECUS and I walked in, sat down. I was hung down, brung down, hung up and all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things.
And I walked in, I sat down, they gave me a piece of paper that said: Kid, see the Marketing Weasel, Room 604.
I went up there, I said, "Weasel, I wanna spam. I wanna spam! I wanna promise health and good looks and a new career and money in the mail! Using faked reply-addresses and other peoples mail relay! I mean: Spam, Spam!"
And I started jumpin' up and down, yellin', "SPAM! SPAM!" and he started jumpin' up and down with me, and we was both jumpin' up and down yellin', "SPAM, SPAM!"
And the sales droid came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy!" Didn't feel too good about it.
Proceeded on down the hall, gettin' more injections, inspections, detections, neglections, and all kinds of stuff that they was doin' to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours--three hours--four hours--
I was there for a long time goin' through all kinds of mean, nasty, ugly things, and I was just havin' a tough time there, and they was inspectin', injectin' every single part of me, and they was leavin' no part untouched!
Proceeded through, and I finally came to see the very last man. I walked in, sat down, after a whole big thing there. I walked up, and I said, "What do you want?" He said, "Kid, we only got one question: Have you ever been disusered?
And I proceeded to tell him the story of Alice's Restaurant Massacre with full orchestration and five-part harmony and stuff like that, and other phenomenon.
He stopped me right there and said, "Kid, have you ever been to court?"
And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty-seven e-mail messages with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one--
He stopped me right there and said, "Kid I want you to go over and sit down on that bench that says 'Group W.' Now, kid!"
And I walked over to the bench there, and there's--Group W is where they put you if you may not be MORAL enough to SPAM the Internet after committin' your special crime.
There was all kinds of mean, nasty and ugly-lookin' people on the bench there --there was mother rapers--father-stabbers, father-rapers! FATHER-RAPERS sittin' right there on the bench next to me!
And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible and crime fightin' guys were sittin' there on the bench, and the meaniest, ugliest, nastiest one--the meanest father-raper of them all--was comin' over to me.
And he was mean and nasty and horrible and all kinds of things, and he sat down next to me. He said, "Kid, what'd you get?"
I said, "I didn't get nothin'. I had to pay fifty dollars and clean up the e-mail." He said, "What were you dis-usered FOR, kid?" and I said, "E-mailin'."
And they all moved away from me on the bench there, with the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean, nasty things, till I said, "some spammer, a 20Kb message, once every 10 seconds for 2 whole days."
And they all came back, shook my hand and we had a great time on the bench talkin' about crime, mother-stabbin', father-rapin', --all kinds of groovy things that we was talkin' about on the bench, and everything was fine.
We was smokin' cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the sales droid came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said:
"KIDTHISPIECEOFPAPERSGOTFORTYSEVENWORDSTHIRTYSEVENSENTENCESFIFTYEIGHT WORDSWEWANTTOKNOWTHEDETAILSOFTHECRIMETHETIMEOFTHECRIMEANDANYOTHER KINDOFTHINGYOUGOTOSAYPERTAININGTOANDABOUTTHECRIMEWEWANTTOKNOWTHE ARRESTINGOFFICERSNAMEANDANYOTHERTHINGYOUGOTTOSAY--"
And he talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said. But we had fun fillin' out the forms and playin' with the pencils on the bench there. I filled out the Massacre with the four-part harmony.
Wrote it down there just like it was and everything was fine. And I put down my pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there--on the other side --in the middle of the other side--
Away from everything else on the other side--in parenthese-capital letters-- quoted-read the following words: "Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?"
I went over to the sergeant. I said, "Sales-droid, you got a lot of God-dammed gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself! I mean--I mean-- I'm sittin' here on the bench--
I mean I'm sittin' here on the Group W bench, 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough to SPAM the Internet, harass women, kids, housewives and whole villages after copying some files onto someone else's disk."
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind! We're gonna send your digital signature off to CERT." And, friends, somewhere in CMU, enshrined in some folder, is a study in black and white of my digital signature.