Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Some of VL post on the subject are beyond description. It's hard to believe this kind of hatred exist on SI.
Seagate IPO down 4%. That means the underwriters are EATING THE SHARES. Mmmmmm.
I've cut it really short and business like
Nothing more sexy than a major babe in a tailored suit picking up the dinner tab.
Smart Man. You can keep up with the best of investors. Take care in Las Vegas. BTW, what color hair do you have now.
In 1996-97. Chit you must have been 16 years of age. You started investing early.
Totally opposite of his SI profile page.
His SI page says....
Quote:What we've got here...is a failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach...which is the way he wants it, well, HE GETS IT! And i dont like it anymore than you men.
Name Tim Luke
Member Since 10/26/96
Company Occupation/Title: Fighting the Good Fight
Degree 3rd Dan
Regardless of the circumstances, a life is lost. May he rest in peace.
July 25 was his last post on SI.
Why don't you two "do the deed" and get it over with. The suspense is killing me.
I agree. Another "yes man".
mlsoft, You gave thanks to the wrong person. hehe I posted the article. MBI accident waiting to happen.
mlsoft, You gave thanks to the wrong person. hehe I posted the article. MBI accident waiting to happen.
Gotham has a $ 1 Billion Dollar SHORT on MBIA. YIKES.
http://www.gothampartners.com/MBIA_analysis.pdf
In response to MBIA's contention that the report was biased, William Ackman, a founding director of Gotham, said the fund disclosed its short position at the beginning of the report. He said Gotham has a $1 billion short position on MBIA in the credit default swap market and an undisclosed short position on the stock, including put options
If the U.S. Treasury changes the pension funds to benefit the Companies the penisioners will protest. I would not blame them, they were told they get defined benefits and now they are basicially converted to a 401K plan. The companies bascially spent the money and now they want easy way out.
BRCD I am long. Request for injunction denied.
The Dollar is down BIG. http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_DXY0&v=i&w=1&t=l&a=0
OT Ahhhh! You guys are going to love this post.
Internet spammer can't take what he dishes out
December 6, 2002
BY MIKE WENDLAND
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
West Bloomfield bulk e-mailer Alan Ralsky, who just may be the world's biggest sender of Internet spam, is getting a taste of his own medicine.
Ever since I wrote a story on him a couple of weeks ago (www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend22_20021122.htm), he says he's been inundated with ads, catalogs and brochures delivered by the U.S. Postal Service to his brand-new $740,000 home.
It's all the result of a well-organized campaign by the anti-spam community, and Ralsky doesn't find it funny.
"They've signed me up for every advertising campaign and mailing list there is," he told me. "These people are out of their minds. They're harassing me."
That they are. Gleefully. Almost 300 anti-Ralsky posts were made on the Slashdot.org Web site, where the plan was hatched after spam haters posted his address, even an aerial view of his neighborhood.
"Several tons of snail mail spam every day might just annoy him as much as his spam annoys me," wrote one of the anti-spammers.
Ralsky is indeed annoyed. He says he's asked Bloomfield Hills attorney Robert Harrison to sue the anti-spammers.
http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend6_20021206.htm
http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend22_20021122.htm
Spam king lives large off others' e-mail troubles
West Bloomfield computer empire helped by foreign Internet servers
November 22, 2002
BY MIKE WENDLAND
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
You might call it the house that spam built.
Alan Ralsky's brand new 8,000-square-foot luxury home near Halsted and Maple in West Bloomfield has been a busy place this month. Outside, landscapers worked against the November cold to get a sprinkler system installed before the ground freezes. Inside, painters prepared to hang wallpaper.
Meanwhile, delivery trucks pulled into the bricked circular driveway with computers, routers, servers and other high-tech gear that will hook up to the high-speed T1 line installed a few weeks ago.
In the lower level of the home, tucked away in a still-unfinished room, will soon be an array of 20 different computers -- the control center of what many believe is the largest single bulk e-mailing operation in the world.
It's an operation still very much in business, despite last month's much-hyped settlement of a lawsuit against Ralsky by Verizon Internet Services. The suit used Virginia's tough anti-spam laws to get Ralsky to promise to stop using Verizon servers and pay an undisclosed fee for sending out millions of unsolicited e-mails to its customers.
Anti-spam groups and Verizon hailed the settlement as a major victory in the war against spam. But that war still feels far away, down on the lower level of Ralsky's home, where racks of computers instruct scores of other computers halfway around the world to fire off millions of e-mails every day.
Ralsky said the legal fuss and settlement costs were a big hit and that things slowed down for a while. But now, after moving a few weeks ago into his new $740,000 house, he claims he's back in business.
"I've gone overseas," he said. "I now send most of my mail from other countries. And that's a shame. I pay a fortune to providers to do this, and I'd much rather have it go to American companies. But I have to stay in business, and if I have to go out of the country, then so be it."
The computers in Ralsky's basement control 190 e-mail servers -- 110 located in Southfield, 50 in Dallas and 30 more in Canada, China, Russia and India. Each computer, he said, is capable of sending out 650,000 messages every hour -- more than a billion a day -- routed through overseas Internet companies Ralsky said are eager to sell him bandwidth.
All this is bad news to the anti-spam movement.
"He's very sophisticated in his activities," said John Mozena of Grosse Pointe Woods, a founder of the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail (www.cauce.org), a national spam-fighting organization. "He uses hundreds of domains (Internet addresses) to send his spams."
In London, Steve Linford of the Spamhaus Project (www.spamhaus.org) has monitored Ralsky for several years.
"There are probably about 150 major spammers who are responsible for 90 percent of all the spam everyone gets," said Linford. "Ralsky has been the biggest of them, and is certainly still in the top five."
Ralsky used to be easy to locate, with a listed address and phone number. But his attorney, Robert Harrison of Bloomfield Hills, said Ralsky is so hated by anti-spammers that he's had to be less visible.
"There were threats against him, cars driving by and people checking out his house," Harrison said. "Someone even left a package of what appeared to be dog feces."
Today, Ralsky says he is trying to keep a lower profile, operating through cell phones and unlisted numbers. Ralsky agreed to this interview and the tour of his operation only if I promised not to print the address of his new home, which I found in Oakland County real estate records.
Ralsky admits to using lots of different domain names and Internet providers, but said he does nothing illegal. He prefers to call his e-mails marketing messages instead of spam.
Whatever you call it, unsolicited messages now account for 36 percent of all e-mail, up from just 8 percent a year ago, according to Brightmail, a leading anti-spam software maker.
Ralsky has done his share to account for the increase.
"I'll never quit," said the 57-year-old master of spam. "I like what I do. This is the greatest business in the world."
It's made him a millionaire, he said, seated in the wood-paneled first floor library of his new house. "In fact," he added, "this wing was probably paid for by an e-mail I sent out for a couple of years promoting a weight-loss plan."
Ralsky said he turns down many who want his services.
"I don't do any porn or sexual messages," he said, citing a promise he made to his wife, Irmengard. Instead, he sends e-mail come-ons for things like online casinos, vacation promotions, mortgage refinancing and Internet pharmacies.
Ralsky acknowledges that his success with spam arose out of a less-than-impressive business background. In 1992, while in the insurance business, he served a 50-day jail term for a charge arising out of the sale of unregistered securities. And in 1994, he was convicted of falsifying documents that defrauded financial institutions in Michigan and Ohio and ordered to pay $74,000 in restitution.
He lost his license to sell insurance and he declared personal bankruptcy. But in 1997, he sold a late model green Toyota and used the money to pay back taxes on his house and buy two computers.
A friend had told him about mass marketing on the Internet, and he thought it made sense. He bought a couple of mailing lists from advertising brokers and, with the help of the computers, launched a new career that soon was making him $6,000 a week.
In the lower level of his house, working around a half-dozen computers sitting atop temporary tables, two of Ralsky's associates monitored the operation.
One of them, Ralsky's list man, concentrated on finding new names to add to the 250 million e-mail addresses in his database and weeding out canceled accounts.
The other kept track of current campaigns, connecting with the bank of e-mail servers in Southfield and watching as e-mails scrolled line-by-line in rapid fire down the screen.
"There is no way this can be stopped," Ralsky said. "It's a perfectly legal business that has allowed anybody to compete with the Fortune 500 companies."
Ralsky said he includes a link on each e-mail he sends that lets the recipient opt out of any future mailings. He said 89 million people have done just that over the past five years, and he keeps a list of them that grows by about 1,000 every day. That list is constantly run against his master list of 250 million valid addresses.
Ralsky's list man is named Charlie Brown. That's his real name, he said, describing himself as a native of Louisiana who travels the country working as a consultant to bulk e-mailers, developing custom software called harvesting programs that constantly scour the Internet, gaining access to millions of Web sites and mailing lists every day in search of any and all e-mail addresses.
The response rate is the key to the whole operation, said Ralsky. These days, it's about one-quarter of 1 percent.
"But you figure it out," said Ralsky. "When you're sending out 250 million e-mails, even a blind squirrel will find a nut."
Ralsky makes his money by charging the companies that hire him to send bulk e-mail a commission on sales. He sometimes charges just a flat fee, up to $22,000, for a single mailing to his entire database.
Ralsky has other ways to monitor the success of his campaigns. Buried in every e-mail he sends is a hidden code that sends back a message every time the e-mail is opened. About three-quarters of 1 percent of all the messages are opened by their recipients, he said. The rest are deleted.
From that response, Ralsky can monitor the effectiveness of his pitch and the subject line on the e-mail to make sure he's getting maximum return. He said he spends 18 hours a day on the job.
Ralsky said he's frustrated by attacks on his character by the anti-spammers. Linford said his organization has been getting Internet networks around the world to block mail from any Chinese provider that sends Ralsky e-mail.
"When the Chinese providers contact us to ask why their outgoing mail is blocked, we tell them because of Ralsky, and they pull his plug," said Linford. "He moves on to another provider and it starts all over again."
Earlier this month, said Ralsky, somebody told the Chinese government that a Web company from which he leases e-mail servers in Beijing was sending messages critical of Chinese policy.
Police promptly raided the business and confiscated Ralsky's servers. Although they were returned a few days later, Ralsky now tries to cover his tracks better, so opponents won't know what companies and servers he's using.
Linford said he heard of the raid. "It wasn't us that caused it," he said. "But there are a lot of anti-spam activists, and apparently some of them on their own started organizing a campaign to get the Chinese government to think that Ralsky was supporting" the Falun Gong, an outlawed spiritual group the Chinese government considers subversive. "We didn't endorse that, but it shows you how deep the anti-Ralsky feelings are."
Ralsky, meanwhile, is looking at new technology. Recently he's been talking to two computer programmers in Romania who have developed what could be called stealth spam.
It is intricate computer software, said Ralsky, that can detect computers that are online and then be programmed to flash them a pop-up ad, much like the kind that display whenever a particular Web site is opened.
"This is even better," he said. "You don't have to be on a Web site at all. You can just have your computer on, connected to the Internet, reading e-mail or just idling and, bam, this program detects your presence and up pops the message on your screen, past firewalls, past anti-spam programs, past anything.
"Isn't technology great?"
Just hope he does not appoint Gramm. His wife was on the Enron board of directors. Also, Gramm is the one who pushed the telecommunication bill. We know what happen with that.
How about Kudlow. ROFLMAO
I see now where O'Neil is out. That is like the CFO of MSFT stepping down. This is not good news by far.
Are you SERIOUS.
Guys Just just pay attention to the local Newspaper Employment Section. We have been talking how THIN the want ads have been for sometime. Why is everyone so surprised.
UAL=U All Lose. Glad no one around here was trading it. Play with fire on that one.
EP not ready for entry IMHO. I would wait.
OMG....Just as thought.
ADRX still moving up.
WOW ADRX intraday.
OMG doing the typical fall back after hitting highs. I think it will stay in this range until it break out and over the high.
All we are seeing is the Dow and Nasdaq double bottom. This is pretty much in the cards. We had to test the lows for a true turn around.
That is one short you will cover.
No One in their right mind would short OMG here.
As hard as it's for me to say this...GMSTE intraday looks to move up and out. I may get some today.
sarai, Yahoo Headlines full of negative news. Nothing positive.
Disney Lowers Earnings It Reported Nov. 7
Tue 7:42pm ET - Reuters
The Walt Disney Co. said on Tuesday it was lowering its previously reported earnings for 2002, citing the poor box office performance of the animated film "Treasure Planet."
US Airways' Emergency Financing in Danger
Tue 7:42pm ET - Reuters
US Airways Group Inc. , which has been offered up to $500 million in emergency funding by an Alabama pension fund to operate during bankruptcy, may be in danger of losing that money as its revenues and cash reserves weaken, a pilots' union said on Tuesday.
HP Trims Revenue Outlook, Cuts Costs
Tue 7:17pm ET - Reuters
Hewlett-Packard Co. Chief Executive Officer Carly Fiorina on Tuesday trimmed the computer and printer maker's revenue outlook for 2003 and said it would advance $3 billion in planned costs cuts related to its Compaq Computer purchase.
America Online Sees Ad Sales Plunging
Tue 7:42pm ET - Reuters
AOL Time Warner Inc. said on Tuesday advertising sales at its America Online Internet business will drop as much as 50 percent next year, and offered a strategy to turn the hobbled unit around that left some investors with more questions than answers.
Auto Sales Drop, Ford Hits Stocks
Tue 7:01pm ET - Reuters
Merck: Arthur Andersen was the auditor for the last few years.
Merrill Lynch issues BUY, SELL and HOLD recommends on MERCK in ONE day. What a bunch of BOZOS.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/021203/health_merck_merrill_2.html
Teri G should get the award "The most timely and appreciated" poster on SI and IHUB. I have her booked marked.
I like Teri G post. She/he is to the point and timely. Inquiring minds would like to know more about her/he. What is she like and what part of the country is she from.
I have the Sony digital camera, very impressed with the quality of the camera and pictures. My only complaint is with Sony proprietary system. I would love to have had a 256 MB card.
I just bought the same. I paid 37.00 for the Sandisk 128 MB SONY memory stick. 52.00 - 15.00 rebate= 37.00
Now this is RARE! Dow Jones post supposely good news regarding ISM and then removes article. Just proves the media plays with words.
http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/021202/1619000634_1.html
removed
This article has been removed at the request of the news provider, Dow Jones Business News.