Declan should be ashamed

Tim May tcmay at got.net
Thu Nov 8 22:28:57 PST 2001


Cypherpunks,

I just had an amusing online experience.

I checked in on Declan's "Wartime Liberty" news site, which I hadn't 
visited in for a month or so. It is:

http://www.wartimeliberty.com

Well, a banner ad began blinking in bright red at about 30 Hz, saying 
"If this banner ad is blinking, you have won a free prize!" Normally I 
can ignore these pieces of shit, but this same ad blinked in all of the 
subsections (encryption, policy, opinion, etc.) I checked. Very annoying.

I never click on banner ads, but I decided to do an experiment, just to 
see what sort of company Declan has established this business 
relationship (of whatever kind) with.

I'll spare you the details. Basically, I kept answering questions about 
my address and age and suchlike (I fibbed slightly, enough to look 
plausible but not enough to provide tips for the spam and passphrase 
harvesting I expect Declan's ad banner company is actually doing). After 
about four or five such screens, it finally told me to select the kinds 
of free prizes I wanted. All were of the usual bogus kind, including 
packets of advertising, discounts on subscriptions to magazines, etc. I 
clicked on none of them.

Then came "da bomb": it asked me for the e-mail names of several other 
"friends." I left this blank and moved on. It wouldn't accept this, and 
kept returning to the nag screen demanding e-mail addresses.

I left at this point. I guess I won't get my "free prize"! Sob.

But the obnoxious blinking red banner ad is still telling me I've won a 
free prize. So I couldn't even stay on Declan's site, so obnoxious was 
the blinking banner.

Declan, you really should be ashamed of yourself for this. Even if you 
don't personally choose all of the damned banner ads cluttering up your 
site, at least have the decency to not let spam harvesters run on your 
system!

(I suspect they already harvested my "interest" as soon as I progressed 
to the "click to claim your prize" screen near the end. I'll be looking 
for spam arriving with the fibbed details I provided. My thought is 
maybe to bounce every one of these messages to Declan. Naw...)


--Tim May, Occupied America
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety 
deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759.





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