Terri Tickle FAQ
STEPHEN BLACKSTONE P
try to stop the tide of posts :)
also, changes were made - thanx for the responses.
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Terri Tickle FAQ Version 1.2
September 28, 1998
Stephen Blackstone
sbla...@el3.cs.umass.edu
Introduction
The purpose of this document is primarily to cut down on the number of
posts to rec.music.phish(RMP) about Terri Tickle. There seems to be alot
of misinformation not only about this spam problem but in general about
how usenet and email works. Hopefully, we can clear all that up and get
back to groovin along.
Distrubition
You are free to distribute this information over the net, as long as
everything including my email address stays intact. I especially
encourage it to be posted anywhere that Terri Tickle decides to Harass.
Who the Hell is Terri Tickle?
Terri Tickle is a notorious spammer that has plagued quite a few
newsgroups, soliciting people to make tapes of themselves being tickled in
return for cash, computers, and other wonderful lavish prizes :)
What her real name?
Her real name is supposodly Terri Disisto, you'll see people refer to that
name (and other colorful variations like TickleBitch, etc)
How Does she Work?
Well, here's simplified overview of how she works, based mostly on her own
posts and observation. First thing she does is that she logs in to her
local ISP, like anyone does when they first want to get onto the internet.
Then she fires up a web browser(like Netscape or Internet Explorer). She
goes to any of a number of sites that offer free email and signs up with,
I'd assume, bogus names and addresses. She'll loose this account as soon
as people start complaining so she doesn't really care what happens with
it. Next She fires up a program that logs onto a usenet server (also
usually a free service of her provider) and downloads all of the news
headers for rec.music.phish. What's in a news header? things like the
subjects, dates, and RETURN ADDRESSES of all of the current posts in the
newsgroup. With all thoose return addresses, she instructs her program to
send out her spam to all the people on that list and then throws out the
list. The email she sends out has a spoofed(fake) return address and she
always puts her current return address at the bottom of the email.
Why can't the Moderator of Rec.Music.Phish stop her?
There is no Moderator of rec.music.phish :)
Well why can't u do X to stop her?
Well, since she can sign up for a virtually limitless number of
email accounts, usenet is a public forum and the internet's basic nature
there is really no technical way to prevent her from spamming other than
bugging your email address? (maybe firebombing her house, but that would
probally be a little bit extreme and be serious bad karma :)
Well then, How do I do that?
When you bug your return email address, you make it so when you do
post, it adds something to the reply address that a human would simply
take out in order to reply. (ie, if my address is sbla...@umass.edu then
I might make my newsreader change it to N0SPAMs...@el3.cs.umass.edu.
Her program won't pick up the bad email address and you won't recieve
tickle spam. Just be sure to tell people that you've done this in your
post - sometimes people don't notice :) Another note, be creative in your
bug, some programs have been written to detect common things. So like me
example above, make the O in nospam a 0(zero).
Is there anything else I can do to help out?
Yes in fact, when she does send you email, look for an email at
the bottom of her email. Then forward it to ab...@whatever.com,
ro...@whatever.com, postm...@whatever.com. BE SURE TO INCLUDE THE
HEADERS TO THE MESSAGE!!!! VERY IMPORTANT! Also DO NOT POST ABOUT IT IN
REC.MUSIC.PHISH All it does is make a bad problem 10 times worse when
you have to get her spam in your inbox then wade thru a thousand posts
with the subject "Tickle Girl Must Die". Also IGNORE HER IF POSSIBLE. DO
NOT CONTACT HER DIRECTLY - IT WILL NOT HELP.
How About Mail Bombing her back?
Well, as much as I would like to advocate this, it does not help anyone or
anything. She has hundreds of email boxes. All you will do is
contribute to a further slowing down of the backbone. So the next time
you say to yourself, "gee, this web page is taking a long fucking time to
load" don't bitch about it.
Is Terri Tickle really a 65year old male pedophile /w a tickling fettish?
She/He/It says no. I'll leave this one up to you.
What about her address and phone number listed with InterNIC for her
domain Tickling.com?
Nope - bogus. believe me, I've tried.
Can the Law Help Me?
If you live in Washington state, she will remove you from her
list. However it is her opinion at the current time that in the rest of
the country she is in her legal bounds. Again, this is between, you,
Terri, and repective grand juries, lawyers, courts, William Ranquist, etc.
:)
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Warning: If you provoke her, she will most probally mailbomb/mass
subscribe you to thousands of mailing lists. If you are not comfortable
with dealing with the such, it is not a good idea for you to pick a fight
with her. However if like me, you could give a rats ass and can remedy
anything she does in less than a couple of minutes, go for it! :)
Note: it is the authors opinion that she is being extremely hyprocritical
by doing this. She says that it is her freedom of expression to mail you.
She obviously doesn't feel that she should respect your freedom to do the
same in return. nuff said.
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Did you find something I missed or some really bad grammar or god forbid,
a spelling error? email me at sbla...@el3.cs.umass.edu. peace.
Oh, and if you ever agree to make a video for Ms. Tickle, go fuck
yourself.
Shannon Hoffman
stop.