Troppo has been getting its usual share of blog spam over the last week since I’ve been back on deck. The volume is substantially less than it was late last year, due to some magic “fixes” worked by our genial blog host Scott Wickstein, but it’s still enough to be irritating. One day soon I’ll get around to moving over to WordPress, and possibly also implementing a Turing Code in a bid to decisively defeat these human tapeworms.
However, at least we’re not suffering to anywhere near the extent of Tim Dunlop, who’s been forced by the spammers to shut down his blog until he finds a way to beat them. Tim and other blogspam victims might be interested in reading this interview with a British blogspammer published by The Register (link via Barista).
Incidentally, the interviewed spammer opines that blog “link spamming” isn’t illegal, at least under UK law, and the article author appears to agree with him. It’s not really my area of expertise, but do any local readers have a view on whether link spamming is lawful under Australian law? Of course, it’s largely an academic question, because all or most of the spammers are based overseas and in a practical sense almost certainly beyond the reach of Australian litigants. But I’d still be idly interested in the answer. I wonder if Kim Weatherall is out there? She’s certainly posting actively at present.
Apropos of the Joe Cinque post and thread, t’would be interesting to hear people’s views on a plea of “diminished responsibility” if it was made by someone with a dead spammer on their hands.
Gosh Nabs I could turn a blind eye to that.
OK really out of left field (or is it right field?). A wild, wild idea: I wonder if one way to beat spammers is to have a post on a website/blog that legally binds any spammer to paying a hefty sum for each spam post because they have used a “service” provided by the blogger/ISP host etc. (bit like a creative common licence, not that I understand how that works). So that if any spammer is caught, they can then be sued for unpaid bills. If there was a central body that kept tab of those incurred costs by specific spammers, and if hefty amounts were charged for each spam post …could one use existing (international?) laws to go after the spammers?
Alright you can stop laughing now.
I don’t see how link spamming itself can be illegal – people open up their sites for commentary, and while they obviously don’t want spam as a result, there isn’t really any legal sanction against it.
The place where it gets murky is the method used to do it. As dicussed in the article, the question is whether or not a spammer is committing a “hacking” crime by using open proxies to send the spam out.
Sam
You’re probably correct. However, if bloggers configured their comment screens to contain a prohibition against spam comments, and coded it to require a mouse click by all commenters warranting that the comment they were about to load wasn’t spam, the subsequent loading of a spam comment might then legally amount to unlawfully accessing a web server without permission, and so fall within the definition of hacking (for which there are certainly heavy penalties).
Of course, the trouble is it would involve quite a bit of coding for no practical result at all, given that the spammers are overseas and would just ignore it and write some additional code themselves to overcome it! The other problem would be to define blog spam in a way that starkly differentiates it from genuine comments.
Let’s face it folks. The only practical way to beat the spammers is to buy everything they’re advertising until they run out of supplies.
C’mon everyone, who’s with me for an overmedicated and enlarged hand of strip p*ker with the family?
I’ll sure they crack before we do.
“The other problem would be to define blog spam in a way that starkly differentiates it from genuine comments.”
But if you did that, non-spammers like Homer Paxton would get caught in the net:)
Jason
That’s exactly the problem I had in mind: obscure, non-responsive or off-topic comments that are nevertheless still posted in good faith (and frequently constructive) and are not spam.
Hi Ken,
Sorry to hear that you’ve had such bad service at our restaurant “Bella Amore”
We have just scraped through our 2nd year in business and yes, have heard back some frightful stories about staff and inadequate service. Hopefully you’ll have time to read our fight to comeback from the Tasmanian injustice and understand why there wasn’t money for more experienced staff last year…..
I worked part time as a waitress at that same restaurant, years ago, when I was a bondage mistress here in Darwin with my own business. Back then it was called “Portofino Bay”
One weekend, on holidays in Tassie with my kids, I met a shy little chef in central Tasmania who was fighting a losing battle against they Hydro Electric commission at the time over the lease on his chalet and was facing bankruptcy and losing everything he’d worked for.
I gave up everything in Darwin, my income, my business and my tropical lifestyle to move to Tasmania and fight at Jason’s side.
For a year I split and hauled firewood from Tarraleah to Hobart with Jason trying desperately to keep up the rent on his chalet in a dead ghost town the Hydro had desecrated and left him in to go broke. My savings had all been depleted on keeping up the Chalet and we were now both broke and exhausted with still not a soul in sight to drink at our hotel or sleep in our beds.
I came up with a brainwave to have a bondage promotion in the chalet in the hope that it might attract some business to the hotel and accommodation. It attracted business all right, we became the most talked about couple in Tasmania for a few months as people flocked to our chalet to see the bondage freaks! We were on the front page of the mercury heaps of times and we were on the telly every night and all the radio stations, I was the resident bondage mistress on TTT Hobart every morning. It was CRAZY being so famous on that little island. Most of the women hated my guts and no one at all was nice to me in Tasmania. No one cared that we had been fighting the Hydro for so long just to survive, all they cared was that I was SO IMMORAL! *laugh* I didn’t care too much, I was glad I was saving Jason’s business. We started getting heaps of bookings and it looked like we might trade our way out of bankruptcy.
However, it was all a bit too late, we were very broke and overdrawn bank accounts, maxxed out credit cards. I fell pregnant with twins and then a tragedy struck.
One of the twins died and then while I was in hospital recovering, my only sister died in Melbourne. We immediately went to Victoria to organise her funeral but while we were out of Tassie, our new landlords (who’d bought Tarraleah from the Hydro) locked us out of our chalet and home and refused to ever let us back in. We were powerless to do anything as it was a civil matter and we didn’t have a cent to give solicitors to start fighting the landlords. We were screwed and homeless. (We have since spent 2 years giving all our spare money to solicitors in the fight for justice over Tarraleah and it still hasn’t even made it to court yet!)
So we came back to Darwin again, pregnant and absolutely DEAD BROKE with not even $20 and we couldn’t get the dole because the land lords wouldn’t let us have any business records or ID or anything from the chalet office.
We were homeless, had 2 children and another one on the way. Luckily I had lots of friends in Darwin and we spent a couple of months crashing on people’s couches while we tried to get on our feet.
Jason worked as a breakfast chef at the local army barracks and I hired a motel room and did some erotic massage in teddy lingerie to cover my belly (4 months pregnant and absolutely desperate for money)
We got together a bond and rent in advance to get ourselves a flat then I took Jason down to show him a restaurant I’d worked at as a waitress while I was at uni (before I became a bondage mistress) It was closed down and completely wrecked with plastic chairs and tables, mouldy carpet and bashed in walls.
We were so lucky, as karma goes, my old boss had been screwed over by tenants who left in the middle of the night and trashed the restaurant, left it 10 months vacant and no one wanted it in that downturn economy just after 9/11 with the sars virus in Asia etc. I told him how we’d been screwed over in Tasmania and how we didn’t have a cracker to give him so my boss just gave me the restaurant, said “take it, see if you can revive it” and also gave us 2 months rent free to get on our feet.
Well, we started that restaurant with $600 and a baby on the way! We cleaned and scrubbed and painted and repaired. We went down to woolies and bought steak, seafood, vegies and pasta, printed out 6 menus at the internet cafe and laminated them, then we bought a carton of VB and a cask each of red and white wine.
I stood out on the boardwalk pregnant and greeted every person who walked past, told them about our menu and my clever chef husband and each night, we had a few tables and a few more and a few more…..
We grew slowly, first we saved up for a signwriter to put our name on the front of the restaurant, then a new fridge, then a coffee machine, then new carpet, new chairs, new tables etc, each month getting a bit better and a bit more popular.
We had our baby at 11am on a Saturday and had to be back at work that night by 5 as we had 3 tables booked in and no staff to work that night…. We were so lucky that my teenage boys fell in love with Toby and look after him quite often while I work now. But back then, I worked every night until Toby was 9 months old with him sleeping in the bar in his pram, I was so lucky he slept EVERY night from 6pm to 11pm and I thank the Gods of Hospitality and babies….
Finally, after a year of praying that our business would succeed, we came into our second dry season and it was a BOOMER. My husband is the best chef in the world and my restaurant really pumps now. I don’t have to work every night now, spend lots of time with Toby and my big boys now and toward the end of last year we bought our first home, a tiny unit in the city which I LOVE.
My old boss is SO PROUD of us that we’ve revived that restaurant and he’s no longer paying $1000 a week rent to the owner of the building for a restaurant he can’t run.
Now we have a little more money to pursue the injustice we were dealt out in Tasmania. So far only the solicitors have won in that battle. We did have the support of the premier down there and he was looking into the Hydro’s actions for us but then he got sick and quit politics and now, he’s sadly passed away. Luckily the restaurant is doing well enough now that we’ve been able to retain a good barrister.
Unfortunately, not everyone loves my restaurant as much as I do and I agree, the backpacker staff are inadequate and this year, we will hopefully have the money to employ some more experienced staff to help us out.
I do hope you come back to Bella and I would be happy to shout you a beer, just mention this to your wait staff and they will shout everyone dining at your table a Coopers Beer on Tap…..
kind regards
Leah and Jason
Bella Amore
Hi Ken,
Sorry to hear that you’ve had such bad service at our restaurant “Bella Amore”
We have just scraped through our 2nd year in business and yes, have heard back some frightful stories about staff and inadequate service. Hopefully you’ll have time to read our fight to comeback from the Tasmanian injustice and understand why there wasn’t money for more experienced staff last year…..
I worked part time as a waitress at that same restaurant, years ago, when I was a bondage mistress here in Darwin with my own business. Back then it was called “Portofino Bay”
One weekend, on holidays in Tassie with my kids, I met a shy little chef in central Tasmania who was fighting a losing battle against they Hydro Electric commission at the time over the lease on his chalet and was facing bankruptcy and losing everything he’d worked for.
I gave up everything in Darwin, my income, my business and my tropical lifestyle to move to Tasmania and fight at Jason’s side.
For a year I split and hauled firewood from Tarraleah to Hobart with Jason trying desperately to keep up the rent on his chalet in a dead ghost town the Hydro had desecrated and left him in to go broke. My savings had all been depleted on keeping up the Chalet and we were now both broke and exhausted with still not a soul in sight to drink at our hotel or sleep in our beds.
I came up with a brainwave to have a bondage promotion in the chalet in the hope that it might attract some business to the hotel and accommodation. It attracted business all right, we became the most talked about couple in Tasmania for a few months as people flocked to our chalet to see the bondage freaks! We were on the front page of the mercury heaps of times and we were on the telly every night and all the radio stations, I was the resident bondage mistress on TTT Hobart every morning. It was CRAZY being so famous on that little island. Most of the women hated my guts and no one at all was nice to me in Tasmania. No one cared that we had been fighting the Hydro for so long just to survive, all they cared was that I was SO IMMORAL! *laugh* I didn’t care too much, I was glad I was saving Jason’s business. We started getting heaps of bookings and it looked like we might trade our way out of bankruptcy.
However, it was all a bit too late, we were very broke and overdrawn bank accounts, maxxed out credit cards. I fell pregnant with twins and then a tragedy struck.
One of the twins died and then while I was in hospital recovering, my only sister died in Melbourne. We immediately went to Victoria to organise her funeral but while we were out of Tassie, our new landlords (who’d bought Tarraleah from the Hydro) locked us out of our chalet and home and refused to ever let us back in. We were powerless to do anything as it was a civil matter and we didn’t have a cent to give solicitors to start fighting the landlords. We were screwed and homeless. (We have since spent 2 years giving all our spare money to solicitors in the fight for justice over Tarraleah and it still hasn’t even made it to court yet!)
So we came back to Darwin again, pregnant and absolutely DEAD BROKE with not even $20 and we couldn’t get the dole because the land lords wouldn’t let us have any business records or ID or anything from the chalet office.
We were homeless, had 2 children and another one on the way. Luckily I had lots of friends in Darwin and we spent a couple of months crashing on people’s couches while we tried to get on our feet.
Jason worked as a breakfast chef at the local army barracks and I hired a motel room and did some erotic massage in teddy lingerie to cover my belly (4 months pregnant and absolutely desperate for money)
We got together a bond and rent in advance to get ourselves a flat then I took Jason down to show him a restaurant I’d worked at as a waitress while I was at uni (before I became a bondage mistress) It was closed down and completely wrecked with plastic chairs and tables, mouldy carpet and bashed in walls.
We were so lucky, as karma goes, my old boss had been screwed over by tenants who left in the middle of the night and trashed the restaurant, left it 10 months vacant and no one wanted it in that downturn economy just after 9/11 with the sars virus in Asia etc. I told him how we’d been screwed over in Tasmania and how we didn’t have a cracker to give him so my boss just gave me the restaurant, said “take it, see if you can revive it” and also gave us 2 months rent free to get on our feet.
Well, we started that restaurant with $600 and a baby on the way! We cleaned and scrubbed and painted and repaired. We went down to woolies and bought steak, seafood, vegies and pasta, printed out 6 menus at the internet cafe and laminated them, then we bought a carton of VB and a cask each of red and white wine.
I stood out on the boardwalk pregnant and greeted every person who walked past, told them about our menu and my clever chef husband and each night, we had a few tables and a few more and a few more…..
We grew slowly, first we saved up for a signwriter to put our name on the front of the restaurant, then a new fridge, then a coffee machine, then new carpet, new chairs, new tables etc, each month getting a bit better and a bit more popular.
We had our baby at 11am on a Saturday and had to be back at work that night by 5 as we had 3 tables booked in and no staff to work that night…. We were so lucky that my teenage boys fell in love with Toby and look after him quite often while I work now. But back then, I worked every night until Toby was 9 months old with him sleeping in the bar in his pram, I was so lucky he slept EVERY night from 6pm to 11pm and I thank the Gods of Hospitality and babies….
Finally, after a year of praying that our business would succeed, we came into our second dry season and it was a BOOMER. My husband is the best chef in the world and my restaurant really pumps now. I don’t have to work every night now, spend lots of time with Toby and my big boys now and toward the end of last year we bought our first home, a tiny unit in the city which I LOVE.
My old boss is SO PROUD of us that we’ve revived that restaurant and he’s no longer paying $1000 a week rent to the owner of the building for a restaurant he can’t run.
Now we have a little more money to pursue the injustice we were dealt out in Tasmania. So far only the solicitors have won in that battle. We did have the support of the premier down there and he was looking into the Hydro’s actions for us but then he got sick and quit politics and now, he’s sadly passed away. Luckily the restaurant is doing well enough now that we’ve been able to retain a good barrister.
Unfortunately, not everyone loves my restaurant as much as I do and I agree, the backpacker staff are inadequate and this year, we will hopefully have the money to employ some more experienced staff to help us out.
I do hope you come back to Bella and I would be happy to shout you a beer, just mention this to your wait staff and they will shout everyone dining at your table a Coopers Beer on Tap…..
kind regards
Leah and Jason
Bella Amore
Woah!!!
Now that’s gourmet spam, Leah and Jason.
What was the address again?
Ok, I can’t resist. Ken’s return seems to have put the ‘Troppo’ back in ‘Troppo Armadillo’ judging from some comments posted tonight. Is the above story about a restaurant an example of the indeterminacy of spam and legitimate comment?
I want my free Coopers!
Leah you are beautiful and have been ever since we met you. I can’t remember what Parish said in his post about Bella Amore, but it was in the spirit of the quirky and delightful strange. The service at Bella Amore ALWAYS makes me laugh – it is like a floor show and other guests are very happy to participate in a good ol’ grouch and banter. We will be back for sure, but only when Jason is cooking. if he is not there then woe betide the jen and Ken who wait in hunger for his meals. He is quite possibly the best chef in Darwin. We have been throwing our dinner money at renovations and new house – when the credit cards return to health we will be glad to drink to yours.
sorry about the double post there and about hijacking this topic to reply to ken, I couldn’t see that there was any way to reply to an old topic, the one I came across here on the blog….
Glad to hear good feedback about Bella, it was a long slog but it’s really holding it’s own now, especially since Yots are closing for the wet season. Things are quiet in Cullen Bay and that means we don’t need so many crazy backpackers on staff!
:)
I am a backpacker and I worked for the Bella Amore this year. I think you will find its not the backpacker’s that are crazy its Leah and Jason, I think Leah’s desire to tell the world their life story proves that. Maybe Jason is a good chef when he is there instead of his young children cooking the meals on a busy evening. Put it this way while i worked there i would not eat the food and it was free!
The kids are cooking. That explains a lot.
I love people who launch into their life story at a moments notice….. Now where do I begin?
I was born… shut the fuck up Parish I’m talking!
Witheld,
You’ve been writing letters to the editor of the NT News too long.
‘Witheld’ – old english family name isn’t it?
I really want to go out to dinner with you lot in Melbourne again.
Cheers, we’ve just brought home some solid year 12 Drama results, our new cleaning lady is da bomb and we will have two lounges tomorrow!
Yes!
Life casa parish mcculloch is sweet.
cook that one in batter
Last August, Troppo Ken Parish went to a Darwin restaurant run by a bondage mistress down on her luck with incompetent backpacking staff. The story from his point of view is quite wonderful. Now the proprietress (of both kinds…