Thursday, January 29, 2004

DARKPROFITS Many people are searching for info on Dark Profits today, and at first I was not sure why. I couldn’t log into their scary website at www.darkprofits.com either, and I’m guessing their traffic and their bandwidth are miles apart. They apparently sent out another mass mailing today which has people trying to hunt them down and insert a funky boot up their posteriors.  I wrote about Dark Profits a few months ago, but those notes have since been swallowed up…  Here is the part that I know. Dark Profits is a closed organization that I am thinking is related to marketing, and it’s a good guess that they may be primarily involved in the seedier side of web commerce. At any rate, if you visit their site, you will find a lot of private forums, a notice which states that they are no longer accepting new members, and practically no other information. They are well positioned to become an urban legend, and have been unsatisfactorily noted in debunker site Snopes. Snopes doesn’t really have much information about Dark Profits itself. It's all third person. Their information consists primarily of a couple of  'well-known'  ‘Joe Jobs’ directed at DarkProfits. (A joe job is defined as ‘an attempt to pin blame on an uninvolved third party by forging messages in their name’.) In other words, an attempt to get people pissed at Dark Profits. But why? Why would you get pissed at a faceless, nameless organization? Possibly if you got an email that outraged you. Take a look at this piece, which if memory serves me well was sent out about a year and a half ago. Now to me, this piece seems  ridiculous, what with it’s offer of liquid heroin and gay slaves (plus free, a pack of 2 CDs, with best selection of child pornography.) But to the right sort of person, your Bill O’Reilly type who sees the internet as the most unfortunate and lowly of necessary evils, this letter could cause serious mind blowage. Much more effective, I think, is this mailing, which rouses fear of credit card theft and trouble at the office. This is a classic beauty of a credit card scam, and it’s a fair bet that whoever was behind it scored at least a few good numbers. Now, here is an interesting piece of info. Snopes is not the only one buying into the ‘Joe Job’ line of thinking. Either I’m missing a few marbles, or the rest of the world is. (What are my odds?) People poke around, investigate, google, and they come up with more link from darkprofits.com which says, in effect, ‘it wasn’t us’, about as satisfactory a response as you would get from asking Dick Cheney if he was in cahoots with Big Energy. Check this from The Rantmaster’s Weblog. Googling 'darkprofits' got me an interesting link. According to this, this spam was not sent out by Darkprofits.com at all but by a disgruntled member trying to get them in trouble… A second link turned up that this issue has already been investigated, both by the ISP that hosts Darkprofits.com, and by the FBI. Apparently, they've been up to this for even longer than I was aware of.  Well, okay, it looks like Darkprofits.com is in the clear. Mmmkay. But who and what are Dark Profits? AHROOOO!   7:30:56 PM    on the other hand  []

Escape-Ism (Intro) I was talking to a cat the other night, He said what everybody is looking for, what everybody's looking for today, they're looking for ESCAPE-ISM. Heh. Heh. Ain't it good to you? (Band: "Yeah") You know what? I love to get down, Jack. And when I get down, y'understand, I don't have to go into no funny bag... (mumbling) say, that alcohol, I can't, y'understand, yeah. That's the way I feel. You know, I believe I'll get down right about here. (BOBBY BYRD: "Right on") Byrd, if I get down, y'know Byrd, Byrd's gotta, Byrd's gotta, I mean, Byrd's gotta out of sight tune coming up. We gotta record for him right here, y'know. So we're trying to get our thing out of the way before Byrd can get into it. Byrd, can we get on before we... Is it all right? Byrd, do you think it's gonna be a hit, Byrd? (BYRD: "Yeah. I think it's going to be a hit") You think it's gonna be a hit? (BYRD: "A smash.") I know it's a smash. I know it's a smash. Cause you're in the thing, man, you're saying where it's at, y'know. It's gotta be a hit. You ready, Byrd? Get DOWN!! HEH!! Ain't it good to you. Ain't it good to you. Ain't it good to you. Hahaha! Heh! Lookie here. What you say, Fred? (FRED WESLEY: "Man, you know, we better take it on the LAM.") JAMES: You better watch the man. I don't think they heard. What you say, Fred? (FRED WESLEY: "I said, we better take it on the LAM.") JAMES: You better watch the man. BYRD! Come over here, brother, let me tell you something. You think we're talking too loud? (BYRD: Make that fuss.) JAMES: HUNH! I ain't got no dust. Heh! I don't have to take it on the lam. (BYRD: "Better watch that man!") Huh? (BYRD: "Better watch that man!") Watch him. Yeah, all right. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. Coming from some funny places. What you say, bruh? BAND MEMBER: "What's happening Brown?" JAMES: Trying to get down. Heheh. Well, you know. Look here. We cain't HELP it. It ain't no alcohol. Man I don't dig it. What you say, uh, Jasaan? (JASAAN: "Say, don't be so mean.") JAMES: You know I'm clean. 12:35:25 PM    on the other hand  []

A Kucinich Musical Sampler: MP3s For You! "Go Go Dennis (He Ain't No Menace)" by Joel Tyner is much better than it ought to be, meaning that when Kucinich becomes president, we will all be (as Wesley Clark is oddly fond of saying these days) 'shaking it like a Polaroid picture'. All bass and drum (not drum and bass), this rap on the virtues of Dennis are reminiscent of what Rakim might sound like if he were dead. "The Kucinich Polka" was, uh, written by Lauren Haldeman, which I guess is a liberal way of saying that she added her own lyrics to Beer Barrel Polka, and called it her own. But with lyrics like these, I guess it's justified. "Vote for Kucinich We all love this guy a ton Vote for Kucinich He knows how to get things done Vote for Kucinich America's daughters and sons... Vote for Kucinich Dennis Kucinich, he's the one!" Jim Rintoul's "President Kucinich and Me" is definitely an original. You can't take that away from him. "Who brought health care to everyone?  Who invested in energy from the sun?  Who brought the troops back?  Who brought our hope back?  It was President Kucinich and me.  President Kucinich and me." If you only click one time today, make it for Jim Rintoul. 7:46:35 AM    on the other hand  []