How to survive Facebook, Beacon, and avoid Facebook spam

In a blog specialized in nothing but spam, how come there was no entry for Facebook yet?
Well... it was a nice and tolerable website first, allowing one to keep in contact with the friends that are not in Linkedin or anywhere else that you'd actually care to join.

But it keeps getting worse and worse, so it's time for a cumulative How to survive Facebook-post.

I have over 100 hundred invitations to add applications in my profile. Each one is generating an email, and they are by friends, not by random spammers out there. Everyone finds something fun and wants their friends to add it, but ... well, friends don't always find it fun when you have hundreds of applications in there sending you uninvited spams.
If you want to offer me a beer, please do it in a bar in real life, not in Facebook.
And please keep superwall, sith and jedi, vampires, compare people, x-me and make a baby out of my email inbox, thank you...

First, let's jump to a solution. Block Facebook Spam is a group that helps with links to how to block the most offending applications.

After the solution, a quick 3 step how to survive Facebook:

1. Add only people you consider to be your friends.
2. When you don't like to receive a notification from an application, block it, or block them all (or remove them, from the same link).
3. Disable Beacon (below).

That's it - 3 steps. I could make it proper Web 2.0 style and lengthen it to 10 points but why bother? Here below rather how to block individual applications.

Facebook itself does not send spam, but with one of the relatively recent changes in the platform it allowed all sorts of little applications that you can add to your profile to spam everyone in your contacts list. How nice... that added to the fact that 90 % of these applications in Facebook are pointless (want to add vampires? Want to add vampires? How about pirates, yarr? Join quizes and spam everyone on your friendslist now? Join superwall? Someone sent you a gift or a message, click here and thisandthat to see it).

Facebook also added Beacon a month ago. A neutral name for an application that tracks what you do on external websites, and that you are supposed to opt out and not in, in case you would not like your friends to see what you purchased in Amazon etc.

To disable Beacon in Facebook: Set your privacy settings to remove Beacon -
1. go to privacy
2. go to external sites (bottom of list)
3. check - "Don't allow any websites to send stories to my profile."

To disable individual offending applications from sending you spam from your friends - more e.g. here.

* My personality:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2490151219&action=block
* Hatching eggs:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=6702295930&action=block
* Friend wheel:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2415325843&action=block
*Polls:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2334088888&action=block
* Instant messaging:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2603081069&action=block
* Boozemail:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2360569570&action=block
* My questions:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2363570816&action=block
* How Sexy Is Your Name Calculator:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=4673474311&action=block
* Name Analyzer:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=10939930426&action=block
* My Heritage:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2528261089&action=block
* Jedi vs. Sith:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2403689652&action=block
* Sticky Notes
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2384089789&action=block
* Naughty Gifts
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2412269324&action=block
* Free Condoms
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2410978396&action=block
* Are YOU Interested? (Yes in News Feeds):
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=17091798008&action=block
* Entourage:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=4706620662&action=block
* Compare People:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2433486906&action=block
* Superlatives:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2372128250&action=block
* X-Me:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2345673396&action=block
* Super Wall:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2601240224&action=block
* Hot or Not:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2252801962&action=block
* Likeness:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=4188419540&action=block
* Top Friends:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2425101550&action=block
* Pirates:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2342084241&action=block
* Vampires:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2458301688&action=block
* Zombies:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2341504841&action=block
* Werewolves:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2721700161&action=block
* Slayers:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=17801732384&action=block
* Flixter/Movies:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2558160538&action=block
* Funwall:
http://www.facebook.com/apps/block.php?id=2378983609&action=block

More:
Stop sending me invitations to add shit applications - Another interesting Facebook group with a lot of links.
Facebook: Do not sell my private pictures! Change your terms of use, NOW!
Facebook Is Always Watching You
How to sniff out private information on Facebook
Facebook CEO Apologizes, Lets Users Turn Off Beacon
15 reasons Facebook may be worth $15bn
Facebook opens profiles to public
Your boss could own your Facebook profile

From Terms of Use - regarding user data, incl. e.g who owns the photos or any materials users have posted.

When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.
{http://www.facebook.com/terms.php}

From a Facebook group:

1. It's not your friends fault (except a few) - the application are constructed in a way that rewards invites etc.
2. It's facebooks fault - what was a really nice contact management/news system - is becoming spambook.
3. Where is the "ignore ALL invites" button? - shame on facebook.
4. Everyone using facebook has put effort and time into creating and maintaining a profile - in good faith that facebook wouldn't screw up the basic premise of the system - that is being ignored by facebook. Saying "if you don't like it leave it" - is stupid - if you don't like - tell them info@facebook.com - if they ignore it... you won't be the only one leaving.

5. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7120916.stm - 50,000 users get facebook to change Beacon.

Block the worst applications:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7230287089 - Block Facebook Spam

Subject: What does the Bible say about homosexuality?

From: Jan Grimm [akstcadamsmotorcompanymnsdgs@adamsmotorcompany.com]
Subject: What does the Bible say about homosexuality?
Date: November 5, 2007 6:02:13 PM GMT+00:00
To: [someone else's email]

Save money and buy your prescription*s online

press right here

them to work immediately.
learned by those

Oh, what a disappointment. For once at least an interesting title. This is really such a disappointment (even if I would not care about religion). With this headline it's such a loser solution to have 2 lines of meaningless text and a link to a geocities homepage.

At least you could have been selling discounted and counterfeit Bibles or something.

Well well. For a miracle a forward of that link was still valid.
Canadian pharmacy, eh?

Domain Name: IMYLATEYNO.COM
Registrar: SCHLUND+PARTNER AG
Whois Server: whois.schlund.info
Referral URL: http://REGISTRAR.SCHLUND.INFO
Name Server: NS2.POLACREPOX.COM

registrant-firstname: Mark
registrant-lastname: Kinevan
registrant-street1: 7844 Troy Hills Ln
registrant-pcode: 32256
registrant-state: FL
registrant-city: Jacksonville
registrant-ccode: US
registrant-phone: +1.9045380494
registrant-email: motorbus@tokyo.com

tech-c-firstname: Hostmaster
tech-c-lastname: ONEANDONE
tech-c-organization: 1&1 Internet Inc.
tech-c-street1: 701 Lee Rd.
tech-c-street2: Suite 300
tech-c-pcode: 19087
tech-c-state: PA
tech-c-city: Chesterbrook
tech-c-ccode: US
tech-c-phone: +1.8774612631
tech-c-fax: +1.6105601501
tech-c-email: hostmaster@1and1.com

Schlund.info gets a few hits on google. The registrant itself is based in Germany, despite a few fishy details (Registrant ID:C5261-LRMS, schlund.de, but referral etc details missing) schlund itself won't get a tag of its own until I get a few new and annoying spams from them again. Which I hope won' happen anytime soon.

Liu hui or cncliup@21cn.com, again and again

From: Betty Longoria [flatatom@yahoo.com]
Subject: Weapon
Date: November 6, 2007 5:37:56 PM GMT+00:00
To: [someone else's email]

buy all kind of med on a very cheap price.

pharmstopmachine.com.

Remove the dot from the end of the link to use it, thanks.

This is only entry #2 for Ivy, or Liu Hui or whatever he wants to be called, so he's still far behind Leo Kuvayev aka Alex Rodrigez. At least Liu Hui does not seem to have his own biography information on rokso.

But I have had dozens of these spams on my private and very private email address, several of them daily, and that has the tendency to piss me off very much. The style is always the same, much more repetitive than Kuvayev's.

Received: from [88.231.255.223] by e.mx.mail.yahoo.com

Domain Name: PHARMSTOPMACHINE.COM
Registrar: TODAYNIC.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.todaynic.com
Referral URL: http://www.NOW.CN

Name: liu hui
Organization: liu hui
Address: nan chang
City: NanChang
Country: CN
Postal Code: 321000
Phone: +86.7913219002
Fax: +86.7913219002
Email: cncliup@21cn.com

The next big Chinese version of Alex Rodrigez?

From: Toni Bernal [flames102587@yahoo.com]
Subject: Window
Date: November 8, 2007 7:42:37 AM GMT+00:00
To: [some other person's email address]

purchase all kind of pharmacy on a very less price.

onlinemedicalkey.com. Remove the dot from the end of the link to use it, thanks.

At least the flames part of the email address looks appropriate.

Domain Name: ONLINEMEDICALKEY.COM
Registrar: TODAYNIC.COM, INC.
Whois Server: whois.todaynic.com
Referral URL: http://www.NOW.CN

Registrant:
Name: liu hui
Address: nan chang
City: NanChang
Country: CN
Postal Code: 321000

Administrative Contact/Technical Contact:
Name: liu hui
Organization: liu hui
Address: nan chang
City: NanChang
Country: CN
Postal Code: 321000
Phone: +86.7913219002
Fax: +86.7913219002
Email: cncliup@21cn.com

Create: 2007-10-31 00:40:34
Update: 2007-11-06
Expired: 2008-10-31
QueryTimes: 63

The mathematician Liu Hui must hate you for poisoning his name.

Not new to abusebutler, or news.admin.net-abuse.email, or Sirt.

Pulse Plaxo - spams you from random people and offers opt-out (don't you expect something more from a "social networking site"?)

Alright, oh please not again one more social networking site?
Justonemoredamnsocialnetworkingweb2.0website.com?

Let's have a look.

From: pulse@mx.plaxo.com
Subject: Dipl. Detlef Käding added you as a connection on Pulse
Date: December 10, 2007 2:51:11 PM GMT+00:00
To: [my email]
Reply-To: pulse@plaxo.com

Dipl. Detlef Käding wants to add you as a connection on Plaxo Pulse.

To accept this connection request, go to:
http://pulse.plaxo.com/pulse/invite/?i=somerandomnumber

Thanks!
The Plaxo team

---
What's Pulse?

It's the first networking tool to span business and personal life.

Your family, friends, and business connections are using lots of different sites to find and share content. Some are writing blogs. Others write restaurant and product reviews. And many are uploading photos and videos. Until now, finding that stuff has been really hard - and staying on top of it, even harder. Let Pulse bring it to you - automatically - in your own personal stream of news.

Don't want to receive emails from Plaxo any more? Opt out:
http://www.plaxo.com/opt_out

1. I don't know anyone called Detlef Käding.

2. I have never subscribed or even been to pulse.com.

3. I absolutely don't want to join one damn more failure of social networking site that someone that I have never heard of in my life invites me to.

4. The biggest failure of them all: considering the above, you are offering me an opt-out for your spam site? I never opted in, so I should not have to opt out. Quit flooding my inbox.

Let's have a look.

Plaxo Pulse Random Connections - I'm not the only one ...
Does Plaxo flood your inbox with connection requests? - definitely not the only one... and there are a huge number of others out there. I think I'm happy enough to forward every single pulse or plaxo (by the way, does plaxo come from the word plague?) to my isp spamfilter. And possibly remove the people that I would know sending me that spam from my professional networks in the other services that I already use.

A comment from Tom's blog (above) probably sums it better than a good googling around:

In a previous iteration, Plaxo was notorious for spamming the contacts you had listed on it to get them to sign up for Plaxo service - after many complaints the publicly renounced this policy and promised to be on their best behaviour.

Dear Real Life friends and business contacts, in case you want to ever add me, let's make a deal? Keep it in linkedin. That said, if I don't know who you are and you make no effort in introducing yourself to me, I will click the "I have no clue who this person is" button.

FROM CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA -style score: -227 points

Subject: FROM CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA

X-Apparently-To: [my email] via 206.190.48.155; Mon, 10 Dec 2007 03:47:36 -0800
X-Originating-IP: [64.71.41.45]
Return-Path: tunde@sunlight-company.biz
Authentication-Results: mta164.mail.re3.yahoo.com from=; domainkeys=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 64.71.41.45 (EHLO lvs01-n06.chi.affinity.com) (64.71.41.45) by mta164.mail.re3.yahoo.com with SMTP; Mon, 10 Dec 2007 03:47:35 -0800
Received: ("??"@ams06.chi.affinity.com) by ams06.chi.affinity.com id S374514AbXLJLrU for [my email]; Mon, 10 Dec 2007 05:47:20 -0600
From: "Dr Tunde Lemo" tunde@sunlight-company.biz Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Reply-to: tlemo101_0000@yahoo.com.hk
Message-Id: S374514AbXLJLrU/20071210114720Z+21059@ams06.chi.affinity.com

Yea, right, not again. Central Bank of Nigeria? The start of this scam should receive negative 50 points for the total lack of originality.

Dear Nigerian scammers, make your kids enjoy the XO laptop at school to learn everything about The Internet....
Based on your content, may I just assume you are using the 1 per child laptop and you are way underaged? Otherwise, you might want to consider to learn e.g. about the grammatics...

Oh, and would any "manager" from the Central Bank of Nigeria for once bother to explain me a few things?
1. Why you are not using your official email address? Do you really think that a yahoo Hong Kong address with some other repty-to email address (that again isn't your cenbank address) will do it?
2. You are telling me that you are sending a box worh $ 75 million and I need to send you a deposit? I'm sorry, you have probably never even been in a bank, let alone any central bank, unless central village bank of Dogbutt, Suburbia of Lagos counts. First, for money transfers you don't send a box. Wired transfer, hello? Second, remove the damn deposits from that. Third, you send this email to a list of people without bothering to specify who you are faking to send all this cash to?

You fail as a scammer, Tunde. And really big time.

No love,

me.

FROM CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA
HEAD OF BANKING OPERATIONS
Tinubu square - Lagos


Attention

CONTRACT PAYMENT BY CASH CALL SYSTEM

Sequel to the secret arrangement in regards to the Shipment of your
totalcontract sum(US$55.5m), I wish to inform you that all necessary
modalities have been automatically concluded and the fund has left
C.B.N
office through the Diplomatic Courier Services today by Express Cargo
Flight to your home country.

Note carefully that the content of the box are your total contract
value
but the CBN did not disclose the content to the Courier Services,
rather it
was registered as Vital "DIPLOMATIC DOCUMENTS" belonging to the CBN
client
(That’s you).

Furthermore, the box is (1) in number and about 75kg. However, you are
advised not to disclose the content of the box to the Courier Services
to
avoid Betrayal in any circumstances In the mean time, you are kindly
advised to furnish us with your direct
telephone/mobile number, your valid I.D/Drivers License and your
office/house address or where ever you wish to receive the diplomat to
enable him identify you when he arrives to your address with the box
For
more information, we advise you to contact this office as soon as you
receive this mail to enable us fax you the necessary documents which
you
will
need to deposit your funds into your bank account.

Congratulations and remain blessed.
Sincerely,

Dr Tunde Lemo
C. B .N HEAD BANKING OPERATIONS