A while back, somebody who is not related to us noticed HotCampus.
A few days later, it arrived at a participating university. Professor figures it is spam, because he/she/it has never heard of HotCampus or signed up. Given that HotCampus only started operations roughly two months ago, it’s not altogether surprising.
We then tweeted about it. The whole episode can be seen here.
Their “lawyers” contacted us, as promised, from an anonymous Live.com account.
From: Entrand Support <[email protected]> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Subject: Inappropriate use of Hotcampus name Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2016 11:15:48 +0100 To whom it may concern, It has come to our attention that the website scientificspam.net and its social network accounts have been using the name of Hotcampus continuously and extensively in an inappropriate way. Please be aware that use of the Hotcampus name in advertising or commerce is a privilege reserved by law, including Section 43(a) of the federal Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. 1125) and New York State General Business Law Sections 133 and 397. By mentioning the Hotcampus name several times in your social accounts without prior authorization, your website is trying to benefit in a way that is defamatory. Defamation is tied to the First Amendment, and in this case may involve actual malice. Furthermore, you make statements that are totally untrue about the way we operate. Your use of the Hotcampus name is unauthorized, improper and an infringement of Hotcampus' rights. Accordingly, we demand that you immediately cease and desist use of the Hotcampus name when promoting the scientificspam.net service. Keep in mind that online defamation is treated the same way as any type of defamation. In conclusion, Hotcampus demands that you immediately: 1. cease all use of the Hotcampus name; 2. certify, in writing, that you have destroyed all material to which you have applied the Hotcampus name; 3. certify, in writing, that you will not use the Hotcampus name without prior authorization. We await your response, no later than January 18, 2016. This is written without prejudice to our rights, all of which are hereby expressly reserved. Sincerely, Hotcampus
We think they’re full of hot air, of course.
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2016 12:54:57 +0000 From: ScientificSpam DNSBL Admin <[email protected]> To: Entrand Support <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected] Subject: [SCIENTIFICSPAM] Re: Inappropriate use of Hotcampus name Dear Anonymous, We acknowledge the receipt of an email from you with the abovementioned subject line. Please be aware that we will respond to any points that were raised only if your future communications contain sufficient identification. They will need to * come from a non-freemail e-mail address, and * identify the person and business name making your request, and physical contact details for the same, and * be GPG signed by an identity that is on the public keyservers and is signed by at least three other GPG identities that are on the public keyservers and have a history of at least three years. We will also need to be able to tie the identity presenting the request to the rightful owners of the domain name you mention. Since the domain registration in question is currently anonymized, that must be opened up, too, in order for such identification to be possible. Looking forward to proper communications from you,
This really is the weakest cartooney ever.
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 2016 14:47:41 +0100 From: Entrand Support <[email protected]> To: ScientificSpam DNSBL Admin <[email protected]> Subject: RE: [SCIENTIFICSPAM] Re: Inappropriate use of Hotcampus name Dear Anonymous 2, You have no identifiable info on your website, actually you even say your location is of no importance. As such, we have no legal requirements to present any of your requested info to you. You do, though. We are the damaged party from some of your claims about the way we operate and the use without authorization of the Hotcampus name to advertise your service.You will be able to tie the identity presenting the request to the rightful owners of the domain name soon if we decide to proceed further, legally speaking. If we do, keep in mind we are professionals. If our requests are not taken care of in a proper manner, this is our last try to solve it amicably.We are keeping the same level of anonymity as you are, so there's nothing else we are going to contact you about.FYI, we are the legal counseling team of the Hotcampus investor. We will not reply to any similar emails of yours with similar content. We are confident you will decide wisely, without us having the need to go to court. On behalf of the Hotcampus Investor Company
We have nothing further to say on the matter.
There are some indications that U.S. federal or New York state legislation may not be that relevant to the entity being discussed.
It gets better. Money can’t buy entertainment like this… The same email address continues to write to us despite having already indicated that they are done doing so and that they’re passing the matter on to their legal representatives. Of course, the first thing any barrister worth their salt would tell you if you really did do that would be to keep your gob shut and let them take care of it. As far as we can tell, the legal representation of Hotwumpus must be handled by Anon E. Mouse Associates.
Hello Enver, I mean Andi. (LinkedIn link; do not view while logged in to LinkedIn unless you want Andi to know you’ve viewed him.)
Curious innit as we have done no such thing. If Twitter does, they report it to the sender, too, but no such report has come in.
Wow, your throwaway freemail address was exposed. It was only previously exposed in job and for-sale adverts you have posted on Albanian web forums.
Where we are, communications received are the recipient’s property to do anything with as they please.
“Entrand”, or “Hotwumpus Investor Company”, don’t sound that private to us; at least they try to evoke a sense of corporate-ness. So which one is it? Are you a private individual with zero business aspirations, or do you represent a corporation, and if so, which corporation is that and why does it wish not to mention itself in its business correspondence?
Boo hoo.
As far as we know, we are not under a non-disclosure agreement with you. Your initial email to us did not contain any disclaimers to the abovementioned effect, either. Not that it would have mattered, because unilateral “agreements” happen to be null and void where we are, that is, not binding upon the receiving party.
We enjoyed your attempts at making fun of our English quite a bit, you know.
Speaking of boys and girls, it does occur to us that if you were musically talented, you could easily have a future in a boy band. You’re really quite cute. If you aren’t, it may not be a problem for such career aspirations anyway as playback was already in vogue back in the eighties (which appears to coincide with the beginning of your very existence).
You’re really desperate, aren’t you? Mr Newsome was apprehended because he celebrated the physical assault of another person. We are discussing your business practices. Or at least we think you operate as a business, and you appear desperate to claim that is the case – even though you are quite reluctant to reveal which business that is. We’re not promoting or applauding physical violence against anybody in any form whatsoever, are we?
“The laws”? Kindly quote chapter, verse and jurisdiction. And, as said, no tweets have been removed as far as we are aware.
Additionally, please be informed that the correct usage is to “cease and desist from doing something“, not “cease and desist [a noun]”. HTH, HAND
You need to insert “the” between “of” and “blog”. HTH again.
To begin with, unbeknownst to us, there was a tweet about you from somebody who was a complete unknown to us at the time. We didn’t see it, either, as we are not following that account on Twitter.
A while later, your spam hit the emails of scientists participating in ScientificSpam.net. We only had occasion to check out the matter after that, and we only saw the tweet from that somebody else after we had already exchanged a few rounds with you. It was used in an exemplary fashion, to indicate it to you and our followers that others unrelated to us had also noticed the same.
Since we’ve already positively identified you, there is no question. You are indeed Albanian, but as you say, that’s not serious. Albanian spammers get treated just the same here as any other spammer would.
You do whatever you must. Had you paid a single lek for an initial consultation with a lawyer, you would know that the first thing you do when considering legal activity against anyone is letting them handle it a hundred percent from then on. You’re not doing that, so your “legal representation” is your other sock, or Mickey Mouse, and you have no plans for anything else either.
Not because of you, however.
Signed, Nobody.
Yeah, right. As indicated in the body of the blog post, this really is the weakest cartooney ever.