Re: Dealing with "Teach me how to hack" emails?

[Joel Gunderson <jdgunderson () gmail com>]

Two steps:

1. Refer the stupid questions here:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

2. Do what Mr. Esler said with the rest.

On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 1:16 PM, Adrian Crenshaw <irongeek () irongeek com>wrote:

> Hi all,
>    Many on this list run a blog/podcast/etc and I imagine like me you get a
> lot of "Teach me how to hack" or "do this for me" emails. How do you handle
> them?
>
> The categories I get can generally be broken down into:
>
> 1. Teach me how to hack (which is too broad to ever do).
> 2. I think my boyfriend/girlfriend is cheating on me, how can I spy on them
> (why would I want to get involved?).
> 3. Help me break into my neighbors/schools WiFi/Computer (Why would I help
> you do something illegal, and leave a subpoenable record in email?).
> 4. Do a bunch of free work for me as a favor and under dubious
> expectations. I had a guy recently say he wanted be to teach him how to
> track down spammers so he could sue them since he put a declaimer on his
> Craig's List posts that said people owed him money ($50,000, and without
> going to court) if they sent him spam, and various other outrageous demands.
> That one first got the response that I though he had unreasonable
> expectations, and when he email again I told him I was not interested and if
> I got another email from him he owed me $100,000,000. Needless to say he was
> not happy. I mailed the conversation to the list, but it got rejected,
> perhaps for being off topic or having too much personal info in it.
> 5. Questions about things I know nothing about, or that if I do know
> something about I've already put all I know in an article/video. These
> questions I normally just point to the best resource I know.
>
> My responses are usually:
>
> 1. You question is to vague and sorry, I can't teach individuals over
> email.
> 2. Ignore them, especially it they used text speak in the email (ur = your,
> etc).
> 3. Point them at some other materials and say I don't know much on the
> subject.
> 4. Sometimes, if it is especially whacked, I may have a snarky response.
>
> I like to help people learn, but some people just want too much time, or
> for you to do all the work for them. What are your normal responses? How do
> you deal with these things? I don't want to seem like an ass for not helping
> people, but I'd rather speed my personal time doing other things.
>
> Thanks,
> Adrian
>
>
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-- 
Joel Gunderson
jdgunderson () gmail com

"Defaults are the guardian angels of the clueless."

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