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SpamRecycle.com Prosecutes Spammers
relyt writes "If you get spam, check out Spam Recycle. Forward them your spam, and they will prosecute the spammers for you, giving you time to do other things. It is also is supported by CAUCE! Send them your spam, and their trained monkeys will poke it, prod it, and kill it. " Somehow I'm skeptical, but hey, I get spammed every 48 hours to buy toner and I don't even own a printer. Sure would be nice if it would stop ;)
http://www.brightmail.com is an excellent way to reduce the amount of spam that you recieve. They act as a gateway -- you set your mailserver to "mail.brightmail.com", your login to user%host.com (note the % and not an @), leave the pass the same, and check your e-mail.
I've been using their service (it's free) for around a year, and the amount of spam that actually reaches my inbox has been reduced to pretty much zero! Check them out; no more spam =)
.- CitizenC (User Info)
It's illegal under federal law (Title 47, Sec. 223:
... makes or causes the telephone of another repeatedly or continuously to ring, with intent to harass any person at the called number; or ... makes repeated telephone calls or repeatedly initiates communication with a telecommunications device, during which conversation or communication ensues, solely to harass any person at the called number or who receives the communication ... shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
"Whoever
This was passed in response to people war-dialing Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition 800 numbers. And don't believe you're protected by caller ID: 800 numbers are equipped with ANI (Automatic Number Identification), which gives the person you just called your name, telephone number, <b>and street address</b>. This is for the convenience of the retail operators of most 800 numbers (i.e. the people paying for the service), and is <b>not</b> blocked by whatever Caller ID service you're using.
If you war-dial, they not only have the right to sue you, they know exactly where to deliver the subpoena.
There's nothing illegal about each person getting a piece of spam dialing that 800 number, though. The only problem is the risk of giving up your home address for the purposes of junk mail or telemarketing.
----
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
EHI (CHOOSEYOURMAIL-DOM)
162 North Franklin
Chicago, IL 60606
Domain Name: CHOOSEYOURMAIL.COM
Administrative Contact:
Oxman, Ian (IO318) Ian.Oxman@CHOOSEYOURMAIL.COM
CHOOSEYOURMAIL.COM
162 N. Franklin
Chicago , IL 60606
800-767-6606 (FAX) 312-236-4092
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Danner, Jae (JD10231) jdanner@IBLI.COM
International Business List
162 North Franklin St.
Chicago , IL 60606
312.236.0350 (FAX) 312.236.4092
Billing Contact:
Weiler, Sandy (SW6900) sweiler@IBLI.COM
IBL
162 North Franklin
Chicago , IL 60606
312-236-0350 (FAX) 312-236-4092
[ac@localhost /]$ whois ibli.com
162 North Franklin Street
Chicago, IL 60606
US
Domain Name: IBLI.COM
Administrative Contact:
Walters, Gary (GW4941) jdanner@IBLI.COM
International Business List
162 North Franklin St.
Chicago , IL 60606
312.236.0350 (FAX) 312.236.4092
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Danner, Jae (JD10231) jdanner@IBLI.COM
International Business List
162 North Franklin St.
Chicago , IL 60606
312.236.0350 (FAX) 312.236.4092
Billing Contact:
Accounts Payable (AP6696-ORG) sweiler@IBLI.COM
International Business Lists
162 North Franklin Street
Chicago , IL 60606
US
(312) 236-0350
Fax- (312) 236-4092
Wow what an amazing coincidence two domain, one for spaming another for killing spam same address, same phone, same fax. Gee, I wonder how they make their money!
It's a shame that more network administrators don't make use of Sendmail's built-in mechanisms that deny forwarding of SMTP requests by default.
Simply stated, if you are mysite.org your mail daemon will not accept mail destined for someothersite.org from spammaster.com. You can use the M4 macro technique to create the sendmail.cf file.
Mechanisms for precise tuning include:
relay_hosts_only - Forces list of each host in domain.
relay_entire_domain - Setting this feature allows relaying of all hosts within your domain.
access_db - This enables the hash database /etc/mail/access to enable or disable access from individual domains.
relay_hosts_only - enabled by default.
blacklist_recipients - If set, this feature looks up recipients as well as senders in the access database.
accept_unqualified_senders - Normally, sendmail will not accept mail from a sender without a domain attached.
accept_unresolvable_domains - Normally, sendmail will refuse to accept mail that has a return address with a domain that cannot be resolved using regular host lookup.
relay_based_on_MX - Setting this feature permits relaying for any domain that is directed to your host.
So, sendmail is quite flexible, and will not inconvenience your users. Additionally, your access list is based on a database that you define. `;^)
Have a look at my database driven web site.
No, spam does not present free speech issues. I am as ardent a free-speech advocate as anyone, but it is well established that a "No Soliciting" sign is not a violation of free speech, and that disregarding such a sign is actionable -- even by constitutionally protected groups, such as a religion.
1. Not a public forum
My e-mailbox is not a public space by virtue of connecting to the internet, any more than my driveway or front door are, by virtue of being accessible by public roads. Or even my USPS mailbox -- "[A] letterbox, once designated an 'authorized depository', does not at the same time undergo a transformation into a 'public forum' of some limited nature to which the First Amendment guarantees access to all comers." Justice Rehnquist in U.S. Postal Service v. Council of Greenburgh, 453 U.S. 114 (1981) (skip down to Greenburgh)
2. The paper 'junk mail' analogy demolished
So how does paper 'junk mail' survive? Partly though lots of expensive lobbying, and partly through a special right granted to the USPS, whereby they have quasi-ownership of my mailbox. (The US is one of the few countries to have a "Statutory Mail Box Restriction") The USPS can even prosecute my neighbors for leaving a note in my mailbox that could have been mailed (18 U.S.C. 1725) even if I, as the owner of the mailbox permit and even welcome the hand-delivery. ("Greenburgh" and other cases) However, the USPS cannot 'choose' to deny delivery of "objectionable" bulk mail, per cases like Bol ger v. Youngs Drugs Prods. (1983) (though Judge Brandeis ruled they could 'choose' to refuse to deliver certain political newspapers in Milwaukee Social Democratic Pub. Co. v. Burleson, 255 U.S. 407 (1921) So much for freedom of the press)
However, to bring this back to 'spam', I as a private recipient can ban junk mail from my mailbox, by filing a form with the USPS. This has been upheld by the Supreme Court, despite the First Amendment arguments by the Direct Marketing Assoc. The whole DMA "free speech" argument for spam is based on a premise that has long been defeated for snail mail
3. Abuse of 'Opt-out' is a crime, and should be an additional charge
Finally, even if Federal Law requires an opt-out address, any savvy user knows that much of the spam on the Internet at large contains fraudulent opt-out options. Not only would 'opting out' put you at risk for 'harvesting' (and hence more spam), but most spammers are fly-by-night operators who are long gone by the time you hit 'reply'. In fact, a recent article investigated and found that the bulk of spam reaches dead addresses even for those foolish enough to accept the offer being made.
In short, such spam is useless to everyone, the sender, the potential customer, and the millions of 'innocent victims'. Most users never learn this, because they are conditioned to ignore the opt-out, after a few 'harvesting' opt-outs flood their e-mail with even more spam. Here one abuse (harvesting) creates a hospitable environment that supports another (fake opt-out), a cycle that repeats in many ways throughout the spam 'industry'.
If your workplace puts a fake (or placebo) certificate where the elevator inspection card belongs, is that not a crime even more serious than failure to have a timely inspection (the former is willful criminal intent, the latter may be an accident)? If a con artist is caught in the act of trying to cheat a citizen, is it just 'free speech' until they actually walk off with the cash? Similarly, a 'fake opt-out' should a crime separate from 'failure to comply with spam regs'.
As of April 19, 2000 at least 18 states had passed or were working on legislation to restrict or regulate spam. There are, of course, serious jurisdictional issues.
_____________
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
Why would I want to stop those informative e-mails? Just yesterday I was informed that I may have already won a free cruise. And another message (which assured me it was not a pyramid scheme by the way) made me aware of the fact that I could easily make $50000 a month IN MY OWN HOME! I have also been made aware of the fact that there are lots of hot teenage women who would love to be with me. I mean honestly...this so called spam is the only hope I had left. I thought I was a luckless geek making $8.00 an hour who hates his job and can't wait to graduate from college just to get a boring also underpaying job and I would probably never get to go on a cruise. Just some thoughts.
My Home: Apartment6
I used to get that Toner Spam from Benchmark Industries about once a week. The interesting part was that they didn't BCC the email list. This was nice because you could pretty easily figure out where they got the list from (obviously it was also bad because any of those other people on the list could use it for their own spamming purposes.)
Anyway, after reporting them to spamcop for months and filing complaints against them with the Better Business Bureau (both good resources for this) I decided to actually look at the email. At the bottom they included two different 1-800 numbers for customer support and to remove your name from their list.
Now, obviously I'm not going to tell them which email is active, because they'll just send me more, so I had my computer call them up over and over and over and over again leaving long messages (at their expenses, thank you 1-800) telling them to remove all email addresses from my school (everyone on their list was from my university). They were never there in person, always had a machine answer the phone, but I think they eventually got fed up with paying the 1-800 bill and eventually stopped sending me spam.
It was some work, but it eventually got rid of them. So remember, first use spamcop, second use BBB, third spam them back... always check for that 1-800.
--
RumorsDaily
This company does not prosecute your spam, they only send it to your state representative. They also have an extensive list of spam that they want to to sign up to receive!!!
A (major, I'm guessing) partner in this is Choose Your Mail . com, which let you decide what spam to get. Yeah right...