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Spammers Face Jail Time
Lumpish Scholar writes: "An article posted in a couple of places (here (1)( and here (2)) talks about two San Diego spammers who face up to nine years in prison for spamming (and crashing an open relay in the process)." Naturally, tbe D.A. reports that the two spammers arrested "appeared convinced that what they were doing wasn't illegal." Can this really be only the second time spammers have been prosecuted? That might explain all the pink goop clogging my inbox ...
To me, the law isn't the answer, tighter mail servers, and tighter free email systems... And better locks and bars on the windows are the answer to breaking and entering?
Does anybody remember last year's /. story about the group of Spammers/Telemarketers that got burned by some guy who was Mad As Hell and Not Going to Take it Anymore?
The guy did a little investigation of the business and ended up cracking their network, and coming up with all kinds of compromising material like contact info and n00dz. I think the company was in Tennesee or thereabouts.
It was either brilliant pranksterism, an elaborate hoax, or a disgruntled ex employee/boyfriend. Never was quite sure which.
I did a quick search of the archives and didn't find the story. I'd be real interested in knowing what the aftermath of that story was.
-carl
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
> Ridiculous. Counterfeit money allows someone to
> steal merchandise from merchants, without the
> merchant getting paid for it.
Spammers have stolen for thousands of dollars of my time, and much more from the ISP's.
> Spam's effect on electronic communication is
> more like a fat person's affect on your
> sidewalk. While he's there, you can't use the
> sidewalk, but once he passes, it's usable again.
Right except the spammers _haven't_ passed, and they have been their so long that most people have forgotten the sidewalk even existed.
> Spam needs technical solutions,
I bullet through the head of the spammer is the only lasting techincal solution.
> not legislators passing a bunch of stupid laws.
Well, then *remove* the laws that prevent us from implementing the technical solutions.
You are probably new to the net, but I have seen virtual communities die because of spam. It is not a pretty sight. Had you expeirenced that first hand, you would not be so soft on spammers.
You are probably new to the net, but I have seen virtual communities die because of spam. It is not a pretty sight. Had you expeirenced that first hand, you would not be so soft on spammers.
New to the net? Let's see. I've been using computers since 1977, getting paid to do so since 1986.
I started my first BBS in 1981. I have been using the Internet in one form or another since 1989.
I designed and built my home town's first ISP, and administrated it until it reached over 1,500 customers, including occasionally spending an afternoon sending out cancels for my own user's Usenet spam violations.
I was my Fidonet net's NC, and served as NEC since nobody else wanted to pony up the bucks to transport the echoes. I had to, since I was the co-moderator of one.
Currently I get paid to administrate Unix systems and TCP/IP networks for Fortune 100 companies. I'm currently responsible for several hundred such systems in three data centers in as many time zones, and we're discussing taking over support for some systems in Brussels and Singapore.
I suspect I have at least as much 'net experience as you do, son.
Right except the spammers _haven't_ passed, and they have been their so long that most people have forgotten the sidewalk even existed.
A lot of fat people can walk down a given sidewalk on a given day. It still doesn't mean you're deprived of the use of the sidewalk. I get quite a bit of spam every day, and I still manage to keep up with a dozen mailing lists, several of which I moderate, and all my business-related email, as well as communicating via email with my large extended family, many of whom also work in the computer industry. Oh, and I'm about to take over as moderator of a popular web discussion site devoted to Airsoft. No, it's not AirsoftZone.
Well, then *remove* the laws that prevent us from implementing the technical solutions.
Sorry, I kind of like the First Amendment. You'll get no help from me there.
-
I believe they have one at http://goatse.cx ;-)
In the UK hackers and phreakers are usually prosecuted for "theft of electricity"
.oO0Oo.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
...there isn't a law regarding spamming. You can only start prosecuting if by the actions of them spamming they do other damage.
The law has been slow to catch up with reality again. Traditionally, there hasn't been a law against spamming because there was a barrier to entry - with snail mail, spamming costs a lot of money. All you need to be able to spam now is a list and some time.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
It's fraud, plain and simple, and there are laws already in place to deal with that. I'm sure there is already something that will cover the sheer volume of crap they send as well.
While your dreaming of that, I'll do what I've always done.
Go to some place like contest junction and flood the return email addresses back. Hey, its rude, but it works. I usually sign the spammer up for as many porn in your email things as I can find, and then I hit em with virtual greeting from somewhere tellin em to eat it.
No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater.
Seriously. In both cases I just can't bring myself to feel anything but mild glee over punishment being meted out to those being taken to court...but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the precedent that it sets.
This paragraph from the article, in particular:
In this case, the crime was elevated to felony status because the spam was sent using an unauthorized e-mail account and caused tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage.
As with so many of the "hacking" (cracking) cases, I REALLY wonder which orifice they pulled this dollar figure out of. Every time this happens, the notion that "hacking" (as the mainstream media calls it) ALWAYS results in HUGE expenses for the victim is more firmly engrained in public consciousness. Appending the words "with a computer" to the description of a crime causes the same ridiculous overreaction among legal types and the media as adding it to a patent seems to have on the US PTO, and cases like this don't help the problem.
Further, this precedent is subject to serious abuses. Imagine you start receiving a pile of junk email which appears that it may be relayed from one particular server. Perhaps, in an effort to be helpful, you decide to test the relay by sending a single message to yourself through it. You find the server does, indeed relay, and you report your findings to the ISP. The ISP's sysadmin, embarassed, reports you to the ISP's lawyers and you find YOURSELF being sued for "using an unauthorized e-mail account", and "costing" the ISP thousands of alleged dollars (It'll cost them thousands in advertising to 'spin' the incident until they get over the embarassment, you see...).
This kind of thing already happens too much, and will happen more since it's facilitated by minimally clueful (how's that for politically correct?) legislators, who pass laws like the DMCA.
("What, you legally purchased that DVD and the computer equipment you're using to view it? Doesn't matter, you embarassed us and we're suing you for using an unauthorized decoder...And claiming you cost us millions of dollars by doing so, you filthy pirate.")
Spamming definitely "feels" like a crime to me, but more of the "30 days in county jail, a couple of weeks of community service, and a fine" variety rather than the "up to 9 years in prison" sort.
---
"They have strategic air commands, nuclear submarines, and John Wayne. We have this"
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Ya know when they release those estimates about how much spam really costs?
I bet they don`t include the traffic from people directed at the TOS guys, or the TOS guys salaries.
Think about it, there are actual people out there that only have a job because of email abuse!
Isn`t that sad? Spammers have created jobs that people depend on.
ugh, that is scary.
No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater.
the cost of crime to the GDP is the main factor.
.oO0Oo.
Crimes against property are traditionally dealth with more harshly than crimes against the person save in the extreme (gbh, rape, murder etc.) because minor injuries don't cost much to treat.
Political campaingers have been victim of this.
Steal a rabbit from a lab and get 10 years. Kill someone while driving drunk and get 19 months.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Back in the days when computer time was a valuable resource (i.e. before PCs), stealing computer time was an offense and you could prosecuted for it. However, there have been changes since then. Although the actual computer time stolen is no longer at the issue, the cost of repairing any damage and the cost of the investigation into an incident can be considered "damage" and be used as part of the threshold necessary to make it a federal crime.
I stand corrected, I have read your anti-spam advice. I think it's stupid and is approaching the problem fromm the wrong end.
Great minds think alike,but,fools seldom differ.
Excellent analogy. Spammers effectively steal bandwidth from anybody they spam, just as counterfeiters effectively steal goods and services from the recipients of the bogus bills. Spammers taint the credibility of legitimate broadcast e-mail (opt-in lists) and net advertising (agreed-upon tie-ins between services and marketing), just as counterfeiters taint the credibility of legitimate money. Spammers cause some legitimate e-mail to be rejected by anti-spam defenses, just as counterfeiters cause some legitimate money to be rejected because it is mistaken for counterfeit.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Having said that, yes I believe that all mail servers should not allow relaying. And there are ways around not allowing relaying for off site people to send mail. The system keeps a log, if the account has logged in in the last 5 minutes, then as long as their IP is the same, they can send mail. Of course this requires the person the check their email before sending. And of course it has some holes, but it's better than just allowing mail to bounce on through. I can't believe how much of my spam comes through the crosswinds.net mail servers. At least it used to.
Legal recourse... it's nice to watch someone tossed in jail for something like this, but I haven't seen Dick Clark put in jail for the Publisher's Clearing House crap mail.
To me, the law isn't the answer, tighter mail servers, and tighter free email systems (like hotmail... but don't ask me for details on how to make them tighter so they're less likely used for spamming, I don't know, I'm not about to think about it right now 'cause I'm not fixing them right now), and your mouse pointer over the delete, or your finger on the delete key.
Not so hard is it? Oh yah, and don't worry about it... but if you get 10000 messages a day, stop using your email account to sign up for stuff on the Internet!! Create a spam email account for that purpose!
--- I used to moderate, then I read the -1 articles and decided having to filter through them was not worth it.
forward EVERY piece of uu.net originated spam to sales@uu.net, info@uu.net
:)
Beautiful! I'm all over it.
I have irritated the sales scum to the point they have told their pink contracts to remove my email. I used to get 7 spams a day - now its less than one a week.
I wonder if a similar thing is responsible for my decrease as well. I always forward it to abuse@uu.net (via SpamCop) despite the fact that I was convinced that the abuse@ account was a black hole that never gets read. (and it *really* irks me to get their auto-generated replies that say how they consider spam to be a serious problem and that they are going to take the appropriate measures to stop the owner of the offending account....HA) But maybe somebody *does* read that stuff and they got tired of me spamming them. The number of complaints I sent to that address every week was staggering, now it's one or two.
By the way, Vice President Clint Smith of uu.net is responsible for the pro spam stance according to spamhaus.org
Makes you wonder if *he* ever gets any spam.
If i can confirm his email, i know what i'll use for all those free reg sites!
Dude! You know where to find me.
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
Privacy is not a right, it's a notion.
.oO0Oo.
Ultimately you have no real privacy. You are required to show where you spend every penny of your money, declare every penny you receive, if the state chooses it can monitor your communications and if they don't like what you think it's off to the mental hospital for some 're-education'.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
- Court is expensive and time-consuming. If your idea works so well, how many spammers have YOU taken to court?
- Before you can even enter the court system, you have to identify the plaintiff. Whoops, there goes more time and expense.
- Even if you win, collection is a bear.
- It's highly unlikely that the judge will accept receipt of an SMTP banner as constituting a valid contract -- unless that's specifically written into law. In the one place it's implied (Calif. Business and Professions Code 17538.45 (f)(3)(B)), it's still debatable, and never been tried.
Having said this, some people *have* dunned spammers and collected. See this post.In short: Your idea is an unoriginal fantasy. If I were still a moderator, I'd mark you post down as "inaccurate".
--Tom Geller, founder, The Suespammers Project.
Tom Geller
It's all about scale.. both spamming, and slapping display total contempt for others.
;),but a minor act affecting millions (and there's little point spamming unless you do it by the million) should be treated as seriously as a major act affecting only a very few.
Why should causing a minor irritation for millions, and a major one for the hijacked mail relays admins, owners and customers, not attract a severe punishment? I'd accept that life, or capitol punishment would be waay too strong (probably
EZ
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
These guys weren't just innocent businessman trying to advertise, they were trying to do something slick...and I for one hope they get hammered.
um, yea, just what we need... more laws.
Not to mention, laws governing the internet.
Do we have laws against junk mail?
Hmmm... I still receive quite a bit in my home mailbox... must not be.
Spam is annoying, but there's no reason we need more laws.
Place sig here.
"They appeared convinced that what they were doing wasn't illegal"?
I'm glad that these guys got what was coming to them. Ignorance of the law has never been an allowable excuse for any other computer based crime (even if that so-called crime is merely someone doing something basically harmless, with no intent other than learning about how to play on networks). Seeing someone who DID have an intrusive intent arguing a defense that hasn't protected those that didn't and not getting away with it is definitely minor key justice being done.
Now if only this can become a good, solid precedent...
I remember when I accidentally sent a message to one of my friends (the mail got sifted through a giant procmailrc). I had attached a Perl script that he had asked for, and when they sifted the message, the auto-replied to me with a Cease and Desist(?), all because I had attached a Perl script that they thought was a virus...
Glen
Track your fuel economy
"... up to nine years ...." IANAL, but it's my understanding that maximum penalties usually don't mean much -- they're useful for sound bites and little else. It's the minimum punishment (if any) that's important. I don't know the details here, but even if they're convicted, I bet they get a "community service" sentence that no one will care if they actually serve.
Wouldn't it only have to cost someone something, not necessarily break it? Stealing is itself a crime.
Developers: We can use your help.
The Ohio Lawmakers are attempting to push through a law where the receipient of spam can take the offenders to small claims court if they dishonor a request to be taken off an opt-in list. For each piece of spam, you're entitiled to 100 bucks; however it has to go through small claims court. They've got to send you a spam, you call them to be taken off (If you can't call them, you win) the list, and if they email you again, they're hit. I heard it on the radio today, and thought it would go well with this. Ian
I disable sigs...do you?
I'd like to see the sys admins get prosecuted for leaving their mail server as an open-relay That was in jest
Great minds think alike,but,fools seldom differ.
Next time I am spammed, I'll reply to the mail with this article.
The best planning can be done after the project completes.
I wish that there was a way for me to trade the kilos of junk mail that gets left in my mailbox for spam. I find spam as annoying as the next guy but I just delete it. Physical spam (junk mail) is far more invasive and expensive.
I don't understand this effort to eliminate electronic junk mail, while expensive, hard on the environment, physical junk mail continues. If I'm allowed to mail thousands of unwanted pieces of physical mail to occupant why shouldn't I be allowed to do it with the electronic alternative. (I say stop them both.)
Recycle? Why cycle in the first place?
There are many, many anti-spammers working on a solution, and if the solution to spam were this simple it would have been done years ago.
Why has this not been done? It requires work and co-operation. No one has created the perl scripts to parse the mail headder then create a report (the mail analysis part of the service)
Then you have to spend $0.34 to mail them a bill. And, do that a few times.
Then, you have to have a central place where people can sell the unpaid debt, so others can then BUY the debt and then take the debtor to court. (again, more software and bandwidth) And, the person buying the debt then needs to spend $$$ to take the spammer to court.
Also, ISPs have no legal obligation to help you find a spammer's real name/address
Sure you can. If a judge says so, they have to or face comtempt charges. The discovery process *IS* your friend.
out of the country
Yup. Its a problem. Look though at the content of the out of country crap however. If it is not for a product to buy, why even send the spam? If it is "no longer a domestic problem" and is instead an "international issue", and the content is more 'crap' than 'legit' content, the argument about it being a "valued service" goes out the window. With less pro than con arguments on a national level, legislation-however well intended, will get passed in the name of stemming the flow of the spam.
If a few get wacked, and wacked over and over again in small claims court, others will think "do I want to run this risk - no". It won't STOP the problem, but it will put a dent in the problem.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Great idea. We'll compile a list of all of the affected class. Then we'll send them all emails to tell them about this new class-action suit against people who send out unsolicited bulk emails...
Oh...wait a minnit...
to prosecute felonious spamming. Something actually has to break, not just use up someones electrons or time reading email. And, they have to be stupid enough to be caught. These guys were pretty clueless.
Oracle and unix guy.
I can't honestly believe that I can keep someone from saying what they want to say.
(stopping) Spamming has nothing to do with stopping someone from saying what they want to say.
It has everything to do with preventing someone from harassing you.
I mean, what if someone sends spam about a political situation or a crime being committed by a public figure? Should THAT be banned as well?
Yes, just like if someone wants to use a megaphone in a residential area at 4AM to broadcast the same message.
Spammers have the right to say what they want. They do not have the right to abuse someone else's computer resources to do it.
"Uh, I`m not talking about random spam, because I never get that kind"
So you only get spam you ask for? What's your complaint then?
"I`m talking about spam from people trying to sell me things, and then giving me their email address to contact them. "
With the exception of stupid chain letters, all spam is from people trying to sell you things. I've collected a few of the more obnoxious spams I've received over the years (to hunt down the source and report them) and I've never seen one with a legitimate return address in either the header or body; to do so would be sheer suicide on the senders part. What I usually find is a message full of annoying html tags and a link to an equally obnoxious web page. Even here, it's unlikely I'll find a real e-mail address (save the one from the site admin, who generally isn't connected to the spamming and doesn't deserve an inbox of irate messages).
"Its really simple if you use your brain, try to follow along"
Ok, I'll sure try!
"JoeSchmoe emails me and tries to get me to buy his audio cassette tapes that teach me the meaning of life, I have to email him and ask em for it so its not considered spam anymore, because I`m asking to be contacted back"
Do you know what the definition of spam is? It's *unsolicited*, mass distributed email. By this definition, the message Joe Schmoe sent you is spam. How is weather you replied to Joe's message or not relevent? It must be over my head.
The way I see things, if you have indeed received spam that contains the legitimate return address of the sender, then by their sheer stupidity, do in a sense deserve what they receive. However, how do your knee-jerk actions help anyone? You've done nothing to help curb the enless flow of garbage that lands in the peoples' inbox and have in fact, made it worse. Wouldn't it be more productive to hunt down the origin of the spam and be sure it gets added to a black hole list? Is your bandwidth wasting tactic of sending junk and signing up to lists the offender in any way negating the bandwidth loss caused by their actions? I just cooked this up with my lil' ol' brain, so maybe you could enlighten me (and the rest of the Slashdot readers) what you're taking about, since it's not making a bit of sense .
"See where I`m goin with this, or is it over your head?"
Could you help me, please? I honestly don't see the point of your message other than you like to be obnoxious or don't want to take the time and/or don't know how to read a header and determine the origin of an email (faked or not).
Perhaps next time you could refrain from making specious assumptions and could limit your use of personal attacks; they make you appear infantile.
----Was this over your head?
~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
So, when you connect to an open webserver (yahoo, /., etc.) is it criminal to connect to it if the admin hasn't granted you specificly to access the computer? No, it isn't. So, why should any other service be different in the eyes of the law? Any service that is left open to the public for access without authorization can't really be prosecuted under this law. This would include telnet (MUD's), www, FTPanon, _open netbios shares_, gaming servers, and anything else (including open relays).
- Sig
What I don't understand is why people keep sending me porno ads to my ICQ account. And whenever I reply to the sender I never get an answer! Are these people really that busy they can't talk to somebody who they messenged? I want to carry on a conversation with a spammer. Get to know them. See what makes them tick!
-underd.o.g-
yes, but the kiddie pix traders may not live out their terms, and they will certainly have lots of new boyfriends. (One of my high school football coaches (volunteer) had a full time job at as a head of security at a major prison - the guards don't see much or hear much when pedofiles get gang raped in the shower.
And to answer your question, no 9 years is not excessive. It needs to be enough deterent to stop the existing volume of spam, before it completely cripples the system.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Death sentence for trolling?
--
Je t'aime Stéphanie
You read my mind. All spammers should have to take the "Prison Proctology" course! Repeat after me: "No, I will not send spam! Ow! No I will not send spam! Yeeaaaoooowwww!"
Cloned foods give the statement "We had that last week!" a whole new meaning.
There is talk also about expanding this to telefon sale, but some are conserned about non-profit organisations that rely on gift/lottery sales generated by this.
Unfortunaly this law doesent help mutch as (almost) all the spam I get are from outside Norway.
You are wrong. Search the CA code on line (you can get there from http://www.ca.gov )for unsolicited && electronic and you'll find it in the Business & Professions code as a misdemeanor (section 1738, if my 5 minute memory is working). Couldn't find the felony one in 5 minutes, though - anybody? It also specifically becomes moot if the feds pass a law.
Oracle and unix guy.
That should be Vigo that Carpathian.
---
Vollernurd.
Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules.
No, not at all.
>or is it over your head?
Guess it is over mine too.
I don't know what you consider 'random spam', but the kind I always get has a web url they want you to go to, not an email address to reply to. Mail I get is usually from forged hotmail addresses. Sending to abuse@hotmail.com is a waste of time and signing up for porn mailing lists even moreso.
---
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Someday someone will do an analysis of what
the spammers are saying. And they'll find that
*no legitimate offers* are ever made in these messages.
I have yet to receive a spam message that I'd even
consider "legitimate".
Seems like our lawmakers have "overlooked" this
small detail. None of these people stand a prayer
of selling the worthless crap they're pushing in
these spam messages. Spam is the only way they
stand a prayer of selling even a small amount of
their junk. I'm really curious about the
statistics of spam. How many emails, how many
bounces, how many sales per message sent?
We are running a story on a federal bill to criminalize spam.
You'll notice something rather interesting. The bill passed in the House but just sort of languished in the Senate last year.
I'm careful who I send my email address to and have been pretty lucky in avoiding spam.
I don't want anyone going to jail for this kind of thing. And there is a legitimate first amendment issue here. People have the right to communicate with you, even about stupid stuff
Civil penalties are the only prudent way to deal with spam.
I guess I should be more strident, but I've got enough of a life so that I don't get too worked up over this stuff. When people do get all worked up they demand criminal penalties, which sends people to jail, which costs money, which either lowers spending on education or gets our taxes raised.
And that means I'll have less money to spend on booze and whores, but the whores will be cheaper because there will be a glut of them because education spending will go down so the whores won't be educated enough to get real jobs.
That, my friends, is an economic analysis of the situation.
evanchik.net
Let me be a little less abrasive. By engaging in illegal activities like spamming the spammers, you one become no better and two set yourself up for legal trouble. Plus for all you know you could be attacking an innocent third party. Plus, the number one advice I can give is NEVER REPLY to a spam. All it accomplishes is letting a spammer know that your email address is real and suitable for adding to a CD mailing list.
Great minds think alike,but,fools seldom differ.
This seems to break down into the right to spam vs someone's property rights on their own system. While, I'm against spamming (I hate dealing with it in my inbox), I can't honestly believe that I can keep someone from saying what they want to say. I mean, what if someone sends spam about a political situation or a crime being committed by a public figure? Should THAT be banned as well?
On the other hand, people can't just chew up bandwidth on other people's servers just for the hell of it. If you want to spam, then spam. Just pay in cash for the services you use to do it. Most mail servers are privately owned and therefore, I think, the owners deserve the right to say who uses their systems and who doesn't. The alternative to this is to establish an open public mail server to let people spam as they with. If the end user doesn't like it, they can just block the domain, or the particular person at that domain.
Maybe we need to establish different classes of email. The post office uses 1st, 2nd and 3rd class mail to make distinctions. Perhaps the time has come for a new e-mail standard. E-mail protocols haven't changed much in the last 20 years, except for client-side security additions. Perhaps new classes of e-mail should be created and linked to server security so that we can all be happy: "Legitimate" e-mail is freely allowed while "spam" is regulated according to the sys-admin's wishes.
And while we're on the subject of sys-admins, perhaps the sys-admin in the article can read his/her manual and block filter outside user who use his/her server to spam???
I loved the line that read "Most legal action to block spam takes place in civil court. ISPs, including America Online, have taken on spammers in more than 100 civil cases."
It always seemed to me that it would be the other way around. Ever log on to AOL and count the # of popup ads, junk banners, and spam from AOL or AOL partners in your AOL email account? You KNOW that in order to make up for giving away free service, they're selling databases of AOL user info (including e-mail addresses) to spammers to push up stock prices. Maybe they're afraid of competition??? Click here for 800 free hours of online access, pictures of real live teen sorority sluts, and info on how to make millions from your home while refinancing your morgatge!
If any of this appears incoherent, assume that the writer was drunk.
Don't compare it with violent crime, compare it with counterfeit money. Spam has the same effect on electronic communication as coutnerfeit money has on the economy.
Ridiculous. Counterfeit money allows someone to steal merchandise from merchants, without the merchant getting paid for it.
Spam's effect on electronic communication is more like a fat person's affect on your sidewalk. While he's there, you can't use the sidewalk, but once he passes, it's usable again.
If he happens to be so heavy he cracks the sidewalk, you make him pay to fix it, probably in small claims court unless he's a good person and just says "sorry, send me the bill, real sorry about that".
If a spammer breaks your box, he should have to pay to fix it. If he crashes it causing it to reboot, you should be able to collect for whatever business you lost in the time it took to reboot.
Other than that, it's an annoyance, not a crime.
Spam needs technical solutions, not legislators passing a bunch of stupid laws. We have too damn many laws in this country now, it's caused a climate in which nobody respects the law anymore because it's not possible to get through the day without violating a few.
-
Hallelujah, brother !
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Hopefully - unfortunately they are being held in a segregated part of the prison system here in the UK so they get pampered time away from the general population. I must say that we don't seem to have the same kinda spam problem here (unless me and my friends have been really lucky) - get a few bits every now and then but nothing major - I suppose if it clogged my mailbox every day I'd wanna lock em up and throw away the keys as well.
blazing a trail for mediocrity...
Not if I tell telemarketers and doorbell ringers, that they are not welcome. At least it shouldn't be in my behavioural value system.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I wonder if these two believed that nonsense that you see on a lot of the spams about HR 1605 which "makes it legal to spam as long as you include a method to get removed from the mailing list". Of course, if you go and look up that law, you'll see that it was never passed. Maybe these two started believing their own spam.
Onorio Catenacci
--
"And that's the world in a nutshell -- an appropriate receptacle."
-- Stan Dunn
"Go to some place like contest junction and flood the return email addresses back."
I hope you realize that most spammers fake the return address and aren't inundating some poor unwitting victim's mail box with crap. If my email addr. wound up in the reply field of a spammer's message and you did this to me, I'd make it a point to report YOU!
~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
>>Wouldn't it be worth $100 to harass a spammer back? (local fees for a small claims action here)
Lawsuits for harassment are illegal. You'd pay a LOT more than 100$
just wanted to add.. im in agreement totally with you - spamming doesnt make me loose any sleep -i just delete it, set up a new message rule, done.
Who cares - send them down! Can i visit them? Please? PLEASE?! :)
That is the *maximum* they can face on these charges. *Any* felony is punishable by a year or more in jail (2 yr minimum in some states). The criminal charge covers all crimes of that type, and has a sentencing range. It's much more likely that these guys get a much shorter sentence, or no incarceration at all. My guess would be probabtion including a month or two in the county jail rather than a priison sentence.
hawk, esq.
Being the Anti-Spam monkey at my ISP, I'd like to see the sys admins get prosecuted for leaving their mail server as an open-relay. If you run a mail server and you leave it open to relaying you are part of the Spam problem. But, I'm glad to see someone finally get prosecuted for spamming.
Great minds think alike,but,fools seldom differ.
Basically, the Man is trying to take down yet another form of encryption. I bet these 'spammers' are just innocent people who used spammimic.com to encrypt their email, and the government is punishing them because they won't give them the key. Take back your government! Encryption is protected by the 1st amendment! It's a right!
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
The house analogy is pretty weak, though. How about a "bridge" analogy?
Let's say you build a bridge in a public place; it spans a river, and links two communities together. Let's say further that while you posess the bridge, it is to some extent open to the public.
The question is, how much control will you exercise over access to the bridge? Will you charge a toll? Are the access control methods sufficient to prevent non-toll-payers from crossing the bridge? Finally, how accountable are you for the the traffic of criminals across the bridge?
Most Internet infrastrucure is absolutely not anaologous to a house - it's analogous to other forms of infrastructure.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Lawsuits for harassment are illegal.
It's only harassment if the suit is groundless. In some parts of the country, being spammed is explicitly grounds for a suit.
After Canter and Siegel committed the Green Card spam, there was a lot of talk about doing nasty things to them. I've wondered how different the world would be today if the talk hadn't been just talk. Would Usenet still be useful instead of a cesspool of spam?
--
spam spam spam spam spam spam
No one expects the Spammish Repetition!
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
This is Unsolicited Commercial Email (USE) not Spam and it's not sent by Spamer's, it's sent by conmen and crooks.
Martin Spamer
(Yes Spamer really is my surname)
http://www.cauce.org/
Where is your problem? If you cannot secure your SMTP server against third-party relaying, that's your problem. Any if you are tired of getting SPAM, try the filters in the subject line (even just tagging the messages is sometimes enough...). Since I have a SpamCop account, which uses some of these filters, no piece of SPAM ever got through to my mailbox (and even some mailbombing was stopped ;)
You have to pay court fees and pay for representation, obtain a court order for the ISP to give you contact info, and pay someone to serve the spammer with papers.
At this point, the judge may very well throw the case out unless you prove actual monetary damages. You can't put a sign on your door that says anyone who knocks on it has to pay $100, and I don't see this any differently.
Even assuming you win in court, the vast likelihood is you'll never get paid. It is now YOUR responsibility to collect your debt, the court will not help you at all. You will have to locate the spammer's assets and determine what can be seized, try to find their bank accounts, or garnish their wages.
All these hassles should dissuade most people from taking this course of action.
--
I don't have the quote handy, but Chief Justice Renquist said something to the effect that while freedom of speech allows someone to say something, they do not have the right to force you to listen to it.
If spam was forced to have legit addresses and forced to honor removal requests, then the other laws wouldn't be necessary.
Yes there are laws against junk mail - tell them to stop sending and they have to. If they don't go fill out form 1500 at the post office - that will end it.
I wrote the DMA and 3 credit bureaus, and guess what - the only junk mail i get now is the weekly grocery store flyer.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
"UUnet is another matter. They clearly know exaclty what they're doing and don't care because they're making money. Something must be done, but I'd still prefer that the internet community somehow solve this problem without getting governments involved. "
Here is how to stop uu.net:
forward EVERY piece of uu.net originated spam to sales@uu.net, info@uu.net
I have irritated the sales scum to the point they have told their pink contracts to remove my email. I used to get 7 spams a day - now its less than one a week.
By the way, Vice President Clint Smith of uu.net is responsible for the pro spam stance according to spamhaus.org
If i can confirm his email, i know what i'll use for all those free reg sites!
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Also, ISPs have no legal obligation to help you find a spammer's real name/address. They don't benefit from helping you at all, so why would they cooperate?
Also, this wouldn't work for mail sent through open relays (since the open relay sees your SMTP notice, not the actual spammer), or mail sent from other countries. How are you going to take a Chinese spammer to small claims court?
--
chmod a+x ./spammer ; ./spammer ; echo "Now executing the spammer"
--
Tres_Status
stephen
About them being clueless, it's bull. They knew it was wrong, why else would they hack into a open mail relay; why would they hide their identify?
When I wrote they are clueless, I was referring to them being so stupid as to try to claim they didn't know it was wrong, and being so easily caught, and thinking there would be no negative consequence to their acts. Sorry I wasn't clear on that. I'm a long-time spammer-hater. I even still have my Canter and Seigel spamming the globe t-shirt!
Oracle and unix guy.
You can read what the scumbags that sell one of the major spamware packages have to say forthemselves HERE
or you can follow the link in my sig to find out more about what you can do to fight spam.
Including how to cost these jerks real money.
http://Lenny.com
It would be better to have owners of SMTP servers do more to prevent spam. I would rather not see a new law specifically aimed at spam if it can be prevented at the source. Granted, this wouldn't completely solve the problem, but would eliminate a lot of it without forcing yet another law on people.
Developers: We can use your help.
I don't see how it is hard to catch them. Usually they are advertising some business. Why not go to the business and fine them for spamming? I'm sure rather than paying a fine the business will point the finger at the responsible persons who are doing the spamming. It doesn't seem like it is all that difficult to get to the bottom of it.
'Same speed C but faster'
Unfortunately, the washington law was overturned in court.
Read about it here among other places.
Damn shame too.
+++ ATH0 +++
Yes, but we are getting closer. The last "Spammers Jailed" story seemed to imply they might've been jailed because of the scam rather than the spam. In today's case, however, the crime was a direct consequence of the spamming -- even if the item being spammed was something that would've been totally legal/legit to sell via normal means.
Also, the things that bumped the crime up to a felony were things that weren't direct actions of the spammer but rather the consequences of their actions. From the POV of the spammer, it was just generically spamming through an open-relay.
So it's not ideal, but it's still Pretty Damn Good, IMO.
Even that could be argued. CAUCE has been promoting an SMTP-banner-based, machine-parsable policy. Someone with such a banner would be in a better position to claim that the spamming was unauthorized access.
The humor is not in the fact that the spammer is being sexually assaulted. The humor is in the fact that most spammers don't realize what they are doing hurts other people.
And as for prisons... well, I'd really like to live in a world where the American judicaial system sent people to prison to rehabilitate them rather than punish them.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
From article(1):
"In this case, the crime was elevated to felony status because the spam was sent using an unauthorized e-mail account and caused tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage."
Meaning, these guys are probably getting plowed for ghost damages.
____________________
The American Dream went to hell in a handbasket when someone decided that "The Customer" was King, and the customer beli
...we, as individuals have to deal with this pest.
Nowhere in the constitution nor in the Bill of Rights does it say that you have the right to never be irritated. That is the price of freedom, and one that too many people are trying to legislate away. If we are to have true freedom of speech, you might actually hear something that could in some way be slightly unpleasant, disagreeable, or (horror of horrors) offensive to you.
Suck it up and get on with your life. I am not a spammer, I do not send out spam, I do not like spam. That is why I have this new little thing called a spam filter. Funny how the people of the world can take care of a problem without including the (any) government. I know that in this day and age, correcting a problem without crying to your legislator seems difficult, as it would actually involve some effort on your part, but try it some time. It is surprisingly refreshing to fix your own problem, turn the TV channel away from what you disagree with, and actually take care of yourself for a change.
"I was a geek before it was cool" --Me
If I spam 10,000 users with get rich quick schemes and no server falls over then what case do people have to bring me to court?
l et.htm
Chain Letters
A chain letter is a "get rich quick" scheme that promises that your
mail box will soon be stuffed full of cash if you decide to participate.
You're told you can make thousands of dollars every month if you follow
the detailed instructions in the letter.
A typical chain letter includes names and addresses of several individuals whom you may or may not know. You are instructed to send a certain amount of money--usually $5--to the person at the top of the list, and then eliminate that name and add yours to the bottom. You are then instructed to mail copies of the letter to a few more individuals who will hopefully repeat the entire process.
Postal Fraud/Postal Lottery Statutes.
From the US Postal Service: http://www.usps.com/websites/depart/inspect/chain
The letter promises that if they follow the same procedure, your name will gradually move to the top of the list and you'll receive money -- lots of it.
There's at least one problem with chain letters. They're illegal if they request money or other items of value and promise a substantial return to the participants. Chain letters are a form of gambling, and sending them through the mail (or delivering them in person or by computer, but mailing money to participate) violates Title 18, United States Code, Section 1302, the Postal Lottery Statute. (Chain letters that ask for items of minor value, like picture postcards or recipes, may be mailed, since such items are not things of value within the meaning of the law.)
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
So, when you connect to an open webserver (yahoo, /., etc.) is it criminal to connect to it if the admin hasn't granted you specificly to access the computer? No, it isn't. So, why should any
other service be different in the eyes of the law?
For the same reason that it isn't a crime to go into a place of business without knocking if the door's unlocked, but it is a crime to do the same thing at a stranger's house.
In other words, because web servers are customarily for public access, and smtp relay (as opposed to an endpoint) is not.
It all goes to prove the following:
Rule 1: Spammers lie.
Rule 2: When in doubt about the truth of a spammer's statements, see rule 1.
Rule 3: Spammers are stupid.
A life of spam will have you on the lam ; )
You are absolutely right. A guy stole a paperback book from my unlocked car in my open garage a few years ago. As it happened I got up to pee and noticed the garage light on, saw him, and called 911.
The police - or more precisely their dog - found him hiding in the bushes with the book.
He ended up convicted of burglary III theft II and served about a month in county plus a year pro.
my hotmail account receives every few days and you try to not accidentally delete an important email strewn amongst the junk... thank God they don't have my regular email..
It's total bullshit when people say "all you have to do is delete".
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
First of all there is no excuse for open relays but thats the admins fault.
Replying as in hit the reply button is not what I mean
.
I mean do things like call the 800 number in the spam I have called them many times and leave my real number so when they call me with there pich to get rich quick I tell tehm how much I hate spammers.
this costs them time and money If 100 people did this every day they would get fed up and stop
also by clicking on the links at goto.com you cost the copmanys that sell the spamware real money if only a few people do this every day it would cost them a fortune I have seen prices of over $4 per click on goto.com
http://Lenny.com
Given your bridge analogy, does that mean I can use your pool, because it can be seen from a public place? Can I park my car on a private parking lot without paying?
Fight Spammers!
Naturally, tbe D.A. reports that the two spammers arrested "appeared convinced that what they were doing wasn't illegal."
And when Bubba gets to them in jail, he'll also be convinced that what he is doing to them isn't "illegal." *snicker*
---
Check in...OK! Check out...OK!
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Some of the history of the internet tells us that there was a time when everyone shared their resources. But that is no longer the case. So In reply I submit the following as a rebuttal ( pls ignore the spelling )
> If I buy your house for $250K, and turn around that day and sell it to someone else for $325K, have I stolen anything from you?
Yes you have, You have stolen my time and resources to fight a legal battle with someone else that has a title to the property
>If I fake your IP address and use it to download free mpegs while you are offline, have I stolen anything from you?
Again you have taken my assigned resource, used it for your own pleasure, and have me marked as a user of another persons resource. You now might subject me to spammers, ip blocking ( if the other party did not want those Mpegs downloaded).
>If I shoulder-surf your password to a mailserver, and don't do anything with it, have I stolen anything from you?
You have now become a risk and since you have access to the "mail server", you have access to restricted information that you can sell later on.
Could you imagine that you got the heads of yahoo's e-mail, that information a lone could be worth thousands to the right party.
>If I encode stolen credit card numbers into a bogus napster file, have I stolen anything from any napster users?
Release of stolen credit cards and thier information is a crime. Placing it in the napster file and broadcasting it might be again considered a crime, and a waste of someones resources.
>Are they receiving stolen propery?
yes they are, and if they they know that it is realy a credit card then they are subject to criminal law
> Is property theft?
I don't know what type of theft, so I'll leave it open
> Is intellectual property law insane?
No, If I'm first to market an idea and I get the legal rights to it, It's mine. If I work for XYZ company and I create something while I'm at there firm I might loose my rights to own that.
Documentation is the key to IP rights and doing that research away from the XYZ corp. resources. It does not mater that you have a contract with xyz corp. They can not take something away from you that you do at home. the burden of proof falls on them for the theft.
Also it would help alot if you talk to the VC or the "money guy " of your firm, when you have a new idea. most of the time, they will give you sponsorship if they believe your project could better the firm ( or their walets ).
>Are the answers to any of these questions really as obvious as they appear?
I would think that they are.
ONEPOINT
spambait e-mail
my web site artistcorner.tv hip-hop news
please help me make it better
if you see me, smile and say hello.
I've seen a slight uptick in the amount of spam from uu.net dialups leased to msn.com (i.e. msn.com customers) coming through msn.com's mailservers.
Theory: When msn.com didn't have port-25 blocking, msn.com customers using spewnet dialups got reported to abuse@uunet.net. By the time Spewnet forwarded the complaint to the "unnamed reseller" (msn.com), the spammer had gotten a day or two of spam out of the account before MSN shut it down.
Now that msn.com appears to have (at least partially) implemented such blocking, the only way an MSN spammer can spew from a spewnet dialup is to do it through his own account. Accounts don't live nearly as long, and thus Spewnet looks like a bit less of a spamhaven.
My "legal deadpool" (my list of spammers whom I believe are next in line criminal charges) still has Alan Ralsky (of Telodgim fame, IIRC now hosting out of Russia after a brief stint in Hong Kong after months of uninterrupted Qwest service) and Ron Millette (the guy most likely behind the "joe-jobs" of the anti-Global Prosperity scam) at the top of the list.
Well, there is the one about keeping the civil courts open on weekends . . .
hawk
While we're at it, let's go after the guys running open relays and ISPs (can you say UUnet?) who harbor spammers. If anything I'm more pissed off at these guys because it's so easy to close down an open relay and these people are such poor netizens that they can't be bothered.
One day I was bored so I checked my company's mail server with Spamcop and found to my surprise that we were an open relay. I contacted our sys admin and moments later the problem was solved. We then contacted Spamcop and got ourselves removed from ORBS. I think a lot of folks don't realize the magnitude of the problem and also don't realize (because they don't bother to check) that they're part of the problem. I don't know if laws will fix this (and I tend to think of laws as a last resort anyway). Maybe awareness is the first step. I like to believe that most people would like to be good netizens if they knew how.
UUnet is another matter. They clearly know exaclty what they're doing and don't care because they're making money. Something must be done, but I'd still prefer that the internet community somehow solve this problem without getting governments involved.
Having said all that, I've noticed that the amount of spam I get from uunet is greatly reduced lately. Anybody else notice this? Maybe they've cleaned up their act a bit after a flood of spam crashed one of their networks in Britain. Pure speculation, of course, but I've definately seen a decrease in spam originating from uunet.
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
The "too many laws" argument strikes me as facile; it's a question of whether the laws are good ones or not.
- Investment opportunities in India/Thailand/Mexico
- Having hot sex with Nicki or Linda
- Finding out your horoscope
- College degree in 3 months!
- Warning, New Dangerous Virus Causes Nuclear Meltdown (click attachment for more info)!
How about growing up and realizing that some things barely matter in life. I mean these guys should be in trouble for using an unauthorized email account. And if they really damaged a company's equipment though illegal usage of it, well fine, throw the book at them for that too. But some of the above coments, about how we need to be saved from spam is ridiculous. Most people open spam because they want to get something out of it (sex, etc.). Serves them right that they wind up wasting their "precious time". At least their time is less valuable now since all these "html engineers" are being laid off by the thousands.that there are an awfull lot of servers with open relays almost every time I submit a spam thru spamcop.net
It reports the open relays it's amazing how many there are
but if you want to find out how you can fight spam follow the link in my sig.
http://Lenny.com
The internet is a cooperative network made for two parties to willingly exchange information. An analogy(some might say it's much more than an analogy) with harassment might work here. It's unwanted, so you don't want to be an accomplice in harassment, right? In the same way, you might not want to be an accesory in an unwanted communication over the internet, especially if it's costing YOU money to do it.
And this is all an aside to the fact that these guys actually hijacked someone else's property to send out their garbage. That definitely costs the targeted company money. Tie that back in with being an accesory in the action, and you've got a lot of stuff to be upset about!
This is a manual virus. Copy it to your sig and help me spread!
Even more important is the fact that TV commercials fund the programming we watch. Either we have commercials to pay for content (US broadcast TV), we pay through the content directly (premium cable channels and countries with a TV tax), or we voluntarily donate money for the content (PBS).
Spam, on the other hand, has the exact opposite effect. Instead of reducing or eliminating the cost of "entertaining" email, it actually raises the cost across the board, due to higher bandwidth considerations and storage costs.
If ISPs don't help you track down the source of spam, then they will quickly find themselves on either MAPS or ORBS.
Wrong. ISPs are under no obligation to give you any information in order to stay out of the MAPS RBL. All they have to do is deal with spam problems, including killing spammers' accts, killing spamvertised web sites, not provide spam support services, etc. ORBS, as you apparently are unaware of, is an automated system for tracking open relays. ORBS has no information as to whether ISPs are cooperative or not. It doesn't even list ISPs that generate spam, only open relays.
ISPs aren't required by anyone to help you "track down the source of spam." Their only duty is to deal with spammers' accounts themselves. You even contradict yourself later on when you say "you are advocating a commercial entity supplies you with the names and addresses of it's customers?!! Pleaze". It is a huge invasion of privacy for any ISP to help you track down one of their customers. The problem is theirs to deal with, not yours. Unless there is a court order (I don't think small claims court can issue subpoenas) an ISP SHOULDN'T give you a spammer's name or address.
I'm real happy for you and your Asian ISP, but I hope you understand that's the exception, not the rule. I have LART'ed a LOT of spam from China, and have never received a personal response or a confirmed kill.
--
Don't compare it with violent crime, compare it with counterfeit money. Spam has the same effect on electronic communication as coutnerfeit money has on the economy. If we think electronic communication is going to be of real importance, we should fight spam as we fight counterfeit money.
Violent crimes have different issues, maybe the punishment is too light or too severe (although you can get executed for violent crimes), but that is independent on the length of economic crimes.
We do not need laws VS spamming.
What we need is individuals who:
1) Announce on the SMTP port that they offer a mail analysis service
2) All mail comming in is subject to the processing fee.
(snif, snif, smells like a shrink wrapped EULA)
3) Send the spammers a bill for $250 for each chunk of spam.
4) Sell off the un-paid debt, so that somone local can take that debt and "take a spammer to small claims court"
4a) Have 31 (or 30/29/28) seperate people take the spammer to small claims court...one each day for a month of small claims actions vs the spammer.
All grass roots effort, and all without any new laws.
Wouldn't it be worth $100 to harass a spammer back? (local fees for a small claims action here)
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Tell me again why spamming warrants a longer jail term than some violent crime?
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
Someone set up us the mass-email legislation!
Send off every spam!
A second decade of excellence
Mostly, we all sit here on /. and complain about spam; but if we'd make an organized effort to write to our representatives to have a law passed to ban spam, we might have a lot better weapon against it. We ought to organize a letter-writing campaign.
I grew up on that stuff! SPAM with Rice is the best. Spam out of the can is good too. I like it just on the burnt side of things.
Mmm..hungry.
Prison warden "OK WE NEED TO GET RID OF THESE RAPISTS AND MURDERS TO MAKE ROOM FOR THE SPAMMERS!@#!" liberty and justice for all!
ie. If I spam 10,000 users with get rich quick schemes and no server falls over then what case do people have to bring me to court? Annoyance because of non-solicited email?
However if I crash two servers and cause a company a big headache and loss of business then they can get me for that and not the sending itself.
Last time i heard someone was prosecuted it was because what they were trying to get people to do was illegal not because they'd sent out 50 million emails.
Could be wrong though ...
--
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Looks like it is time to call the ghostbusters!
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Spam Laws in the US, Europe, and beyond
According to this page, Washington law sets the following as penalties for spam:
Full text of the law is available
Here's how it would work: I get a spam and it wastes a little of my time and costs me additional money in wasted resources. Maybe it doesn't cost me too much, but together with all the other recipients, the "affected class", it would probably add up. So, to get the lawsuit started, first thing my lawyer will need is the mailing list that the spammers used, and any attendant records of how successful the deliveries were.
Any lawyers out there? Any way the courts would order the beginning of this sort of discovery process?
There have been bills that effectively legitimize spam, and ones that basically prevent it. HR 95, which is in committee right now, is a very good anti-spam bill.
--
Now, I'm just as annoyed with SPAM as anyone else here, but just think about the consequences of seeking a law that ends most spam. Obviously, it'd have to be a federal law and even then you'd have to deal with foreign spam. So even if passed, it wouldn't work. More importantly, think about the dangers of putting even more regulatory power over the Internet in the hands of the US Congress. By requesting this regulation, you open up more discussion on Internet taxation, content restrictions, required filtering in public buildings, etc. Just because you can't install an e-mail filter to block out USA.net and, hopefully, hotmail.com, don't go persecuting spammers. The Internet is great because, though this is changing, it's free. You can spam, flame, and virtually threaten people all you like without consequence. Of course, you can also create controversial songs, art, prose, etc that wouldn't get any visibility outside of the Internet.
Now these guys managed to break something with the high volume of spam they sent, so there is a bit of a difference. That said, shouldn't any good server admin have this vulnerability covered? What if your legitimate e-mail bounced through the server during the period when the spamming occurred. Aren't you then possibly responsible for the malfunction? This wasn't an organized attempt to take down the server, so it isn't nearly on the level of intentional DOSs and the like. More like ServerSlaughter. Just think twice before you start writing your congressmen eh?
They knew it was wrong, why else would they hack into a open mail relay; why would they hide their identify?
.... uhh you did *put* a warning message in your server banner, didn't you?!
They did not "hack into" a mail relay. They used the services of a badly-configured machine on the public internet. If they used an automated program to logon on their behalf, then they never even saw the "warning" message you had put in your SMTP server banner
If you goto goto.com and enter "bulk e-mail" you get a list of
spam companys the pay goto.com several dollars per click.
It's fun to cost these scumbags real money!!
You can find out more ways to fight spam by following the link in my sig.
http://Lenny.com
Fight Spammers!
Why, of course neither the American - nor any other constitution (yes indeed - there are others) provides a guarantee not to be irritated.
But probably most constitutions value the right of an individual to be left alone higher then the right of somebody yelling his message, by whatever means available, into my ear.
I also don't think that the American constitution grants you the freedom to forge e-mail addresses, to abuse third party networks or to crash computers to get your message across.
Further, you guys (usually) have flat rate network connections. Virtually the entire rest of the world does not. We might pay as much as 5$ an hour for a simple, local telephone connection. This means my bandwith comes at a price.
If you spam me (or any Asian, African, Australian or European) you are stealing, it costs. Does the American constitution mention a right to steal?
See, I didn't think so.
Free speech means you can stand on a park bench and blabber what you want to blabber, it means that you can publish text, image, video, music whatever. It means you have the right to publish, it doesn't however give you the right to force your publication on me. Especialliy not when I'm forced to pay for it.
You mention filters. Unusable for me. I run my own business and even when my primary e-mail address is spammed 9 times out of 10, I can't filter it. The risk that one legitimate message gets filtered is just too big. Such a filtered message could cost me ten thousands of $ in lost revenue.
So, to summarize:
You have the right to blurt your message, regardless how ludicrous
You have no right to force that message on me.
And you have especially no right to force your message at societys and my expense, OK?
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Convict: Heh, what're you in here for?
Spammer: I don't really know! I'm just a business man with a little computer skill trying to make a buck.
Convict: Damn the man! Always screwin' over us small business men. Why, I'm in here for selling cars!
Spammer: Really?
Convict: Well, they weren't *my* cars.
Spammer: Uhh....
Convict: Hey nerd boy, You got a pretty mouth. You wanna have sex?
Spammer: MOMMY!
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
If it did, that last posting of yours would have resulted in you being brought up on federal charges.
Have you ever seen anything in the Constitution that guarantees spammers the right to advertise to me at my expense? Who the **** do you think pays for spam? Every ISP and company that runs a mail server. They pay for the bandwidth to receive spam, the bandwidth that is stolen by spammers that send it, the storage costs to retain it on their mail servers, and the administrative costs associated with handling complaints about it.
ISPs pass the costs of spam on to their users and the cost is in the millions of dollars. Businesses deal with it in their bottom line. And when the costs hurt them (like the company mentioned in this article) people get smaller raises, other people lose jobs, and others are not hired. All so that some bunch of scumballs can send their e-mail ads at no real cost to themselves.
Oh, and I probably have a much more sophisticated, active spam filtering system than you do. It gets well over 95% of the spam without preventing legitimate e-mail from getting through. But it still annoys the f*** out of me that I am paying higher ISP fees so that some bunch of low-life losers can try to spam me.
It's interesting to note that spamming came in vogue as an attempt to market to the masses. The problem was that it was too easy, too widespread. TV commercials are a similar market to the masses, but at least I can opt-out by not watchng tv. Unfortunately, I can't opt-out of reading email; it's part of my job.
Today, spamming is getting a whole new look as viral marketing; another glossy name for a chain letter.
Personally, I'd think we should use spammers to make spam... still tastees like pork, right?
davemc
Open Source Ronin
Rape is a real crime. There is no passion or love, only a cold-blooded heartless act of violence. I hope you know that that comment was made in very poor taste, Anonymous Coward really does fit your description. TROLL
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Adobe's anti-counterfeiting softw
Under the computer tresspass act, it is a criminal offense to use a computer that you are unauthorized to (hacking a mail relay, even if open). It might be a stretch to say that by sending SPAM to your POP3 server, that they had used your computer to retrieve and store SPAM without authorization.
About them being clueless, it's bull. They knew it was wrong, why else would they hack into a open mail relay; why would they hide their identify?
It's funny, they claim the SPAM is legal, but they hide their identity.
Fight Spammers!
Of course they'd think that. The clowns who used to send advertisements for toner to your Fax machine used to think they were providing a valuable service as well. It's not their fax machine was being tied up.
It almost (and I can't put enough emphasis on that word) makes you want to see ISPs begin charging for every email sent. But, of course, there'd be some ridiculous discount for ``bulk mailing'' like the USPO does that would make smamming affordable and sending an email to grandma expensive.
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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Your comment is along the same lines as the phone company. Call them up and ask them what "Anonymous Call Blocking" is really about. They'll tell you that they can't block anonymous calls from telemarketers, but they *can* block calls from your friends who have their caller ID blocked.
Also, if you have them block your caller ID from going out, they'll tell you they won't block it when you dial toll-free or 900 numbers (hence giving your unlisted phone number to telemarketers).
Spam, on the other hand, is an active form of advertisement that does not come bundled with any service you choose to receive. It, like telemarketing, is equivalent to someone standing on your doorstop, shouting his or her message, and pounding on the door (or ringing the doorbell) whenever you're not out there listening. That is harrassment, which is *not* free speech. Furthermore, in the case of spam, the spammer does not pay most of the costs of sending the spam, and as such spam is also theft. In cases such as this, there was also damage done to machines which the spammer hijacked to send the message; this is vandalism.
So, please explain to us why harrassment, theft, and vandalism should be legal.
Well, obviously that's a bit excessive.
It's sad that the damages caused by these spammers was really due to lame system administration. Of course, it's odd to punish someone for doing what was pretty common not too long ago. We know, however, that in this day and age, you are extremely remiss in operating a mail server open to third-party relay.
Veritools apparently had days of downtime (it took them that long to remove the mail from the queue? A winbloze mail server or what? Or did it cause hardware difficulties? How?), and they were in RSS for two months. See their RSS entry. Did they not know, or was their mail server open to relay that whole time?
IANAL, so I don't know if a defense attorney could argue that competent system administration would have saved Veritools. If not them, then it would have been some broken mail server in Korea (and why did these idiot spammers use a local company's server? That's utterly stupid).
That being said, yes slap the spammers, hard. Veritools has probably already paid enough.
Really, spam is no big deal. It's simple, watch who you give your e-mail address to and you'll be fine. I have a several e-mail accounts, one of them is for the specific purpose of handing out to anyone and everyone, just so that it can collect spam. Every now and then I will get something informative in it. Otherwise, I just do a lot of deleting. It is actually kind of interesting to read spam sometimes though. At least some of it gives you a little laugh. On the other hand, spam is not nearly annoying as those forwards you get from net newbies who think they are going to get gift certificates from the gap by sending to 100 people.
Up to 9 years? little excessive don't you think -I know Spam is incredibly annoying but sheesh, rapists don't get that kind of jail time - and three sickos who traded in kiddies pics on the net recently only got up to 13 months. Punishment should fit the crime - make them first point of contact for an AOL user helpline - 6 months of that might even be considered cruel and unusual.
blazing a trail for mediocrity...
However, there are a fair number of laws that say I have the right never to be robbed, which is what spammers do with their automated postage-due crap.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
To me the answers to all of those questions is clear: none of them are stealing. But breaking a window that someone else owns is costing the owner money, and the "breaker" owes him/her for it.
Developers: We can use your help.
Or have you missed all the stories on slashdot of late wrt spammers sueing MAPS and the like?
Yeah... I'm perfectly capable of writeing regexs to get rid of my own spam, installing filters, mulitple inboxes; or enableing MAPS in my sendmail.cf
I say, if they're going to weasel their way through the legal system to try to force us to receive their junk bits; we should bloody well fight back in kind, and do our best to land the trash in prison.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
SAN DIEGO, California:
San Diego Superior court appears to be after another party in its spammer court case, this time slashdot is being sought for what is known as the "slashdot effect" after a story posted on their web page pointing at signonsandiego completely knocked out their servers causing a panic. CmdrTaco was unavailable for comment at press time.
There is no spork.
It's nice to see that some jerks may do hard time for that, but it would be even nicer if they are punished becaause of the actual act of spamming.
Aparently legislators only get involved when business are hurt, but not when we, as individuals have to deal with this pest.
I fear this is not really a victory for the anti-spam league (although it might send a strong message to spam-wannabes). On a sidenote: Salon ran a story a year ago, in which Janelle Brown actually tried to get rich quick, lose 90 pounds in a week or sign up for the greatest pr0n available TOTALLY FREEEEE!!!
The ironic thing is, that she had a really hard time actually contacting the seller and purchasing all those goodies...
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
How many more non-violent offenders to we need to lock away from society? Is this a socially benificial thing? Bah. You know it isn't spam or no spam.