Slashdot Mirror
Prosecuting A Spam Artist
ronmon writes: "DSLReports has discovered evidence of a creative Spammer / Data Miner who has managed to glean email addresses from their member's information pages. Apparently someone has gotten around to writing a script that decodes obfuscated addresses like imasobATspam_centralDOTcom, which was only a matter of time. Server logs show well over half a million requests from several IPs in a specific block and they have been advised that they are in a good postion to prosecute. They're asking for legal help, so any of you good hearted lawyers out there looking to boost your karma, here's your chance :)"
I'm of the opinion that there's only really one proper way to do this: an image generator. The site should keep a database of emails, together with a random ID. Then, whenever an email needs to be displayed on a page, you insert an image tag that looks like, say/> or whatever. This script looks up the email address in its database, then draws it. It then applies some noise and distorts it so that the email is more or less readable, but you'll have a hell of a job trying to automatically read these emails. Dunno, anyone think this will work?
It's interesting to try ro decipher some info from the IP addressed that mass scanned DSL Reports. For exmaple:
216.249.93.15 = hsa015.pool022.at101.earthlink.net HSA possibly means High Speed Access, since Earthlink is doing some cable modem stuff now. The pool doesn't give any relavent info. at101 could mean Atlanta, though
The other IP address also go in the form of hsaXXX.poolXXX.at101.earthlink.net, so it definatly looks like it was the same guy
I hope DSL Reports sues the spam off this guy, this type of datamining is just low.
-Henry
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
I actively avoid supporting marketers who annoy me, and I urge you to do the same. If a company is advertising in a magazine I like, in a banner ad on a web page I like, or on a TV show I like, they're starting out with an even trade. A little support for my interests in exchange for a little bit of my attention.
If they spam, throw junk mail at me, pop up annoying windows all over my desktop, stick business cards or flyers on my windshield or otherwise inconvenience me, I ensure that I never ever support them. I've stopped dealing with companies I previously liked because they started engaging in these practices.
Spamming is essentially stealing. I don't know why the hell I'd want to support someone whose first action was to take from me without giving anything in return.
Of course, this will only have an effect if a large number of people act in a relatively concerted way. I have frequently thought that there ought to be some sort of centralized database-based "blacklist" of which companies use various irresponsible marketing techniques.
Of course, I sure don't have the time to build such a list, or the money to withstand the lawsuits it would spawn.
--G
It's already had an effect. The kinds of places that spam are the kinds of places that don't give a fuck about anything but growing the business. By avoiding spammers, I'm increasing the probability that I'm dealing with a company that has some measure of a concern about the consumer.
The rest will sort itself out. The worse spam gets, the more likely it is to get legislated into a black hole, or the more likely it is that enough ISPs will start deploying cooperative spam circumvention devices to make it effective.
It'll get there, through law or common sense. In this day and age, the problem just has to become expensive to big business first.
I do the same, with twist. I actively tell them I stop doing business with them. It tends to surprise the fuck out of them that somebody actually is not only not interested in their "great business opportunity" but enough so to avoid them. If one person does that, they usually think "lunatic" and just go on. If several people tell them, they either get a clue, or are out of business a few years later...
-John
I've resisted the urge to follow the link in a spam if the link looks like it might be interesting.
The definition of "spam", at least in my book, is "Unsolicited Commercial Email".. for the most part, anyway. There's non-commercial spam too. The whole concept being that it's UNSOLICITED. I get tons of mailings (electronic and dead-tree versions) from organizations whose products I have purchased. I don't consider this spam, because by purchasing their product, I have elected to become part of their "previous customer" list. If I have a choice, however, I ALWAYS elect not to have my contact information sent to any outside parties, and I won't knowingly do business with any organizations who do this without my knowledge.
cheers
BM
That's what has happened with all of those who maintained MBL lists. They got sued until they ran out of money, lost or won. If they won, the suer would then just go after their ISP to get them cut off.
Thats why most sites just maintain our own block lists and/or do content blocking (aka, all mail with the word "brest" gets deferred)
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
No, I don't, and no, they NEVER hit the mark where I am concerned. In fact, I proactively boycott companies that violate my privacy to send me advertising, and I proactively do what I can to do monetary damage to them. If a company buys or sells or harvests information about me for the purposes of sending me unwanted, unsolicited advertising, I will make them pay for it.
Now I am not trying to apologize for irresponsible spammers, but you have to admit, some spam is actually interesting. I am talking about the mailings from corporations whose product you have bought in the past, and who you might be interested in dealing with again.
You are dead wrong. When I buy from a corporation, I explicitely tell them not to attempt to advertise to me in the future. I do NOT want to hear from them. If I have any interest in purchasing anything from them in the future, I will do so of my own volition. If they attempt to pressure me to purchase from them my making any attempt to send targetted advertising to me, they win an instant enemy, and virtually guarantee that neither I, nor anyone that looks to me for product recommendations will purchase from them again.
So before jumping on the spam==bad bandwagon, stop for a minute and think. Is it really bad ? Or are you just being a bit of a whiner...
You are absolutely right about stopping and thinking. Let's stop for a minute and think:
- Unsolicited bulk email shifts the costs of advertising from the advertiser to the recipient.
The recipient or the recipient's ISP has to pay
to receive the unsolicited, unwanted garbage email.
- Unsolicited bulk email is almost always theft of service. The operators of the mail relays
that are hijacked to send the junk almost never
give their permission to have their equipment
and bandwidth resources stolen. So, spammers
are resource thieves.
- The bandwidth and admin costs of dealing with unsolicited unwanted junk email
are high, jacking up the costs of Internet service
for people everywhere.
- Unsolicited bulk email can deluge an email
account to the point where it's useless. My
email account at my DSL provider is unusable because it gets a fifty to one ratio of spam to
legitimate email. I had to filter everything
except emails originating from the ISP itself.
Fortunately, I run my own sendmail server and
can generate as many email addresses as I need.
Spammers poke at it and probe it attempting to
hijack it as a spam relay several times a day.
So, after thinking about it, I can conclusively say that yes, spam is bad. Spammers should be prosecuted. Personally, I'd like to see criminal charges be applicable.Cheers!
My mail servers are always bogged down with SPAM. I really think it should be a beatable offense. Possibley we could clone that sex offender law for spammers. If convicted you'd have to register with the local police.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
18 EarthlinkLA-gw.customer.ALTER.NET (157.130.224.86) 107.363 ms 107.592 ms 106.501 ms
19 f5-0-0-cr02-pas.neteng.itd.earthlink.net (207.217.1.44) 106.004 ms 107.202 ms 106.447 ms
20 207.217.2.27 (207.217.2.27) 107.577 ms 109.698 ms 111.014 ms
21 216.249.64.35 (216.249.64.35) 107.946 ms 108.521 ms 106.762 ms
22 hsa015.pool022.at101.earthlink.net (216.249.93.15) [closed] 124.726 ms 123.248 ms 129.078 ms
Pasadena area, maybe?
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
>That's a great way to make your site less accessible to people with disabilities.
Blame the Cause not the Effect.
if everyone would do what ever they could to fight spam we could really make some progress against spammers
you could use spamcop.net or read some of these ideas
http://Lenny.com
4 great justice!
spam fighting ideas
http://Lenny.com
4 great justice!
I'll meet you half way. I still block out banner ads from companies that request cookies with the ad. Unfortunately, that's most of them these days. I'll allow unobtrusive ads supporting a site I like, except when they engage in secretive tracking of my browsing behaviors.
An advertiser keeping tabs on me without first asking me if that's okay steps way over the line of trust.