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FTC Goes After Spammers
klaun writes: "Yahoo has an article about the FTC launching a crackdown on deceptive unsolicited email.
Basically they are after scammers offering easy money quick, not the average 'get porn here' type of spam. There is more info at the in a press release at the FTC's website." TheGreatGraySkwid amplifies, saying that this story "tells of an FTC crackdown on Spammers, that had resulted in charges (settled) against 7 chain-letter ring spammers, and several pending cases. I know I could use some Spam relief..." The settlement, unfortunately, isn't exactly stern stuff: the seven spammers "agreed to refrain from participating in deceptive schemes in the future, or lying about the legality or potential earnings from any such schemes."
I think these senators don't comprehend the reality with spam; that is, 99% of it has false origin information and has an opt-out scheme that doesn't work or only results in more spam.
However, I don't believe in making laws against spam. They'll always be outdated and interfere with legimate uses of email, since it can be very hard to define exactly what is spam. (Someone taking my address from a newsgroup posting and trying to sell me printer toner is spamming, but how about an email from a company I bought something from a year ago?)
Adam Back has an interesting proposal called Hash Cash. The idea is that if you want to send me an email, you have to burn some CPU cycles to compute a partial hash collision. I choose how many bits are required. Friends and family can send me email for free. I'll charge a few bits for the store I shooped at last week, and even more for people I don't know. If you're in ORBS or MAPS, perhaps I'll charge even more.
Basically they are [going] after scammers offering easy money quick, not the average 'get porn here' type of spam.
I personally feel that the porm spam can be just as deceptive as the EZ $$$ NOW! scams.
I mean, let's be honest -- I'm sure we've all received dozens and dozens of emails saying that someone's site has a ton of free pics and videos of the hottest girls. But generally that's a blatant lie, and the lewd site is a reseller of explicit pornography. They simply tell a fib to get you to click on over to their site, which upon being rendered throws a half-dozen pop-up windows on the desktop.
Let's aim higher rather than just taking out the con artists alone.
Listen To My Latest Recording @ EricKrout.com
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Just got a spam message today that was in the format of a returned mail message. Even from Mail Delivery Subsystem. The attachment was an ad for pr0n.
I hate spam as much as the next guy, but, damnit, that's almost ingenious.
Yes, my girlfriend is a BitchX
I wonder which Congress person got burned on the pyrmaid thing THEN screamed it was SPAM.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
The Chinese government just ordered all ISPs in China to start monitoring
,It is glad
email for subversive phrases and the like, so just reply to
Chinese spam with little replies of the form at the end of this spam.
Might be a useful tactic on companies who think that unsolicited
email is "just regular advertising".
Bill
"Jack(export manager)" wrote:
>
> Dear Sir
> How are you .
>
> We are a lighting factory in China
> to introduce ourselves to you:
>
> I am XUBIN (Jack) , XUBIN is my chinese name , you can just
> call me Jack !! , I am export manager of [deleted] ,
> China, our group have four factory
[snipped]
>
> Here is our company profile :
>
[Rest of sales talk snipped]
(And now, the reply)
Thank you for your coded order. The weapons and ammunition
will ship by way of the usual route in ten days, and you
already know our secret Swiss bank account number to
wire the payment to.
It is a pleasure doing business with you for so long,
and I hope your cause will prevail. I am new to this
particular computer, so I hope the encryption is
working and the monitoring authorities cannot read
what I am sending you.
Long live the Falun Gong! Free Tibet!
Best regards,
Your arms supplier
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Defendants in the FTC cases are: Paul K. Boivin, also known as Paul Bowen, Paul Boevien, Paul Bowvien, and Paul Brown; doing business as (DBA) Destiny 1999, Destiny 2000, and Destiny 2001. The defendant is based in Clearwater, Florida and the case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division. Chad Estenson and Megan Estenson, DBA CMJ Enterprises and Rockin' E Marketing. The defendants are based in Warwick, North Dakota, and the case was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota. Fernando Pacheco, also known as Frank Pacheco, DBA E-Solutions and E-Solutions 101. The defendant is based in North Providence, Rhode Island and the case was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. Arnold W. Larsen, also known as Arnold Larson. The defendant is based in Sarasota, Florida, and the case was filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division. John Lutheran. The defendant is based in San Diego, California. The case was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. Dario Va. The defendant is based in Weston, Florida. The case was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
I Heart Sorting Networks
Actually, we do have something very similar (sans fines), it's called Spamhaus. It collects evidence of spamming by companies, finds those companies that own those netblocks, and lists the top spam-friendly hosts in the ISP business.
Sitting at the top of the list is media3, which hosts 5 known spammers has known about them for at least 2,163 operational days (operational days for all 5 spam sources), and acts covertly to support them. Their "score" is thus listed as 5*2163*4 = 42,720, nearly 8 times more than the closest spammers. If you want your spam to decrease significantly, you gotta take out those spammers at the top right at their source.
-Misch
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
I think the FTC needs to crack down on these so called "Nude Teen Cheerleader" websites. If they're nude, how do you know they're really cheerleaders?
I am demanding that the FTC require (under penalty of large fines) that all nude teen cheerleaders be photographed with their high school ID showing their date of birth and their high school yearbook turned to the page where their cheerleading squad group picture is.
I think if the web site says "cheerleader" and then the model was actually in the pom-pom or flag squad, the fines should be TREBLE.
When a user clicks on the "unsubscribe" option, their email address is logged by the FTC. The FTC sends an autoreply indicating that using the "unsubscribe" option on spams is dangerous.
-jbn
This isn't about free speech, or "corporate right to send me ads if I opt-in." Don't worry, those companies make sure they pay someone to remind your senators that their god-given-right to send you ads should be permitted. Too bad the rest of the spam won't really let you work part time from home making $10,000/month while watching a legal cable descrambler, happy with a clear credit record, a really large penis, limitless virility, instant weight loss on demand, and the occasional degree from a prestigious unaccredited school.
There are two reasons spam continues. Welcome to economics:
a) there's still no effective financial deterrent to sending spam, regardless of whether it's ambiguously relevant direct marketing, or utter fraud
b) there is some financial benefit for the senders, regardless of amount
There are plenty of other things you could debate...such as when did spam become accepted? Was it when you -- yes YOU! -- made the unconscious decision that "just deleting" the message is OK. You don't have the time to follow up on the headers. If you're in one of the states that actually ban it, you don't have the time to do something...hell it's not worth the effort. It's just an email, right?
Think of this in another way: If random people each stole one cent out of your bank account every month, would you consider it worthwhile to pursue them? Would you want your bank to develop filters to block all small transactions? Would you think such a loss is unacceptable?
Quite honestly, the actions of civil libertarians and "we'll fix this with technology" advocates has not helped. I filter, you filter, we all delete. Guess what, spammers will continue to find ways around filters, so long as conditions A & B hold true. And every online provider will continue to spend lots of money trying to stop this crap. And every user will continue to hit delete. And people will constantly change email addresses to avoid it, spam filters will continue to mislabel valid email as spam. Stop dealing with the symptoms, deal with the problem!
This isn't a technology issue. You will never get every mail server, client, system, whatever to comply to a block-spam standard. Just look at how long it's taken to get even the basic don't-relay habits in place. This isn't a "but what if I want Amazon to send me my favorite buy-me-now specials." This is an issue that someone in power doesn't give enough of a damn to do something effective to create a financial deterrent that makes it preferrable for these people to steal your money some other way. And yes, unfortunately, we're talking legislation, otherwise you will not send a clear message or provide an effective deterrent. Inconsistency on this means ineffective.
Wow, looking back I'm feeling sorry for the rant. It's simply that this kind of cluelessness annoys me. Time to go delete a couple more messages.