Slashdot Mirror
Another Go At Making Spam Cost Money
wario78 writes: "The BBC is running a story about the law firm Morrison and Foerster which is claiming damages against the spam company Etracks based in California. They are asking for $50 in damages for each spam they receive, up to the maximum of $25,000 per day. Nice to see a lawyer doing something community-oriented for a change (even if they are just trying to make a profit from it)."
These are either the coolest lawyers in the world or most clueless.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
It looks like Morrison and Foerster is suing on its own behalf rather than some other party, and that the spammer had continued to spam even after being warned.
:)
Oops. So when can we expect a) spammers filtering to avoid spamming law firms, and b) law firms offering e-mail aliasing to avoid the spammers?
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
...and win my case? I receive about 3 ads for penis enlargement a day even if I am from the opposite sex.
PPA, the girl next door.
-- I feel better now. Thanks for asking.
Who's the hitech private dick thats a sex machine to all the chicks?
-Mofo!
Who won't let you down when there's spam all around?
-Mofo!
You damn right.
That mofo is one bad mutha-
-Shut your mouth!
I'm just talkin' about Morrison and Foerster.
-We can can dig it!
D
The first, last, and only tech news site on the net
From the eTracks homepage:
Not only is your target moving...It's picking up speed.
Now I wonder why that is. Could it be that your "target" is trying to not receive your fucking worthles spam? Perhaps they are satisfied with their penis size? Maybe they don't want to about losing 150 pounds in three days? Perhaps the Ladies Quilting Club down at the retirement center isn't interested in tight teen anal sex?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
As a collective sigh of longing sounds over the internet the unthinkable has happened. The slashdot community has fallen in love with a law firm.
Teamwork is a bunch of people doing what I tell them.
This is a repeat. It hasn't been more than a month since this was last on Slashdot.
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
I would like to announce that I am sueing Slashdot $50 for each troll post I read each day up to a max of $25,000.
Charge for the canned meats. Though I don't see many people BUYING them, maybe thats where the problem comes in. Why are people complaining about FREE canned meat... Oh thats right, its gross. I also take all the CRAP mail that I get in my Real-Mail box, and stuff it in my envelopes when I send off my bills. Let them throw it away.
What, me worry?
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/15/195620 0
--
http://www.aikiweb.com - AikiWeb Aikido Information
.. That Timothy posted the origial article.. maybe someone should lay off the booze before lunch? ;}
Original story here.
Morrison and Foerster's URL is www.mofo.com.
B-),
Ellen
mods metamodded as "Unfair"
Nice to know that they're going after a California Corporation. California Anti-Spam Laws are based on the fax spam laws. Doesn't seem that MoFo is trying to set precedence. Just make some dough...
Vital Idea
We cheer people suing over case 1, but we do nothing about case 2 and 3
I really don't see the difference. I throw unwanted ads away, I've always done. Hey, every once in a while it's actually something interesting too [although, most spam seem targeted at US citizens
it's in my head
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/15/195620 0&mode=thread
-sigh-
This paid my last vacation, it mi
Nice to see a lawyer doing something community-oriented for a change (even if they are just trying to make a profit from it).
even if? I thought making profits was all lawyers ever did!
take the enron shareholder lawyers, for example, who will rake in (conservatively) 50-100 Million US.
Send this law firm all your spam from etracks. It's the least we can do ;-)
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
Now only if I could sue yahoo or Hotmail for all the daily spam I get from them. I can't be the only one getting mail from
143jkdsa@hotmail.com
and
37jerckoff@yahoo.com That extra $50 daily would certainly help with my non-profit fund raising money for a new DVD-R and 19" flat panel.
We had to destroy the sig to save the sig.
IANAL but how do you prove in court that receiving a 5 kilobyte email message costs your company $50? Is 5 kB of bandwidth really worth $50?
Don't get me wrong, I wish that was money going into my pocket. Frankly, I'm starting to worry because I keep getting these porn spams from Russia and the girls keep getting younger and younger. I can't delete them fast enough.
then they sue you too
What is your Slash Rating?
Rather than filtering incoming mails and taking the legal route with the spammers, I'd like to remind you 2 excellent services that can be used to avoid getiing your email address on spammers' list in the first place: www.spammotel.com and sneakemail.com
If you run your own mail server you can do this stuff yourself - I mean "one-time acounts" and so on. But sneakemail is just too convenient (or I'm too lazy and tired by the time I get home...)
-- No sig today
I just heard the sad news on talk radio!!Antiquated operating system "UNIX" was found dead in it's Key West bungalo this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss UNIX -- even if you weren't a victim of it's convoluted user interface, there's no denying it's contributions to Microsoft's ascent to greatness. Truly a hero of yester-year. UNIX will be missed :(
Disclaimer: I am not trolling, I really feel this way.
The internet has always been self policing. Why should we treat SPAM differently than the rest of email? Yes it sucks, but we can always filter it. We do not need legislation to save the inbox. We need common sense. Legislation is only going to make the internet more of a 'policed state.' I feel as if it cannot be said enough, the internet is not owned by the US and it will only lead to problems if goverments are brought in for annoying crap like spammers.
No I am not a spammer.
Yes I hate spam with a passion.
However, the more geeks want rules to govern the internet, the more the other laws (as well as shit like this) will be passed and upheld.
Stop this crap now.
"Not my manner of thinking but the manner of thinking of others has been the source of my unhappiness." - M
mofo is known (in the North Cali legal community anyway) as a very progressive firm. they go out of their way to hire people of color, women, and handicapped folks, and take on many pro-bono cases that require a large investment. they also take "principle" cases - those cases that can likely result in a beneficial precendent but may not be profitable for the plaintiff.
so it's not surprising to me that they would expand that social-cause reach to technology too, in the legal realm.
Of course, some people or idiots. Fleishman-Hillard (a PR firm) is blocking all email from well.com because somebody couldn't figure out how to unsubscribe from the Politech mailing list. She reported them to her sysadmin as a spammer. Never mind the fact that Politech uses a double opt-in (You have to opt-in and confirm).
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
One spammer got my attention by sending me the same mail multiple times.
:)
It took me half an hour to track down and mail the free web provider, the free mail provider, the free scripts provider, the (possibly) abused mail-relays etc etc.
Now the web-site is off-line and one by one (I hope) all his services will fail. Scripts will return errors, mailboxes will close and so on.
I guess that will p*ss that spammer off
Privacy is terrorism.
When it's more profitable to remove spam than to send it, there will be a quick solution to this problem..... ....or a way to make your congressman profitable maybe....
And then give them 90% of any money they get from suing over the spams sent to it. But how do I send them this proposal without it being a spam? Im serious!!!
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
OK
it seems to me that we all just accept ads as "part of the way we live"
Each time I try to get education, entertainment,
or travel anywhere, I am bombarded with
unsolicited ads. ads that generally fuel the
out-of-control cosumerism all around us.
Read a magazine, get ads.
Watch the news on TV, get ads.
Walk down the street, get ads.
Read the newspaper, get ads.
Watch entertainment TV, get ads.
Even if I want to, I am FORCED to see ads. To be
programmed. (don't tell me to go live on an
island -- I don't want to do that either).
The thing I think is that we don't have to have it this way. I know its radical but imagine for a moment a world where there were no unsolicited ads . This is a real stretch -- many of the assumptions about normal life start to break down if you take this assumption and go with it. We DO have the technology to provide everyone all the information they could want whenever they want to buy something, yet we don't. We make all the businesses compete for visual and auditory bandwidth, annoying the he!l out of everyone.
thoughts?
I just heard the sad news on talk radio!! Antiquated operating system "UNIX" was found dead in it's Key West bungalo this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss UNIX -- even if you weren't a victim of it's convoluted user interface, there's no denying it's contributions to Microsoft's ascent to greatness. Truly a hero of yester-year. UNIX will be missed :(
Spam laws
Especially
Summary of US State spam laws
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
Please show me a mail filter that blocks spam but allows legit mail to pass.
As far as why we need regulation is simple:
We asked the spammers to stop spamming us.
They just kept spamming.
We tried to block the from address of spammers.
They just started forging from addresses.
We tried filtering based on the subject line.
They just made them unfilterable with hash-busters and generic subjects.
We tried to block the spammers IPs.
They just started hijacking open relays and proxies.
And it just goes on and on.
Michael Loves Me!
Must.. not.. think.. well.. of.. lawyers.. *splits in two*
I can't help it! This might actually be a Good Thing (tm).
Is it too much to ask for people to drop the incessant lawyer bashing? Lawyers as a group spend a lot of time working on "community-oriented" work. They are expected to devote at least part of their time and effort doing pro bono work, i.e. representing cases in the public interest, frequently for people who otherwise couldn't afford representation. The law is one of the last careers where this is an ordinary expectation.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
BEEF STROGANOFF
1/4 lb. (1 stick) sweet butter, 1 large yellow onion, thinly
sliced 2-lbs. filet mignon, 3/4 cup flour, 1 lb. fresh
mushrooms (sliced lengthwise), 2 envelopes George Washington
Rich Brown Seasoning Broth, 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. Russian- style
mustard, 1 cup heavy cream, 1 Tbs. sour cream.
Melt butter in large skillet and saute onion until soft but
not brown. Remove to oven-proof baking dish. Saute mushrooms
briefly in same skillet and remove them to dish with onions.
Slice beef across the grain into 1/4 inch rounds. Lay each
round on a board and slice with the grain into 1/4-inch wide
strips. Transfer meat to a bowl, add flour and mix well.
Remove meat to skillet in which the onions and mushrooms were
sauteed, and, on medium heat, cook, stirring, until meat is
gray. Add mustard, seasoning broth, 1 cup water, salt and
heavy cream.
Mix with onions and mushrooms in baking dish and bake in oven
for 20 minutes at 400-degrees. Just before serving, stir in
sour cream, and serve from baking dish. Serves 4 to 6.
This costs money!
Spammers freeload, use other people's (usually) accidentally open relays, take up bandwidth and waste time. It's extremely offensive, not opt-in, deceitful (NEVER click remove, they just sell the address) and mostly false advertising.
It is and should be legislated.
Sometimes I get unwanted email in my inbox. Sometimes people put unwanted ads under the windshield wipers What a lucky guy! Would someone please start plastering hot babe pics under my windshield?
You are funny, The Turd Report!!! You are just as funny as on that Trollacksore site! Fucking lamer.
Comment is Score 2, Redundant.
Comment title is "Redundant (-1)"
----
It's not stupid, it's advanced!
Dear TIMMAY,
I have taken a vote amongst the guys and we have decided that you are just not up to slashdot standards. Please clean out your desk. You can pick up your final paycheck from Beverly in Payroll.
Please remember that this is nothing personal. We here at slashdot have a VERY high level of journalistic integrity and we feel that your innability to mesh with our team here is unnacceptable.
CmdrTaco, Hemos and the Slashdot Crew
So as long as I state it ahead of time I can charge a $50 unsolicited viewing fee for every advertisement broadcast to my television. Or for every piece of junk mail sent to my house (via post)? Or for every one of those little fliers I get under my windshield wiper when I park?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I cannot find the exact numbers, but i have seen before on slashdot posts in which ISP employees will detail exactly how much bandwidth, how much server performance, and how much time spent by salaried employees in administration, cleanup, and emailing abuse@ accounts costs just to deal with spam, and they are staggering.
What you have to realize is that what looks like seven or so emails in your mailbox is actually a hailstorm. Spammers don't just email people.. they do some kind of nasty stuff. They abuse misconfigurations and in the worst cases attempt to hack things; they fake return addresses, leaving abuse@yahoo.com to deal with the fact that several thousand people just got a piece of spam from what claimed to be "asdfaf@yahoo.com" when asdfaf@yahoo.com does not exist; they send screwy, difficult to deal with headers; they load down every machine in the routing path between them and your mailbox; they do things like bomb mail servers with dictionary attacks, attempting to email every word in the dictionary @yourdomain.tld. Some small percentage of those will hit valid accounts; most will just create horrible messes, waste resourses, and clog up processing queues.
Spam is a nightmare that you simply cannot understand the magnitude of unless you administrate a mail server. If the costs spam creates at the recieving and routing ends were paid by the spammers, spamming would be an effectively impossible to pay for enterprise.
I CANNOT stop or filter those emails about how you can "earn" your degree based on you life experience. Anybody had any success tracking them down/stopping them? I called the phone # on the email and left my name and cell phone # like the answering machine said in hopes of formally requesting removal from their mass emailer but callback yet.
MOROCCAN COCONUT CAKES
Yield: 1 1/2 Ibs. coconut fudge
You may want to make Moroccan Coconut Cakes, a delicious sweetmeat much like coconut fudge. They are easy to make and ideal to serve later in the evening after the Moroccan dinner.
In a 2-quart saucepan:
Combine: 2 cups GRATED COCONUT (moist, canned or fresh)
3/4 cup EVAPORATED MILK
2 cups SUGAR
Simmer gently to 238' or until a soft ball is formed in cold water.
Add: 1 oz. BUTTER and
2 Tbs. LEMON RIND.
Cool to room temperature in the pan.
Beat as you would fudge until thick and glossy.
Pour into a square (8 x 8-inch) pan lined with wax paper.
Chill and cut into 1-inch squares.
I've posted this before, but I couldn't agree more. I've never seen such hypocrites as I've seen slashdot posts about spammers. On one hand they're like, The goverment's taking away my rights! I can't play violent video games in public anymore! Oh the humanity! Then, the next moment it's, Oh help me Mr. Goverment Man, this spammer is bothering me, Waaahhhh....
The one thing people DONT GET, is this: The goverment could care less about taking away our rights, it's people like you trying to take away other people's rights, and it's people like christian conservatives trying to take away our rights (violent video games). It's NOT the goverment doing this. They're just following what the masses want. Ever time I see something I don't like that I would want a law against, I think, is there ANYTHING that other people don't like that I do, that I wouldn't want them to put a law against me?
And yes, there is a technical solution to every technical problem. For example, did you ever think about treating your email box like a mailling list treats its email box? Most mailling lists don't allow you to just blindly sign up and trust that the return address is correct. Likewise, if I'm interested in filtering and keeping only known people in my inbox, my inbox should automatically send a message to first time "posters"/emaillers to me and confirm that their email is correct, then allow all further email through to me. In the case of mailling lists where the return part is not a human, you could manually add an exception for that domain. All other mail is kept for 7 days, with a digest of the spam subjects per 24hours being sent to me so I can make exceptions if I need to before the mail is deleted.
It looks like Morrison and Foerster is suing on its own behalf rather than some other party, and that the spammer had continued to spam even after being warned.
:)
Oops. So when can we expect 1)spammers filtering to avoid spamming law firms, and 2)law firms offering e-mail aliasing to avoid the spamers?
nt
Actually, spam filters work quite well. Most filters can filter out 95% of all spam while throwing away about 1% of legitimate e-mails.
Filtering can be done based on the content of the message. For example, if the message includes the words "enlarge" and "penis" or "herbal viagara" it will be quickly classified as spam. This is done automatically using algorithms similar to those of search engines.
Also, legitimate e-mails could usually be easily detected: mailing list traffic is tirival, any message including a copy of your sig, your real name, names of people close to you or your place of work, etc. The automated tools take advantace of all this in filing your message.
To try it yourself, see ifile which does this for both spam filtering and folder classification.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
I think this would be better with $1/mail to a maximum of $100, because then they could do it in small claims court. The thing about spam is that individual ones aren't a problem; the problem is the total volume. If everybody takes a spammer to small claims court, the individual ones aren't a problem so much as the fact that the spammer will have to pay $5 to a ton of people on a number of occasions, which means that it's a pain to be a spammer.
Besides, it's a lot easier to say each email caused you $1 of damage, making you have a bad day overall, than it is to claim the each email caused you $50 of damage.
Plus, if someone works out exactly how you do the small claims suit, and publishes the information, it's easy for anyone who feels annoyed or wants to see how the legal system works or just has to go be the courthouse anyway, and the tactic of spamming everyone who hasn't tried suing anyone won't work.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather a lawyer have $25k than a spammer.
(even if they are just trying to make a profit from it)
I think it is very difficult to see what someone's motives are. It is even worse when the only way to penalize someone is monetarily.
Until someone does this successfully, spam will continue.
I just wonder what they might do with the money....
room101 -- how much can you stand before they break you?
(they always break you eventually)
Even if the US passed the most draconian email laws imaginable, it wouldn't make a dent. I know that personally most of the spam received orginates from Russia/Asia, and the legal entity sending it is an obscure, off-shore company. The Net has largely proven to be unregulateable, and probably will be for a while now. Legislation is largely useless, and by and large, ANY new laws attempting to govern the Net can bring no good.
if i want to sue all the companies who wont remove me from there spam lists how or who do i contact if i want to cash in on this?
Ave Molech Setting
Sue everybody you can? :D
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
Could this same idea be applied to actually suing slashdot for willfull destruction. For example if slashdots with it's thousands of readers had a big link to the lawyer's website that caused it to crash due to high load, could they turn around and sue. There is a solid history of websites being swamped by readers after following a link to the point in nearly every story in which it occurs, many people have to poin out a cache at some location (usuall google.com) and ask if slashdot could even provide their own cache. That history could demonstrate prior knowledge of the chances of damaging the web site just by the sheer display of the web link. A few years ago a local radion station hid several $100 bills in books at a local public library as a promotional thing to 'encourage' people to visit. What did not expect was the mob of people that rushed the dorrs tearing apart books in search for the free money. They ended up having to pay for several thousand dollars in damage to the property.
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
"Nice to see a lawyer doing something community-oriented for a change (even if they are just trying to make a profit from it)."
Are you guys serious? Okay SPAM is annoying but that company were talking about looks like a legit marketing company, acting under an official name, there's their adress, phone number and all the stuff.
There's a huge difference receiving an unforged UBE and recieving a russian porn spam with no return adress!!
Personnally, this FUD anti-spam buzz is soon to cost us our business (wich is a worker's cooperative, one of the rare "politically correct" company in Americas). This insanity gave us horrors like Spamcop (wich is nothing but a company that takes profit from SPAM). Worse, now we got blacklisted on Spamcop by concurrents for a single business offer with our full contact information on it.
The web is commercial in good parts. Spam is no worse that the tons of ads that you swallow each day. Spam is deletable. Spam may be annoying, but using it (or not) to spread FUD is even worse than recieving spam. What do you do when you recieve a commercial leaflet in your house's mailbox? You trash it, that's all. And will you go and complain to the postal office or worse, reclaim laws to bankrupt marketing companies? That's really really stupid.
Anti-spam is not community-oriented. Those who spread this "fear of UBE" are the same type of those like McAffee who spreaded the anti-virus hype everywhere. There businessmens and this has nothing to do with the community. Those lawyers acts for one cause: money! and they have nothing to do with you if your business is unable to pay their services.
Don't be confused! I hate forged SPAM as you do but I don't put all my eggs in the same basket as you do. It's time that you bright geeks gets a cue about who those anti-spam laws and measures are really hurting: legitimate businesses. As long as the internet will be this way, there will be no laws or systems stopping russian porn providers from filling up your mailbox. But on the other side, many of your employers will bankrupt because there afraid to do a marketing campain.
Think about it
Plus, spammers do have ways around filters. Base64 encoding, bogus html tags, and other tricks like spelling 'penis' like 'pen1s' or spelling 'viagra' as 'v-i-a-g-r-a'.
Michael Loves Me!
Oh, wait....
Go lawyers!
Really, it's great to see a law practice doing something positive online for once. I'm sure there are others, but they never seem to be mentioned in the press (and are no doubt outnumbered by the idiots suing over patents, linking, etc.).
Cheers,
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=valuehost+spam&h l=en&safe=off&start=10&sa=N
hmmm....
Public interest lawers have a lot more in common with your average Open Source programmer than you might think. It takes a pretty strong sense of values to give up 75% of your earning potential to work on the things that you think are "important to all of us", but there are lots of lawers who do just that.
-Mark
... by suing spammers.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Third time's the charm, right?
While I have enjoyed this story every time that is was posted...
1 Another Go At Making Spam Cost Money by timothy with 81 comments on Tuesday April 09, @04:23PM
2 Class Action Lawsuit Against Spammer by CmdrTaco with 299 comments on Friday March 15, @04:24PM
3 MoFo Sues Spammer by timothy with 17 comments on Thursday March 14, @07:36PM
...there's a lot of other spam news out there that we could be reading. Check out http://spam.abuse.net for a variety of exciting, spam-related news and information, such as:
RULINGS IN INTEL V. HAMIDI BULK-EMAIL CASE (California Supreme Court agrees to hear Intel V. Hamidi).
Or you could read this story again...whatever... =)
* * *
It is a dada story -- it has no moral.
john
Giving up 75% of your income to work excusively on projects you believe in for the public good? I'd say that's called putting your money where your mouth is.
-Mark
Ben Livingston is a WA man that rountinely takes spammers to small claims court...and, get this...actually wins consistenly.
Check out his site that includes court documents, a FAQ on how to successfully sue spammers, and his past/current cases.
A recipe Troll - you gotta love this one - register as a user and get an user name for this stuff - it's original unlike goatse.cx links and other crap and its usefull
First time slashdot has ever made me feel hungry (normally nausea is the reaction most commonly felt)
Or at least, since about 1997. For details, check out "Dennis Erlich", "alt.religion.scientology", any number of anti-scientology web sites, the official cult of scientology press releases, or the MoFo announcements.
o gy_secrets.txt
(Long story short: Dennis Erlich was sued by the cult of scientology for copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and probably everything else under the sun. MoFo took his case on a "not pro-bono, but we know we're going to lose money" basis.)
While you're at it, make sure you pick up your copy of the ScientologySuperDooperSecretSacredScriptures by asking MajorDomo, or using ftp://127.0.0.1/etc/top/secret/directory/scientol
Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
All spammers try to look legit. Who cares if they have a spiffy name and a phone number. Give me $100 and I can get a company name a box at MBE and a answering service, it does not mean that I am a 'legit marketing company'.
Personnally, this FUD anti-spam buzz is soon to cost us our business (wich is a worker's cooperative, one of the rare "politically correct" company in Americas). This insanity gave us horrors like Spamcop (wich is nothing but a company that takes profit from SPAM). Worse, now we got blacklisted on Spamcop by concurrents for a single business offer with our full contact information on it.
Awww. Did little spammer boy get his pee-pee wacked? Take the hint, no one wants your spam. If you bizness is going to go under because you can't spam, it most likely wasn't too good of a company in the fisrt place.
Don't be confused! I hate forged SPAM as you do but I don't put all my eggs in the same basket as you do. It's time that you bright geeks gets a cue about who those anti-spam laws and measures are really hurting: legitimate businesses. As long as the internet will be this way, there will be no laws or systems stopping russian porn providers from filling up your mailbox. But on the other side, many of your employers will bankrupt because there afraid to do a marketing campain.
Let me say again: If your company needs to spam to survive, it wasn't going to survive in the first place. Anti-spam laws only hurt spammers. I have yet to hear anyone cry this much about an anti-spam law that was not a spammer.
Michael Loves Me!
70a85 0f c001 F173z!
SPAMMERS are no better than thieves. They hide their identities because they know what they do is wrong! Many use stolen credit card numbers to set up drop email boxes and sites.
Maybe you think that if you rape a woman, it is ok because she can avoid you raping her another time by staying away from you.
Fight Spammers!
Suppose I ran a mail server, and got treated to a million spams for the tenth time, and decided, "Enough is enough". I could track the company down, and DoS their server.
Guess what? I'm the one who goes to jail. Even though what I've done is more or less the same as what they did, there are harsh laws about computer intrusion.
Either repeal all the laws and let us settle it like geeks, or start making laws against spam.
"The mofo's have deposed me." "MotherF**ker's"
FWIW, I'm not a lawywer; I'm a scientist (as you could find out by bothering to check my user info).
You miss the point, though. Lawyers are the result of people lacking common "sense" (I'd say common decency is more like it) not the cause. If all of the lawyers died tomorrow, there would still be people trying to weasel out of their promises and screw their neighbors. As my .sig points out, the problem is not slimy lawyers, it's slimy non-lawyers who hire lawyers to do their dirty work.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Thats volumehost NOT valuehost
(loercased to avoid lameness filter, newlines added for readibility
I'm seriously considering making my mail server display this. Comments on enforcability/improvements/loopholes?
If we're talking about the cost of bandwidth or hardware for receiving spam, I have no objections. What I'm objecting to is the notion that it's legitimate to charge a $50 fee for the time you spent reading the mail. The time I spend disposing of the other unsolicited junk is not billable, so I don't see why it should be different for spam.
Charging for actual costs incurred in the delivery of the email is another thing entirely, but does not even come close to approaching $50/message.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
spamgourmet.com is availble for free (with the code available open source) and arguably *even* more convenient, but I'm biased.
who's moderating the meta-moderators?
another chance to make mofo jokes!!
Thank you slashdot editors!!!
what do you think?
why?
Todd is the owner... I caught him sending a ton of spam to a bunch of my domains, traced down all their company info and there is nothing I can do about it. No lawyer will take the case unless I can prove at least $3000.00 damages. Any suggestions?
4 9318d4f44a23 a0ff844b17b2a8e4dz
e m.htm
If any of you would like to tell them how you feel about spam, here's their contact info.
DialCentric Inc.
3A Professional Park Dr.
Maryville, IL 62062
618-288-6661
Here's one of the pieces of proof:
SpamCop version 1.3.3 (c) Julian Haight, Joel Martin 1998-2002 All Rights Reserved
Saved email:
This page may be saved for future reference:
http://spamcop.net/sc?id=z35256178zd5
Parsing header:
Received: from vica.4nsys.co.kr ([210.112.61.2]) by linux.thoughtprocess.net (8.11.0/8.11.2/SuSE Linux 8.11.1-0.5) with SMTP id g3954C000481 for ; Tue, 9 Apr 2002 00:04:12 -0500
Possible spammer: 210.112.61.2
[show] "nslookup vica.4nsys.co.kr" (checking ip) ip = 210.112.61.2
Taking name from IP...
[show] "nslookup 210.112.61.2" (getting name) no name
Received line accepted
Received: from HEWLETT-A6C5B34 (unverified [24.242.162.14]) by vica.4nsys.co.kr (EMWAC SMTPRS 0.83) with SMTP id ; Tue, 09 Apr 2002 13:59:55 +0900
[show] "nslookup 210.112.61.2" (getting name) no name
Possible spammer: 24.242.162.14
Taking name from IP...
[show] "nslookup 24.242.162.14" (getting name) 24.242.162.14 = rrcs-sw-24-242-162-14.biz.rr.com
[show] "nslookup rrcs-sw-24-242-162-14.biz.rr.com" (checking ip) ip = 24.242.162.14
Chain test:vica.4nsys.co.kr =? vica.4nsys.co.kr
vica.4nsys.co.kr and vica.4nsys.co.kr have same hostname - chain verified
Possible relay:210.112.61.2
[show] "nslookup 2.61.112.210.relays.ordb.org." (checking ip) ip = 127.0.0.2
210.112.61.2 is an open relay - saving header for proof.
Received line accepted
Tracking message source:24.242.162.14:
[show] "nslookup 24.242.162.14" (getting name) 24.242.162.14 = rrcs-sw-24-242-162-14.biz.rr.com
[show] "nslookup rrcs-sw-24-242-162-14.biz.rr.com" (checking ip) ip = 24.242.162.14
Paranoid reverse DNS passes
abuse.net biz.rr.com = abuse@rr.com
Possible open relay: 210.112.61.2
[show] "nslookup 2.61.112.210.relays.ordb.org." (checking ip) ip = 127.0.0.2
[show] "nslookup 210.112.61.2" (getting name) no name
[show] "whois 210.112.61.2@whois.arin.net" (Getting contact from whois.arin.net)
Redirect to apnic:
[show] "whois 210.112.61.2@whois.apnic.net" (Getting contact from whois.apnic.net)
whois.apnic.net redirects to krnic
[show] "whois 210.112.61.2@whois.krnic.net" (Getting contact from whois.krnic.net) (old krnic) [show] "whois 210.112.61.2@whois.ripe.net" (Getting contact from whois.ripe.net)
[show] "whois IANA1-RIPE@whois.ripe.net" (Getting contact from whois.ripe.net)
nothing found
whois.ripe.net 210.112.61.2 = bitbucket@ripe.net
Whois found:
Falling back on IP addressing:postmaster@210.112.61.2
Reducing redundant links for 63.172.198.105
Found email address:l1l12345a1@btamail.net.cn
[show] "dig btamail.net.cn mx" (digging for mail exchanger) Found mailserver:btamail.net.cn. = 202.106.196.70
abuse.net btamail.net.cn = postmaster@btamail.net.cn, spam@btamail.net.cn
[show] "nslookup btamail.net.cn" (checking ip) ip = 202.106.196.70
abuse.net shortcut:postmaster@btamail.net.cn, spam@btamail.net.cn
spam@btamail.net.cn bounces (1 sent : 99 bounces)
Using spam#btamail.net.cn@devnull.spamcop.net for statistical tracking.
Found link:http://63.172.198.105/Fax%20Marketing%20Syst
Unescaped: http://63.172.198.105/Fax Marketing System.htm
[show] "nslookup 63.172.198.105" (getting name) no name
[show] "nslookup 63.172.198.105" (getting name) no name
[show] "nslookup 63.172.198.105" (getting name) no name
Tracking ip 63.172.198.105:
[show] "nslookup 63.172.198.105" (getting name) no name
Routing details for 63.172.198.105
[refresh/show] Cached whois for 63.172.198.105:noc@sprint.net
noc@sprint.net: abuse.net sprint.net = abuse@sprint.net
abuse.net sprint.net = abuse@sprint.net
Using best abuse.net reporting addresses:abuse@sprint.net
Whois found:abuse@sprint.net
Please make sure this email IS spam:
From: ecitnf311510@yahoo.com (e-mail & fax marketing programs 31151076543332222211111)
View full message
Report Spam to:
Re:210.112.61.2 (Administrator of network with open relays)
To: postmaster@210.112.61.2 (Notes)
Re:210.112.61.2 (Automated open-relay testing system(s))
To: Internal spamcop handling: (testrelays) (Notes)
Re:24.242.162.14 (Administrator of network where email originates)
To: abuse@rr.com (Notes)
Re:http://63.172.198.105/Fax Marketing System.htm (Administrator of network hosting website referenced in spam)
To: abuse@sprint.net (Notes)
Re:l1l12345a1@btamail.net.cn (Administrator of network hosting email address referenced in spam)
To: postmaster@btamail.net.cn (Notes)
To: spam#btamail.net.cn@devnull.spamcop.net (Notes)
Additional notes (optional - will be the first paragraph of standard report):
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Nice to see a lawyer doing something community-oriented for a change (even if they are just trying to make a profit from it).
When will people learn the end doesn't justify the means. Just see, I can't kill someone because he's irrating me.
Either you are, or you aren't! I don't want money, I just want to get my emails, for me!
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
I love these guys! *sob sob sob*
For doing something ethical and morally righteous?
Lawyers are not all evil because they charge money for their services when they can.
Right: Lawyers are all evil because they're evil.
"Nice to see a lawyer doing something community-oriented for a change (even if they are just trying to make a profit from it)."
I've seen some good comments on this thread, and normally I'd burn mod points modding some of them up, but I had to check in.
From my reading of the story, they're not doing this for community service, or to make a profit. You don't profit from a civil claim against someone; you receive compensation for damages incurred. From the way that things are explained, that's exactly what the California statute allows...a maximum of $25k/day recovery against a spammer.
Does the community at large benefit from this suit? Yes, of course it does. If MoFo gets a recovery, others will be prompted to seek recovery against spammers, since precident has been established.
Are they making a profit? No, I don't think so. They're expending capital to pursue the complaint (costs $$ just to file a complaint in most places, and since this isn't a simple case, there'll be quite a few man hours invested into research and discovery), and there's no guarantee that they'll recover anything at all. And that's already on top of the losses they contend they have incurred due to spam.
While I support people going after spammers, I have to question the price of $50 per email. It seems all the time there are people screaming over the price of cds or dvds or how much the RIAA and MPAA say they are losing/sue for. Now that someone is suing spammers for an equally ridiculous amount, where are these people? I think suing for inflated unreasonable damages is wrong, even when your suing spammers.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Wow. You figured that out all by yourself?
As a collective sigh of longing sounds over the internet the unthinkable has happened. The slashdot community has fallen in love with a law firm.
A little OT, but I feel like venting a little bit.
The type of spam that pisses me off the most is the misleading subject spam. I don't mind stuff like "PORN PORN PORN!" or "HOT SEXXXXXY LADIES!" because right away I know that's spam and press the magical Delete key, and it disappears. It;s the stuff who's subjects are "Re: Account Problems" or "Bank message" or stuff like that. I run a website that involves users, I have a bank account (not to mention I'm a college student, so it's usually close to empty) so these mails catch my eye.
Then I open it and it's like "PORN PORN PORN!" or "GET OUT OF DEBT N O W!!!!" and other bullshit spam like that. THOSE are the types of spam I report to ISPs, THOSE are the types of spam that piss me off the most.
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
In a related story [ http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/09/022224 6 ] (too lazy to link this, sorry) they talked about how people who were getting charged more for the abuse(or overuse) of using up a lot of bandwidth. I'll quote myself on this, but I think the possibilities are out there.
"Won't this be to our benefit? (the charging more for bandwidth) Esp. considering all the arguments that Spam eats up bandwidth and therefore costs the user money. Now can't we show directly how much spam is costing the average user? I'm talking about the average Joe Schmoe who knows two things about computers -- Jack and (well you know the other).
He'll get his bill and go "hey this spam 'hot teen XXX pr0n' is really costing me money" or each time he opens up hotmail he'll say "uh hmmmm, I'm getting billed a lot here for crap I don't want." Won't this make it more legally viable to stop the spam?"
My cocker spaniel is smarter than your honor student.
i_uncontitionally_agree_to_pay_one_cent_per_bit_in _this_message@cosand.org
Simple. I see Subject: Are You Getting the Best Rate on Your MORTGAGE? 10121 5K, I send a bill for $50.
But won't it be so much fun when the spammer gets pulled over for rolling through a stopsign on his way home and finds himself behind bars in the county jailhouse with no idea of how he got there?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
The alternative is regulating through code, but redefining the email standard so as to avoid SPAM would be problematic
Hey maybe you're actually on to something. That just helped me brainstorm a crazy idea that might involve a GOOD use of software patents!
Redefine the e-mail standard in such a way that is PATENTED. I'm sure someone could think of a way to do that.
Then, grant everyone a free license to use the patent EXCEPT spammers! Of course, come up with a fairly good definition of spam that would include sending bulk e-mail to people you have no prior relationship with.
Then, when a spammer uses the new standard, clearly violating the patent, they can have the crap sued out of them!
What do you think???
The reason that the law in Washington held up under appeals is because the law doesn't actually outlaw spam. What it outlaws is e-fraud. The subject line can not be misleading and the headers can not be forged or misleading.
Consider this. A couple of days ago, I received an email advertising renewmydomains.com. This domain has a whois record that is located in New York. The whois record does not have any identifiable info at all except for another domain name (globalinternic.com). When I checked the whois record, this domain has an address in Salem, OR. I wasn't sure who to sue, so I started checking for corporation records in OR and NY. Couldn't find any.
So in a last ditch effort, I went to both renewmydomains.com and globalinternic.com. Well, globalinternic.com seems to have been shut down for the most part. Renewmydomains.com is another story. Just out of curiosity, I tried to view the source on the page. I found out that the site was framed. Why would it be framed? Because the action is not to the same domain. It is to nudestardom.com.
This sounds like a porn name to me. It is also registered in CZ. Under these circumstances, how many of you would give up your credit card?
Anyways, there is no proof that there is a scam going on, but there is proof that they violated Washington State law.
That is what punitive damages are all about. The advertisers can not commit fraud without incurring costs. When the costs get high enough, the fraud will stop.
Beat as you would fudge
What? Beat until you fudge? Could you please clarify what you meant by this?
Surprised by Unicide! (fuck this shit)
Let me hijack this a bit please...
We recently installed Sendmail Server (from sendmail corp.) on our systems, along with the Switch and the mobile messaging server. We have 7500 users.
We moved to sendmail (from iplanet) because of 2 things, spam and support.
Yesterday, after continuing to get spam that I *thought* I had filtered, we learned that sendmails subject filter has a 2048 character limit (half taken by / chars, so an actual 1024 limit).
Sendmail corps. recommendation was to use either BrightMail or milter to 'fight spam'...
Does anyone have experience with either? Will milter allow me to have a flat text file that I can add subject lines to, to reject those messages?
Ideally, I would have a [reject "No spam accepted"] section that I could simply paste subject lines into, or even wildcards like "young hot teen".
Also, I have added spamcops rbl to my config, but as of yet, I don't notice a difference. Is it worth paying Maps? Is there a better way to get a current/valid rbl?
What's the answer guys? What do we do to protect our users?
Does it really so deeply trouble you that you have to see ads everywhere? For some people, this is how they find out about the products they want to buy. Advertising is not the fault behind consumerism (although it certainly encourages it). And unsolicited? If someone knocks on your door to tell you about a product, that's unsolicited. But if you buy a newspaper, magazine, or periodical, or if you turn on the TV, you should practically expect advertisements by now.
Welcome to life, buddy. Suck it up and deal with it.
Are you guys serious? Okay SPAM is annoying but that company were talking about looks like a legit marketing company, acting under an official name, there's their adress, phone number and all the stuff.
>All spammers try to look legit. Who cares if they have a spiffy name and a phone number. Give me $100 and I can get a company name a box at MBE and a answering service, it does not mean that I am a 'legit marketing company'.
False: check your inbox and I bet there's less than 1% of spam coming from any legit company.
Personnally, this FUD anti-spam buzz is soon to cost us our business (wich is a worker's cooperative, one of the rare "politically correct" company in Americas). This insanity gave us horrors like Spamcop (wich is nothing but a company that takes profit from SPAM). Worse, now we got blacklisted on Spamcop by concurrents for a single business offer with our full contact information on it.
>Awww. Did little spammer boy get his pee-pee wacked? Take the hint, no one wants your spam. If you bizness is going to go under because you can't spam, it most likely wasn't too good of a company in the fisrt place.
Yeah we're nasty evil spammers. I sent a mail personnally to a business to offer my services. This guy was a concurrent and decided to revenge using spamcop. It's not like we're an open relay. By the way, I'm whining because I followed every online marketing rules, tried to play honnest, and even used my main server's IP to do my business proposals. The next time, I'll highjack an open-relay and abuse. If you geeks can't make the best of two worlds, business and the freedom not to be anoyed by spam, you better stop talking about spam because all you're doing is pump up the potential for abuses.
Don't be confused! I hate forged SPAM as you do but I don't put all my eggs in the same basket as you do. It's time that you bright geeks gets a cue about who those anti-spam laws and measures are really hurting: legitimate businesses. As long as the internet will be this way, there will be no laws or systems stopping russian porn providers from filling up your mailbox. But on the other side, many of your employers will bankrupt because there afraid to do a marketing campain.
>Let me say again: If your company needs to spam to survive, it wasn't going to survive in the first place.
Yeah well I don't know ANY company who survived without it. Tell me one and I'll applaud.
> Anti-spam laws only hurt spammers. I have yet to hear anyone cry this much about an anti-spam law that was not a spammer.
Anti-spam laws hurts everyone that's doing business. And in general Internet laws restricts everyone's freedom evenly, genius. Except for Spamcop, there doing bigger business than any "spammer" I know.
75% of $120/hr is $30/hr which aint too shabby :)
As I mentioned, I get flyers under my windshield wipers, flyers at my door, junk mail in my mailbox, etc. If I can charge a "reading fee" for email, I don't see why I can't charge one for that too.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The list: lawyers who work for the ACLU fighting for civil rights, lawyers who work for NRDC trying to protect the environment, lawywers who work for the EFF, or PFAW, or any other public interest organization. Or all the lawers who work for the state, federal, and local government who try to keep corporations for running amuck. My wife works for the Massachusetts Office of Child Care Services trying to keep kids safe, and help parents find child care they can count on.
And for the record, the attorneys in her office make a lot closer to $20/hour. Care to figure out how long it takes to repay $60,000 in law school student loans at that rate (after you take out rent and food)?
There are thousands of lawyers who choose to work for the public good instead of their own greed. There are tens of thousands who go for the greed, but don't let that make you ignore the ones who Do The Right Thing.
I say this with the utmost respect to you as a human being (because I dont respect you for much else. - Kidding! Honest. =P). You seem to be suff'rin from what I think I'll name: elitist counterculturism.
... survey says! ... normal!; and are generally not going to respond with respect to anything written like that.
Basically, this is the idea that you've risen above general society and have a new and better view on all its faults and complications. So, ya go around posting like you're a particularly enlightened soul and can offer epiphanies to any passers-by. In reality... yer coming off lookin like a big dork at best, and an airhead at worst. =] No offense intended there, but ya gotta lighten up and talk about these issues without waxing poetic. Normal people are
Most people aren't oblivious to the problems of society - you're not doing anyone any favors by talking to them like they're unenlightened dullards. You've probably got some good ideas, but we cant really see em because of a huge brick wall: the way you try to deliver those ideas.