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)."

Comments

Mofo.

[Bonker]

These are either the coolest lawyers in the world or most clueless.

Spamming... a *law firm* ?

[Stonehand]

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? :)

Re:Spamming... a *law firm* ?

[edrugtrader]

hell, i'll pay for a spam free mofo.com email address!

Do you think that I can sue them...

[pinkpineapple]

...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.

Lawyersplotation Theme Song

[derrickh]

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

Hmm. Wonder why

[sharkey]

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?

And so the impossible happened

[Mordain]

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.

Repeat

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

This is a repeat. It hasn't been more than a month since this was last on Slashdot.

Re:Repeat

[d.valued]

I think I've mentioned this before as well.

Right now, I'm using my state's anti-spam laws to choke it off.

In Illinois, there is a civil penalty of $10 per offense as long as the server and the user are both in IL and you have never had a business relationship with the spammer.

So far, it has worked successfully on a couple spammers. Now, I found out one is based in Chicago.

At least it's easier to serve papers. :)

Sueing Slashdot

[cmdr_beeftaco]

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.

Re:Sueing Slashdot

[doooras]

The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Redundant (-1)

[akiy]

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/14/232722 7

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/15/195620 0

A quick search shows...

[thrillbert]

.. That Timothy posted the origial article.. maybe someone should lay off the booze before lunch? ;}

Original story here.

Re:A quick search shows...

[sharkey]

That Timothy posted the origial article.

OMG! CmdrTaco-ism IS CONTAGIOUS! Run like the wind timothy, before you start reposting the same story to the front page in a 15 minute time-span! Get out before you misspell every third word in your "editorial blurb"! Hurry before you get bitchslapped by the legal dept. and made to change your sexist posts about Cisco chicks!

Truth in Advertising

[Ellen Ripley]

Morrison and Foerster's URL is www.mofo.com.

B-),
Ellen

Re:Truth in Advertising

[reflexreaction]

I thought that was Jule's website (Samuel L. Jackson's in Pulp fiction). Oh I'm sorry, his website is www.badmofo.com

Re:Truth in Advertising

[Captain Large Face]

I think this URL was actually featured in the original WebPagesThatSuck book, as an example of extremely bad naming of domains...

lawyers

[drDugan]

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.

Re:lawyers

[poot_rootbeer]

I thought making profits was all lawyers ever did!

Let's see how your opinion of lawyers changes after someone wrongs you and you have to take them to court.

Lawyers are not all evil because they charge money for their services when they can.

Re:lawyers

[Suppafly]

Lawyers are not all evil because they charge money for their services when they can.

Yes they are. If you charge someone an unusually high amount of money for a service they need and only you or someone who charges even more can provide, you are taking advantage of them and are being a bad person in the process.

Anyone who charges more that $50 or so for their time, is not worth it and taking advantage of you.

Re:lawyers

[Suppafly]

$50 (an hour, I am assuming) is $100,000 gross a year. If you are an independent contractor, take 50% of the top for taxes, FICA/SS, matching FICA/SS, health insurance, business license.


Which is true, except most professionals that charge ungodly hourly rates charge you an hour everytime they have to do something.. in any given day, a lawyer will bill several more hours than they actually work.

Re:lawyers

[realdpk]

"Yes they are. If you charge someone an unusually high amount of money for a service they need and only you or someone who charges even more can provide, you are taking advantage of them and are being a bad person in the process."

You're welcome to go to (and pay for) law school and learn how to properly defend yourself/prosecute. You still won't have the experience more established have, but who knows, maybe after a few hundred cases, you'll have saved yourself a few bucks.

Re:Why is spam treated differently?

[Geekboy(Wizard)]

Case 1 can cost people money
Case 2 does not cost people money
Case 3 does not cost people money

(Indirect costs, such as increased garbage taxes don't count.)

Re:$50?

[cmdr_beeftaco]

Are you sure it not just that you are getting older and older???

Spam? Not here...

[carm$y$]

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...)

As much as I hate spam

[ConsumedByTV]

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.

Re:As much as I hate spam

[ltsmash]

There are plenty of laws that restrict people's cyber-freedoms for the benefit of corporations. Why can't the reverse be done?

Re:As much as I hate spam

[Bodrius]

We should treat SPAM differently because it can, and probably will, cost the end-user a lot of money when he ends up paying for bandwidth use.

When I get snail-mail spam (not in caps because it's slightly less evil) I may have the inconvenience of picking it up, and then throwing it away, but I don't pay postage.

Unfortunately, in the Internet the receiver, and everyone in the middle, also pays in resources, and since most users pay for their bandwidth indirectly (and will soon pay directly), it increases the cost of Internet for the consumer. The consumer is paying to read ads he doesn't want to read in the first place and that are not subsidizing any service, and that's not good.

Imagine if you were forced to accept collect-calls and every single tele-marketer in the nation took advantage of that.

The Internet may be self-policing, but we still reserve the right to prosecute for "real world crimes". If a website systematically uses my credit card information for identity/credit fraud, I want them to be legally prosecuted, "filtering them" (not buying from them and spreading the word) is not enough.

SPAM should be treated just like having someone stealing your cable connection, electricity, water or other utilities. There are real-world, monetary damages, which may be small or may accumulate to something significant over time, but either way it's not legal and there may be some penalties involved.

The alternative is regulating through code, but redefining the email standard so as to avoid SPAM would be problematic and (at least the solutions that come to mind) possibly raise some privacy issues.

Re:As much as I hate spam

[Pedrito]

There are many reasons to stop the spammers through legislation. People here have mentioned some good ones: Freeloaders using bandwidth and other people's mail servers. I have a friend who runs a small ISP in Mexico. Some spammer used his mail server (it was set for open relay) to send out a bunch of spam.

This guy didn't want to run an ISP. He had to. He had an internet cafe and the only ISP in town shutdown, so he bought them out so he could keep his internet cafe going, his only source of income. He's not real technical. Enough to run the cafe, but the ISP was a big hurdle for him. I'm just trying to explain the reason for the open relay.

Now, after this spammer used his open relay, his mail server (and all of his clients) suddenly became blacklisted, and he was unable to send ANY e-mail. He fixed the problem, but the incident cost him dearly.

So, there's another reason. Here's another: I have TONS of stuff filtering spam. I still get tons of it every day that doesn't get filtered. So I'm constantly adding new addresses and stuff to my filters. This takes my time, not a lot, but let's say a few minutes a day. My work time. Time I could be using to be more productive at my job. This hurts my company. Multiply that by everyone in the world who has e-mail, and you start to get an idea of the scope of productivity that's lost each day because of this crap.

What right do they have to use up the bandwidth and services we pay for? What right do they have to interefere with my productivity at work? If you can justify this and other issues that others have raised, you might have a case, but I doubt you'll be able to.

Re:As much as I hate spam

[curunir]

That means that people should not be able to fake their return address.

Agreed. But let's architect an email infrastructure that enforces this instead of passing legislation.

The multi-national nature of the internet means that the only laws that will truly be respected on the internet are ones that are technically mandated.

Re:As much as I hate spam

[ari{Dal}]

Unfortunately, there are a few (isolated) cases in which legislation would be nice.

Spamming is one of those cases, and here's why:

In any other advertising medium, from television to magazines to radio, the burden is on the advertiser to pay for the production of the ad, pay for the timeslot its played in. The medium through which we receive this ad (be it a radio station or whatever) sells space to the advertiser to balance out the cost of providing radio entertainment to the masses. If you don't want to hear that ad, you turn it off. It doesn't affect you.

Now, let's turn to spam. The creater of a spam email generally uses free/cheap/cracked software. At most they're shelling out for a cheap dialup, or using one of the many 'free AOL for a month' CDs to not pay anything at all. The spammer then routes that email for free through open relays to hide where the email is coming from to make it harder for people to track him/her, passing on the cost of the bandwidth they use to the ISP. The ISP, who has to pay for that bandwidth, isn't going to take it out of their own pockets (this is a capitalist society after all), they're going to pass the bill on to the consumer, resulting in fee increases.

The receiver of the email has no choice but to sort through email to delete it. We've all heard the argument that 'it only takes a few seconds to delete an email'. But what happens when you are deluged with hundreds of spam emails a day? Multiply that by 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and those seconds add up. Now, while some people might not think those few seconds are worth anything, I personally find it incredibly annoying when I have to take half an hour out of every week sorting through email to figure out what's crap and what isn't.

Filtering? Ok. as long as the spammer is kind enough to place a big "ADV" in the header. What about those that don't (which is the vast majority). How does one distinguish between a spammer and a friend who use re: your question as the subject?

One could go all the way and only those who you know to email you, but that doesn't really cut it if you're using email for business purposes (like I do).

If you follow these arguments to their conclusions, we can either a: track down each spammer in a sort of internet vigilante justice and disable them, which is illegal, time consuming, and wouldn't do a damn thing, or b: give those who are taken advantage of by spammers a lawful way to make these people pay for the bandwidth they suck up in their quest to bring penis enlargers and hot barely legal teens to the world.

Re:As much as I hate spam

[donglekey]

Because when I go to an internet cafe that costs money for time spent, or if someone has Time Warner cable, then that spam costs money, not just time.

Re:As much as I hate spam

[StevenMaurer]

Why should we treat SPAM differently than the rest of email?

Good question - easy answer. Spam is fraud. Spammers routinely "spoof" their messages, packets, and other information in their attempts to foist the costs of their advertisements onto other people. This is electronic fraud, plain and simple.

I'd have no problem at all with Spam if each message they sent was clearly marked as an unsolicited advertisement. That way I could tell my ISP whether I wanted it or not. But clearly they're not going to do that because most people do not care to accept such ads.

Re:As much as I hate spam

[elandal]

Self policing worked while the clueless people were the minority. Now they're a huge majority, and unless the minority is allowed to decide for the majority, it won't work.

Note that the same applies to most other things.. However, in democracy the majority gives the power to decide for them to a minority - parliament, congress, senate, president, and so on. And it'd be hard to prove that the clueless masses have given the academia the power to decide how internet should work.

This leads to one logical conclusion: the power to decide and enforce has been given to lawmakers, police force, and the courts. Thus, it's up to them to decide and enforce the code of conduct in the internet as seen by the clueless majority. And if the reasonable people don't agree, they're free to set up a new network which doesn't allow clueless people in.

For further reference, check out Abilene, Internet2, Geant, and so on. The academia is moving forward, leaving the old internet for the masses and setting up a new R&D/edunet.

mofo is like that

[joe094287523459087]

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 are idiots

[Amazing Quantum Man]

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).

Sometimes success!

[Fuzzums]

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 :)

I want to get an e-mail address with them.

[Unknown Poltroon]

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!!!

Re:I want to get an e-mail address with them.

[curunir]

Why would they pay you anything?

They could sell email addresses to people and make a fortune. How much would you pay for an SPAM-free email address @mofo.com?

on re ads

[drDugan]

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?

Re:on re ads

[fishebulb]

considering the majority of ads are used to pay for services. Tv would not be avail at the price your pay without ads, newspapers, magazines, the same.

last time i checked, spam was not reducing my internet fees, they are raising it due to the large amount of bandwidth that is being wasted, the ISP has to pay for how many megs of absolute crap a year that no one wanted in the first place

Re:on re ads

[drDugan]

I agree with you. Spam is a particulaly bad form of ads. However, if they were taxed and used to pay for my Internet service, they would simply fall into the bucket of all the other ads driven drivel out there.

My statements were a bit outside just spam on the Internet.

My point was that we are unwillingly forced to view ads by participating in daily life. The fact that they are used to pay for the service is important, but not essential. There could be lots of other ways to pay for services instead of progrmming masses to buy stuff.

Re:on re ads

[drDugan]

It will all stop when people realize
that the enveloping competition that fuels our
society ultimately makes life worse for most
people, not better.

Re:on re ads

[drDugan]

"""
I don't see the logic in your argument...what is an alternative that doesn't rely on the goodwill of anyone/everyone (one bad apple/sneaky business spoils that route) and also presents a marketplace that is free of censorship and prohibitive legislation?

Our system isn't perfect, but the solution is not to legislate our problems away, but to EDUCATE them away.

That sounds pretty hoakey, as well as extremely idealistic, but there's no other way. Our society is based on the idea that man is a rational animal striving for his (her) own best interest...treat people like this, and they will behave that way.
"""

your reasoning and assumptions are founded entirely within the current way that we live. If you continue to hold on to them, the conclusion "there is no other way" is inevitable. you have to think bigger.

I never wrote anything about legislating changes. I agree with you that education is first. What people need to realize when they are fixing problems and when they are fixing symptoms. Ads are symptoms. Consumerism is a symptom.

As for extreme idealism... Well. No one but extremists really do much in "today's world."

read my sig

-

Re:on re ads

[drDugan]

ok

take a minute and ask yourself seriously: does this make sense:
"""
When you see adds everywhere else, there is a
silent agreement: you see the adds but you get
some sort of compensation in return.
"""

I'm not disagreeing with what you are saying -- just asking people to think: does this tacit contract make sense? Would it not be be better to simply pay for things we want?

you have no choice to whom you enter this contract with.

you have no ability not to enter it.

in many cases, the motivation of the
advertiser (newpaper, tv, billboard owner) is not
to give you compensation, but simply to make
(er.. take) more money. NBC makes a sh!tload
on selling ads. That money goes to the
shareholders of NBC.

often, like in billboards and spam, you get zero compensation

ads promote behavior, that en masse, is unsustainable long term

Re:on re ads

[PD]

(your sig)

-jD
YOU ARE A CULTURAL SLAVE
[newslavery.org]

(end of your sig)

Hey, what is this, some kind of advertisement for a website or something? How the hell did THAT get there?

(BTW, check out my own ad for my website in my sig)

Ads are everywhere. Can't avoid them. They are free speech, so what you are objecting to is essentially having to listen to others. It's a lot of trouble to ignore people, true, but it's even more trouble to outlaw the transmission of ideas.

Spam laws collection, US States

[Seth Finkelstein]

If you'd like to join the fun, take a look at the collection of

Spam laws

Especially

Summary of US State spam laws

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Is it too much to ask?

[rgmoore]

Nice to see a lawyer doing something community-oriented for a change (even if they are just trying to make a profit from it)."

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.

Re:Is it too much to ask?

[jgerman]

s/expected/forced/

Seriously, in the same way that the auto insurance industry, (in MD at least) is forced to handle a portion of MAIF clients. I think the analogy holds both groups are money hungry greedy bastards.

Re:Is it too much to ask?

[kindbud]

But lawyers are the reason why the law is so complicated that people cannot defend themselves adequately without professional help from the lawyers.

How about doing some real community service and take on a case here and there that might get bad laws struck down? How about getting your bar association to support tort reform? Why not do something useful, instead of all this self-aggrandizement lawyers are famous for?

Re:Is it too much to ask?

[Artagel]

Yeah, and computer programmers are the reason computer programs cannot be used without going to professional training courses on how to use the program. :)

Complication has mostly arisen from the fact that somewhere a bias arose that the system attempt to genuinely reach the "right" result a very high percentage of the time, say 99%. Simpler rules would probably result in being right 90% of the time. As a people, so far, we haven't been willing to swallow that 9% difference.

Odds are even the really complicated system that aspires to 99%, is far less good than that, but the tweaks continue and continue. Take a look at the length of the US tax code as a function of time, and ask yourself -- is the tax code now 100 times better than a century ago? Is Microsoft Word 2000 that much better than Wordperfect 5.2? Is THE PHANTOM MENACE that much better a movie than CITIZEN KANE? I don't think any of the above, but the futile search for perfection through complexity continues.

So yeah, the law is bloatware. But what isn't these days?

Re:Is it too much to ask?

[kindbud]

Yeah, and computer programmers are the reason computer programs cannot be used without going to professional training courses on how to use the program. :)

I totally agree. I am constantly amazed at how unobvious and frustrating most computer interfaces still are, after all this time. Have you ever tried using Microsoft's online troubleshooting wizards? Absolutely pathetic. Gnome and KDE are no better, Aqua is merely shinier, but they are all the same clumsy drag-drop windowing paradigm. Bleh.

So yeah, the law is bloatware. But what isn't these days?

I was going to make a crack about your Mom, but decided not to.

Re:Is it too much to ask?

[eagl]

Yes, it IS too much to ask. The US has become a nation ruled by lawyers and a little verbal bashing is the best they can expect. From patenting hyperlinks through lawsuit "slamming" to frivolous civil suits, the lawyers are the only ones profiting and they continue to push for laws encouraging even more bullshit lawsuits.

The legal system in this country is directly contributing to people learning that they are not responsible for their actions and that if they are careless or stupid, all they have to do to feel better is sue the person or corporation that pointed it out. Not all lawyers are bloodsuckers but a great number of them ARE, and it's about damn time people realize it's OK to call a leech a leech.

Heinlein put "The year they killed the lawyers" into his future history for a good reason. People are a hell of a lot more polite to each other when there aren't any lawyers around egging them into a fight.

If saying that makes them feel bad, I don't give a damn any more than I feel sympathy for a rat on a sinking ship. Too many of them are just along for the ride and don't deserve any consideration at all.

Re:Is it too much to ask?

[Suppafly]

And just like most lawyers, most dentists charge excessively. Perhaps they do it because 90% of their clients get the majority of their bills paid by their employers insurance program, or maybe they charge so much because they know people will pay for it. Either way dentists are nearly as bad as lawyers in the way they take advantage of people who have no choice but to pay the fees. At least with the law, you can represent yourself with a little reading. You can't really give yourself a root canel.

Re:$50?

[joebp]

how do you prove in court that receiving a 5 kilobyte email message costs your company $50?

They don't have to prove anything. MoFo are providing what essentially is an unsolicited mail reading service for $50 a pop. They set their charge and (IAANAL) as long as they make their charges known before the offending spam is sent, they are able to seek payment from the offenders.

Eitherway, $50 for an lawyer to read/parse/delete/abuse@ a single UCE seems pretty reasonable to me. How much does an international lawyer firm charge per hour?

factual flaw

[jacobb]

I agree that it is somewhat difficult and unsavory to legislate the internet, it's not possible to filter out all spam. And even if you magically succeed in filtering, spam is a very significant portion of overall net bandwidth. Figures I have heard range from 5% to 15% (ignoring ridiculous >50% claims). This is of course because filtering is done by the end-user (or very close thereto), not relays.

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.

oh really?

[Trepidity]

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?

Filtering spam

[epsalon]

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.

Re:Filtering spam

[drDugan]

I have had similar results with filtering >95% sensitivity and specificity. I use both spam assassin and junkfilter in series.

I check my spam box 1/week. Its not really ther time -- its the distraction that gets me. when I am reading the spambox its easy. D D D D, hmm read, D D D D ...

Do small claims instead

[iabervon]

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.

Re:Do small claims instead

[kindbud]

You can sue in small claims, that is true.

You can win, in fact if the spammer fails to show you will win by default. That's usually the outcome you will be hoping for.

So now you have a judgement for $5.00. What do you think will happen next? Think the court will enforce the judgment? Think again. Think the court will garnish the spammer's wages? Think again. Small claims court has not the time nor the resources to enforce the judgments they render. You still have to run around with your piece of paper signed by the judge and try to get the system to enforce it. Eventually, after many months of trying, you might be able to get an arrest warrant for your spammer. Then you can begin trying to get the police to arrest him. How high on the list of priorities do you think warrants for delinquent $5 judgments stand?

Not very.

On the bright side, in states with anti-spam laws, you do not have to prove that spam has damaged you in order to prevail in court. The anti-spam laws generally make it easy to win your case, but they do nothing to help you enforce the judgment.

Re:Do small claims instead

[PsiPsiStar]

Considering how much lawyers charge, they could probably claim that $50 of their time was wasted just reading the title.

Re:Do small claims instead

[iabervon]

If it's easy enough to get the judgement, lots of people will get them. If someone has a thousand delinquent $5 judgements, it'll probably start to be a pain for them to deal with. It'd probably wreak their credit rating, and interfere with renewing their license.

Of course, you're unlikely to get your $5 if nobody else joins in. But if someone isn't bothering anyone but you, they're not really a spammer, anyway.

just for profit?

[room101]

(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....

Not a dent

[NineNine]

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.

Re:Not a dent

[PsiPsiStar]

But how hard would it be to block all offshore mailings?

Re:Not a dent

[NineNine]

Well, a previous /. article talked about sysadmins of by mail servers blackhole-ing Chinese servers that are open relays. It works... still, it seems like you'd be cutting off your nose to spite your face. You'd lose some potentially real email, too.

Is this the new .COM business model?

[ZaneMcAuley]

Sue everybody you can? :D

You jest, however....

[DiveX]

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.

Re:You jest, however....

[spike hay]

I'm I the only one who noticed this:
The San Francisco office of Morrison and Foerster, also known as MoFo
Sums up most law firms I know.

Seriously, I think it's great that somebody is finally going after those crooked spammers. I especialy hate the scams. Those are blatantly illeagal. I'm sure this shitty spam company sends out pyramid scheme scams and shit, so they could be sued for that, as well.
What we need is to have is a class action lawsuit against spammers on behalf of the people who fell for these scams. However, no matter what we do, there will always be spam. No way, no how, will we ever get rid of spam.

But in my special email account, the spike hay at charter dot net adress above, I never have gotten one spam. I just do a few simple things. When I have to give my email out to websites, I give them my hotmail account. But then if they are obviously going to use it to spam me, and they don't need to contact me, I give them a phony address and leave the little "Yes. I would like to recieve information about special offers from 3rd parties" box checked. I do this just to fsck up the spammer's mailing lists. I also set Opera to not accept 3rd party cookies, like DoubleClick. And I also run AdAware regularly. Some spyware can get your email.

Anyway, the golden rule for spam is to never, ever, ever, give out your email address. (except to colleagues, friends, family, of course)

BTW, could someone explain to me how on earth DoubleClick is legal? They never gave me a privacy statement. And, it violates the Children's Online Protection Act or whatever because they collect information about children uner 13.

Re:Why is spam treated differently?

[BiggestPOS]

Its like being a Puerto Rican, they are considered americans, but dont get to vote for the president, and arent real american citizens.

Well, except "public interest lawers"

[kriegsman]

Public interest lawers -- those working for civil rights, the environment, public policy agencies, etc -- are generally paid very little compared to (evil) corporate lawers. I know one public interest attorney (my wife) who makes approximately one quarter of what her law school classmates who went to work for large corporate law firms are making these days.

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

Re:Now only if I could sue yahoo for spam!

[SomeoneYouDontKnow]

So have you read the mail headers and determined that these spams indeed came from Yahoo or Hotmail? The From: address means nothing. The only thing you can trust are the headers. Most all of the spam that claims to come from these services is sent from somewhere else. Think about it. How long would it take to send 100,000 spams through a Web interface when you're limited to something like 25-50 addresses at a time? Not to mention that each and every one is going to be tagged with the spammer's computer's IP. Hotmail even uses a header called X-Originating-IP so you can't miss it.

If you want a good tutorial on how to read headers, go here. It's a bit dated, but it will give you a good foundation on what headers mean.

Make $1000s from the comfort of your own home!

[PsiPsiStar]

... by suing spammers.

How about a different spam story?

[jonesvery]

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... =)

Re:Why is spam treated differently?

[rahlquist]

When was the last time Pizza Hut put 140 door hanger flyers on your door knob in one day? When was the last time you had to buy extra gas just so your car could handle driving around with 140 flyers under the wiper? Different, no, just apples and oranges.

Except for professional "public interest" lawers..

[kriegsman]

Don't forget that there are lots and lots of lawers who only work on public interest cases (and who get paid diddley-squat to do it). Lawyers who go into public interest (as my wife did) seem make only about a quarter of the salary as their corporate counterparts.

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

Accounts of a WA man's spam suits

[marekk]

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.

Re:$50?

[www.sorehands.com]

The $50 is statutory damages. The law specifies this amount so that the court does not have to be bothered with determining the amount. But, it is not just the bandwith, but the cost of storage, processing, and reading.

Of course Intel argued in Intel v. Hamibi that there is also a cost in developing filters to prevent futher spam.

If they wanted to argue for more damages, they could, but then it would take testimony and expert witnesses.

Re:Why is spam treated differently?

[sharkey]

When was the last time Pizza Hut put 140 door hanger flyers on your door knob in one day?

Then charged you, with no way to decline the charge, the associated materials and printing costs for said hangers, and a surcharge to cover the paycheck of the kid hired to hang them. And put a return address of

• PapaJohn's
• 
  Yahoo.com
  Beijing, Vietnam 25840-2474

With a picture of a naked, supposedly underage teenager with a 92-HHHHH bust cramming a breadstick into $LOWER_ORIFICE.

Just shoot spammers.

[www.sorehands.com]

Maybe we should just shoot spammers.

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.

Re:Just shoot spammers.

[www.sorehands.com]

Many towns ban door to door solicitors. You can knock on my door, but not to solicit me.

SPAMMING uses my computing resources, disk space, and bandwidth.

If SPAMMING is legitimate, why don't spammers fully identify themselfs?

Welcome to my SMTP server!

[Yottabyte84]

[yotta@foo yotta]$ telnet localhost smtp
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.localdomain (127.0.0.1).
Escape character is '^]'.
220 foo ESMTP Postfix

senders of unsolicited bulk/commercial email to or through this system will
be billed at a rate of one cent (one one-hundredth of one dollar) per byte
of data with a ten dollar per message minimum to cover storage, bandwidth,
time and personal annoyance costs. such billing does not apply to personal
messages or double-opt-in (in which the user requests a subscription and
is sent a confirmation message that must be responded to before further
mailings take place) mailing lists. sending any data other then 'quit'
constitutes aggreement to the aforementioned terms.

heh, spam sux
502 Error: command not implemented
QUIT
221 Bye
Connection closed by foreign host.

(loercased to avoid lameness filter, newlines added for readibility

I'm seriously considering making my mail server display this. Comments on enforcability/improvements/loopholes?

Re:Welcome to my SMTP server!

[arivanov]

Some mailing software dislikes multiline responces in SMTP. I suggest you put a URL to it in a single line responce.

Re:Welcome to my SMTP server!

[Yottabyte84]

It's edited for readability. I can't figure out how to make pstfix do multiline stuff anyway.

different issue

[Trepidity]

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.

I have a spammers info and I can't stop him!

[Mustang Matt]

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?

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=z35256178zd54 9318d4f44a23 a0ff844b17b2a8e4dz

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%20Syste m.htm
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):

Re:I have a spammers info and I can't stop him!

[Suppafly]

sue them yourself in small claims court.. it usually only cost $100 or less and if they don't have a local lawyer or business rep come and represent them in court, you automatically win.

Won't they be disbarred...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

For doing something ethical and morally righteous?

50 dollars per email??

[dirk]

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.

Re:50 dollars per email??

[elflord]

There's a notion of punitive damages. Basically, for suits to be a disincentive to spam, it needs to cost the spammer enough that they lose on average. In other words, unless they get taken to court 100% of the time, by 100% of the recipients, the penalty should exceed compensation. I'm OK about this suit, because the fact is that the firm probably can't and don't sue all spammers, and probably don't make a lot of money on spam overall.

Re:50 dollars per email??

[dirk]

Punitive damages are given by the court. They are a decision of the court. These people are actually suing for $50 an email, which means they claim that is what cost each email had to them. This is just an absurd number. If they were suing for even $5 an email (which is still outrageously high) I could at least support it (and the court may well decide to give punitive damages). But there is no way on god's green earth that each email cost them $50. This is no different than the businesses that get their webpages defaced and claim it costs them a million dollars to fix the damages. It's just an outrageous claim hoping to make money without any actual work involved.

Re:Why is spam treated differently?

[hoover10001]

The most annoying thing that I receive is 4-5 cold sales calls a day. I have to screen all my calls now, just to get past the sales people selling me the latest and greatest technical infrastructure, or assembly language programmer, or hosting service in bora bora. STOP COLD CALLING!!!! Brian

Re:up to $25k

[EvilStein]

Has precedence actually been set yet? I don't recall any cases where someone in CA used those spam laws and actually won. I hope MoFo wins, personally...

my new email address

[cosyne]

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.

Arrest Warrant

[gnovos]

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?

Redefining the e-mail standard and PATENTS

[Micah]

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???

Re:Redefining the e-mail standard and PATENTS

[Bodrius]

It would be relatively difficult to redesign the email protocol and get everyone in the bandwagon at this point. Redesigning it so as to get something new to be patented would be more problematic.

Of course, there is the big problem of prior art. I know this would be a "bad patent" on purpose, but "bad patents" without a lot of money behind them tend to be recognized as "bad" more quickly than is usual.

On the other hand, if you're willing to ignore the issues of prior art and take your chances, why not patent spam itself too? That way you get to sue spammers for patent infringement, not the violation of a license (which, without "damages", is likely to be resolved by revocation of the license, something corporate entities can play with easily).

Re:Why is spam treated differently?

[arivanov]

Once upon a time they did.

Once upon a time Internet was charged per bytes trasnferred + per additional service almost everywhere.Usually there were some discounts for local services but this was the general rule of thumb - you pay what you eat. No buffet lunches.

After that the telcos came. The billing on the basis of 7-8 factors did not fit neither their mentality, nor their exitsing billing systems. So they started billing based on minutes. Later, when services like DSL and cable came along the minutes became meaningless so the pricing became flat.

So yes SPAM can and will disappear. All it takes is to reintroduce usage based billing on residential broadband along. This will also resolve the problems of piracy once and for all. Use can remain at roughly the same price or even become cheaper then now. Abuse will become prohibitively expensive.

OffTopic (kinda)

[pipeb0mb]

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?

Re:Get a Grip - Re:on re ads

[drDugan]

"""
... if you buy a newspaper, magazine, or periodical, or if you turn on the TV, you should practically expect advertisements by now.
"""
I agree completely with this statement. That is exactly my point. It doesn't make much sense. ... and just because its the norm, and I should expect it, doesn't mean I asked for or wanted it.

--

"""
Welcome to life, buddy. Suck it up and deal with it.
"""
I like to call this the mantra of futility. It is said by people who are unwilling to really think about the roblems in our society; the unassailable. It typically appears close in conversation to the mantra of escape , or the deserted island suggestion.

Following this advice perpetuates many of the problems I see in the world.

unsolicited non-electronic junk

[Trepidity]

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.

Re:Why is spam treated differently?

[Reziac]

If you respond with "I'm SUPPOSED to be on your do-not-call list" they'll about pee themselves apologizing and hanging up, since the opt-out laws on phone soliciting have legal teeth (read: can cost them big federal fines) -- and after doing this a few times, all the human-generated calls, and most of the automated calls will stop. Most telemarketers call from the same master lists, so getting off one list usually takes you off most or all of them.

This is effectively the same principle, tho much easier to apply, as "You keep spamming me, and I'll see to it you get fined" which this mofo.com law firm is doing. Hooray for them!

Re:up to $25k

[Reziac]

Earthlink won a $2 million judgment against a spammer, tho I doubt they collected any cash. Details of the case are buried somewhere on ELN's site.