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Gotcha! DNS Popup Scammer Fined $1.9 Million
Mister B writes: "A scam artist who trapped surfers mistyping their URLs (including those for children's websites) and barraged them with popup ads for pr0n and gambling has been busted to the tune of about $2 million. Apparently the FTC got ticked after having to close 64 separate browser windows! The FTC has a sense of humour nevertheless: the case name is 'Cupcake Party' (the scammer did business under 'Cupcake') :-) . More details at MSNBC and the FTC."
The court also has barred the defendant from participating in advertising affiliate programs on the Internet, and has ordered him to give up more than $1.8 million in ill-gotten gains.
People like this will always keep doing shit like this as long as there are enough morons out there to manage to give this dude $1.8 million.
Come on people, wake up.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
Justice servced? I don't think so.
I was hoping to read it as 2 million lashes. Except these lashes wouldn't be served automatically by a script, but administered by real people who just don't like spam.
How about because it is illegal showing pornography to children under 18? There were porn pop ups on websites that children mistyped. You have to ask if the person is 18 before you can show them that content.
blog & fiction: jd87
Just wait until the FTC goes surfing for warez. Maybe they'll shut the bogus warez sites down as well and we'll finally be able to download Microsoft Bob by doing a search on Google.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
This website pops up 64 popups every time you visit it. Which is likely to be once, after you realize your mistake, you won't come back.
This is considered criminal behavior. But what about companies like X10 or Casino-On-Net that you see about 30 ads an hour for, every time you try to use the web? In the end it is those companies that make you close more ad windows. I think that those are far more guilty. What about the pr0n ads that won't let you use the back button to leave, and if you try to close the window, they re-open themselves? I shudder to think how many thousands of popups from those companies I've closed in my lifetime.
Of course, it's the browsers themselves that are allowing these popups to happen. I would bet that companies like Doubleclick are paying M$ and Netscape not to develop protection from popups within their browsers. But I'm a conspiracy theorist.
-Evan
Since when does people who can't spell count as a design flaw?
Well if you are a 10 year old walking down the street, find a VHS tape labeled "Scooby Doo Cartoon," take it, then watch it, you have just stolen something which is a crime.
And, what do you think, these 10 year old kids know what JavaScript is? Even what "pop-ups" really are? Give me a break, the majority of the people who get these popups don't know a thing about computers, HTML, JavaScript, popups, or even the Internet in general.
blog & fiction: jd87
From the article: FTC investigators said Zuccarini makes from $800,000 to $1 million per year by charging advertisers whose ads appear on the browser windows.
In this case the advertisers are getting screwed more than the poor sap who fat-fingered the URL. My question is "Do companies who advertise on the web have any control over how their ads are used?" Cupcake is getting paid by the popup and is really sticking to these advertisers and even moreso because the ads aren't really reaching a target market. I would think the advertisers have more to lose than the person browsing. With that in mind, how hard would it be to script a browser to feed off these popups by creating false hits and start bankrupting advertisers who really don't care how their ads are used.
'Same speed C but faster'
Or write something yourself, yeesh. There are solutions. Life is not a conspiracy theory.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Here are some of the scammed domains they are talking about
http://www.caroonnetwork.com
http://www.cartoo
http://www.artoonnetwork.com
http://
http://www.cartoonnetork.co
http://www.cartoonnetwrk.com
http://www.catoon
http://www.cartoonnetwok.com
[alk]
What's funny is that MSNBCs website actually pops up an ad when you go to that URL ;)
Rather ironic.
Cor
I'm glad only a few people use browser's that block pop-ups. If everyone blocked pop-ups, then advertisers would just use harder to get around schemes, such as putting the content of the page in the pop-up and the ad in the page your browser goes to, or larger ads in the page.
Slashdot knows a lot of their users block pop-ups so they put their ads on the pages they serve, plus they serve them from images.slashdot.org so that people can't block it on their hosts file.
As long as only a small percentage of people block pop-ups and use hosts files I can surf the internet without seeing X-10 ads ever, so you should tell people that they shouldn't block pop-ups and that it hampers their web surfing experience.
Cupcake's lawyer: "Good news, Cupcake. I just got back from a meeting with the prosecution.
Cupcake: Ok, and what did they say? I'm anxious to know just how bad off I am. Fill me in."
Cupcake's Lawyer: Sure thing. Here's the deal -- The have decided to SEE HOT CHIXXX WITH YOUR NEW X10 CAMERA!!! FREE!!!!!!!!! HOT!!! FREE!!
Cupcake: Yeah, very funny. Now get serious, i'm paying you by the hour. What happened at the meeting?
Cupcake's Lawyer: "HOT!!! HOT NOW!!!! FREE HOT!!! NOW FREE!!!! NOW FREE HOT!!! "
Cupcake: "Stop it!!"
Cupcake's Lawyer: "So, we're not going to have to worry about the fact that the judicial process in these sorts of matters can tend to take HOT XXX HORNY SLUTS!!!!! "
Cupcake: "STOP!!!!"
Cupcake's Lawyer: "HOT!!! HOT HOT FREE HOT NOW!!!! NOW!!! NOW!!!!!!!! FREE NOW!!!! so, you wont be going anywhere for a while. In the meantime, i've asked the presiding judge to look into the prosecutions CASINO ON-NET!!!!!!"
Cupcake: "STOP!! STOP IT!!! JUST STOP IT!!!! NOW!!"
Cupcake's Lawyer: "HOT!!! HOT FREE XXX!!!! XXX NOW!!!! XXX NOW FREE!!!! FREE!!! HOT CASINO!!! HOT CASINO FREE!!!!!!!!!! FREE HOT XXX NEW CASINO!!!! FREE CASINO!!!, so gimmie a call when you decide what to do, and we can go from there. Talk to ya HOT!!!! XXX!!!! FREE HOT!!! then."
Cupcake: But wait a minute! You havent told me......
Cupcake's Lawyer: "HOT!!!!!!!!! HOT XXX CASINO!!! FREE CASINO HOT!!!"
Cupcake: "But!.... But wait!! Dont go yet! You havent..."
Cupcake's Lawyer: "HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Bowie J. Poag
No, i'm sorry but i don't see the crime here. Sure the guy is a complete f*cking asshole, but thats still legal (unfortunately, as there are many many assholes around). If you type in the wrong url, thats your fault. If he was spoofing other sites or using they're graphics, thats a copyright issue. But opening pop-ups no matter how many is the fault of the browser.. and seeing as most people use IE, its Microsofts fault, just like with vbs virii (funny how its always their fault)
"Victims of the scam should contact the commission"
What victims??!? the stupid users who used stupid browsers that have bad security? (yes pop-ups are a security issue when they start eating your resources). What about the stupid advertising companies? he was in breach of their contract, they should have cancelled it.
Apparently the FTC got ticked after having to close 64 separate browser windows! - judging by the use of the word "task bar" lets assume he was using MS Windows
Well thats what you get when you use MS windows and IE. I would be pretty ticked too, but not at the site, at the appalling software design of Microsoft who hand the responsibility off saying "ohhh trusted system" no it isn't, its simple. Don't let sites spawn 100's of windows with your browser. Put in the necessary function to filter this, let the user say yes or no, let them close all the spawned windows at once, make the browser scan the script for this stuff. stupid developers.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
...you should be punished to a VERY VERY high degree and with severe criminal penalties.
It is inexcusable for people to be able to perpetrate such fraud and deception against people and expect to get away with it through denial and clandestine methods.
He KNOWS he was doing something wrong and took extensive measures to hide himself from prosecution. These are not mistakes. These are not errors of judgement. These are not crimes of passion nor momentary lapses of reason. This is an evil bastard who, without remorse wanted to turn a buck at everyone's expense.
People who unintentionally kill someone are more severely punished than this malicious person. It just seems to me that people don't "hate" crime enough to care about really addressing the problem.
And it's also sad that with the millions of complaints by millions of citizens (and consumers) that it takes some annoyed government official to really get the ball rolling to address the problem of scum on the internet.
So the message is that it's okay to piss off anyone except the people who can personally do something about it. The government doesn't represent the people any more... the government just represent themselves for their own purposes.
A few weeks ago, my boss' 8-yr-old daughter was at school, in the computer lab. She went to go to Yahoo's kid site, Yahooligans, but mistyped it - www.yahooligons.com. She got the porn ad page. So, to her credit, she backed out. To her ANTI-credit, though, she went back, called a friend over to check it out. I can imagine this girl going "Look! BOOBIES!" *laugh*. Another nearby kid saw this, and told a teacher. The principal wanted to suspend her for a week - the parents (who rushed to the school when they heard about this) managed to talk them down to a day.
A couple of days later, I start sniffing around WHOIS records, and whose name do I find attached to the domain? John Zuccarini.
Glad to see this scumbag getting what he deserves.
The first illegality is trademark infringement. The defendant, in many cases, used registered trademarks of companies in order to bombard people who attempted to visit a web site related to a product that they owned or were considering the purchase of. He had already lost 200 such sites through court cases.
The next illegality is the use of malicious code to bombard people with pop-up windows when they did things as innocuous as hit the back button. Many people were reduced to restarting their computer to escape from the mess that the defendant created. Exploiting a weakness in a computer, whether to spread a worm or pop up dozens of unwanted windows, is illegal.
It is illegal to display porn to children. That's why porn sites have an "I-am-over-18" button (so I am told). The defendant's web sites had no such protections.
Finally, "typosquatting" is illegal. The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act became law in November of 1999 and made it illegal for a person to register or use, with a "bad faith" intent to profit from, an Internet domain name that is "identical or confusingly similar" to the distinctive or famous trademark or Internet domain name of another person or company. No one should know that better than John Zuccarini, against whom the third district court upheld that law in a decision rendered in June of 2001.
On a side note, I spoke to John Zuccarini (the defendant) about a year ago. I tracked down his phone number after being pissed off about being hit by his scam when I typed in a URL in the form of "www.{product name}.com". I informed him that the URL contained a registered trademark. He was a rude asshole and I am just sorry that he's being fined rather than jailed.
Yeah, and if you are 10 year old walking down the street and find a VHS tape labeled "Scooby Doo Cartoon"
Actually, The trademark owners have a good case against whoever made the tape if it was for commercial gain. The FTC has a good case for fraud if the confusion was deliberate. The parents and DA have a good case since if they can show that the tape's maker was aware that children would likely find the tapes and watch them.
Then, there's the fact that a mechanism in the browser is being knowingly misused to prevent the user from simply clicking back or close to rid themselves of the offending material. For your analogy, the tape would have to be somehow rigged to disable stop, eject and power off on the VCR as well.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I just find the precedent that someone gets fined $1.8M for having domains that are kind of similar to the domains that some big companies have scary. A figure that large seems to come out of thin air. I mean, who got harmed? The advertisers got their money's worth, and no kid is going to confuse the product of "cartoonnetwork.com" with a bunch of big breasted women.
Particularly chilling is that WIPO considered registration of "guinesssucks.com" a trademark violation in his case (trademarks are only intended to identify a specific product; they are not intended to let trademark owners control what people say about the product).
I think this is a dangerous threat to free speech. Sure, this particular guy isn't particularly nice. But what if you or I want to create a web site "sony-service-sucks.com", where we exchange grievances about Sony service and perhaps organize a class action lawsuit? What if your domain name happens to be confusingly similar to someone's trademark and they don't consider your business legitimate and have the legal dollars to "prove" it?
Trademark holders are trying to expand their right from being able to merely control that a trademark refers without confusion to their product to a right of complete control of who uses the trademark under what circumstances in any domain, and to prohibit any kind of negative speech about their product. And they are succeeding. That should worry us all.
That's precisely the problem, people out there really do call Miss Cleo, buy "make my penis 25% larger" products etc... These schemes are nothing but looting of dumb people.
Just because there is no shortage of dumb people, I don't think we all have to resign ourselves to death by porn spam. Maybe this actually exists, but I'd like to see some online division at the FBI or FTC which aggressively goes after SPAM groups which don't honor remove requests, and scams designed just to take people's money. I'd really like to see Miss Cleo, fake human growth hormone pseudoscience, etc.... all put out of business. I wonder what percent of the American economy is just bs scams.
This may be an impossible problem, given it's global nature, but there is so much **** just in the US, there's plenty that could be done.
Now, please correct me if necessary, but I thought that the only way to infringe on a trademark, even a registered one, was to use that name, or something confusingly similar, to compete against me in the same trade domain. Unless I am in the porn industry, and have registered my trademark in that domain, I don't think my trademark is being infinged.
Similarly, you could create a new line of network switches called 'Matrix', and Toyota (or AOL-TW) couldn't do anything about it. You could create a new clear softdrink and call it 'Windows', and Microsoft couldn't dispute it. You could even register those words as trademarks. No infringement.
Perhaps, being the capitalist person I am, I would consider my best course of action to be to offer Mr. Zuccarini enough money to sell me cicadia.com. My solid belief in capitalist economic principles suggests to me that there must be some amount I could offer which would be more than he would expect to gain by keeping the domain to himself, and he would sell it to me.
Living better through chemicals
You mean like DVDs that dont let you stop, eject, fast forward, or anything else while they display 5 minutes of fucking bullshit warnings ?
Sometimes i just shut the DVD player off, because thats the only permitted operation. Does _anyone_ make a DVD player that doesn't suffer from this complete bullshit ? It is _ridiculous_ that the DVD spec seems to include the ability to say "you cannot fast forward this".
Maybe Apex or someone lets me retain control of my own property. Anyone know ?
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Lets trace back the process of images being shown to the minor from this site.
Notice that nowhere in this chain of responsibility do we see the website owner. If I own a porn site called http://qwerty.com/ (not actually a porn site), and some child decides to type some characters on the keyboard when unattended, it's only the parents' responsibility.
So, why regulate misspellings and not all short names? It's better to make sure parents understand that the Internet is not "safe" for children (if they see viewing porn as an unsafe activity for children, which I don't).
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Beautiful.....a new form of slashdotting.
"Jeez, I've been answering this phone for the last five hours and it's nothing but a buncha pissed off geeks looking for some zuchinni fellow."
*Ahem*
There are a gazillion exceptions (think child pornography, nazi propaganda, copyright...) I hate to break it to you, but the world isn't black and white. There are exceptions to every rule, even this one.
Besides, pretending like there is some profound ideological difference between a) fining this man for using pop-ups and b) removing the means for this man to use pop-ups is just plain silly.
But this rant is pointless, since the obvious point of course is this: this has nothing to do with free speech. It has to do with the medium he uses to convey his "message." He is entitled to say "FREE XXX PORN!! HORNY XXX SLUTS!!" all he wants, he just can't do it this way. Very much like someone can't be allowed to go to a schoolyard where 7-year olds are playing and start screaming "HORNY TEENAGE SLUTS."
Were this not moderated to 5 it would not be worthy of a reply. Actually, it isn't now either. I should have modded you to hell instead of writing this tedious rant.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
I use Opera, and I am not familiar with these "pop-up windows" of which you speak.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.