Slashdot Mirror
Australian Spammer Sues Back
Vilorman writes: "We've all heard the one about the spammers begin sued. Now, an Ausie spammer is suing back, for being blacklisted. Claiming damages and equipment replacement costs and so on. The whole article is over at Yahoo. So, I guess now, not only are we subjected to the spam, but we can't block it either?"
spammers sue their victims for angry replies, claiming emotional damage.
Oops!
Ok, find the email address of the Judge and of his staff and get it on every spamlist you know of. Ditto once we know who the jurors are.
Spammers are the only reason the death penalty has a place in our judicial system.
how the heck does replacing equipment that factor in? I can understand where they're coming from in terms of damages, but replacing equipment? Isnt it just a configuration flag or something in the mail relay?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
...A robber once successfully sued a homeowner because he fell out of a window and broke his leg while escaping after a heist.
This is bullshit. Spam is theft. Spammers steal the use of bandwidth, machine use, and disk space from ISPs and users. Any court who even thinks twice about letting this go to trial will be so caught up in legal technicalities that it won't hear *any* trial fairly.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
He was in Chicago last time, wasn't he?
Even spammers should be innocent until proven guilty. That's only fair, after all.
Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
augment your senses: http://sensebridge.net/
The article, and quotes in the article, both call the case a "first".
Didn't ORBS get sued?
So, is filtering spam to /dev/null along the same lines?
This company doesn't have a snowball's chance because we have a fair and reasonable judicial system.
Right?
--
pants ahoy
I do not care if you have a business, there are too many ways for you to advertise already, you do not have to require the entire world to listen to your sales pitch.
The RBL and similar are volunteer organizations, there is no requirement for them to be used by anyone or any company. This is not even an issue because people are only securing their own networks from overloaded mail traffic. If this gentleman wants to solicit, it would be better to start a page for the company and then go looking for handshakes to put his banner on other pages, if he uses that, then people expect to get ads. Forcing his way into your personal mailbox is not a right in any country that I'm aware of.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
RTFA
They are suing because they had to get new servers and internet connections because a blacklist site posted their IP so thousands of people could block their spam. They are suing because to get around people blocking them, they had to get new IP addresses.
An IT professional whose lifeblood depends on amassing lists of valid e-mail addresses?
That makes you, what? A spammer? Or a marketer?
It doesn't make you a "professional," in my book.
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
I'm always telling my employer that if he isn't carefull we will get blacklisted, sense we are ridding a "grey line" with our mailings. I'm just waiting for the day I can tell him "I told you so". Now that he purchased an email farming program I be that day will come sooner than later.
Why I love spam
Damn, I think I'd punch that guy in the face.
A message from the system administrator: 'I've upped my priority. Now up yours.'
I think SPEWS deserves this lawsuit. Even though they are a real marketing company, they can set a precedent that allows individuals who really were censored by these flawed anti-spam solutions to air their grievances in a court of law. Bravo, T3 Marketing.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
I'm usually an extreme free speech advocate. I've even been known to argue for the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. That said, free speech gives you the right to speak, not the right to force someone to hear you, and certainly not the right to force someone else to bear the cost of publication. The newspaper editor doesn't have to pay to publish your letter, Rob Malda and andover.net don't have to pay to let you post your comment, and I don't have to pay to download your spam. And free speech also means the other guy has a right to say, "Don't listen to this guy; he's a knucklehead." (or "don't accept IP traffic from this host, it's a spammer")
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Yeah, if you can get sued just for claiming that a well-known spammer is spammer, this will be a blockbuster in courthouses over the world...
I can already see the next generation of spam... "Make $$$$$$$$ free!!!! Sue anti-spammers!!!! "
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
I noticed you did not mention the type of business you are in. I would not and will not jump to the conclusion that you are one of the evil spammers... but you could see how one could reach that conclusion, no? What does your company do?
I can certainly make the argument that spammers waste people's time in a BIG way, I don't know if spam can damage equipment but all the extra traffic isn't helping anything. According to you, this pretty much constitutes a violation of rights (I dont know how you came up with that one), so I think spammers need to pay the price
Even if you are an evil spammer, I don't think its ethically wrong (if you can make a legal buck, more power to you), but you can't expect the world to sit back and take it either. Becaust they (we) wont.
If that estimate they gave for "loss of income" for 20 days is justifiable (which of course, it may not be), it is likely that SPAM is NEVER going away.
Not if you can recur the cost for a good SPAM server w/in the first week of operations.
However, those numbers are probably bloated, and this is all speculation. But still, the fact that they can *still* make money off of SPAM indicates a greater problem than just the inconvenience of unwanted mail in your mailbox. It means lots of people are paying attention, and spending money, and supporting the whole system.
$7,907 (AU$14,000) for replacing blocked or compromised IP numbers, $2,683 (AU$4,750) for labor costs of technicians to establish an alternative e-mail system, $2,824 (AU$5,000) to purchase a new server computer and $11,296 (AU$20,000) for loss of income it claims to have incurred over a 20-day waiting period
hmm last I knew it didn't cost $8k to get a new ip?!?! technicians?!? for what changing an ip on a server, nevermind about buying a new server, and if their isp takes 20 days to issue a new ip, they should be sueing their isp! I've worked at a company that got blackballed for relaying mail way back when spammers just started bouncing mail around, once we discovered the problem it was literally, turn off relaying - 5 minutes(max), get new ip from isp - one phone call (about 10 minutes), reassign ip and reboot server - 10 minutes. This is a ton of horsecrap, nevermind the fact that they're stealling people's bandwidth for sending unsolicited unwanted e-mail, I pay for it and get your crap off of it!!
Good things never end "eum" they end in "MANIA" or "teria"
The official web site of the defence is at http://t3-v-mcnicol.ilaw.com.au/ (Mirror). There are also plans to set up a defence fund.
How can they sue for being blacklisted? Sure, they had damanges - loss of business, etc. But that's like a telemarketer sueing for you not listening to their sales pitch. Or saying that it is stealing to watch tv without watching the comercials...
It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
The "damages" were limited to him not being able to send SPAM to people who didn't want to see his SPAM, or they wouldn't be subscribing to the blacklist service in the first place. Such services are "opt-in".
Your idiot cousin wants to sue people for opt-in of a list that includes him.
The "need to replace the ``compromized'' IP addresses comes from his use of those IP addresses to send SPAM.
If he sends it to people who don't want it, then it's perfectly reasonable for him to expect his IP adresses will be listed in a "people we don't want to hear from".
If I had a neighbor who, every time anone let him into my house, he peed on the floor of my dining room, I'd think that him suing me for telling people about this fact, and them keeping him out of their dining rooms as a result, would not be a bad thing.
Good joke, won't work. Firstly, the judge possibly has no email address. (Yes, there are still some old-fashioned people around, even now.) Secondly, it might keep him and his staff from working, just imagine he wants to decide against the spammer anyhow... (Finally, annoying people is not really productive, but all you know that. :-)
That's why his e-mail address isn't included in the article - the e-mail address in the header is for the "letters to the editor" address.
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
Now, this is a case that happened in the US instead of Austrailia, so it may not be able to be cited in this particular law suit, but it shows that courts do not feel that spammer have a God-given right to send their mail to anyone and everyone they want to.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
A programmer with $8 000 monthly salary killed a spammer, resulting in a 50 year penalty.
;)
Penalized programmer seeks compensation for $4 800 000 lost income (programmer has so vague understanding of money, that he forgets that this does not represent the correct value after 50 years
So, how actually does this differ from this spammer's case?
If they're losing ~$10,000USD in 20 days, can they even afford the legal fees for long? Is it worth it for them, if they are that low profit, to invest thousands and thousands of dollars into lawyers for a court battle?
/.ers...we could each send them a dollar to recoup their 'losses'.... just make sure you write something nasty about spammers on the bill.
;-)
Think about it all you American
Or we could send the bill to the guy being sued to use in his defense...we'd bury T3 Direct's legal fund in a day
Or...I could buy a soda. Mmmm...caffeine...
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
What you are postulating as a universal principle is actually a specific feature of the American judicial system.
For example, in France, once charges are brought against you, you will be assumed guilty until you can prove your innocence. This system works fine for the French, and indeed it seems that a fair and evenhanded application of justice can proceed from either premise, if the rest of the rules are structured appropriately. (Slashdot frog-bashing will now once again begin.)
"Fairness" is served when the outcome of legal proceedings reflects justice tempered by an appropriate smidgen of mercy. The starting presupposition does not necessarily predicate the outcome, if the system works.
Ok, find the email address of the Judge and of his staff and get it on every spamlist you know of. Ditto once we know who the jurors are.
OK, even assuming the latter were possible, it is extremely rare in Australia for a civil trial to involve a jury - usually the parties are content to have it decided by a judge sitting alone
As a twisted analogy, Las Vegas has a "blackbook" that effectively bars suspected individuals from casinos. These individuals are not actually tried in a court of law, but instead barred based on the decisions of the Nevada State Gaming Commission, a regulatory agency. Some barred individuals have sued the Gaming Commission (which has the Nevada judicial system in its pocket), but have lost every time.
okay, bear with me..
suspected cheater / mobster = accused spammer
gaming industry = IT community
barred from casino = blocked addresses
Follow the money. The Gaming Commission wins every time because the casinos bring the money to Vegas. Until the anti-spam movement can demonstrate a concrete reason that they are promoting business instead of hindering it (as many politicians believe), they are fighting an uphill battle.
Best Windows Freeware
How is blacklisting an IP that you believe to be a spammer and organizing other people to block the IP any different from organizing a boycott of a 'real-life' business? Last I checked you don't need a legitimate reason to boycott someone, you just need to convince other people to agree with you and support the boycott. Noone would suggest that boycotts are in some way illegal.
Calling someone a spammer doesn't seem like it could be libelous since the term itself is subjective. Sure there are some extremes that most people agree constitute spam, but I have seen people get mail which I would consider spam, but the consider it perfectly legitimate e-mail which they read from beginning to end.
"Claiming damages and equipment replacement costs and so on."
;P
Uh, what did the spam server burn up because it could not spit its vile content on to the net so it choked to death on its own bile?
Ah I see, its just because they had to change IP addresses. That's like a pediophile who wants to sue the state because his address got published to warn parents of the danger in the neighborhood. In other words, if you have to move because you've ruined your relationship with your neighbor, how is it their fault?
Hmmm, that brings me to another thought, whats worse. A pediophile or a spammer.... I'll have to say the pediophile, but damn that spammer comes close.
What kind of precident will it set if he wins? Well, very simply, it will open the doors for DDoS kiddies to get away with thier attacks quite legally (in Austrailia at least) simply by making sure each ping packet that goes out contains an ad for a get rich quick scheme... This is some bad, bad stuff.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
So, could I be sued for ignoring spam? It's just another type of blocking, and think of the costs he'd need to wipe all memory of his previous spamming from my brain. As it happens I get no spam, as I've always been careful with my email address... is that also a felony? The costs he's lost not being able to sell me products because I hid my address from him.. maybe I should get a solicitor. Or a soda. Mmm, caffeine...
"T3 is seeking loss and damages of $7,907 (AU$14,000) for replacing blocked or compromised IP numbers, $2,683 (AU$4,750) for labor costs of technicians to establish an alternative e-mail system, $2,824 (AU$5,000) to purchase a new server computer
So because his IP was being blocked he HAD to get a new $2800 server? IP's are NOT hardcoded into the box (MAC addresses in the NIC's are) Does he relly think that little addition is going to go unnoticed?
and $11,296 (AU$20,000) for loss of income it claims to have incurred over a 20-day waiting period for a new Internet connection to be installed"
So this guy makes $564 a day with this shit?!
Maybe you really can get rich quick (in court, of course)...
"Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them."
What if this weren't about spam email, but about a mechanic who worked on someones car? If your mechanic mis-diagnoses your car, puts in the wrong part, and causes more damage than when he started, do you expect him to fix it all, and fix it right? And if he doesn't, you have to take it to someone else, do you have a valid case to make the first mechanic pay the bill?
Of course it all hinges on the fact that the first mechanic -did- make a mistake. If not, then you're out the cost of the lawyer too.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
At least in your scenario, there's one less spammer in the world.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
It seems a little ironic that yahoo who are hosting this story, feature rather a lot in my spam filter rules.
I think this guy should counter-sue. Now that news of this suit has reached /., his site is now unreachable. Thus creating a DDoS.
This DDoS was created as a direct result of the lawsuit being filed.
I used to live in France, the system works because they are all guilty of something...
Britain originally founded its colonies in the Americas and Australia to get rid of undesirables. The priorities of the age are shown by the fact that the task of ridding Britain of the puritans was considered more urgent than the task of transporting criminals. That these priorities were correct can be demonstrated by considering the relative social merrits of Gerry Falwell and Kylie Minogue.
Boy, did he get you guys!
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
WTF? In case this guy has forgetten, I own my computers. I own my pipes (well, lease, but...). I own my network. If I decide to filter all FTP traffic at my external firewall because I don't have a public FTP server, why does he think he can force me to put one in?
Likewise, if I decide to reject any mail that isn't reverse-dnsable, who is he to try and tell me how to run my system?
Similarly, if I decide to reject any mail that server "x" (where "x" is not in my domain), who is he to try and tell me how to run my system?
One thing's for sure. As part of discovery, all his addresses and such are going to come out, I have the suspicion that they are going to get added into the "click this button to unsubscribe from our spam" lists very quickly.
Karma: Food Fight (Mostly affected by Date Plate).
Mailservers are private. Nobody can force me to receive anybody's mail. I can block whoever I want using whatever method I like. If I want to block connections using some blacklist, that's MY choice. The blacklist only offers me advice on what connection to accept or not. I can freely choose to follow that advice or not.
In short: sue whoever you like. You'll loose.
This is your sig. There are thousands more, but this one is yours.
Check out some of the books the T3 Group is selling...
$ales $cript Book
a collection of the most powerful and useful phrases (scripts) a sales professional can use to counter any objection and close the sale
Web Marketing - beyond the basics
covering everything from Search Engine Optimisation, Permission Marketing Techniques, Viral Marketing, Multi Domain Registration, Opt-In Mail Lists, Competition Sites and much more
Yes, just what my business was looking for... forcing your customers to say yes, and such time honored promotional practices such as viral marketing! How did I manage to run a website without this vital knowledge?!?
Well, at any rate, there's another domain for my blocklist...
t3direct.com.au ERROR:"553 Delivery blocked; cannot accept mail from pro-spam domains."
Click here or here.
"As the WA Internet Association owns and operates WA-based exchanges "which most ISPs exchange information on for a low cost," Reynolds said the ultimate aim was to "enforce its spam policies for users of that network" and if ISPs chose to ignore the Association's policy "deny them use of the network."
This seems like a reasonable posture to take. Just like SAPM uses my resourses and my leased resources, these rude tresspassers against chattel need to be reigned in. In fact, there should be a United Nations resolution owtlawing and form of Unsolicited Commercial Email. Opt-in is the ticket, BUT only Opt-in for each individual business, not some asshole selling lists of people who opted in for some other , unrelated email junk. I say kill them where found. But I may be wrong. I never SPAM anyone, although, I could do so very easily.
Maybe there's more information somewhere else, but, from what I did NOT see in the articles:
First off: Is there any proof whatsoever that being listed in SPEWS is in any way incorrect or libelous? Certainly it is not illegal, even in AU to add an IP block to that address as being friendly to either a known spammer or a known spamvertized site. After all, SPEWS bills itself as being opinion that nobody has to follow.
Unless being added to SPEWS has some form of illegality, what basis is there for suing Mr McNichol for expressing an opinion?
Secondly, if SPEWS is operated secretly, then how can anybody prove that this Joseph McNichol was responsible for them being blocked?
Is there some provable connection between him and SPEWS somehow?
It would certainly seem likely that sufficient people on the receiving end of the spam would have complained sooner or later such that SPEWS would put them onto the blacklist.
And even so - don't SPEWS say in their FAQ that they don't block sites based on complaints? That they depend on the knowledge of the *unknown* people that set up the lists directly? That it requires repeated offenses before a company is considered a 'Known Spammer'?
So where is the evidence - not apparent anywhere in anything I have seen of this matter - that there is any actual connection between Mr. McNichol and SPEWS?
If either of these proofs is missing, then this should be dismissed by the first competent judge in any jurisdiction.
Liquor
Sanity is a highly overrated commodity.
The fact that the article on slashdot should insure this, and I suspect that a number of somebodys will be keeping an eye on this company to insure that their IPs are blocked no matter how they get changed.
Why am I reminded of Bernie Shifman?
Tech Public Policy stuff
I work for an "op-in email marketing" company. While the company in question is probably a dirty dirty spammer, the issue is still is legitimate. Since my company has historically insisted that we will only send to opt-in lists, most of the emails that we send are to people who have asked for them. Blocking our ability to deliver those messages, then, is directly interfering with business between our clients and their customers who have requested that they be contacted.
Oh yeah, it's not productive at all! (but it makes you feel a lot better sometimes, doesn't it?) :)))
I hate to argue it, spammers can go to hell and all, but that $7,000 might have included the cost of technicians trying tofigure out why the email wasn't making it to it's destination and working out a solution, as well as the time necessary to reconfigure machines.
Never mind whatever his ISP charges for IP address.
The amounts seem to be bogus, as there is no need for any equiptment replacement. Not knowing where spews is located, I can't say the jurisdiction is wanting.
But, as a defense, I would want a list of emails and addresses that were sent out. Then the list of emails and addresses that were rejected because of spew's actions. Then submit the list to a couple of class action attorneys in states with anti-spam laws and go after the spammers for sending spam.
Then when the spammers use the defense of the email not being delivered as to get out of the penalties for sending spam, then spews can use the fact that they saved the spammers more money than the scum sued for as a partial defense, if they don't get the entire case thrown out and the spammer's attorney sanctioned for bring such a case.
Fight Spammers!
So he was blacklisted, it doesn't prevent him from doing anything.
It does however allow others to deny serving him, which they have the right to do.
The people who caused the actual damage to him were the people who used the blacklist, not those that made it. There only act was to ignore him, AFAIK there is no precedent for damages due to ignoring people.
Perhaps being an Aussie, this spammer has his fingers crossed.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
His reference to the courts is, of course, a lie. What the courts have said is that UBE constitutes theft by conversion, theft of service and trespass to chattel.
Will it be illegal not answering the door to my house when someone is trying to sell me their religion? Will it be illegal not answering the phone when caller ID shows an advertising firm because in blocking the call with my mind, I would be committing a "thought crime" against advertisers?
This post will be modded down for no particular reason by a sweaty 14 year old who is not allowed out past dark.
They claim to run the exchanges where most ISPs in western Oz exchange data. They also say they are coming up with policies for what ISPs should do about spam, and then say:
if ISPs chose to ignore the Association's policy "deny them use of the network."
Now, I can see denying them if they spam, but if they don't accept the WAIA policy on what to DO about spam they get denied use of the network?
That's nuts.
This case seems rather weak, no matter how it's looked at, but it does bring up an interesting question: can an ISP be sued for using a blacklist?
If I'm a user who is not receiving email from somebody due to this person being blacklisted (mistaken, or not), then the ISP is no longer a common carrier due to monitoring traffic (by sender, and not by comment, but still) and restricting certain traffic. Now that my ISP is filtering traffic to me, I could have a legal precident. This may be all well and good, until spammers figure out they just need to buy an account on an ISP and be waiting for a piece of spam, then sue when it doesn't arrive.
Any opinions?
Any bets as to how long until they call down the mighty powers of the DMCA, and sue all those who use anti-spam software, for trying to "circumvent digital protection systems" :)
Well if he has a 1,000-count block of IPs, prepaid for a year with no refunds, that may cost $8k
The $2683 for techs? Assume average hourly of $27(it's a spammer, after all) and it's still 100 man-hours. It doesn't take an hour to change over 10 IPs on a server or two.
$2800 for a new server? Or $2800 because you want a new confuser?
Suing for 'lost income' on things probably unrelated to the spam(an impossible claim given that you might manage to sell nothing new for 20 days) should be tossed on said principals.
--
Them done gone and stoel my accout-n!
excuse me, the french? the same people who think americans got what they deserved on sept 11? the same people who almost elected a racist fuck wit to the presidential office?
... to you, and all your sissy-like, oyster-eating, stuck up, smells-like-shit faggot frog buddies. france is *hardly* a country to look to for motivation.
if the americans hadn't bailed them out in ww2, they'd be speaking german.
i say 'fuck you' sir
EVERY DAY, I am told I can increase my penis size, get a fit body, become filthy rich in seconds, make women everywhere crazy for me, submit my site to search engines for more traffic for free, patent my products, snoop on my neighbors with an X10 camera, sleep with 'beautiful sluts', watch sexy college girls get it on with barnyard animals, get my college degree, buy houses cheap, get a free gift, and watch famous Celebes get screwed. And that's all before noon!
KEEP IN MIND I AM FILTERING THIS JUNK! I WOULD HATE TO SEE WHAT IS NOT GETTING THROUGH!
Maybe I can sue ALL of these XXX sites spamming me for embarrassment in the workplace.
EXAMPLE:
Some others have felt this strongly as well, and started these blacklist sites. Now they are being sued! WHAT GIVES THEM THE RIGHT TO DELEGATE WHAT I CAN HAVE ON MY WEBSITE. All the site is really saying is, "a lot of people are getting spam from this address". It's not like they are doing DoS attacks on the addresses, or trying to hack their network(s).
I Just had to vent before my head explodes. Well, back to deleting more spam.
mod parent up
"WHAM!" Australian for "justice".
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Since now it will be illegal
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
From what I've read, generally, the blackhole list maintainers have a political agenda. One of the larger blackhole list providers has leveraged the "non-profit" or "voluntary" service into a huge money making enterprise (through a separate company).
Spam truly sucks. Mailing lists should be opt-in, not opt-out. I regularly use SpamCop to report spammers.
BUT...
While it is easy to be instantly blackholed, getting your company's mail server off of a blackhole list is another matter. The 'net is littered with stories of companies' servers being repeatedly blackholed even after they either cleaned up their act, or fixed their misconfigured server. It is not up to the blacklist organizations to punish. Yet they have tremendous power. I read some of the posts saying that using a blackhole list is voluntary. This is bull. You and I both know that even large ISPs use the list, therefore, someone upstream can block your legitimate mail to the recipient, all because someone blackholed your IP address, or a complete block of IP addresses that you happen to be in.
Spammers should be hunted down and smacked silly. But spammers are not the only ones who get blackholed. The 'net doesn't belong to uber-geeks, it belongs to everyone. Mis-configured servers happen. How about lifting the phone, and calling the company to let them know. Too difficult? Easier to just blackhole them? Then you are the problem. Not them.
If a blackhole provider makes it so easy to GET ON the blackhole list, then it should be JUST AS EASY TO GET OFF ONCE THE SERVER IS FIXED.
Yet there seems to be no liability on the part of the blackhole list providers when they fail to remove servers from their list once any mis-configuration (open relays) whether intentional or not, is corrected.
There needs to be a real nice, bloody lawsuit, one that tears a new hole into the backside of one of the blackhole list providers, that fixes this bull of making it difficult to get the server off the list when fixed. Only when this happens will the blackhole list providers have something to crow about. Until then, they are as much scum as the spammers.
From their website: The Company has established e-mail databases exceeding 2 million Australian and 30 million world addresses. Currently we send in excess of 1,000,000 e-mails per month to Opt In Permission e-mail subscribers.
So these scum have over 30 million 'opt in' email addresses to spam. Yeah, right. Someone shoot the bastards. No, that's too humane. There's some mediaeval tortures that seem more appropriate.
HH
That is really not the slightest bit relevant. The school and the teacher had an employment contract, which must have been poorly written if it doesn't provide that the teacher may be fired for showing up to work under the influence. That is nowhere near tort law in Australia.
The does serve as a good warning to anyone who might write an employment contract though.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I think Wallace may have deliberately sent me spam in order to provoke me -- he knew I'd complain since he was breaching his earlier promise to block my email addresses after earlier complaints. By provoking me to complain, he could claim a "victim" role, by falsely stating that I had "asked" to receive the emails and then unfairly complained and caused his business to lose its only internet connection (every other ISP and backbone provider had blacklisted him years earlier).
Spanford Wallace filed his suit in Pennsylvania (despite lack of jurisdiction) because he knew I'd have to hire an attorney there and spend thousands of dollars in legal fees and court costs to dismiss the suit. He knew the suit would be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, and he chose not to sue me in California because he knew that California has a SLAPP statute that would have permitted me to collect attorneys' fees and damages (Pennsylvania didn't have a SLAPP statute).
The spammers' only goals in filing lawsuits are to gain "unfair advantage" -- adverse publicity for the opponent, and deliberate choice of an inconvenient and expensive forum.
It worked for Wallace: I stopped making spam complaints for many months because I was so distracted by the lawsuit. And he also deterred others from reporting spam complaints, by loudly and publicly announcing that he (and other spammers) would not hesitate to deliberately abuse the court system in order to punish honest people who make valid complaints.
Wallace's publicity campaign was transparent: he decided to file the lawsuit one day after I appeared on CNBC regarding another consumer advocacy issue; he wanted to "piggy-back" by suing a well-known consumer advocate. He posted a copy of the lawsuit on his web site and emailed dozens of reporters just minutes after the complaint was filed (of course, I learned of the suit only when the reporters called me, and since I couldn't respond to a suit I hadn't seen, Wallace's false and malicious claims were republished as if they were true -- with no follow-up when the suit was abandoned and dismissed several months later.
Although Wallace's suit was filed in Pennsylvania despite the absence of jurisdiction, I was forced to spend $5,000 to hire a Philadelphia attorney to prepare and file a motion to dismiss (I chose an attorney who had previously obtained a judgment against Wallace). As soon as we filed the motion to dismiss, Wallace simply abandoned the lawsuit (he submitted papers to the court claiming that a "settlement had been reached," though there was no settlement.
The only good news is that I haven't heard from him since then, but of course the bad news is that he drained $5,000 of my money and a lot of my time, and simultaneously scared off someone interested in buying a web site I owned (the offer to buy my business for $350,000 was withdrawn the day after the suit was filed, and five months later I sold the business to another buyer for $175,000).
Wallace also successfully deterred many spam complaints by proving his continued willingness to abuse court processes for personal gain.)
I assume that the spammer in the current case filed a suit in the hopes of driving up others' costs and extorting a settlement.
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
What? Which state is Australia in? I thought the Consitution guaranteed everyone trial by jury! ;-)
http://www.fission-chips.com/t3direct/mcnicol/
I doubt that it's just the American judicial system, given that we "inherited" English common law and (probably to some extent) legal practices.
Further proof that it sucks to be French. :-) (Hey, you predicted this kind of response...)
How do you prove that you're not guilty? Isn't that an attempt at proving a negative? I could make some ridiculous accusation against you, based entirely on circumstantial evidence. How do you defend yourself against such an accusation in a situation that puts you behind the 8-ball from the beginning? A system that presumes guilt sounds to me like it'd give the authorities carte blanche to lock up anybody who pisses them off, since they don't first have to make the case that they should lock somebody up.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
I think it is high time that SPAM be redirected to the CEO's, the Presidents, the Board Members, and whomever thinks that people who want to abuse the bandwidth resources of a network should get away with it.
When they get SPAM from all places and wonder why their admin can't do a damned thing about it, they will go for the source companies and individuals. They will sue them to stop them.
Why should admins waste their breath trying to explain it and shield the very people who can make a difference? Let people get blasted by the SPAM and then redirect them to the SPAMMERS.
Let the people who are the cause take the lumps.
So whats next? I wont able to hang up when the next long distance carrier calls me? Or I cant ignore the person who is knocking on my door soliciting me to buy something? ARGH!!! i need a drink. -waiting for funny sig to crop up..-
--Still waiting for that awsome sig to just leap out at me..--
Here's the official SPEWS IP listing. I wonder how long it'll be before these IPs show up in permanent blacklists all over the Internet, never to emerge again.
Way to go, spammers. Watch your connectivity go bye-bye.
T3Group
|--------------------
1, 202.154.73.131, t3direct.com.au
1, 202.154.79.66, mail.t3direct.com.au
1, 202.154.79.0/25, t3direct.com.au
1, 202.139.241.136, www.t3direct.com.au
1, 202.139.241.128/25, t3direct.com.au
1, 203.55.16.6, titan.t3direct.com.au
1, 203.55.16.0/25, t3direct.com.au
---------------------|
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
It seems the Tan & Tan Lawyers (the bad guys solicitors) have an Free Legal Advise By Email page on their website. Who's up for flooding them with questions on the legality of spamming?
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Support this service
you are protected (mostly, excluding some web bugs) from the spammer getting your details without a fight.
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
I hope this isn't taken as off-topic.
But, I was thinking since this guy is getting in trouble because he wasn't anonymous enough. Perhaps we should all start using Publius to publish content which should be freely available online, and then we don't need to worry about lawsuits as much.
http://cs1.cs.nyu.edu/waldman/publius.html
Just my thoughts.
~ kjrose
Instead of blocking spammers or blacklisting them, simply give them what they want. #!/bin/bash - (script m1) Create m2, m3, m4 etc. for other domains. # Created by Aaron W. # For experimental use only. Use at your own risk. Using this may be unethical so do not do it. # Have a dictionary file with as many names (and email type abrev names) as possible. # Also specify a text file that will hold all the generated named. # If you copy these files to a ram disk at bootup, and run them to the ram disk # then it will reduce your disk load both during generation and access. # Create a SSI Server Side Include page for each of the email text files you generate. # This will provide you with a good look $OUTPUT for i in `cat $ALLWORDS|xargs -n1` ; do NAME1=$i$RANDOM'@'$D1 echo $NAME1 >> $OUTPUT done # Ensure that your script uses chown/chmod to fix any perms needed # Create as many of these scripts as needed with as many real or fake domains # as you wish to use. Using real domains will increase the affectiveness. # You should end up with this script (call it what you want), a file that holds # all of the generated email addresses. (eotd01.txt in this case) email of the day... # and a SSI web page that you create which calls the eotd01.txt file. # You will need to find a dictionary file with as many names as you can find. # I am not including one, as that would reduce the affectiveness. exit _______ All flames will be discarded to /dev/null
Use this advice at your own risk. In fact, do not use it at all.
--mcp
The contract probably said that if a teacher has a drug problem, there would be a series of steps which the teacher must go through (certainly the first step when a teacher is on campus under the influence, would be removal from school and suspension, perhaps requiring an immediate check-in to a treatment program, followed by compliance with the treatment regimen, and consent to drug testing).
The contract, if it follows the usual policies of large corporations and government agencies, might impose all kinds of special conditions, perhaps even a "two strikes and you're out" rule, but the contract says whatever it says. You can't change the terms of a contract by having the administration or school board unilaterally announce a "zero tolerance" school policy (any more than the school board could unilaterally announce that all teachers must teach one more hour per day without additional pay). And even if the state legislature passed a law requiring that the teacher who uses drugs must immediately be fired, that law cannot impair a previously-executed contract (read your U.S. Constitution).
Note also that the student who is expelled under the "zero tolerance" policy will still be able to enroll at another school -- the state does have an obligation to provide an education to children. The notion behind "zero tolerance" is good, but there are a lot more ridiculous stories about zero-tolerance.
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
Ahh, I just assumed that they did--I know that the US's system of Common Law was taken from the Brits, and since nearly all civil trials in the US have juries, I figured that nearly all civil trials in the Commonwealth did too.
And, I admit, it would be pretty hard to find an email address if all you know is a name.
They do unsubscribe you after a while. They are called t3direct (t3direct.com.au), but I'm fairly sure they used to be called maverick online marketing or something - the address is still the same (only a few blocks from where I work actually). They mostly spam out marketing garbage, the most offensive part being their choice of clipart...
While this is a stupid law suit (much like the burglar suing the home owner), at least the damages payout is at least somewhat sensible, I don't think they deserve a penny, but at least they aren't suing for millions of $$$.
The article does not state the grounds on which the case is brought. Tort law is quite restrictive, the issue is not whether you have sufered a loss, the issue is whether the defendant had a legal liability for the loss. There being no contract between any of the parties in the case breach of contract or inducing breach of contract is not going to apply. The spam victim had no responsibility to the spammer to provide service.
The only grounds I can think of that the spammer could claim to have a case is in libel. To win the case the spammer would have to claim that the statement made was false, i.e. that he was not spamming. While Australia shares the corrupt libel laws of the UK it is unlikely that the issue of whether the ISP was spamming or not would be hard to determine.
It would be interesting to know the history of the law firm acting for the plaintif. If the court comes to the same conclusion concerning the case as many on slashdot it would not go well for them.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
What you are postulating as a universal principle is actually a specific feature of the American judicial system
Americans didn't adopt this "feature" because they thought it might be a good idea. It's not some arbitrary preference. There are several reasons why innocence is presumed and guilt is proven. If you're presumed guilty, how can you expect to have a fair trial? If you really are innocent, you shouldn't have to prove your innocence just because some jackass decides to use the system to their advantage and throw a frivilous suit against you. God help you if someone in the government dosn't like you. What you say may work if the courts are fair, but saying that decisions made by the courts are always fair is fucking crazy. The courts should error in your favor.
Just because the french think differently dosn't mean this is not a universal principle. There is such a thing as "being wrong". For instance, our good buddies in Saudi Arabia think women should be required to completely cover their bodies in public. Is gender equality not a universal principle?
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
nd, I admit, it would be pretty hard to find an email address if all you know is a name.
It's also illegal to reveal the identity of a juror.
Mod the parent up!
my client's netblock wound up on the spews list a few months ago. not because of anything they were doing (they're a hospital) but because their ISP's upstream provider was hosting some suspected spammers.
the sysadmin went to news.admin.net-abuse.email to try to get an exception carved out so that the doctors could email their patients but the only response was, 'no dice. change your isp.'
our own isp filtered with this list (among others) so their team couldn't email ours. i explained this to the mail admins at our isp and they agreed that too much valid email was being rejected. they stopped using the list soon after that.
the spews webpage calls this collateral damage and says that it's unfortunate but rare. if you watch that newsgroup for any length of time you'll see that it's not rare. they don't really think it's unfortunate either. their aim is to piss off end users so that they switch to "non-spam friendly" isps putting financial pressure on the ones that do allow spammers.
what they don't take into consideration (unless they do) is that it's not always possible to change isps or for isps to switch upstream providers. i can't really explain all of this to my my grandmother who couldn't email me from the only isp in her town.
not to mention costa rica. because their monopoly telephone system is on the spews list the entire country is blocked.
These guys are providing advice, which ISPs and end-users, at their discretion, may or may not follow. The scenario you describe implies that at one time, this was good advice, i.e. the IP was an open relay that should have been blocked. It wasn't the list's fault that you misconfigured your system. Maybe it's not the most negligent thing you could possibly do, but the fact that you got on the list was YOUR FAULT.
Spam is a serious problem. Those lists which make any claims to prevent spam naturally have some liability to accomplish this. To this purpose, these lists publish IPs which have been known to facilitate spam.
Restoration Of Service To Those Who Have Previously Facilitated Spam is not a serious problem. No list claims that it constantly monitors the IPs on its list for momentary lapses in spamming. Why should any list be made to do so, when this is an onerous task that clearly would distract from the list's stated purpose?
If an ISP or end user decided that identifying these "no-longer-spamming" IPs was important for any reason, this would be a fairly straitforward task to accomplish. Likewise, if "ROSTTWHPFS" becomes a serious problem, we can imagine the creation of "don't block" lists that could be used in conjunction with the block lists.
As a practical matter, any normal business that finds it impossible to send emails to those to whom it may legitimately send is not prevented from contacting its legitimate recipients by other means to encourage them to no longer block its emails. Those potential recipients would then be free to accept or deny such a request. When I say "normal", I mean businesses that actually do something. These are highly unlikely to be listed. If, OTOH, your business consists entirely of sending email to people, then you should expect to have this problem occasionally, especially if you mis-configure your servers, and you should write it off as a cost of doing business.
later,
Jess
I am programmed for etiquette, not destruction!
Free speech ends when what you are saying is untrue and hurtful to someone else's business.
If this guy isn't a spammer (meaning he only sends solicited ads) shouldn't he be able to sue for libel?
The specifics of this case are a little shady, but let's imagine that say buy.com was put on an anti-spammer list... How much revenue would they lose? Whose fault would it be?
ISPs and businesses use this to block stuff at the mail server. Which means that most people will not be able to recieve mail from the addresses listed by SPEWS. I suppose you could make the same argument about censorware companies, except ISPs usually require you to "opt-in" on their censorware service, whereas the user usually has no say in how spam filtering is achieved at the ISP offices. AOL, for example, doesn't default new accounts to children's level filtering. These email censoring service offer less latitude to the individual, not more, than web censorware.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
So why exactly did they have to get new servers? I missed that part that explained that a server comes from the factory with a built-in IP address...
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
I'd be very interested in a reference to this, but I'm prety sure I don't believe it.
Certainly the French judicial system is very different from the English process that has been used as a basis in many other countries -- but that's not the same thing as saying you're guilty until proven innocent.
In fact, on reflection, this can't be true, because IIRC the European Convention on Human Rights requires a presumption of innocence.
I believe that unlike the adversorial process used in many countries -- where two competing lawyers attempt to convince the court of your guilt and innocence, the French system is inquisitorial, where the job of the court is to find out the facts of the case.
I haven't a clue how this works in practice (references or corrections greatly appreciated) but I just plain don't believe that France has a presumption of guilt.
Criminals have rights that can't be violated, but they're free to violate the hell out of their victims' rights. Jurors are poor and dumb, and love to see the little guy kick a big rich guy's ass every time. A Jury awarded a convict hundreds of thousands of dollars for damages for hurting himself while attempting to escape prison (it happened in Iowa for real). If a jury gets this case, the spammer will win big. Remember this in all your legal entanglements in life: Juries are made up of people who aren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.
In Australia you do not know the names of jurors. The only people who know their names are the officers of the sheriff, and the judge. Jurors will always be identified in a court by a "Juror call number".
And anyone trying to find out jurors details would be in a lot of trouble, its a criminal offence.
May he rot in hell..
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
it might be that the 20 days of lost revenue is how long it took the bloody little #@%* to notice his spam was getting bounced. just a guess though.
Seeing that most of slashdot is still asleep (I'm guessing), Jeremy is bracing himself for the /.-effect.
|>>?
Under a powerboat, though, no wussy _sail_boats....
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
Part of our business is to send out HTML emails to our clients customers. We have been reported on more than one occassion to spamcop, although our definition of 'spam' is different.
The emails we are sending out are 'opt in' emails (and not just some bullshit line of text saying 'See our XXX sluts, you opted into this email'). These emails are sent to a legitimate user base, who have selected to be contacted via email.
When we get reported in those instances, it does affect our ability to manage mailouts for our customers.
I'm not a fan of spam by any means, however, a distinction needs to be drawn between actual emails sent to customers of a business, vs 'Get your univeristy diploma' type emails.
gah?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I left it for some other temporary experimental reasons along with automatical alert notification. Thus, I left hackers a chance to play with it for a couple of hours, while I have been collecting log files. Then I closed the hole and checked the files.
Surprisingly (or not surprisingly), most of incomig relay requests were from Russia, East-Europe, and Asia. They tried to send email messages registering my server at some databases. Databases were in both Europes, Russia, Australia and Asia.
After I closed the hole the attack attempts stopped after some time, but it has stopped pretty organized. Therefore, there is a very well organized network of such hackers, who are working for spammers, or even who are a part of well organized spammer network. Most of the network is in countries where you have no chances to sue it. The perepherial (or visible) part of the network is in such hacked computers as mine or in universities (american, europian and australian as I could see from domain names).
The conclusion: the spammers is the very organized force. It's organized based on the same principles as terrorists. So, the court is not the beginning - it's on the end of the process. The process to defend our civil rights and liberties. And before the court meeting is appointed some other organizations and institutions should do their work: CIA, FBI and other intelligence services in all over the world.
By the way, does anyone know what should I do with my log files?
There really was a store-owner in New York whose business was repeatedly burglarized. He installed a security system -- it was bypassed I can't remember if the thief died. But the shopowner had to pay the thief's bills (medical, counseling, etc). And the thief won a $hitload of ca$h.
Funny, I didn't read a law anywhere that publicizing a know scumbag's IP addresses is unlawful! (It certainly is effective!)
Let's say I spread the word that if you see elderly people dressed a certain way carrying sheafs of a magazine called The Light Tower, they're Jehovah's Witnesses, don't answer the door (like you didn't know that already.) Can the J.W.s sue me because they had to buy new clothes, and knocking on someone's door is "lawful and effective"?
The spammers should be tarred, feathered, run out of town on a rail, then drawn, quartered, and thrown into the Iron Maiden. Their corpses should then be incinerated, ground up, and shot into the sun.
And what pisses me off even more is that I'm a pacifist and believe that violence is never the solution to a problem. The fucking spammers make me think that perhaps my philosophy is not universally applicable.
Fucking bastards!
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
Unlikely. While teaching at a community college, my wife was required to sign a paper "as a condition of continued employment." It had to do with agreeing that she read the paper stating that she was now a "mandatory reporter" of any evidence of abuse of emotionally or physically impaired students. If she didn't sign, she was out. Not that I'm against reporting this kind of stuff, but the "mandatory" part pisses me off no end. You're being enrolled as an agent of the state without either consent or compensation.
The notion behind zero tolerance is horseshit. It's a way for someone in authority to feel like a stallion with his wife that night (credit to Dilbert) without doing anything reasonable or useful. As you point out, it leads to a twelve year old girl being suspended for lending her friend a Midol. It leads to Ghurka children not being allowed to carry a small knife with them, when they're less likely than nearly anyone else in America to misuse it. Zero tolerance is for zero IQs.
It probably explains why they're such arrogant bastards -- you're wrong unless you're one of them.
Lady watching her son's boot camp graduation -- "See my son down there? you can tell -- he's the only one on the whole parade ground who's in step."
Certainly the French judicial system is very different from the English process that has been used as a basis in many other countries -- but that's not the same thing as saying you're guilty until proven innocent.
Read up. Ever woder why many contractual items apply in all states except Louisiana? Napoleonic law, not English law.
What would it take to make you really, realy sure you don't believe it?
I think the whole lawsuit is ridiculous... the guy needs a new server???? Gimme a break! I think the only real question is if he can successfully be countersued once this case is thrown out.
A guy on the street just charged me 5 bucks when I didn't accept his flyer.
Ahh, I just assumed that they did--I know that the US's system of Common Law was taken from the Brits, and since nearly all civil trials in the US have juries, I figured that nearly all civil trials in the Commonwealth did too.
I seem to remember that Australian law is largely based on Scots law (different from English). I do know that universities in Scotland give Aussie cases to law students as relevant examples.
--Ng
You inherited the English language too, and look what you did to that.
Unless they can prove that they have read the promotional material, bring a class action against the spam recipients for wasting the spammers time and resources
.vortex
"**** ***!"
What annoying trolls.
"You are being sued. This suit has merit because we received your name on a list of people who requested to be subject to this type of suit. If you do not want to be sued in the future you can do so by sending email to make_me_an@example.com or calling 1-900-555-1212."
I almost forgot to say. I *****WOULD***** have provided free email. It is a nice way to advertise, get business, etc.... But I won't! WHY? Because spammers will probably infest it. They like to make money on OPM!!!! They also like the OTHER guy suffering the fate THEY should.
.com.au extension?
HECK, I have ALREADY suffered because my Email address is innunndated with spam.
OH YEAH, why does SO much spam have the
Speaking as someone who's on this guy's "opt-in" email list, I can tell you the following:
a. Most of his emails seem to be about 50k in size. Much HTML and graphics are included.
b. The most common spam items seem to be about some sort of business seminar. There are also advertisements for a business involved in telephone technology (?).
c. The only contact information in the email is a post office box and an out of state phone number. The phone number is permanently connected to an answering machine.
d. The mail list isn't opt-in at all (surprise, surprise). Thing is, it's also not 'opt-out'. One da, in desperation, I replied to his spam (I know, I know). My request to be removed did nothing.
DD
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
Take it from me, these people are scum!
You really don't need to be worried about slandering them, because they are guilty of all of the above.
I used to work for an earlier version of this company (a couple years back) and they are absolute bastards.
Not only do they spam, but they also use lengthy lawsuits as a way of avoiding paying bills and employee benefits (such as superannuation, which is required by law!).
I only hope this wide spread attention will warn anyone else off from ever dealing with any of these people ever again.
I still say let them have what they want. You are not going to stop them. However, since most of them disobey robot rules and siphon email addresses off your websites, here is a little something you could use to bait them.
http://www.bait.nu/bait/
There ya go. Its simple. It is just an example of course. You could be more creative and modify the script to also create html for links to the email addresses, but I wanted to keep the file small. If your output ends up being over 1.5 megs, most spammers will skip the file. If it is too small, it will not be affective.
If you set up like 10 of them with different domains, and have a crontab which calls each one a few mins apart, it wont bog down your machine. (or you could link them all together)
I am not very good with scripts, so I am sure some of you out there could be even more creative, right? If you have better/simpler ideas, I would be happy to include them. I do not generate these real time with perl. I know it can be done, but is a bad idea, as it can be abused.
Can anyone make a smaller script that is more affective?
Keep in mind you will need to generate or find your own dictionary file. I do not include one as that would defeat the purpose. (they could then just filter 1 set of names)
--mcp
Dead men don't file lawsuits.
And for those of you use scripts like "Matts Form Mail" (FormMail.pl or FormMail.cgi) you are probably one of the people allowing spammers to make money.
If you must use a script on your site that sends email, ensure that it does not allow just anyone to pass arguements to it directly, or from a script.
If you are using Matts FormMail (the #4 attack on the internet) then ensure you have the latest version. Here is the latest version
If in doubt, and you run Apache, add the following lines to your httpd.conf file:
RedirectMatch seeother [Ff]orm[Mm]ail.pl http://127.0.0.1/
RedirectMatch seeother [Ff]orm[Mm]ail.cgi http://127.0.0.1/
This will also help you reduce the number of 404 errors in your logs. The same redirect concept works for the Nimda crap as well.
I do not run any windows based servers, so I can not help you there.
If you are a spammer, this message should not bother you since you do not abuse peoples servers and steal their bandwidth, correct?
--mcp
I've spoken to Mr. McNicol this afternoon, he is a great bloke and he deserves all the help he can get fighting off this spammer.
I've gone through all the sites I maintain and put a little link encouraging net users to find out about this and see how they can help. A sample of this is located at http://dvdstore.ii.net/ and http://winchester.ii.net/. This links ppl to their case website located at http://t3-v-mcnicol.ilaw.com.au.
I would encourage anyone who would love to see justice brought down upon this Spammer donate to Mr McNicol's legal fund.
They are currently accepting Fax donations (Print off the form at http://t3-v-mcnicol.ilaw.com.au/donate/fax/index.h tml), or wait a few days and he should be accepting PayPal donations.
Please, Please everyone get on board - this could set a dangerous international legal precident if it goes the way of the spammer. Make sure that this helps on the path to putting the breaks on spam!
thewinchesterthat they will never get anyware pulling off a Bernie Shiftman.....
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
...or is it just the ones that post on Slashdot?
Your self-righteous cultural imperialism is showing, as well as your infinite supply of group-think racism and aggressive tribalism.
And you wonder why you inspire people to terorrism. Hint: they are not jealous of your SUVs.
http://home.attbi.com/~dhamre/albright.avi
Go to WWW.google.com and type this in:
napoleonic code "guilty until proven innocent"
You will find that many, many countries use this premise. It works because of the way the rest of the system is structured.
I can't force you to understand or believe anything, and it appears that most respondents to my post are unwilling to do the most cursory investigation of any statement that contradicts their unwarranted prejudices.
with which I agree, totally.
n c_1 [conveniently mangled by the lameness filter]
The address on the webpage probably goes to his editor. Perhaps they'll forward stuff to him. There's also his company, NetWeb.com, which has a contact address which is an obvious target for comments.
Like, say, _this_:
TO: letters@news.com
info@netweb.com
ATTN: Barry Dennis, and his Editor
RE: http://news.com.com/2010-1076-915523.html?tag=fd_
"Am I crazy or what? I love spam!"
You're crazy. As in "psychotic". As in: "Disassociated from reality, to the point of doing harm to yourself or others". You should be institutionalized, or, better yet, eliminated, for the good of the human race.
You're a long-standing "direct-marketer" (translation: tree-killer)?
Now you're a spammer?
Here's an open letter to all spammers:
How many millions of unwanted emails have you sent out? How many seconds have you stolen from peoples' lives by forcing them to detect and dispose of it? I suspect these seconds add up to a span of stolen time that's many times longer than your natural life.
You need to go eat shit and die. Really. I openly advocate keelhauling as appropriate punishment for spammers. Under a powerboat, with a propeller, nevermind sailboats. Others would burn you at the stake. Lethal injection is regarded as too merciful for the likes of you.
When you kill trees to send paper to my local recycler, you at least pay for your "right" to stuff my wood-mailbox in terms of paper, printing, and postage, but you steal from me the time it takes me to pull it out of my mailbox, sort out the "real" mail, and pitch the trash into the recycling bin. When you send me email, you force _me_ to pay for the storage of it, the bandwidth to transmit it, and you again steal from me the time it takes me to dispose of it. Now I know you're going to reply: "How long does it take to press 'delete'?" Maybe a second, but when you multiply one second by the hundred pieces of spam I get everyday, then multiply that by every day, then multiply that by about 50 million email users, it starts to add up. This is time that you steal from others, I care not how you rationalize it.
I want to be crystal clear on this: NONE of it gets read! You're completely wasting paper, ink, postage, time, bandwidth, effort, everything it takes to send me that recycle bin filler or that spam email. I look at it long enough to determine its nature and it's gone. You're spinning your wheels. I know of NO ONE who responds favorably to email advertizement. The strongest reactions you're going to get are:
A) NEGATIVE RESPONSE. I've a growing list of companies I won't
patronize, simply because they've sent me spam. Netweb
has just been added to that list. Please send me a list
of your customers, so I can avoid them, too.
B) automated filtering and disposal of your messages, without the
victim even seeing them. netweb.com has just made that list,
I'll _never_ see any mail from you.
C) complaints to your ISP, which will get you unplugged from the
Internet. I'll see about that.
D) a reputation as a spammer. Once you get on the popular spammer
lists, everybody that uses these lists will also automatically
eliminate you from their email. You're probably already on
some of these.
Please go find yourself an honest occupation. Or just die. But GET OUT OF MY MAILBOXES!!!
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
Our filtering has several levels. First and foremost is local black/white lists, which will override any downstream filtering (except content). The DNSBL's come next... and the ones chosen are rather conservative. Last comes regular expression filtering.
Use of FIVE-TEN, SPEWS, XBL, and any of the other more aggressive lists is strictly as advisory thing - when spam comes in, an IP block is far more likely to be added to our LOCAL list if it's in one of these lists, but it's not automatic. Hey, I can't afford to block all of SPRINT, for example, even though 90% of what comes from their subnets is spam!
And we monitor the filters... Every bounced message generates a policy violation message to me, so that I know the circumstances of each within minutes of it happening. If there is any doubt about something being spam or not, the customer is notified, and asked what to do; Some of our customers are on a different server, just so that things like the "entire country is blocked" Costa Rican example can be modified for someone who receives legitimate mail from the same servers that send spam to other clients.
I have to wonder where in the U.S. there are still single-ISP locations. Any town I've seen that is big enough to have an ISP at all will usually have no-toll access to several ISP POPs, i.e., it would be just as cheap to call one company as another. All our local ISPs no longer maintain their own phone lines... They rent connectivity from one or more vendors that give them Point-Of-Presence in cities throughout the region. Your log-in determines where your connection goes, not the number you dial!
and probably slander.
The deal is that you are free to say (or print) anything you please, but if you spread lies, and the subject of these lies can prove that his business or reputation or whatever was damaged by them, this is an actionable, possibly even criminal, offense. There's a commandment about not bearing _false_ witness against "thy neighbor", and this is reflected in the laws of most western nations.
OTOH, if you can prove that your statements are factual (as I'm confident the defendant in this case can do), you're off, and the "damaged" party can go pout, because the legal system (at least here in the states, but I would hope the commonwealth also) won't touch you.
Yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater is OK iff the theater is, in fact, on fire.
Otherwise it's probably not a good idea.....
I guess I should say IANAL, and that this does not qualify as legal advice.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
You're talking about how the law is. I'm talking about how the law should be. I'm not convinced that if you spread lies and the subject of those lies can prove that he was "damanged" by them that this should be an actionable offense.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
s/damanged/damaged/
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
This is going to be my #2 spam address, right after nadine@honet.com
Good job on finding his home address.
thinking practically for a moment - in order to avoid the chaos of mistatements everyone would have to depend on 3rd parties to vouch for the facts. We would only trust verified statements.
I for one appreciate that the legal system takes care of this. When I read a negative political ad. I can take it as truth (or something not completly false) because the author could otherwise be held accountable in court.
I can't understand why you would want to defend someone's ability to lie.
Maybe we could debate whether or not it should be a criminal offense, but it should definely be illegal.
I can not see the possible value or intrinsic good to encouraging people to publicly state lies as fact. And not penalizing them is the same as encouraging. People need to have outlets for free speech to speak out against corruption and all that, and they do. But that ability should not be used as a vehicle to hurt people.
I am not a religious jew and only mention this because I see it's value, but there is a jewish laws called "lashon ha-raah." Meaning bad (or wrongful) speech. This moral standard states that you're not supposed to tell even truths about people if it will come to embarress them. Basically don't gossip about people. In general I agree with this but of course it cannot and should not be enforced.
I brought this up so as to contrast it with warning someone. There is nothing wrong with saying negative things about someone as long as you have a reason to do so. So by this negative political campains are valuable... as long as they are not misleading or unnecessarily nasty.
So, without regard for western law, I am also trying to discuss what what free speech would be morally. For actual law though, there are other consideration because in the real world you have to consider the practical implications. Could you please explain your view of free speech in more depth. I'm not challanging you to disagree with me, but if you do I would appreciate your viewpoint.
-Avi
The emails we are sending out are 'opt in' emails (and not just some bullshit line of text saying 'See our XXX sluts, you opted into this email'). These emails are sent to a legitimate user base, who have selected to be contacted via email.
Are you running _confirmed_ opt-in, though? In other words, the first email you send to a new subscriber says something like 'Your address was entered into our form at whatever.example.com, if you really want to subscribe please {reply to this mail / click here / whatever} to confirm. If you don't we will send no more mails.'
Otherwise you could end up being used as part of some mass-subscribe attack.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Just as a quick follow-up, i've put up a small website currently which is linking to heaps of the information in relation to this case.
It's available at http://winchester.ii.net/spamsuit.
thewinchester
The European Convention on Human Rights, of which France is a signatory states (Article 6, para 2):
Are you seriously telling me that France has been flouting it's obligations under the convention for the last 30 years and that nothing has been done about it?I don't claim to understand French law, but you've said nothing to convince me of your statement. And the google search you cite only serves to convince me of the widespread prejudice amongst Americans about the ways in which other developed democratic states conduct their affairs.
wayne@t3direct.com.au
I've just subscribed the spammer to a boatload of other spamming sites like casinos etc.
Let's drown the suckers in their own filth.
bye bye
Having followed the link to auspam and reading the list of business names that this spammer masquerades as, it reminded me of receiving spam from "Business Seminars Australia - since 1987". I was going to ring one of the numbers mentioned in that spam but I didn't have time. I received the spam on Fri, 12 Oct 2001 18:49:03 +1000 (AEST). A copy of it has been placed at http://www.austux.net/spam.html.
Jeremy
Melbourne, Australia
Jabber Australia
I have no idea what powers the "European Convention on Human Rights" has to punish or even investigate the infractions of signatories. But I can tell you that documents don't change reality without physical action. For example, Kuwait has signed at least five treaties outlawing slavery, yet the slave trade continues to flourish there according a recent Scientific American article. Another example, the US is signatory to the Geneva Convention, but much of the world considers the US-sponsored Iraq Sanctions to be in violation of that treaty.
My elder sister (who has a Phd., studied at the Sorbonne, lived in Paris for nearly five years, and currently owns a flat in Provence) confirms that France's legal system is fundamentally different from that of England and the United States. Judges are charged with finding the truth of events, rather than finding the guilt or innocence of the accused, and accusations are believed to be disproveable if false. I am told that the Mexican legal system is also based on the Napoleonic Code, but I do not know the truth of that statement.
Finally, allow me to point out that treaties often read differently in different languages; for an example the 1797 Treaty of Tripoliis distinctly different in the English and Arabic versions. I certainly am not claiming this is the case in the convention you've referenced (I am not fluent in French in any case) but I will hold by my statement that "guilty until proven innocent" is a specific feature of the legal system of the United American States that is not shared by the legal systems of all nations. Some societies get along without it just fine, while others that do subscribe to this principle are despotic tyrannies nonetheless.
I just rang one of the businesses advertised as "happy customers" at the http://www.t3direct.com.au web site (look under web design).
My aim was to inform the business that as a consumer I would choose not to deal with any company associated with t3direct.
Anyway, this business told me that t3direct owed them a large sum of money, and they were not aware that their company's business name was being used as a reference on t3direct's web site.
It'd be interesting if people were to turn up at the advertised (on the web site) seminars on spam-marketing and discuss some "spam-recipient" viewpoints with the people there. Such as just how much we love spam mail and how it makes us instantly want to buy something from the people that do it, and how we love to read their mail to the exclusion of other mail to do with work, friends, or family. Or how we love to use our bandwidth $ downloading their mail because it is always so useful and fun to read. Or how we love to spend our hours deleting their mails one by one (after we've read them and bought the products of course!).
Ind
(just about to go out on the net and start spraying me e-mail address around so I can collect some more loverly SPAM)
News reports earlier this evening indicate that IP addresses being used by The Which Company/T3 are not theirs, and actually belong to a WA-based Christian Education Center.
According to the report on the AAP wire (http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,4 461895%5E1702,00.html), at least some and possibly all of the IP addresses which are listed in the original complaint actually belong to the Swan Christian Education Center.
In quotes from Steve Crockett, Information Technology Manager for the center - he said that T3's decision to pursue legal action over an IP which it did not even own was "absolutely unconscionable".
He continues "We are wholeheartedly against spamming". "It's an absolute scourge".
According to the news report, Mr. Mansfield's company had been warned not to use the IP addresses and that the company had continued to use them regardless. An employee of Mr. Mansfield's company is said to have received permission from the center about 4 years ago to use the range of addresses - however it was too long ago for him to remember who gave their permission.
Disgusting that spammers will steal from Christians and Schools just to send us junk.