Slashdot Mirror
Meet the Spammers
DaveAtFraud writes: "It took a little digging to find an on-line copy of this article that I first saw in my treeware daily newspaper. Thanks to the Salt Lake City Tribune for having it on-line. According to the Spamhaus project, a handful of people are responsible for 90% of the spam that clogs you in box. This is your chace to hear from them and what they have to say is quite interesting. If you don't think the filters and blacklists work, one spammer whines, "My operating costs have gone up 1,000 percent this year, just so I can figure out how to get around all these filters." Stopping spam is simply a matter of economics. When its uneconomical to send spam, people will stop sending it."
My operating costs have gone up 1,000 percent this year, just so I can figure out how to get around all these filters
And 10 * 0 is how much again?
Ok, their costs aren't truely zero, but close enough as to make no real difference. Of course, the same can probably be said for the respondant percentage.
And just think what cutting off some of their limbs or sexual organs would do to their budget.
I feel so sorry for this guy:
... NOT!
one spammer whines, "My operating costs have gone up 1,000 percent this year, just so I can figure out how to get around all these filters."
only
I vote for death Penalty for Spammers!
Feed Internet Democracy today..Kill a spammer!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
I don't know why people think laws against spammers would be ineffective. Even a threat of legal/finacial action against them would be a huge deterrent in sending spam. Heck, if it reduced it 10% wouldn't it be worth it?
Of course, intelligent filters and the like are the best way to treat the symptoms, but they don't treat the problem.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Bernard Balan, 51, who operates a bulk mail site from Emsdale, Ontario, called one-stop-financial.com, says he has gone through "unbelievable hardships" to keep the spam flowing.
"My operating costs have gone up 1,000 percent this year, just so I can figure out how to get around all these filters," said Balan, a former truck driver and pinball machine mechanic.
Payback's a bitch huh? I guess this means we're "winning".
Just wondering is it legal to stalk spammers?
Might make a hell of real nice incentive fro spammers to quit
Don't Tread on OpenSource
News for spammers, Stuff that doesn't matter
Bernard Balan, 51, who operates a bulk mail site from Emsdale, Ontario, called ne-stop-financial.com, says he has gone through "unbelievable hardships" to keep the spam flowing.
:-)
Now that his website is well known, I bet things just got a lot harder...
"My operating costs have gone up 1,000 percent this year, just so I can figure out how to get around all these filters."
And yet he persists.
In the great tradition of slashdot, I haven't read the article, but I assume he's making enough money to cover his costs and then some, else he wouldn't continue. Now, I'm also assuming that companies are paying him to send spam - there's no way he'd make enough of responders.
This has probably been said before, but why are we getting pissed off at spammers? It's the companies we need to "educate" as to the evils of unsolicited e-mail. That's where the money and motivation comes from. Maybe we should e-mail every company in the world and explain to them why they shouldn't spam...
Maran
When you choose a "profession" hated by most, if not despised, however "legal" it may be, you loose your right to bitch about it.
You reaally oughta love this quote from a friggin' spammer of all people.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
I hope the sympathy of this article is sarcastic, but it doesn't really come across that way. I love the quote:
"These people will go to the lowest depths," said Cowles, of Bowling Green, Ohio. "I have some phone clips that would make you sick."
That's too funny, considering the subject lines of some of the spam I get....
[FromTheMorning]
"This is what the Internet is supposed to be," said Michael Jay, whose Houston-based company, America Find, sends several million messages per day advertising $99 background checks. no it's not. the Internet is for downloading pr0n and copyrighted mp3 songs.
There's something to be said about spamming as an extension of capitalism. Perhaps billboard ads can be considered visual spam; the same goes for television and radio. At the point where finite resources (i.e. my time, my bandwidth) is concerned however, capitalism has no rights there.
Maybe if all the stalkers at Spamhaus started petitioning the White House or Congress for action, something would happen.
Yeeessss , spam is very nice...
FOR ME TO POOP ON!!!
Brought to you by: Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog
does the article list THEIR email addresses? After all, they must need to refinance their enlarged genitlia, too!
This AP article has been making the rounds. It's rather shoddy journalism in that it takes the words of the spammers completely at face value. Seeing as how Rule #1 is "spammers lie" you can imagine how well this approach works.
i wonder if the increase in their 'operational costs' can counter the increase in the community's time and money costs at having to wade through such crap and filter it out.
I use eudora and the filters work pretty good but I don't know how to filter spam that is entirely html. Lateley I have been getting shitloads of spam that has no text in the body it's all html
heres a link to my spam fighting page
http://Lenny.com
4 great justice!
On one matter, however, spammers and their nemeses agree: the United States needs a federal spam law
The article claims this... and yet we see big spam houses fighting anti-spam laws left and right everytime they're proposed in the legislature for a state. And I seriously doubt they comply with the current anti-spam laws in the few states that have them -- since all they have is an email address and no state of residence information.
Frankly, I'm for a reasonable anti-spam law (one similar to the junk fax law, which has worked well). Obviously it's not as clear cut as junk faxes -- with them you can find out who sent you the junk. Spammers routinely obfusacate their information as mentioned in the article. I'm tired of the amount of spam I get, and unless you run your own mail server (something not viable for the vast majority of the Internet populace, and not even viable for the majority of the geeks) there's no way to block it.
Not that blocking really helps -- the bandwidth has already been consumed. The only thing blocking does is automagically delete it for you. I'd like the bandwidth back personally.
{pause to let my boiling blood cool down}
Lets see:
1) you send mail people don't want.
2) they have to pay for it
3) it's legally questionable
4) (if you send porn) objectionable stuff will end up in front of children
5) And you're confused when we get pissed off.
DUH!
{goes rummaging for his clue-by-four and for the sourcecode for spamassasin... I need to tune my procmail filters anyway.}
Zapman
I know it's childish, but would taking down the mail servers of these two companies serve a greater good than even taking down the RIAA web servers (which I don't condone)?
Stop the brainwash
Quote: "These people will go to the lowest depths," said Cowles, of Bowling Green, Ohio.
Try telling that to a mother whos 5 year old son has just opened a "Chicks with d**ks" spam e-mail and followed the friggin link!!!!
These people make me sick!
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and Stupidity.
Folks, if you haven't discovered SpamAssassin yet, do yourself a HUGE favor and at least look into it. If you're not running a Linux box and are relegated to Windows, talk to your ISP about it. If you're running Mac OS X, I believe you should have no problem getting SpamAssassin to filter your mail, if you route it through a local MTA.
It took me about 30 minutes to get SpamAssassin integrated properly with qmail, vpopmail, sqwebmail and I've been happy ever since. I get maybe one spam a week now that isn't caught by the assassin and about 35-40 a day get routed into my Trash automagically.
SpamAssassin has a huge set of heuristics it uses to detect spam as well as some auxiliary tools that it can use to check global databases for common SPAM - if someone else has gotten it and is providing SPAM information to these databases, it saves everyone else from having to check it, basically.
Bottom line: check out SpamAssassin - its by far the best tool I've found in blocking spam, far better than simply blocking yahoo.com and hotmail.com addresses! Take some time, check it out - you'll be quite happy you did, I assure you! Its configurability is pretty much unmatched out there as well.
that ARTICLES never get Slashdotted, but the other links do?
"When its uneconomical to send spam, people will stop sending it." Not true. People will continue to spam even if they only see the illusion of promising returns. Even if the average spam investor's not a compulsive gambler, there's always a fool born every minute.
I mean, he's living on a Bowling Green! The poor man; the spam business just ain't what it was...
One listing...
BALAN, B
RR 1 PO
EMSDALE,ON
(705) 636-1276
You think it's him?
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
"My operating costs have gone up 1,000 percent this year, just so I can figure out how to get around all these filters."
Yes I feel so bad for him. Um, hello. Apparently he doesn't know what he's doing to other people. And, apparently he never receives any spam himself. I don't think he understands. If so many people are so unhappy about spam and block him and others, causing his marketing cost to rise, doesn't that give him a clue? Spammers have used others bandwidth for their own purpose long enough; let them pay a little themselves.
Will work for bandwidth
Check please! When can I get on Internet2?
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
Any law against spamming can always be used against free speach. So it is actually like being between a rock and a hard place. And laws can do little to stop the hardcore spammers anyway. We have so many laws against crime, and the last I heard crime was only increasing.
We must make it untenable to be spammers. The spammers must be made to look like shit in the society. Social outrage against spamming is the only way. If people refuse to deal with spammers on any of their personal business then the spammers might think twice.
Does anyone know where to find the first part (and part III if it has been printed)? The Salt Lake City Tribune charges for access to their archives.
Ryosen
One man's "Troll, +1" is another man's "Insightful, +1".
...my cost of fighting spam has gone down by 1000% - from 0 to, surprise, 0.
The largest amount of spam I get is actually to my university e-mail account - aggravatingly, they don't permit you to fake your e-mail address on their news server. Fools!
Yesterday I received a funny email that one of my clients was spamming. This email seemed to come from spamcop.net. What was starnge it was close to but not exeactly the warning typically sent by spamcop. So I sent them an email and here is the reply:
Spamcop spam is forged
Starting appoximately 12 noon EST 06 Aug 2002, spam purporting to be from spamcop (abuse@julianhaight.com) began being sent in an attempt to 'get spamcop in trouble'. This is a standard spammer tactic (joe job).
These messages were not sent by spamcop, and the claims made in them are false. Please disregard the email and/or block the originating IP address - 206.161.21.66 (cais.net). This IP has been blocked by SpamCop's blacklist since June. It appears cais.net is not responsive to complaints - their phone number (877-427-3368) leads to a computerized system with no attendant. It *may* be safe to block all of cais netspace: 206.161/16.
Please do not block mail from julianhaight.com or spamcop.net. If you cannot block by IP address, it is safe to block the origin email addresses, ( 'abuse@julianhaight.com', 'webmaster@julianhaight.com', 'webmaster@spamcop.net', 'abuse@spamcop.net') as no legitimate mail should be sent from these.
If you would like to contact someone at spamcop about this, you can send email to deputies@admin.spamcop.net. But please refrain from doing so. We are aware of the problem, and we are doing what we can to limit the damage. Unfortunately, since we're not responsible for sending it, there is little we can do to stop it.
More information on this career spammer is available from spamhaus.org
- SpamCop mgmt.
As you can see at least one spammer seems to be fighting back. You can also fing this on the web at http://www.julianhaight.com/forgery.shtml (I did not link directly to the site for obvious reasons. Maybe I should not even put this up?)
Mabey we should teach them a lesson and start refusing any connection from those IPs....
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
In a previous position, I worked at an online travel agency. We sent out newsletters to the people who opted in. Whenever we sent out a newsletter, we could read the results in the web traffic report. People got in, and they sometimes ordered.
I should probably specifically mention that we did it right - the writing was at a level where it was actually nice to read. Oh - I think we also had a quick link at the bottom of the page to opt out of the newsletter.
We didn't receive any complaints, either!
Stop the brainwash
So because a couple of ppl want to achieve some stupid getrichquick goal the rest of the world has to suffer, sounds like a dictatorship almost. Other than world wars and epidemics has there been an event where so many ppl have been effected because of so few ppl?
It also seems that the way the spammers are making money is by selling a few cds with millions of email addresses which multiplies the problem.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
I think the government and many corporations are partly to blame for this.
1) The government because it's too incompetent and slow to move.
I have personal experience dealing with my local police. I called them once regarding a case of internet identity theft. Their response to me? Something like "we don't have any way to get at these cases, so why don't you just change your e-mail and other online identities?" How INCOMPETENT is that!
2) Some corporations because they want to reserve the right to market to internet users.
Companies are reluctant for any type of anti-spam regulation, even if most of them don't spam. Why? Because any regulation threatens to restrict them from mass emailing current/potential customer base.
eTrade SUCKS
Dear interested spammer:
MEDICALLY PROVEN,
OUR PROGRAM WILL ENLARGE YOUR BUDGET,
NATURALLY........
You WILL Gain up to 1000% greater operating costs!
You WILL Get a larger budget!
You WILL Give your accountant MORE pleasure!
You WILL Stay IN DEBT, LONGER!
Most spammers see results within the 1st Month !!! Don't wait! CLICK HERE NOW!!!
I love to answer spam with really really lame messages, do your best to freak them out(if possible, try and fool them into thinking that you are a complete maniac).
Im not sure how effective it is to spam back at the spammers(most use anon email accounts), but it sure is fun. I actually got a couple of replys. One guy had spamed me with a mail trying to sell some sort penis enlargement pill.
I replied that i was hung like a horse, and it actually was a problem. Then explaining what a huuge problem it was for me, since i could only sleep with girls who have given birth to 3-4 kids. In the end i asked for a pill to make my penis SMALLER. Heres the fun stuff, he freaking replied on the mail. Telling me that he HAD a pill that made penis smaller, and how i could buy it.
I replied with a "christ, you're a idiot" and never heard from him again =D
I've also used this tatics before with a very "aggresive" danish religious movement(withnesses of jehova), who spends most of their time going from door to door trying to make people join them.
I told them i thought that Mary was artificially inseminated by aliens, and therefore our religon was something created by a higher race to make us calmer. It freaked the fuck out of them, and im pretty sure that they will NEVER knock on my door again.
Example: A email enters my
Tom Cowles, who heads one of the world's largest bulk e-mail, or spam, businesses, ought to be a happy guy. By his account, his company makes $12 million a year e-mailing billions of advertisements, mainly to folks who don't want them. It's an easy job, the way Cowles and others describe it:
12 Million? I am in the wrong business. Amazing that there are actually that many stupid people in the world that these guys can make a living off of sending out crap....well, wait a minute....we have politicians who do the same....
I think a law needs to be established that if a person DOES NOT want to receive this garbage, they should not receive it. All these "so-called" businesses should HAVE to be registered and LEGITAMIZED to where there CAN be legal recourse. I know for a fact that I bounce hundreds of "Bad Spam Email" from my server, and that and the residue left from Nimda taxes what limited bandwidth I have.
(Insert Schoolhouse rock theme here) "You are right, there oughta be a LAW!"
You keep going until you die..."Me".
Not to be devil's advocate here, but people need to get a life. I hate spam as much as the next guy, but STALKING these guys? Threatening them? Spam sucks, but so does being an idiot. What if I stalked all the people who posted annoying crap on /. or what if we started stalking everyone who asked a stupid question on IRC? I find stupid people just as irritating (if not more) than spam, so why shouldn't I be able to threaten, stalk, and harrass them? Flaming people online is one thing, but stalking them is totally different. And stalking their family members is despicable. If I was Tom Cowles, and you stalked my wife, you would be dead...no questions asked. And you would deserve it.
"Herbivores eat well cause their food never, ever runs."
A few carefully crafted google searches revealed the other two articles in the series (although the Arizona Star seems to think it's a four-part series- I guess we'll find out tomorrow):
Part 1: It's a war, and spam foes are losing
Part 3: Anti-spam tools more aggressive but frustrated by e-mail's 'dumb' nature
I really hate signatures, but go to my website.
*cough*hotmail*cough*
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
"My operating costs have gone up 1,000 percent this year, just so I can figure out how to get around all these filters," said Balan, a former truck driver and pinball machine mechanic.
Pinball machine mechanic? And now a spammer? Boy, this guy sure has a way of picking his jobs. Maybe he should have stuck it out as a truck driver.
The website of the so-called "stalker" is at http://www.toledocybercafe.com/ivtg/index.htm.
Growing a Spam Killing Community -- "The purpose of this article is to discuss how to eliminate spam through a community of spammer killers. Why take a passive role in spam elimination and why use up precious time and complex tools to track down one spammer? Instead, let's create a community of spammer hunters to track them down and wipe them out, using their own methods against them. Forget killing spam, let's kill the spammers."
How to Download YouTube Videos
I'm feeling a certain URGE to KILL!
still reading?
Why exactly is he trying to get around spam filters?
If someone has a spam filter in place, there is not *way*
they're going to buy your unsolicited crap. There's no point!
Even better, is this one..
"This is free enterprise at its finest."
Yeah... I'll bet that's what John Gotti thought about his "business" too..
When will these people learn that theft is NOT business?
It's the companies we need to "educate"
I've never had spam from a legit companny.
All spam advertises is the usual porn/get rich quick/dodgey viagra crap.
No legitemate companies need educating as every company knows, sending unsoliceted spam is a quick way to piss off your customers.
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
bad e-mail security should be treated like bad harware security and litigated to death. seems like if there is ANY filter in place, attempts to bypass that filter would be a violation of the DMCA.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
A "paltry $250"!? That's more than most programmers (the ones who can still find jobs) make. The really sick part of this is that these guys are complaining that they're making only 90k a year sitting on their ass when hard working programmers can't find jobs.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
This article only confirms what any well thinking person should have concluded already: these guys are just a couple of profiteers who'll happily irritate people to make large amounts of money to satisfy their material cravings, not to mention the costs they incur on ISP's and others who keep up the internet with the thought of bringing good to the people against a reasonable profit.
Wake up: these people will always exists, there's no ignoring them. They will only stop spamming if the economics are not profitable anymore, or it's downright outlawed. Please say 'no' to their unbridled capitalist philosophy and 'yes' to be considerate to others (and yes, this includes not terrorising the spammers by infringing their personal rights, no matter how mad you are about the mess they send you).
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Better than filters would be a program that would trace the originator and auto-respond with 5-10 messages. Imagine if everyone receiving spam sent back 5-10 messages. Maybe then ISPs would put a stop to it.
I remember the first spam I saw, back in '94, IIRC. Some lawyer selling immigration services. I ran a cron job that night that mailed him a core dump every 15 minutes. It didn't take long to swamp his mailbox.
"Love is a familiar; Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but Love." --William Shakespeare ('Love's Labors Lost')
From the article... "The ISPs are in a precarious position," Cowles said. "If they condone [spam], they're sticking their necks out. If they don't condone it, they lose business. So you negotiate the amount of complaints you're going to get."
But from what I understood from the article, there are only a handful of these spammers. Would it really be such a massive amount of loss in business to the ISPs if they decided to not condone spamming? Especially considering none of these guys are long time customers from the ISPs standpoint if they have to keep switching accounts.
I think that economics would predict regular waves of spam:
1. People will discover that spam is a waste of time and money, spam filters will block more and more of the useless stuff, and spam will start to decline.
2. Newbies who don't recognize that spam is a waste of time and money appear (as well as standard-issue fools who've forgotten their lesson), developers will reduce budgets and work on spam filters (and fewer people will install them), and spam will start a resurgence.
3. See 1. above.
.. penis size due to pumps and vitamins are still only up .001%
Live web cams
A guy is running a contest for most nigerian spam (yeah, only nigerian spam will do!). Here, he explains how he was promised $411.4 million himself. The site doesn't tell if he got the money or not...
:)
This "bondage spam" also made my laugh.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
- identifying spammers so they can be contacted to stop sending further messages or allowing their messages to be filtered easily
- identifying telemarketers in the same way
- identifying the source of all advertising
I don't think it would trample any free speech that isn't already limited (i.e. lying about what someone else said is already frowned upon.)So what did I miss? How would this be used to hurt J. Citizen?
--- Jason Olshefsky
Karma: Poser (mostly affected by adding this line long after everyone else did)
$250 per mailing, at one mailing a day, is still more than $90k per year. We've got a lot of work to do if we're going to stop spammers.
and when i do, he won't be so pretty anymore.
-makoffee
It's amazing what can people say (and by repeating making themselves believe it's true) to protect a business which is bound to be destroyed. Or it should be...
Hopefully in the future there will be laws regarding this. (I would say life for spam!)
-- Would it be acceptable to just put my name on my sig?
if someone invaded private property here with "bats in hand" they'd get a few "bullets in feet".
If there are only a few people doing the spamming, then all we need to do is find their emails/urls/domains and slashdot them. simple.
Considering that the home addresses of spammers are now published, I have a novel idea for making them feel how we do.
Have everyone snail mail them one bag of kitchen garbage. 4th class mail. Once a month.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear to be bright. Until you hear them speak.
"This is free enterprise at its finest."
So the American Dream is Spam.
I have to say, as a left wing liberal European, this explains a lot.
I may be the only one who thinks this, but the smtp protocol could use an overhaul. It is so easy to spoof where the message is coming from, or even just make the headers so confusing that you can't really be sure. If mail servers had to be established and recognized somehow (no more HELO xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) so at least if someone didn't remove you from their list you could at least know to whom you should reciprocate, the problem of unsolicited email would be all but eliminated.
Just my 2 cents
From the article, 240 million addreses, of which 20% (1 fifth) get through.
:-
:-
Assuming (a rather low value of) 8 seconds per person who gets the mail to download, consider and delete this piece of crap, that gives 12 years (Math below) of human life eliminated per mailing that this guy sends.
Simple logic dictates then that if this guy is going to send more than 6 mailings in his lifetime that it is ethically correct to execute him now to protect the innocent (cumulative) lives he is destroying.
Assumptions
- an average of 8 seconds to download, consider and delete each spam that gets through the filters.
- Average human lifespan of 75 years or less.
- I've not made any really dumb errors in my math.
Math
240 million address, of which 20% get through.
240/5 = 48.
8 seconds per piece of spam.
48,000,000 * 8 = 384,000,000 seconds of human life destroyed per mailing.
60*60*24*365 seconds per year = 31536000 seconds per year.
384,000,000 / 31,536,000 = 12.17 years of human life eliminated per mailing.
We just need more effective vigilantes.
Parents shouldn't have to screen their kids email. if it werent for the spammers you could let your kids check email all day long without the worry of them getting a quick blast of nasty wet teenage girls sent to them
Last Sunday, the Detroit News ran an article about local spammer (and convicted felon) Alan Ralsky.
Stopping spam is simply a matter of economics. When its uneconomical to send spam, people will stop sending it.
:-(
:-) Oh the irony!
Unfortunately, it still costs next to nothing compared to the cost of postage and production of bulk snail mail yet there seems to be no end in sight for that any time soon. I'm afraid SPAM is here to stay.
Our only hope would be legislation but I am not nieve enough to think that even that will stop my inbox from filling up. Maybe I can sue and make a few bucks from it though.
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
penile enlarger or an antenna booster
Can you?
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Elcomsoft (of "dimitri" fame) is listed pretty high up on the spamhaus site as a spamming organistation. Maybe they sent too many "Free Dimitri" mails?
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
...and, among other (really) interesting services (plus a detailed analysis of a proposal website), slightly proposed me to start a 'marketing campaign'.
:) ) or something like that.
what they 'said' (they make me understand the concept, but they never explicitly said it) was something like:
"We could send information about your company to users that could potentially be interested in your product, using some lists of e-mail addresses..."
And they asked for a price. Which wasn't that big.
So here is how spammers get paid: by convincing marketers that spam "might" be poiting customer attention to a website/product. And marketers go trying to convince CEOs and those who buy their services.
After all, spammers gets a little amount of money: why not try that, if it will cost you only few hundred bucks? from a company point of view, that's nothing.
And here the spammers get more and more money.
What I think would be needed is an article on some business-oriented magazine (say, the Economist, the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal) that explicitly *tells* CEOs and other managers WHY AVOIDING SPAM MAKES YOU SAVE MONEY (sound like a spam mail, doesn't it?
Like talking to them with their own language. No need to talk about bandwidth, e-mail, filtering, regexp. Just concepts.
Is anyone willing to help me write such an article? maybe someone with connections in such business-oriented newspapers...
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
So is there any reason why we can't use existing laws against them? It may not be a federal crime, but at least under some state laws, it's a crime to show objectionable material to minors. Get the information on the spammer and report it to your local law enforcement authorities.
What about wire fraud or mail fraud, or just plain old fraud? If these spammers are registering for accounts under false names, why can't they be prosecuted under fraud laws?
Vigilante tactics have their place too, of course. Any ISP that claims to have an anti-spam policy but in reality cooperates with these spammers should have their entire IP range blacklisted. After their legitimate customers (if they have any) can't get to websites or send e-mail, and cancel their accounts, those ISPs will either go out of business or rethink their policies.
Finally, grass-roots operations are all well and good, but the anti-spam movement won't make any serious progress until we get some money in our corner. Find some large corporation that hates spam as much as we do. You can't tell me that workers in these corporations aren't getting spam - some of them are probably even reading it. In an era where every dollar counts (especially if you overstated profits for the last two years), some corporation somewhere must want to put an end to this as much as Joe Everygeek does.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
"The SpaMarketing Wars of the Early 21st century"
I think this is a failing blip on the radar screen. If you look at the services now available to avoid spam and Telemarketers, I think you'll notice that it's a shrinking issue.
Living in Colorado, I've got the $3 caller ID service, and the $2 doo-dad that forces people with unknown caller ID tags to enter their number first...I've also joined the Colorado Do-Not-call list. I have had zero (0) solicitation calls in the past 6 months as a result.
I have three different active email addresses (none used for usenet, BTW) that get nearly no spam. The hotmail account gets one or two a week, but only because the name could be easily guessed by the spambots that string real user names together. I guess that's what I get for trying to create a name without a prime number after it. (Juser2309120@hotmail.com)
Otherwise, my life is pretty spam free, the filters catch a lot of the crap, and my subconscious catches the rest (Ctrl-click-click-click-click-delete)
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
can be found at http://www.toledocybercafe.com/ivtg/ Check yer facts, reporters!
Learn how a CPU works before you learn to program. Seriously.
This begs the question: why does he have sickening 'phone clips? Does he sell those, too?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
A shotgun's quicker, just as effective, more convenient, and allows for a faster getaway.
Anyway, wouldn't it be more effective - and terribly appropriate - to dob him into every snail-mail advertising list on the planet?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I've had no end of trouble from Spamcop.
"SpamCop" does not project a professional image -- the email they send to the target of complaints itself looks a lot like SPAM, complete with bogus-looking "Received" headers.
Spamcop makes no real efforts to check out the validity of the complaints they receive before sending a form letter to the accused spammer. I've received numerous messages from them regarding spam that were obvious, incompetent forgeries -- for example, a spammer forging one of my domain names in the 'From'. The least bit of cursory examination would show that while that domain "looks cute" to spammers, it is never is used to send or receive email, with the only DNS entry in the zone being for the 'www' address (no A record for the domain, no MX records at all).
Julian Haight needs to get his act together.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
This poor "ethikul buznizman" Tom Cowles send out several thousands of spam mails with forged senders - generated names from our domain. We are a small company of 6 people - he generated several hundred bogus names for "sender". (No, the mails were not sent using our domain - they were sent from some open proxy in asia).
On some of the worst days, we got well over 1.000 (one thousand) bounces!!! (that is: spam that *did not* go through to the recipient). So, his frickin spam did cost *us* money, plus reputation - because all the hatemail that bastard complains about went to *us* not to his sorry ass (like a 1mb hires jpeg with a "fuck you spammer" message - great, we didn't send that out, thank you very much).
And, being in europe there is hardly much I can do against a US spammer.
Luckily, after three weeks he stopped (he is probably misusing some other small companys name right now). I really hope this guy gets shut down for good. (There is hope - he is on criminal trial says' his "stalkers" website:
http://www.toledocybercafe.com/ivtg/
Worm spamming. An outlook worm, which spams: it would connect to a website, get it's "instruction" (spam messages), then send itself along with the spam messages, to your outlook address list.
Now, which filter will be able to trap that, as it will always go to and come from legit addresses???
Scary.
At least an 8.5. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
All this article does for me is piss me off even more and make me want to block even more spam. I'll probably go out and dig up another couple hundred spamming domains for my blacklist.
Die spammers, die!
*** This is not flamebait ***
An unrecognized issue here on slashdot is that all these patchwork anti-spam filters are making it exceedingly difficult for businesses to communicate with their customers by email. It just takes one jerk with no sense of proportion to get your mailserver on a black list.
I know this because I send out bulk email on regular basis, all legitimate and fully opt in (an industry newsletter). Yet many customers can't receive our newsletters because overzealous sys admins react badly to any and all bulk email.
Don't be paranoid - if you get an email you don't want, just follow the remove instructions - 99% of emailers will remove you from their lists, and the ones who don't are probably just disorganized.
We have customers calling all the time to complain that they can't get our mailings - these people are non-technical financial industry types, who have no power over their increasingly fascistic IT groups.
Of course the rats who run these blacklists won't delist you for anything. They spout on about their "right" to publish what they want, without considering the needs of actual users and legitimate businesses, or their civic responsibilty to help rather than harm.
What makes this problem even worse is that SPAM filtered email is universally blackholed - that is, there is not even a bounce to let us know that it didn't get through.
IMO, email has been ruined not by SPAMmers, but by overzealous SPAM blockers and self-appointed SPAM wardens. These people like to think they are striking a blow for privacy, yet all they are really doing is making email unreliable
IT personnel: Remember your place. You are there to serve your users, and help them get their jobs done efficiently. The users are the ones who pay the bills. Blocking their email doesn't help.
SPAM is VERY EASY to stop. My way can do it in 90 days, guaranteed. Stop buying crap out of SPAM. Don't follow porn links, don't buy things, don't click the links, etc.
Anyone who has done anything in anyway that made a spammer money is guilty of promoting SPAM. If no one did anything to make a spammer money, they would stop after 90 days.
Choosing a profession hated by most means they have the right to bitch at you. I don't advocate etching your opinion into a spammer's car with acid or delivering it to their loungeroom wrapped around a brick, but I do advocate telling them (and their ISPs, postoffice, communications authorities, bankers, relatives - you've got free speech, use it liberally) loudly and often that you're offended by what they're doing.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
On Sunday the Detroit News featured three articles about spammers, including a front page story. Take a look here: http://detnews.com/2002/technology/0208/04/index.h tm for the stories. (Scroll down a little past the headlines)
So, you want to Meet the Spammers?
The beginning of the story is a bit dull, but it gets better near the end. Skip to the middle if you're too impatient.
Basically, this guy/gal conned a spammer to have a meeting in Amsterdam, and was able to get the spammer on a webcam! The photos are at the end.
(Yeah, slightly off-topic, but what the hell...)
I doubt, therefore I may be.
Hey I have a few questions I would like to ask the spammers directly -- could you please post their e-mail address?
Thanks!
You will have to pry my proprietary software $$$ from my cold dead hands!
It's obvious that spammers are an ignorant lot. If you're being threatened and ISPs don't want you around, what makes you think anyone wants your spam? It's like a street vendor grabbing people and yelling in their face. In the real world, that would get you chased off at best and possibly arrested. Yet they keep coming back, and they have the absolute nerve to say the hostile response they get is not their fault.
In closing, "truck driver and pinball machine mechanic"? Wonder if he knows anything about a computer besides how to click the "send" button on his spambot. More fuel to my personal fire that you really should have a license to operate a computer. If you're so ignorant as to think spamming is a better alternative to a real job (like a truck driver), then you don't deserve to be on-line. If there was a Darwin Award for computer stupidity, spammers would be a shoe-in.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
This article is complete bullshit. It wouldn't surprise me if a spammer wrote it themselves. So much for journalistic ethics. The link above is to a reply from the so called stalker. Karen (the stalker) sets the record straight.
Gee... It's been almost 5 years to the day since the UDP of UUNet was cancelled. They are spamhaus' top hosting site for the spam gangs now. They have a history of writing pink sheet contracts with spammers because they can leverage their peering contracts to make outgoing spam profitable for them. Of course they will ignore the community's complaints, like most 800 pound gorilla's do. And they are known to employ their legal team to harrass those who wish to shame them in public.
Look at it this way:
It's only a matter of time.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
"My operating costs have gone up 1,000 percent this year, just so I can figure out how to get around all these filters."
Oh, cry me a river.
In similar news, pedophiles today said that recent high-profile child abductions have made it harder for them to find front yards full of succulent babies to rape.
Here's a fun link that'll hopefully get me modded up a bit:
http://www.boners.com/grub/384011.html
only in america
Damn those Spammers souls to hell, i hope their life becomes even more miserable than it is now, it is a wonder they can sleep at night knowing that their job & career is sending electronic junkmail that clogs up networks and it all for nothing but problems for other people, they should just commit suiscide...
Dave Codding, president of Internet Direct, an Ohio-based ISP, said his company struggled for a year to get Cowles off his network. Codding said Cowles used a false name to open an account and threatened to sue if he was cut off.
It is well-established law in the US, and probably most civilized nations as well, that using a false name for a fraudulent purpose is illegal. Specifically, it's illegal to use a false name to hide relevant information about your past (e.g. lousy credit, criminal record), which is precisely what these slimeballs are doing.
Somebody needs to convince a local DA to make an example of one of these crooks. Once it becomes too risky to use a pseudonym, it will be a simple matter of convincing ISPs to black-list them.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
I'm surprized at how seldom he is mentioned, but one of the most prolific and notorious spammers, Mr. Sanford Wallace, AKA Spamford Wallace, was responsible for the vast majority of spam that cluttered inboxes about 5 years ago (ah, a lifetime in Internet time). This notorious individual was targetted by hackers, and he even floated a trial balloon that he'd start his own spam friendly backbone after getting chased from provider to provider.
Anyways, the legal system worked as Cyberpromotions was shut down by lawsuits. Sort of like crime, the reality was that it was only a few individuals who were responsible for the overwhelming majority of spam, and that was true in this case too: After Spamford was shut down, the amount of spam hitting inboxes literally slowed to a crawl.
Or at least, legit businesses that are going under and want to make a few quick bucks... WorldCom refuses to kick spammers off its network. A month ago I started getting K-Mart's "Bluelight.com" emails, being sent to an email address that is a mere alias (and so, under proper opt-in, could never have been registered).
Some K-Mart marketing exec must have thought he needed to save his job and bought a spammer email list to boost their "enrollment" numbers. Shame on K-Mart.
> When its uneconomical to send spam, people will
> stop sending it
This is not true. As the rate of spam drops, the response rate to the spam that does get through rises, as does its value. So basically, adding filters makes it economical to send spam to the few market survivors who will be able cover their costs and make a profit on the amount they charge their clients.
Powered by onion juice.
The average joe would only pay ten to hundred dollars a year in email postage- which could be built into ISP fees. The million message a day spammer would go broke.
I think that people on slashdot are quite hypocritical when it comes to spam. Slashdotters say: I want free speach! they say: I want spam banned!
Some may say that spam laws only infringe on free speach a little but this would create precident for other laws against free speach. Perhaps a spam law that says that when you opt-out of something that you can't be signed up for any other lists.
Getting ISP accounts under false names, and using legal threats to keep ISPs from enforcing their own policies, are what needs to be stopped.
Blacklists should work, and we should be working toward removing the obstacles that are keeping their effectiveness down. Someone shouldn't be able to dodge the effects of a blacklist just by switching ISPs. I wish there were some way of associating a mail with a real identity.
Another thing I would like to see, is the converse of the above. If mainstream mail clients were to more tightly integrate PGP/GPG so that more people (even Joe Schmoe's grandmother) could easily use it, that would help. If a large fraction of mail had signatures, then people could begin to filter on the basis of "someone I know" vs "stranger." Then, perhaps after a few decades, people could just automatically ignore all mail that doesn't have some sort of provable reputation associated with it.
Accountability is the key, and spammers' success is completely based upon the lack of it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It should take about 5 minutes to pass - I can't imagine anyone hoping to get re-elected opposing it. Something like: the penalty for the first offence is 50 years without parole. Second offence gets the chair. The onus would be on the spammers to ensure that they didn't do it - that should put a crimp in their style.
Sigs are bad for your health.
What's the use of NRA and the right to bear arms and other bullshit, if you don't put your right to good use? Go there and waste the motherfuckers... I'm tired of spam in my mailbox, most of it targetted to the US people, so I couldn't put money into it even if I wanted to!
Where does the article get the $12 million figure from? My bet that they are taking the spammer at his word. Here's a shocker: spammers lie. No way in hell do they make $12 million per year.
The next level in anti-spam measures is to actually IGNORE them. Use "active" countermeasures... I am working on a front-end for email that requires an active response to any unknown email. And, while the email is coming in, the server waits 9 minutes between lines. If the new email is longer than a cut-off, and the sender isn't known, it accepts the rest. The idea is to tie up a port on the spammer (or forwarder) for as long as feasible. Email return addresses are checked, and if not valid, immediately deleted. And, as a last precaution, if there are any http: tags in the email, the address is checked, and if its numeric, the email is discarded. End of story. From then on out I ignore the spammers. I just don't see any, AND (as another benefit), I automatically hurt the spammers (having the port tied up). Also, I have a little GUI gizmo that shows me when UCE is coming in, and records the SMTP IP address. Since my server is running very slowly, I can actually catch them "in the act", and, if desired, start hacking on their box. What fun!
What we need is software like this. (Don't ask, mine isn't ready for release, and I don't code "collaboratively" -- I do it for my own amusement).
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
I am a former truck driver too, prick. And I know a hell of a lot more than how to hit the send button. Additionally, I have seen the inside of a pinball machine and YOU can't fix one. So shut up with that crap. /dev/null
Yeah, this guy's so stupid he used to make 10k a DAY. What do you make, smartguy?
That being said spammers can all jump in a river. They get to talk to
Carpe Deez
You don't have that freedom, never have. It's illegal to spam over the phone too if you ask the company to stop. That's how it's supposed to work in most states with spam, but the SOB's don't have functional REMOVE addy's, or usually it just traps your email and puts it on a "live email" sell list. If you're jsut a general anarchist, well, that's another issue.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
What I don't get is this: if they keep spamming, it means there must be someone buying their stuff. How many people could possibly be applying for so many 'low-interest rate' loans, going on a 'free-vacation', or buying 'sex-enhancement' products?! On second thought, nevermind that last one.
Are there really that many dumb people?
And another question: how much money are these spammers making? It's got to be pretty significant or they wouldn't be wasting their time.
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
We should start a charity drive for the poor bastards to end their misery. I've got 30 feet of good heavy rope to donate. Can anyone kick in a gallows pole or a sturdy tree and a horse?
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Now I feel even worse about the continuing death of pinball.
-- Scientist: You aren't going to leave me here, are you? Boagh! Thump...
Isn't defeating a spam filter nearly the same thing as defeating encryption? Under DMCA (our favorite law!) that is supposed to be illegal. If we have to live with this fucking DMCA bullshit, at least we can get some benefit from it. If it becomes illegal to intentionally defeat a spam filter, then spam filters will actually work. Note this doesn't have any first amendment issues - they can say what they want, you have absolutely no obligation to listen, and they can't make you listen.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
If he ever understand that peaple filtering spam filter it because they will NEVER buy from someone using spam, then he will save on operating cost and he will not bother us about penis enlargement..
I enjoy spam.
Every spam I delete reduces their profit/increases their loss... And I delete ALLOT of spam.
God, that feels good....
I think parents SHOULD know what's in their kids email, at least until junior high school age or so.
Half the prolblem with kids being in trouble today is because parents have absolutely no idea what their kids are doing or where they are.
So now I have a whitelist with addresses of my friends, co-workers and the mailing lists that I have subscribed to. Those emails will get to my Inbox directly - the rest will get filed to a spam folder and an autoreply is sent to the sender telling them how to get through the filter. This requires the sender to read the autoreply and do what it says.
It works.
Time for some blatant self-promotion: my .procmailrc can be found from here.
So operating costs are rising are they? That's a good thing. Lets hope they continue to rise until we reach the point where commercial companies sending spam can't operate profitably..
I'm suprized that he has so many fake accounts - if this were a legitimate spam sending company they'd only be sending to legit opt-in requests, and they'd honour removal requests right?
I'd be happy for spamming companies to continue to exist if they:
Hey if it were legit like that I'd even sign up to a few lists to help convince everybody that using a legit business was better than doing it badly. (Of course they'd get filed to /dev/null - but that's a different story ;)
"This is what the Internet is supposed to be," said Michael Jay, whose Houston-based company, America Find, sends several million messages per day advertising $99 background checks. "This is free enterprise at its finest."
Funny, I thought it was a communication tool and a network infrastructure. I had no idea that it was to sell prick embigenator cream.
Carpe Deez
I don't know if it helps, but everytime I get spam mail,I subscribe to every xxx4free mail group and register into some p*rn4free services I know using spam sender's e-mail address. I hope that this leads them to the same kind of spam circle that they are creating themselves...
What we need is a way to make the spamming useless to businesses who try it. Get someone to write a program (similiar to the ones used to generate the spam) that will respond to the spam messages that have on-line ordering with thousands of bogus orders. I'm sure there are enough sites that would allow these to be routed through their servers to really make it hard to filter them out. Then let the businesses try to find the one or two legitimate orders mixed in with the thousands of bogus orders they receive. How long would they continue to use spamming services?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
"These people will go to the lowest depths," said Cowles, of Bowling Green, Ohio.
I just loaded this Slashdot page and got an ad for a Microsoft product. So who is the lower, the spammer or the fool who sells out his principles for a quick buck (or in this case, probably a lot of bucks?)
Goodbye Slashdot, your credibility is gone. Hope the money was worth it.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
My guess is, he wants to be able to increase the number of people he can claim are getting his spam. Marketing tactic.
I'm the stranger...posting to
UPDATE: spam fighter and alleged "stalker" Karen Hoffmann responds
Timothy, I suggest adding this update to the article. This information should have been in the article in the first place. It was not hard to find.
Here is an extract from the response:
Also, how about getting China, HK, and Korea to pass laws making it illegal to take over a mail server (even if it does have open relays)? Then, extradict these assholes, and they serve hard time in a foreign prison. Even if you only do it to a handful, it'll scare the crap out of them.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Some quotes from the article:
"Spam, after all, is perfectly legal in most places -- as long as it isn't fraudulent."
"Spammers hide by using fake 'from' addresses and relaying their messages through anonymous mail servers in places like China."
IANAL, but I thought not revealing your company's name durign a business transaction was fraud...
-Zordok
That is not spam. Not UN-solicited email, only solicited email that has been sent to the wrong address. It may be a near-criminally stupid use of a web form, but they (perhaps erroneously) believe that you asked for it, hence it is not spam.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
This article, a lead August story at New.Architect Magazine, written by a clueless idiot who only thinks he understands technology, shows why fighting spam will remain a difficult task for the forseeable future. If he can't understand that spammers will forge email addresses, and that it's trivial to do, and that any test must do the same thing to be valid, he shouldn't even be writing in a technology oriented publication, much less be allowed to pursue such claims in court. It's people like that, that spammers love to have around.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I like the "Jay and Silent Bob" form of punishment -- two geeks from Jersey show up at the spammer's house, confirm his identity and then proceed to lay the smack down. From what I hear, it's a lot harder to use your computer with mangled hands, and a lot harder to see the screen if your eyes are swollen shut.
You know, it really doesn't surprise me that a site that features all kinds of popup ads is posting an article sympathetic to spammers...
To my view spammers are just middlemen. Companies that hire them are real cause of spam. And any legislation would be to go against their interests - isn't that obvious? This is why your list of guidelines that you propose will never be the law unless there is another powerful interests like AOL or like that will lobby for them. Money is the law. Spam kills the internet.
>
I liked the following statement in the original article :
"spammers and their nemeses agree: the United States needs a federal spam law."
The way things are going (UCITA, DMCA...) I can see it now - it will be called the SPAM act (for Spam Protects American Marketers) and will forbid filters, require users to read all spam and prohibit any complaints in response.
is that most of these spammers bounce all the spam off of international isp's and such. trying to govern all that would be nightmareish.
The real problem comes from them gathering their own lists. If the marketing were opt-in, think of how little they'd actually send. But its greed that keeps them going.
I mean, really. Get a clue people.
. sourceforge.net/i -spam/dcc/
Tell you what, I'll point you to the clues:
http://razor.sourceforge.net/
or
http://pyzor
or
http://www.rhyolite.com/ant
And, no. The spammers can't get round them just by including random characters or personalising the mails.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Doesn't abusing open relay violate various anti-cracking laws such as CFAA ? It's a clear abuse / unauthorized access of the computer. Existing cases of the CFAA seem to use a pretty weak definition of "protected computer". Sure, they can hack into overseas computers, but if these guys hack into Chinese computers, why not extradite them ? (-; (-;
In order to sell something, there has to be a contact method. Usually a phone number, at some point. So, why don't we go after the companies selling the product? Sure, spammers may be able to hide their identity, but the "how to order" part must be true or they wouldn't be able to sell anything.
So, make it illegal to sell something using false information (forged headers) and the profits will be instantly gone.
Travis
Maybe this is a stupid question, but I'm serious. A mailbox is a database and a spam filter is a security measure. Spammers deliberately bypass security so they can insert unauthorized data. Can't we put them in jail for that?
"Legally speaking, sending a 7-year-old an e-mail advertising hardcore pornography might be a nuisance, but it's not a crime, said Timothy Healy, chief of the FBI's Internet Fraud Complaint Center, based in Fairmont, W.Va. "
Why the hell isn't it illegal? I realize that it make take a little effort on the part of the Spammers, but it would seem to make a little sense. Hustler doesn't mass e-mail free samples out for good reason (one, it would cost more than they could make just waiting for the audience to come to them; and two, it would be offensive to WAAY too many people and completes would flood the offices).
And if I'm wrong, and Hustler does send out free samples... where's mine?
...and why the fu** should we now all of a sudden believe the lies of these darn spammers? Just because they are whining about their "1000% increased operating costs"? Pah! Stone them all.
Check out the reply of the so called "stalker"
http://www.toledocybercafe.com/ivtg/index.htm
~insert tech sarcasm here~
This is going to fix things, because spammers always obey the law, right? The solution is not more laws; it's educated users and sysadmins. The last thing we need is government getting involved with technology problems.
emailmarketingsystems.comr ce1.comr s.netc omi lsoftware.ca. com
webmark1.com
marketfo
bulkmailhosting.com
bulkemail.ca
bulke
bulkbarn.com
web-promotions.com
listguy.
listsorcerer.com
bulletproofisp.com
bulkema
email-marketing.ca
getyoursoftware
americaint.com
data-miners.net
This is modded Flamebait? Who is he/she trying to bait - pornographers, spammers, the RIAA, congressmen? I think that the moderators have finally lost their minds.
I hate new laws. All of them. Look at the anti-racketeering laws passed to fight the mob. Next thing you know these Asset Forfiture laws are used to seize all of the possessions of people (any people, not mobsters!) who are merely just accused of a crime. Disgusting.
Pass an anti-spam law, and next thing you know the bizarrest things will be prosecuted with it. Imagine this scenario. Small protest group uses an ad-based email list-server. Somebody writes a manifesto for the group, and since it was sent out on the list-server it gets an ad attached. Someone else, we'll call him John, likes the manifesto and remails it to his large email list of people, accidently leaving the ad attached. Bam. John is a criminal. He has mass distributed a commercial advertisement without meeting the requirements of the spam law, and now is eligible for $100 per mail or 2 years in jail. They might not be able to bust the protesters for being unamerican but they can bust them for stuff like this!
You people are hypocrites of the highest order. You bitch about the laws that the music industry seeks out to protect thier industry, and think absolutely nothing about demanding lots of laws from congress to protect the purity of your communication medium. Technical solutions! Come up with technical solutions if you're so proud of your fucking Open Source Movement! We don't need to give the governments of the world another method to stick people in jail or levy massive fines at them!
Odds are, anybody who says, "There should be a law ... " is a closet facist.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
A MODEST PROPOSAL TO END EMAIL SPAM Most of the discussion here is about legal approaches to stopping spam. While this sounds attractive I'm dubious that it will ever be effective given that spammers can relocate offshore. Here's simple technical fix which I admit is pretty simplistic and has other problems but might point in the direction of a different solution. Any system that fights spam is going to have some inconvenience associated with it and this proposal is no exception. Is there a method whereby the benefits outweigh the costs? This proposed system might be close to being practical but if not, then perhaps others will come up with a better approach. THE EASY PART To thwart spammers this proposal is based on the very simple "code word" technique combined with forcing spammers to go through a manual process to get it. When you send an email to someone you attach their code word to it, perhaps in the subject line. If you have the right code word then the email is accepted, if not then the email never makes it to the inbox. What could be easier? What about when the code word is wrong or missing? When the code word is wrong then the sender gets an automatically generated message back telling them how and where to get the correct code word. Here there would be server that simply has a list of email addresses with their associated code word. The sender goes to the server, gets the code word, adds it to the email and successfully sends the message. In order to prevent this process from being automated, and therefore to prevent spammers from easily getting access to the code word, the server presents the recipients code word in a graphical format. Just like yahoo and slashdot (and perhaps others) currently use to prevent automated account generaton on their sites. The graphical format is simply the code word in an image which is just tricky enough to read that a live human needs to do it. Now, after a while a users code word will get to be known so every couple of months, or whenever the spam build up gets intolerable, they just go to the "master email codeword server" and change it. This may all seem simple enough but for this to really work there are some huge challenges. THE HARD PART In order for this to be used with the least inconvenience email programs would have to be "modified slightly" to add some new features. In particular they would need to: - Automatically send a message back for rejected emails pointing the sender to the email codeword server. - keep a record of everybody's codeword and automatically add it to outgoing emails. - automatically update "authorised correspondents" of any changes in your code word. ie, you decide to change your code word and then all the people in your address book get a message that updates their code word for you automatically and transparently. CONCLUSION The technique outlined functions as a very simple 'immune system" that allows email to distinguish 'us' from 'them'. For a small effort it might eliminate 99% of unwanted spam without putting too much of a burden on legitimate but unknown correspondents who have to go and look up the code word at the server. But would this really work and be practical? How can it be improved? Is there a simpler, better way altogether? If this works how to we get microsoft to change Outlook and hotmail to implement it? :) There will be security issues regarding how to stop me from updating your password etc. Will these be fatal to the idea?
The spam articles are from the Associated Press and were published in the Houston Chronicle:
SPAMMED! PART I: A costly war of attrition
SPAMMED! Part II: Despite vigilantes, spammers keep e-mail flowing
SPAMMED! Part III: Anti-spam tools more aggressive but frustrated by e-mail's 'dumb' nature
Europe outlaws spam, but it keeps coming
The article complains about a "vigilante", but the woman, Karen Hoffmann, seems very reasonable: Karen Hoffman's website. She says fighting spam is her hobby.
He uses other peoples systems to spread his crap. He forgets that all this spam clutters up many mail servers and screws people who have to pay for their time on line.
This is not a crime, but talking to a 7 year old on line is? Hmm to me this would be one step away from pedophilia(did I spell that right?). What is the difference is you unknowningly send a 7 year old an email that has a URL to a porn site and says things like watch 2 girls do f***, or see cindy take it up the a**, and pedophilia?
Personally if I was their ISP I'd ban them from using my service. I know some ISP's do that. Maybe what we need is a list and take this list to the ISP and get them to ban these people from getting online. No service to spamers is a policy that some already have, if there was a list of people (maybe what is on the .org website that I can't get to right now) then we'd have less spam.
I'm not sure about the rest of /. but I am tired of my mailbox filling up with spam. I do like my new filters though, much of it goes straight to the trash. I still wish my ISP would let me set up my own personal filter rules on their system. Just for my own mailbox, so that I could delete some of these spam messages like the ones that have korean character sets that automaticly go to my trash on my local machine. This would actually cut my spam downloads by about 70%.
Only 'flamers' flame!
I believe that the lawmakers can pass any legislation that they feel necessary, but it will not do much to get rid of this annoyance.
The fact is, these people are utilizing offshore relays. What is to stop them from simply moving the whole business to another country? The amount of money they spend sending out the spam, in comparison to their overhead, would make it very possible, and attractive.
DISCLAIMER:
I don't believe what I write, and neither should you.
Like I gove a rat's shit encrusted rectum what a spammer's costs are. They can all rot in Hell.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
"MoneySavingNewslette... Mortgage Information For XXX!" --> You dont know when it will be usefull...
"2BUILD-MUSCLE@sdilab... GET BIG, RIPPED & STRONG! TEST, D-BOL, DECA. " --> Will that affect my brain...who cares....
And the ls classic:
"Enlarge your pennis , Natural methods , guaranteed success" --> _ I will never put my...general in hazard no way........
Agreed. Or in other words: your right to free speech end at my front door. It's interesting to see people use 'free speech' as a blanket protection for all sorts of activities intuitively seen as bad. The right to free speech is directly coupled to the right of telling a person to shut up. If I install filters, then it's an obvious way of saying I'm not interested in a person's "opinion", something that is not so unreasonable, considering that that opinion usually includes ways of cheating me out of money, getting me to sign up to bogus pr0n sites, etc.
Using the free speech argument is like breaking into someone's home and leaving notes behind with your opinion. Free speech is okay, as long as you respect the "KEEP OUT" signs... and including NOSPAM in my address doesn't leave room to much interpretation.
see a Text Widget
I hate spam, yes I do. But you know what I hate more than spammers? The complete and total idiotic morons that BUY something from spam that turns up in your mail box.
If no one EVER bought as a result of this "marketing technique" they'd stop using it!
And if anyone is reading that has bought a penis enlarger, damn you are a loser.
I always wonder when I get those emails.. should I forward them to my husband? It be pretty hard for me to grow a larger penis when I don't have one.
Name-calling aside, there are "technical" solutions to rape, assault, theft, but all these are illegal, too. If I throw a brick for fun, and it hits someone in the head, I'm liable. Why wouldn't an accidental spammer be, too?
you are promoting lawlessness and vigilantism. Are you a libertarian?
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Look, it's simple.
:)
1) Spam lots of people with unsolicited email.
2) ???
3) Profit.
See?
You have the right to say what you will, save for screaming "fire" in a crowded theatre, discussing means of killing the President, talking about hijacking an airplane while in an airport, publishing child pornography, etc... BUT I have the right to NOT listen to you. I have the right to ignore you if I don't like what you are saying. And I will use whatever tools I have to enforce that right legally.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I work for a company that sends about 4 million e-mails a month. We have been accused of "spamming" thousands of times. They report us to spamcop, they report us to whoever will listen to them whine about spam. I find it amusing though, that in the end, we always have record of them signing up for the mail. A real live, confirmation e-mail was sent out as well and responded to. A few weeks later, they start pretending like they never signed up.
This is a real thorn in the side of legitimate business. We have been listed and de-listed by spamcop more times in one day that I can count on my fingers and toes.
I know that we are talking about truly unsolicited e-mail here. What happens though when it is truly solicited, and then someone complains? Where are people's accountability these days? We provide a button at the bottom of every e-mail, but its easier to e-mail spamcop?
I recommend that anyone who complains of spam take the time to get themselves be de-listed, or think long and hard about where they signed up for it at, before they start crying to their favorite spam prevention agency.
I'm not trying to sell anything -- my daughter was abducted. I want to spread the word so she can be found.
Newspaper ads are expensive, and my budget is limited. There are so many other ads that you won't notice mine.
If I had the budget of Coca-Cola I could have her on every TV in the world. But I don't.
People spam because it's cheap and easy.
While spam annoys me, too, I intend to enlist it in the search for Sabrina.
Please visit Sabrina's website: FindSabrina.org
Please help find my missing daughter: FindSabrina.org
I keep trying to sell this idea...free...to at least eliminate spoofed address SPAM:
1. Sending mail server generates a content key based on the contents of an e-mail being sent.
2. Sending mail server uses this key with a private key to create a public key.
3. Sending mail server sends the e-mail, along with the public key to the receiving server.
4. Receiving mail server generates a content key from the e-mail contents.
5. Receiving mail server sends the content key and the public key back to the sending mail server.
6. Sending mail server uses its private key plus the content key to re-generate the public key.
7. Sending mail server compares the public key to the one sent by the receiving mail server.
8. If the keys match, the receiving mail server allows the mail to enter the recipient's mailbox.
9. If the keys don't match, the mail is bounced.
This should eliminate spoofed e-mail, which is the only type I get. This technique also keeps the second transaction to a minimum exchange of keys. The keys add traffic, but the eliminated SPAM traffic more than makes up for the penalty. As more and more mail servers are updated with this feature, spoofing is all but eliminated. The remaining "spoofable" domains can be explicitly severed from the net or blocked.
Xesdeeni
I have received commercial emails from IBM. However, I have signed up for some of their services, like the DeveloperWorks, so they weren't unsolicited. Since they have multiple divisions and each keeps separate data on me, I think I've even signed up more than once (and probably forgot to specify I didn't want their ads). At any rate, I have received some ads from IBM.
However, and a big however, is that these messages are 100% valid commercial emails: they have a full, valid header, and most importantly, the subject line begins with "ADV:" or "(ADV)" so they're easily cought (and bounced) by my Sendmail rules.
I have received spams from some other companies, though, on an email account which should **never** receive email. What is this mythical account? It's the text-messaging account on my Nextel work phone. I have never used this as an email address on the web, because it can only receive 255 character messages.
Yet what do spammers care? I have received (improperly labelled) spams from Verizon, and a few other "major" companies which should know better, and could easily get sued. Most of the emails get cut off before I find out who it is and what they're selling. But some don't -- and if I had any means to collect damages from these companies I would do so.
Anyone wishing to sell stuff by email may only do business through a single email address, and they must publish that email address. They can't use filters, either.
They want to use mine!
I've noticed recent attacks in my web logs looking for an old formmail.pl vulnerability. I didn't have formmail installed, but now I do have a file of that name -- I doubt what it prints ever gets noticed, but I could log the attackers if I really wanted to do something about it.
So you think that if someone accidently sends a hundred emails with an ad attached that they should be labeled a criminal. That they are a threat to our society. That they deserve to go to jail.
Name-calling aside, there are "technical" solutions to rape, assault, theft, but all these are illegal, too.
Welcome to non-sequitor land. What are your technical solutions?
If I throw a brick for fun, and it hits someone in the head, I'm liable. Why wouldn't an accidental spammer be, too?
You hit someone in the head with a brick, that's thousands of dollars of doctor bills. You send 100 emails with commerical stuff attached, and you cost your ISP about a quarter. (note that the 100 emails would be completely legal minus the commercial stuff.) Prosecuting me for this is like being sued for breaking a diner coffee cup. We don't need a new law for this when existing contract law and mail filtration systems do just fine.
you are promoting lawlessness and vigilantism. Are you a libertarian?
Nope. I find labels an excuse to stop thinking, and I disagree with Libertarians on many issues.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
Maybe be they are aware of something you are not telling us...
All spam and list emails are required to add either, ADV: or LIST: as the first characters in the subject line.
Failure to do so makes them liable for up to $200 per email.
It's that simple...
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Anyone want to let me in as to what a "katmandu temple kiff" is and why it is age-restricted?
- Part 1: E-Mail Users, Sites Growing Weary of Spam Onslaught
- Part 2: Spam Fattens Both E-mail And Bank Accounts
- Part 3: Anti-Spam Tools Are Not Perfect, But Can Mitigate Annoyance
(Just in case anyone is interested in the rest of the series...)Deven
"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay
Spammers hide by using fake "from" addresses and relaying their messages through anonymous mail servers in places like China.
This sounds very deceptive, so wouldn't a reasonable law to impose be that what the "from" line says must be true? If you are sending something to me, I want to know who you are.
Once we know where it's coming from, we can reply to say we don't want any more messages. In fact, set it up as an auto-reply-delete for that address. Then, if they don't follow through wih your request to stop the mailings, they get the same message again and the spam is deleted, you wouldn't even have to see it.
This is obviously what they want to avoid.
TodayTM BillyJoelTM GoogleTMd for StitchTMes due to WindowsTM while RollerbladeTMing with an AppleTM and a PopsicleTM
I know most of those who comment on stories don't read them, but for Christ's sake how can an "editor" who submits one or two stories a day duplicate himself after three days?
woman: So what do you do for a living?
SpammerMan: Err..I send out marketing oppurtunities to select clients.
woman: Oh really like stock and bonds..
SpammerMan: Yeah, like them! sometimes.
woman: so you must be rich then.
SpammerMan: well, not really our operating costs have just risen. Getting really hard to break through all the noise.
woman: so what other opportunties do you market?
SpammerMan: we have University diplomas, penis enlargement, mail order brides, XXX passwords you name it really.
woman: so your a internet spammer?
SpammerMan:
woman: I have to go.
You're right. We shouldn't stalk them. We should impale them on stakes outside the gates of their cities.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I agree with you that the journalist's opinions are usually unwarranted (and unimportant) to the reader. But ultimately, the journalist also is the one choosing which parts to edit out and which parts to retain, so spin is inevitable.
What makes a good journalist isn't finding one viewpoint and repeating what they say. It's finding opposing viewpoints and presenting both sides equally. The degree to one side dominates an article is the degree of bias. The article in question is one of a 3-part series, and could be considered relatively unbiased as a series, I suppose, but because they are issued in installments, this is not journalism. It's a chronicle of research that's too large for a single article, so the author stretched it out.
For instance, when CNN runs a viewer-email about the war in Afghanistan every 30 minutes for 12 hours, but does not supply any opposing viewpoints from viewer-email, then follow it with a disclaimer "This is not necessarily the views of this station", that's a line of crap. By propelling only one viewpoint, it becomes the opinion of the station.
JH
Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
You can find the entire 3-part series here.
C'mon, baby, kiss The King.
It used to be that honest companies would cluelessly decide to use spam. Once, in 1994 or so, I got a spam email from a flower shop in a foreign country. It had legit contact info. I called long distance to tell them it was the most despicable way of advertising, and this mom-and-pop shop was not even aware that their son was spamming on their behalf. They were the kind of people that needed education. But these days are over except for rare exceptions. Spammers are not naive, misguided-but-honest people anymore.
Nowadays, the huge majority of spams comes from people who push illegal or fraudulent goods and services. I'm afraid a mere law against them would not be very effective, because what they sell is often illegal in the first place. One would need a federal law making it easy to trace a spammer from the Post Office box or telephone numbers he provides.
Even so, you still have totally anonymous spams just spreading misleading info such as stock schemes.
So I am afraid educating the companies is not going to solve the problem. To get an accurate image, picture an illegal drug lab that needs to get rid of its toxic waste. Spammers are akin to people offering to dump this toxic waste in a reservoir lake for a dime a ton. They already know the lab is illegal, they don't care. These people don't need education, they need jail time and enormous fines.
As for China's open SMTP relays, I suggest the US Dept of Commerce should insist that the guys maintaining open relays should be considered as commiting economic sabotage. In China, the punishment for this is the death penalty. That would solve the Chinese open relay problem quickly.
Of course, spammers from Singapore would then promptly set an operation for selling the organs harvested from all these executed Chinese spammers...
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
You find labels an excuse to stop thinking? Then you labeling people who propose laws as closet facists explains the illogic of your posts.
A day without sunshine is like, you know, dark.
It occurred to me that it ought to be possible to use DNS to stop blocked mail from even making it to my server. If, instead of myname-uniquetag@foo.com (I'm using qmail, so the "-uniquetag" is a personal alias I can control without becoming root), I could supply an address like myname@uniquetag.nospam.foo.com, it'd allow me to get rid of the MX record for uniquetag.nospam.foo.com if that address started getting spammed. Presto, spam doesn't know where to go and doesn't fly across the net eating resources. Granted, I'd get the DNS requests, but that's true today anyway.
Seems like all this would require would be a few simple tools to let users add and remove subdomains on the fly.
Not a replacement for filtering by any means (you still have to deal with the more common case where an address gets a mix of legit and spam messages, and it's hard to imagine a non-techie user ever using this) but it's another possible weapon in the anti-spam arsenal, one that attacks the waste-of-bandwidth problem.
...that you mention "blatent spelling mistakes," but that you can't even spell blatant correctly.
So far all of the newspaper articles that I have seen to date, including the one from AP in the Salt Lake paper and the one in the Detroit News from last Sunday (which I reported on that day) make light of an important fact about spammers and also neglect a very potent means of attacking them. They gloss over a very important technical detail - how spammers actually send their e-mail out. If you don't read with care, you get the impression that spammers get in trouble from sending out too many individual e-mails from their own ISP accounts or that spammers get in trouble when the recipient gets flooded with e-mails for its customers.
Actually, most spam is relayed from other systems which are open to attack. A single inbound request can trigger *thousands* if not more spams from a targeted zombie system.
We need to start portraying spammers as malicious hackers or perhaps as terrorists. By relaying mail without permission, they are stealing service.
Think of all the textbooks school systems could buy for their students instead of paying the costs to relay mail for spammers.
Irresponsible Cybernetics spam blocking AI (soon to be GPL'd) is in development.
A demo version can be found at
http://irresponsiblecybernetics.com/amispamornot/
Now that I use www.atqui.com. Friend bought my an account for my birthday, and ever sense I have been a happy man.
I agree completely, this link should be added as an Update to the original story, it really tears it a new one.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Learn what the words "Odds are" when used together preceeding a fact. And stop throwing off shitty weak one line arguments just because I trampled your sacred cow.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
Just imagine how fast the Internet would be if it wasn't busy passing all this SPAM e-mail?
Vortran out
Knowledge is like ignorance.. too much can be just as bad as not enough.
I suspect that a large number of "harvested" email addresses are @hotmail, @yahoo, etc. And since those guys apparently have at least slightly effective spam filters....
Well, it's possible.
That could well be true. If so, then I could use the statistic from topic 80% of Incoming email at Hotmail is spam (3 days ago).
A hotmail user who gets 10 emails a day would have 8 spam and 2 wanted emails. If 4/5 of spammer mail is rejected as said above, then without filtering, hotmail users would get 40 spams per day vs 2 good emails.
Ouch, 80% spam turns into 95% spam.
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
If someone has a spam filter in place, there is not *way* they're going to buy your unsolicited crap.
A techie who hand-installs filters on his personal mail server definitely doesn't want the spam, but maybe the spammer hopes to reach people on Hotmail and Yahoo mail services that may have filtering enabled but not vehemently against spam or curious enough to read one or two of them.
Or, as the other poster mentioned, it may be to boost marketing claims: "2,000,000 people will read your ad if you use our services."
And I just thought about a techie's mother, girlfriend, boyfriend, etc.. Maybe a techie spam filters friends' and family's accounts but the end user might click on the spam if it gets through.
No one wants restrictions on content. If a company can get three hundred people to legitimately sign up to receive ads, more power to them. People want restrictions on other people using their inbox without explict permission. A random person emailing just them is fine, doesn't matter the content.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I work for a small datacenter, that hosts close to 700 servers. I find it funny how our company is listed on every single one of there lists. Even though we don't support spaming in anyway. I can't count the number of servers I have personally pull the plug on for spaming. With that being said, tread carefully on how much you trust this list. I know a few of the other datacenters listed there, and they are incorrect data as well. When the ones I KNOW support spamers aren't listed. Hmmmm.
I don't care how it gets arranged, but there needs to be a 5 cent per email charge. The 10 or so emails I send outside my intranet each day would cost me a whopping 50 cents, and I'd pay up to a dollar a day avg for my email priv.
I thought the whole idea of all the personal info sharing on the net was to allow advertisers to target their ads. But since spamming is essentially free, why bother? Well, a per email charge would perhaps get them to do real advertising like other mediums already do (TV, radio).
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Can't you tell when someone is joking?
And if you think getting a drug dealer addicted to heroin and finding that it scratches that itch to see things right with the world is nothing more than someones "abberant sense of justice" at work Fuck you again.
All of the examples you mentioned are admittedly illegal but not one of them doesn't fit the crime and every single one of them should be enacted into law. You want to know why this world is as completely screwed up as it is? Look in the mirror you nutless wonder.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Why not make a new protocol to replace SMTP? A protocol that requiers som sort of authentication between the sending server and the recieving one.
It could be done if you add a new type of record to the DNS protocol (using the existing MX record isn't good since not all people want to have their outgoing mailservers clogged by incoming mail), "SMX" (sending mail exchanger or whatever. So that if I want to send an e-mail, my SMTP server has to be listed in the domainfile.
This, with the addition of domain "whitelists" that contains all of the domains that has not sent spam could make it _very_ much harder for the spammers to get their buissness running.
Sorry for the sloppy english.
Hmm, we have been receiving junk mail sponsored by the federal government for years in our physical mailboxes. What's going to change with e-mail? Perhaps once everyone realizes how much the system is not doing to ameliorate the problem, the people will acutally do something about it. Until then, intelligent filters will only be used by intelligent people, or at least those who care.
[c0d3fu]: jwjb62@umr.edu || james@macrohub.com
Get-rich-quick scammers are eager to believe that they can make money by spamming - hence the preponderance of spam from such scammers. These scammers, being suckers themselves, are born every minute. Thus, even though everyone ALREADY follows your "advice," the professional spammers are still with us, and will continue to be with us for a very long time.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
1. "... That they deserve to go to jail."
I never said jail, if you were familiar with the US legal system, you would know that most offenses do not result in jail time, nor a criminal record. They are taken care of very nicely with monetary fines or public service.
2. Technical solutions
If someone comes at me with a knife, I could have learned martial arts and disarmed him. Just because he didn't do me immediate harm does not make him innocent of an illegal act. In your mind, however, it would.
3. Existing law and mail filtration systems work fine
I don't even know where you got this idea, I use filters but spam still gets through, and in most states there is no legal recourse.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
I agree, parents should know what their kids typically do online, from what web sites they visit, to who they email, to what chat rooms they frequent. However, a parent shouldn't have to sit between their kid and his computer and weed out all the inapproriate messages the kid does not want to see. (Ones he does want to see, of course, are a completely different issue.) (Note I'm talking about young kids here, too.)
Email is something kids want, and probably 'need', for sufficently low values of need. Most kids would rather have email access than a telephone. And due to free webmail, you can't really stop them from having an account anyway.
But even if they're using their account for G or PG rated purposes, every once in a while...I would say NC-17, but you can't have people having sex with horses or preteens even in a NC-17 movie, so every once in a while their account gets hit with illegal sexually explict material, and I mean illegal for adults, too.
Yes, monitor your children, but you should not have to stand between them and their email, anymore than you should have to watch Saturday morning cartoons before they do just in case some hardcode porn snuck in there.
(Don't try to make this a censorship issue, there is a world of difference between saying kids can't have access to certain sites if they want to see them, and kids shouldn't be exposed to things whether or not they want to be. If a kid is going to playboy.com, or having email-sex with someone, that's an entirely different issue.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
2a) if the 'from' address is in the whitelist, the message is delivered
2b) if the 'from' address is unknow, the message is MD5-hashed, copied to a holding pen, and then bounced with a note that says, in effect, "please confirm your email address by replying to this message with the subject line intact." The subject line of course contains the MD5 hash.
Meanwhile, if a message is received with an MD5 hash that matches something in the holding pen, the sender's address is added to the whitelist and the message in the holding pen is delivered.
This does eliminate spoofed spam, with no need to modify anyone else's email infrastructure - it's all done with procmail on my own server. I've received exactly two pieces of spam in the last six months. Both were from Nigerian bank scammers. Apparently they are the last spammers in the world to figure out forged from addresses. When they catch on, they'll disappear too.
I use this filter on email addresses that have been exposed to the public. Email to my 'private' addresses, which give only to trusted individuals, is delivered straight to my inbox.
Procmail recipies available here.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
Okay... I guess I was still asleep while writing this: Why the hell isn't it illegal? I realize that it might take a little effort on the part of the Spammers, but it would seem to make a little sense to filter out the impressionable young kids from your list. Hustler doesn't mass mail free samples out for good reason (one, it would cost more than they could make just waiting for the audience to come to them; and two, it would be offensive to WAAY too many people and complaints would flood the offices). Kids really shouldn't see ANYTHING about pornography (and don't get me wrong I'm not anti-porn... I just think it should be like alcohol, you don't give it out to just anyone under 14... oops :) um... nevermind). Also, most of these advertisements are porn by themselves, with all the pictures a little 7-year-old would need to be as warped as I am forever.
And if I'm wrong, and Hustler does send out free samples... where's mine?
These are some very revealing links regarding who Tommy Brock *really* is:
t es .htm
e nc efile=1368
http://www.toledocybercafe.com/ivtg/arrest-upda
http://www.spamhaus.org/rokso/search.lasso?evid
http://www.angelfire.com/rant/et/whois.htm
http://www.ste-marie.net/brock.html
Have fun... *8}
Nothing you said is pertinent, sorry.
Fact is, if a minor -- whether five years old or fifteen years old -- receives porn, there are MANY laws to rely on.
Certainly you must realize this. Also, child-endangerment, pedophilia, and related laws are enforced fairly vigorously in most places in the US. My guess is that it is only a matter of time before the worst spammers find themselves in court with some serious fucking criminal charges and no leg to stand on.
We just need to enforce some of the good laws we already have.
AC post: "An 8th Circuit decision earlier this year, Missouri v. Blast Fax, ruled that fax solicitations could not be banned."
Mod:0
Later post: "It's already illegal to send unsolicited faxes."
Mod:2
No, no bias 'round *these* parts!
Go to http://www.overture.com.
Search for 'bulk email'.
Click on every link which comes up.
The amount each click costs the spammers is displayed in US dollars on the search results page.
Do this every day. I recommend NOT accepting any cookies from Overture or any of their customers, as sooner or later they will figure out what we are doing and this approach will be thwarted.
Once again, I say, BRING IT ON.
Good sarco-post. Verry funny.
Is it me or does anyone else get a warm and fuzzy feeling when you see the Adelphia execs come in with handcuffs on?
A concerted effort seems to be required to stem the unending tide of spam. As one poster previously stated, making it unattractive to send spam would help a lot.
T ITLE/RCW%20%2019%20.
190%20%20CHAPTER/RCW%20%2019%20.190%20%20chapter.h tm s p
., .
What would happen if people did the following:
1) We went to every advertised site sent to us by a piece of spam to give them a nice dose of the slashdot effect. I'm sure that their ISP would slam them with increased bandwidth charges incurred by this level of activity.
2) While you are there study what their product is and give their customer service department a letter stating what you liked about their product or service and what you didn't like about their product or service. Then tell them that you recieved a piece of spam and have effectively put them on a blacklist and will never purchase from them. Ever.
3) Find the home state of the advertised site and submitted complaints to the State Attorney General for their behavior. If your state has anti-spam laws show them how they violated them (I live in Washington) and ask them how to get your $500 per unsolicited e-mail. If the SAG got overwhelmed by complaints they might do something about it.
4) This is unethical (like spam isn't IMHO) and illegal (like spam isn't IMHO) but hack the site into oblivion. Backdoor the place and use it for a DOS on the spam generating sites.
Not that anyone will actually DO this, but I am thinking about doing this for my hotmail account. If someone hits my home account I DO some of the above items. A typical e-mail looks like this:
To the SysAdmin at phat.co.nz:
Your server may have been hacked or spoofed. Here is the information.
To the SysAdmin at freelance.docspages.com:
You are having unsolicited e-mail for your server being sent out.
------- FORWARD, Original message follows -------
Date: Thursday, 25-Jul-02 09:54 AM
From: postmaster@myisp.com \ Internet: (postmaster@myisp.com)
To: talinom \ Internet: (talinom@myisp.com)
Subject: Delivery failure (philmoss@phat.co.nz)
--103578/1720/1027616055/MailSite/mail.myisp.com Content-Type: text/plain
Your message has encountered delivery problems to the following recipient(s):
philmoss@phat.co.nz
Delivery failed
550 : Recipient address rejected: This user does not have an account here (MTA:imta10)
No recipients were successfully delivered to.
--103578/1720/1027616055/MailSite/mail.myisp.com
Content-Type: message/delivery-status
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="DSN3D402D35.txt"
Reporting-MTA: dns; mail.myisp.com Arrival-Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 09:54:13 -0700
Final-Recipient: rfc822; philmoss@phat.co.nz
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0 (Permanent failure - no additional status information available)
Remote-MTA: dns; sitemail.everyone.net
Diagnostic-Code: smtp; 550 : Recipient address rejected: This user does not have an account here (MTA:imta10)
--103578/1720/1027616055/MailSite/mail.myisp.com Content-Type: message/rfc822
Received: from [216.58.208.124] (unverified [216.58.208.124]) by mail.myisp.com
(Rockliffe SMTPRA 4.5.6) with SMTP id for ;
Thu, 25 Jul 2002 09:54:13 -0700
Message-ID:
To: Phil Moss
Subject: Re: hey!
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 02 09:57:42 -0500
From: talinom
X-Mailer: E-Mail Connection v2.5.02
-- [ From: talinom * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --
I do not know how you acquired my e-mail address as I guard it very closely , however I am a member of Washington State and will use our anti-spam law:
http://search.leg.wa.gov/wslrcw/RCW%20%2019%20%20
Chapter 19.190 RCW on http://search.leg.wa.gov/pub/textsearch/default.a
to assist should this action be insufficient.
I would also like to be removed from any list of any related or subsidiary companies or organizations you may have associations with. I may require contacting some of the people listed below (information found courtesy of the Internet) should my request be unheeded.
I do not tolerate unsolicited e-mail and will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law when I find the cause of the matter.
I apologize for my bluntness and rudeness in this matter, however I never requested that this e-mail be sent to me.
The information regarding the phat.co.nz domain is as follows:
registrar: Domainz
domain_name: phat.co.nz
domain_DateCreated: 12-Apr-2001 00:00:00
domain_DateLastModified: 19-Apr-2002 14:26:02
holder_name: Adam Jones
holder_contact: Adam Jones
holder_phone: 021 128 6780
holder_fax: .
holder_email: kraven@inspire.net.nz
holder_address: PO Box 12002,
holder_addr_citycountry: PALMERSTON NORTH, NEW ZEALAND
technical_contact: InSPire Net Limited
technical_contact_phone: +64 6 357 8559
technical_contact_fax: +64 6 353 1154
technical_contact_email: domains@inspire.net.nz
technical_contact_address_line_1: PO Box 4387
technical_contact_address_line_2: Palmerston North
ns_name_1: ns2.inspire.net.nz
ns_ip_1: 203.79.89.3
ns_name_2: ns1.inspire.net.nz
ns_ip_2: 203.79.89.2
The information regarding freelance.docspages.com is: Administrative Contact:
NOC NOC
PO Box 11289
Zephyr Cove
NV US
89448
noc@ideaflood.com
Phone: 7755887862
Fax: 7755887823
Technical Contact:
NOC NOC
PO Box 11289
Zephyr Cove
NV US
89448
noc@ideaflood.com
Phone: 7755887862
Fax: 7755887823
Billing Contact:
NOC NOC
PO Box 11289
Zephyr Cove
NV US
89448
noc@ideaflood.com
Phone: 7755887862
Fax: 7755887823
-------- REPLY, Original message follows --------
Date: Thursday, 25-Jul-02 03:41 AM
From: Phil Moss \ Internet: (philmoss@phat.co.nz)
To: Kevin Moore \ Internet: (talinom@myisp.net)
Subject: hey!
Hi there,
How's it going?
If you need help with your last project (or have some free time and want to pick up some freelance work) check out http://freelance.docspages.com
Hope this info could be useful to you:-)
Sincerely,
Phil Moss
**This email is intended exclusively for the addressee(s) named above and may contain privileged and confidential information. If you are not (among) the intended recipient(s), you may not copy, utilize or distribute any of the information contained herein. If you have received this email in error, please notify us immediately via return email and delete the original from your mailbox. Thank you.
-------- REPLY, End of original message --------
"Giving money and power to governments is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke
And I rebuke all that you say.
I too, am a news man, a news photographer. I work the streets very, very, well.
Statements and facts are two seperate things, my friend. You should report the facts. You should report what they say too. More importantly you should check out what they claim. If you don't, your work is not sound. After all, people lie constantly. As a journalist, you should not be surprised if they lie to you more than most.
But here's some kickers between good journalists and poor journalists:
Good journalists check their facts as extensively as possible.
They also try to get both sides of the story.
Also they might admit to check those facts from someone of dubious character.
And another thing, they should be able to "smell a huckster a half-mile away."
Just saying that "I simply report" is a discredit to those that are willing to turn the tables on a "good interview" (Which I am sure this spam business man was, because schiesters always are) to find the real truth, and corroborate everything this man was saying.
FCC hands out record $5.4 million fine to junk faxer.
It's only a matter of time before legislation similar to this gets passed by Congress targeting unsolicited e-mail advertisements (AP writes an article about the problems of spam, it's an election year... you do the math). Change your line of business soon, unless you want to see if you can break that record...
Why not locate these people and shoot them?
Then there's the fact that most spamming operations are one-time operations. The next time that spammer spams, it'll be a different product, and you didn't unsubscribe from THAT product's list. You'll have to unsubscribe again.
Then there's the fact that unsubscribing from opt-out lists one at a time - assuming that you've encountered the rare situation where the spammer actually honors the unsubscribe requests - does nothing to discourage spammers from sending more spam. Yanking their accounts causes them a bit of trouble, and often costs them a bit of money, since such cancellations do not include refunds. Keeping abuse departments busy makes ISPs less likely to take contracts from spammers.
But it's your mailbox, so go ahead and reply to the unsubscribe addresses. That action (read: confirming that your email address actually works) will get you a net increase in the amount of incoming spam. But, if it makes you feel better, who am I to advise against it?
If you want to do something, get the spammers' accounts terminated.
If you want to do something really useful, write your legislators. Ask for a junk email law modeled on the junk-fax law: No unsolicited contact without a pre-existing business relationship.
If you're just tired of the whole game, get a whitelist-based filter with automated confirmat. It will eliminate virtually all of your incoming spam. It works for me.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
I opened a spam email in my inbox for the hell of it, and found an opt-out link at the bottom of the spam message. So I clicked on it for the hell of it, and guess what?
504 Gateway Timeout This Web page could not be opened. There may be too many people accessing this page or the page may be unavailable. Please try again later.
How unsurprising.
I am not normally the litigious type, but in this case, I would be willing to make an exception. Is there not one enterprising young Internet savvy Attorney or firm out there that would be willing to take on the case of at least suing these two people, and their companies? C'mon, I know someone out there is just itching to recieve the kudos, the notoriety, the lavish praise and the adoration of millions by sending these pusilanimous PIG FUCKERS to the poor house and thus setting legal precedent. Please, I beg of you, any one here who is either a lawyer or knows one should get the ball rolling.
I don't want to get off on a rant here, but this has been my mantra for about 10 years now. In Minnesota, government abuse of the RICO act somehow has been twisted to give the state's DNR permission to steal your boat if you catch 11 walleyes instead of 10. Yes, catching one too many stupid fish gives them legal permission to steal your tackle, rod, reel and boat. Doesn't matter if it's a $400 canoe or a $26,000 bass boat with a 150 HP motor.
( It's also the only reason I like our buffoonish governor: as a third-party governor, he bickers with the republican senate and democratic house and all together, they can't agree on which bad and stupid laws to pass. So, they end up passing none. )
Nothing frightens me more than a single party in control, even if it's the party with whom I agree for the moment.
It's been proposed before, and I'll propose it again: we need a three-strikes law for congressmen. If they vote for three laws that have any piece subsequently deemed unconstitutional, they lose their seat, get impeached, go to jail, whatever. Hopefully, they'll be too frightened to pass any of these crappy UCITA / PATRIOT / CALEA types of citizen abuse. And Senator Hollings (D, Disney Corp.) can spend the rest of his Big Brotherish life in fscking jail.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
John
So if you spam then you are just exercising your American rights, but if you trade files via P2P then you are spreading communism. Did I get that bunch of bullshit correct?
HAHAHAHA. You trampled my sacred cow? I just believe that your arguments are fairly ignorant of the reality of what most people, not linux geeks, have to deal with concerning spam. I could care less if there was a new law. I was merely pointing out that you were hypocritical. You can put odds are, in all likelihood, probably, or any other little modifier you want, that doesn't mean you aren't trying to label someone. Nice shitty one line argument responding to my shitty one line argument.
A day without sunshine is like, you know, dark.
I'm surprised that the servers used to send or relay the spam aren't attacked.
If you want to start at the beginning:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
SCO (noun.)- A Slimy Corporate Ogre. Often seeks free money.
Isn't that what using someone else's open relays for spam really is?
All right, call it "cracking" if you want to be a purist, but the fact remains. Spamming software is designed to find vulnerable servers, exploit those vulnerabilities and use the servers without the owners' permission, at the same time harming the Net with the sheer volume of the bandwidth that they consume. It's not that much different from a DDoS attack by a script kiddie, except that the spammer and the software's creators are trying to make money off it.
THIS is one of the angles we should emphasize to lawmakers, and to businesses that might be thinking of using spam to advertise themselves.
Look at the murderers and rapists out on the street, and then the grandmothers and home owners who are impoverished or imprisoned for violations of some paper statute they never even knew they were breaking.
Half the people murdered in the US are CONVICTED MURDERERS, 75% of the convicted murderers HAVE ALREADY BEEN CONVICTED OF MURDER AT LEAST ONCE BEFORE.
More laws don't prevent crimes. Even the 10 commandments covered everything, and had space left over for simply "honoring" ones parents.
Spam is trespassing, and already against the law. Prosecute it as such.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
There is no constitutionality issue if ISPs are declared common carriers, like phone companies are. (Phone companies are prohibited from denying service to any customer as long as the customer doesn't use the service in an illegal way.) As for the bandwidth hogging, there's nothing stopping the ISPs from using tiered usage pricing.
It profiled "Spam King" Ronnie Scelson. Of course it is offline (unless you pay $) but the Hartford Courant also ran the article (it helps that is own by the Tribune Corp.)
n ju n30.story?coll=hc-headlines-home
http://www.ctnow.com/news/specials/hc-sp1scelso
This guy is bitching about people trying to stop spam and is even sueing Quest and three anti-spam organizations.
In a world that is Free and Open, who needs Windows and Gates?
The only way the typical /.er can pick up a chick is with a forklift. -- AC
No, no. I've been moderated back down to 2. Obviously I'm wrong, or a troll, or overrated, or something like that. Obviously a spam law will cure a vast number of social ills. I am beginning to see, now, that making things that I dislike illegal is the solution to all of my ... no, make that all of society's problems.
I hate shower-baths. I'd rather have a shower. Many people die in bathtubs. I'll call my congressman about making these menace-to-society shower-baths illegal.
I feel so much better now that I've seen the light.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
Give me a can of gas, a pack of lucky strike non-filters, a book of matches, and sledge hammer.
Think Pun.
Is there ANY conceivable legitimate reason for this?!
I can't think of any legitimate reason to be doing that... Now I need to see if I can just block all BCC stuff at the mail server...
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
The only way the typical /.er can pick up a chick is with a forklift. -- AC
How about if each of us chipped x units of cash and hired a few assasins that took care of the this problem?
Umm, how is it a bad thing to just use the CC list? I still don't see why BCC is necessary.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
If you have a mailing list with 500 subscribers, then you have 500 CCs in each message's header. Can you say waste of bandwidth?
The only way the typical /.er can pick up a chick is with a forklift. -- AC
Someone else, we'll call him John, likes the manifesto and remails it to his large email list of people, accidently leaving the ad attached. Bam. John is a criminal. He has mass distributed a commercial advertisement without meeting the requirements of the spam law, and now is eligible for $100 per mail or 2 years in jail. :)
Cool, it could help people thinking twice before forwarding bullshit to their whole contact list
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