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."

Comments

The Origin

[Erik Fish]

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.

This article is just part of a series

[WebMasterJoe]

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

"Stalker's" website

[pbemfun]

The website of the so-called "stalker" is at http://www.toledocybercafe.com/ivtg/index.htm.

Growing a Spam Killing Community

[webword]

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."

Re:Mimes

[Overzeetop]

Oh, lighten up. It's not a commentary on free speech - just a simple observation on the human condition.

If you're gonna raise swine, don't bitch about the smell. We don't want to hear about it. If you're gonna shout advertisements on a street corner, don't complain when everybody walking by is wearing headphones or hearing protectors. If you're gonna send spam, don't complain about people using blocking software.

Re:lack of regulation

[Jucius Maximus]

"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!"

A similar thing happenned to me. Someone had sent hundreds of threating e-mails to someone else and forged my address in the 'from' field. The municipal police in my area of Ontario, Canada interviewed me because they researched my domain name and I explained how the 'from' address meant nothing and that forgery of such things is common place.

The officer told me she did not know why they gave her this case and that she did not own a computer!

Re:Anti-spam law will not achieve much

[schon]

Any law against spamming can always be used against free speach

BULLSHI!

Spamming is not speech - regardless of how many spammers tell you otherwise... free speech is the right to say anything you want.. it is not the right to force people to listen to what you say, and it certainly isn't the right to force people to pay to listen to you.

Spamming has nothing to do with the first amendment.

Detroit News Spammer Article

[nuxx]

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)

ROFLMAO - You don't really still get spam do you?

[Moderation abuser]

I mean, really. Get a clue people.

Tell you what, I'll point you to the clues:

http://razor.sourceforge.net/
or
http://pyzor. sourceforge.net/
or
http://www.rhyolite.com/anti -spam/dcc/

And, no. The spammers can't get round them just by including random characters or personalising the mails.

Better links

[Futurepower(R)]

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.