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."
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".
"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
You reaally oughta love this quote from a friggin' spammer of all people.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
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.
Well, operating costs are more than just money. If it takes 1000 seconds to send his bulk mail instead of 1 second, then his operating 'costs' have gone up. If it takes him 6 hours to find a new tool to get around a new filter, instead of 1 hour, then his costs have gone up also. Granted, the return for that time spent is still obscene, but any increase in their operating cost is good. Plus, the sheer visceral pleasure that we enjoy seeing the spammers having a 'hard' time is a bonus also.
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
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.
I don't see a problem with it. They're in the business of unsolicited harassment too. Tell you what: if they want to opt-out of being stalked, I've got a fake email address that they can write to, and I guarantee that I'll take them off my stalking list.
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
"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
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
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!!!
It would do nothing. Spam software these days don't use the spam companies mail server, but instead uses open SMTP relays, or uses open proxies and then connects out. That's why open relay and open proxy blacklists are so damned useful.
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".
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.
I social change though, a "word on the street" that buying into the spam business is a sucker's game, will greatly reduce the amount of spam. It won't eliminate it, but it will greatly reduce it.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
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
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.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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!
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?
Sometimes the originating IP is there. It depends on the compromised mailer, or proxy. Usually there are fake headers in there too.
spamhaus, spews et al already publish blacklists, albeit in a DNS form, which most of the common mail servers can use to reject mail on.
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')
He didn't ask if you `saw a problem with it'. He asked if it was legal. I'm fairly sure that your friendly neighbourhood law enforcement officer would take issue with it.
It's not legal to forcibly get drug dealers addicted to heroin. It's not legal to take it upon yourself to castrate rapists. It might appeal to some people's abberant sense of justice, but it sure as hell isn't legal, nor even ethical. It's uncivilised, not to mention childish to even suggest. I don't love spam any more than the next guy, but I don't think proposals such as this are particularly productive.
- SMJ - (It's not just a name: it's a bad aftertaste.)
I agree!
It should really be illegal to send you marketing information without telling your real identity, may it be a corporation. It must be everyones right to get a proper person or organization to sue if for example the information is illegal in your country.
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!
Sorry, but that is the whole point of free speech, that your ideas may not be popular, but you have a right to say them.
I'm not arguing that spam is free speech, but your post is a very dangerous argument.
Free speech gives you the right to express your ideas but something that a lot of people forget is that you do NOT have a right to force other people to listen to you. You do NOT have a right to intrude into someone's home or office and express your ideas. You do NOT have a right to call people at random on the telephone and force them to sit and listen to you. You do NOT have a right to send e-mail to people and force them to read it.
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.
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!
Not to mention the operating costs of having to constantly find new isps and the time needed to constantly try to keep the current ones from dumping you.
Or the sheer of having to have an unlisted number with privacy options and even then having to constantly change your number.
Ever call Alan Ralsky? You have to leave a 5 second message(only your name) just to get him to answer his phone.
How exactly do you get new buisness when your affraid of who the next caller might be?
Expensive? VERY. It only looks cheap when you don't look at the hidden costs.
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.
Apparently, the woman who he describes in a less then subtle manner is quite offended. I don't have a link to the forum, but he is describing a particular person in detail when he discusses his "stalker". She says that he has never intruded on his private life (that includes leaving his wife alone) and only has taken pictures and studied his place of business.
There has been some discussion of her taking legal action against the paper or the spammer himself for these libellous statements. Somewhere around here there's a link to the discussion board where this is happening.
A good point is made that the reporter has made no attempts to verify any of the facts put forth by the spammer in this case.
You don't send out 30 million messages a day on a dialup account. That takes some significant (and not so cheap) bandwidth. There was either an article or a message a couple weeks back from a guy who met a spammer through a friend. He had multiple T1 lines. Obviously it is profitable for them, but I wouldn't say that it is even close to $0. Even more if you consider time=money and they have to figure out how to defeat the filters.
...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)
Any responsible ISP will prohibit spamming, because they understand that allowing spammers will gain them a reputation of harboring criminals and it will get them blocked at the router level by a number of more responsibly run ISPs. I don't know what Cowles was smoking, because a spammer's business is typically not worth keeping: spammers are crooks by definition, and it's not good business sense to trust your income to criminals.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
"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.
Only take them off the stalking list if they give you their full address, phone number, and fax number.
Then sell that list to 100,000 spam haters. (:
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
What part of "I'm not arguing that spam is free speech" did you not understand?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
"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
Ethical? I see nothing wrong with it. . .
Okay, let's recap. You see nothing unethical... about stalking. Mmm-kay. Though that seems quite sick, I apprehend that it would be personally frustrating to try to convince you otherwise, so I shan't bother.
You have a better suggestion to stop them?
A better suggestion than stalking them? Well, I think I could probably come up with a couple. Petition for stronger anti-spam legislation. Try to educate the less technically inclined people you know about the problem. Identify and complain to the companies that do business with spammers, or indeed that spam companies themselves: by mail, over the phone, and / or in person (short of stalking them, of course).
You want your opinion on spam to get heard and respected? Then address the problem as a respectable person, not as an ignoramus.
- SMJ - (It's not just a name: it's a bad aftertaste.)
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/
They used to sell (well they say they no longer do)
- Advanced Direct Remailer (bulk emailer)
http://www.mailutilities.com/adr/
- Advanced Email Extractor (WWW email harvester)
http://www.mailutilities.com/aee/
More information is at http://www.politechbot.com/p-02361.html and all over the web and usenet.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
I totally agree with what you said about the ISP/Hosting thing. The commpany I work for does hosting and we dummp about 5-6 spammers a day and although most have paid for a year or so in advance, none recieve a refund and are charged $500 for the headache. I can't believe people would risk that after reading the AUP posted on our sign up page... Oh well, it must be worth the risk to somebody cuz it still happens on a daily basis.
Ever notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I.
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!
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.
I don't see why not. All it takes is one article to be published about them to be considered a celebrity, a public figure. Once they are a celeb, you can follow them around, take as many pictures as you want, dig into their life as much as you want, and publish whatever you find. That's what we need! Paparatzi (sp?)! We need the Paparatzi to hunt our spammers for us. Once they kill of a few of each other a good law might get passes.
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"
Did the little spammer get his peepee whacked? Come on, are we that stupid? If any of you believe that, create a random free email account, then use it to opt-out. Now sit back and watch. It's educational.
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.
> 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.
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.
If a spammer is forging my domain name in a from header I want to know about it. They are forging my good name, and abusing my trademark. There are probably legal actions I can take. Next time you get a spam report that didn't go through you, contact a lawyer about suing this spammer for using your name fraudlantly. Please, for the sake of the rest of us.
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
Agreed, if there are absurdly stiff penalties, then it would stop alot.
The only problem is then, with more and more dynamic and interactive content, you don't want this to leak over to other legit marketing and advertising (even if some of it does piss you off).
For example, I pay my 8 USD to go see a movie, and then I see Army or Shampoo advertizements before the flick, or Steven Speilburg puts Pepsi ads in his movies. This is advertising, but it is almost the same as Spam. Here's why
a) I payed to see something, making my time in the theatre into money. They are taking my 1) time, and 2) money. It could also be argued that they are taking up my 'storage space' or memory in my head (hey its one arguement against spam on your computer, harddrive usage).
b) I didn't ask for it, nor did I 'sign up' for it.
c) It may be offensive to me. I may be a pacifist, and hate the army. This isn't quite the same as a child being exposed to porn, but what if I don't want my child exposed to violence, but the Scooby Doo movie has an Army ad at the begining?
Yea, it's a little extreeme, but we want to look at the rights of the ad agencies as well. I want stricter penalties, but moreso, I want some penalties to be recognized first. I want to be able to call my local Spam/Police department, and report spamming, and they take me seriously- investigate, and file criminal charges, or at least give me the room to file a civil suit. I don't want to fry anyone, (well maybe a few spammers), but just want the ones out there, to be stopped with huge fines.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
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
do a whois for one-stop-financial.com
Nameserver: dns13.register.com
Nameserver: dns14.register.com
Updated: 26-apr-2002
Organisation: Icuasonline
Icuasonline Admin
Pelham Ave
Toronto, ON M6N1A8
Phone:18886941480
Email:icuas@smtp.prot5.com
etc...
Hope you find this useful..
It's icuas@smtp.port5.com, not prot5
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.
"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
$90k sounds good on paper, but:
1) Technology costs. Either spammers are burning through ISPs (less than a months usage before being dropped) or they're paying big bucks for a spam-friendly account. Printers, computers, etc.
2) Insurance (health, dental, etc etc).
3) Taxes - Presuming that tax fraud isn't part of the package; maybe that would be a better angle, reporting known spammers as tax frauds to the IRS.
4) Legal - Either to fight people who are pissed at them or to do a minimal amount of self-protection (incorporation, etc)
5) All the other costs of living -- car, housing, clothes, food, etc etc.
Even not including many of the business-expenses, $90k isn't getting rich in many parts of the country. After taxes, it's like what, $55k? Nothing to sneeze at, but add in another $10k or so for business expenses and it starts looking less appealing.
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
But if I am shouting my opinion on a street corner, and you are walking by, aren't you forced to listen to what I have to say?
What do you do when someone tries to hand you a pamphlet on the street? You know what I do? Ignore them.
What do you do when someone spams you with email? You know what I do? Delete it.
No one is forcing me to read the email before I delete it.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.
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
Hate to break it to you, but while there is certainly an editorial slant against MS seen quite frequently, this is meant as more of a tech site and that includes MS. Hell, even those who dislike MS might have to use Visual Studio, it makes sense. It's not 'selling' out. They are taking money to put up what is obviously an ad and easily recognized as one. Selling out would be changing stories so that MS looks good...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Thats right, parents shouldn't have to montior thier children at all. We should sanatize everything for the children.
I take issue with the screening comment. I hate spam probably more then anyone. But saying that parents shouldn't have to parent pissed me off too.
"The question is: How many mailings can you do in a day?"
I know Ralsky does at least 10 "campaigns" per day(one per site).
No, it doesn't. The spammers sell their "services" to clueless "businessmen". Even if the spam doesn't generate a single sale, the spammer still has the money, and scrupulously follows the First Law of Acquisition.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
No one I know buys spammer crap. If they are making money, then maybe someone is, but who? Someone gonna break in to a spammer operations to get the data?
Friends don't let friends read spam.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
They are, indeed. But as the article points out, there are hundreds (thousands?) of companies hiring a relative few spammers - probably less than 100 egregious offenders. It may be preferable to hit the company, kind of like you'd rather get the mob boss than the hit man, but in this case the numbers are reversed - if there were only 5 hitmen in NYC, what would you do if you were the cops? Also, spammers often lie to companies. They say they have opt-in lists - they don't. They say they have their own servers - they don't. I think most companies hiring these guys don't want to see a bunch of foreign open relays on their mail headers, but it happens. I think a lot of companies probably turn a blind eye, but some are just clueless. Ultimately, you can't prove what the company knew. But the actions of the spammer are clear. You have to hit him.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
What a great business model! Just put the no-spam rules in fine print (arial 3 point) at the end of the user Agreement, institute a nice, fat $1000 fine and forfeit all prepaid fees, and let'er rip. Five times a day? I'd retire on that, no problem.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
No, there is a difference. Sure people can post signs, they can put up websites, they can do all sorts of things, but forcing the issue down the end-users throats through a medium in which the recipient may be paying just to receive it. Spamming is for a number of people the equivalent of having a telemarketer call you collect and the receiver having no choice to decline (this is illegal, of course).
But it doesn't stop there. It is bad enough that end users are abused in this fashion, but the distribution channels for the spam is just exceptionally bad. It is one thing if they had to foot the bill for mail servers and associated bandwidth, but instead they are scanning for open relays to *exploit* for their mail capacity and bandwidth usage. I was called in by one company with mediocre IT infrastructure, enough to be dangerous. They called saying that over the last few days mail through their server was taking hours to get anywhere, if it got anywhere at all. Well I go in and find it is an open relay, and the thing had 400,000 queued messages, among which there where about 350 legitimate messages to retrieve. I closed the exploit, and eventually recovered the messages of interest for them, but they lost a lot of time because of it and their bandwidth charges were really high because of it. Spammer's are doing wrong and they know it, why else hide behind other companies resources?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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 ? (-; (-;
Agreed, but...
You also get the benefit (especially in the case of a magazine) of the ads offsetting the cost to you. You don't pay as much but you have to put up with a couple of ads.
Odd, Rolling Stone used to be cheaper, have more articles, less ads, and I didn't have to flip through 30 pages to see the table of contents, in fact it wasn't even 30 pages long when it started...
And for movies, I would be scared to know what a ticket would cost now, if we didn't have the ads at the begininning. It's kinda odd, the tickets used to be cheaper, the digital effect prices have supposibly gone down, plots and jokes used to be better, and there weren't ads (except movie previews). Somewhere in there, it seems like with the 'cheaper' digital effects because computers 'save money and time' and the ads, that I wouldn't have to pay 8 dollars for a movie. I wonder what it would cost without the ads... scarry...
Tibbon
tibbon.com
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.
Spam is also generally "commercial" speech, which has always had less constitutional protection than political or individual speech.
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?
>I may be a pacifist, and hate the army. This
>isn't quite the same as a child being exposed to
>porn, but what if I don't want my child exposed
>to violence, but the Scooby Doo movie has an
>Army ad at the begining?
I won't go into the naivety of your proposed position, but I will say this:
I promise you that the Scooby Doo movie, no matter how "family oriented" it is, will have more violence than any advertisement for the US Army.
-l
Check out the reply of the so called "stalker"
http://www.toledocybercafe.com/ivtg/index.htm
~insert tech sarcasm here~
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)
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!
The poster to whom you are replying was joking, methinks. It's sometimes cathartic to fantasize doing bad things to evil people, even if in real life of course you need to adhere to ethical and legal norms. Spam is very, very frustrating and the selfish, short-sighted acts of a few unethical people have almost ruined the internet.
So, my friend, maybe you need to lighten up, develop a sense of humor, and stop calling others ignorami just because you don't understand them.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
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?
Receiving spam isn't "walking by" - it's them opening the door to my house, walking into my living room, and proceeding to scream out 50 different advertising pitches for penis enlargers and herbal viagra until I kick them out. Then, they adopt a disguise and come right back in again.
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.
Spam Assassin
Eudora Spam Filter
Mail Jail
Turn on your Sendmail antispam features!
Happy spamming, morons. I hope someone breaks your kneecaps. Repeatedly.
Speaking of educated Sysadmins, I've run into one problem from spammers that I can't seem to stop, we receive mail that goes to people in our company, but doesn't have their e-mail addie in the headers anywhere, and I'm just not sure how the HECK it's getting to us... Anyone wanna enlighten me?
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
I wouldn't be surprised if he's saying that just for the article, and that it didn't actually happen. It's also possible that it is a disgruntled customer who he scammed and who is out for revenge now.
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.
If you're so white hat and legitimate, what's your company's name?
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
like: the penalty for the first offence is 50 years without parole.
So then they would get to sell their penis enlargement kits to other prisoners. Now THAT would be poetic justice -- the spammers becoming bitches to the same people who just bought and used their kits.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
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
- 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
Yeah, but looking at the prior convictions for fraud on many spammers' rap sheets...
- Thomas Cowles - Burglary, fraud, theft
- Thomas Cowles - passing bad checks
Spamhaus.org is slashdotted at the moment, but you can also find prior convictions for Alan Ralsky. According to this Detroit News article, he has a felony conviction involving fraud and the loss of his insurances licenses in Michigan and IllinoisIf I were an IRS auditor, I'd consider spammers as prime candidates for shakedown.
But I'm not an IRS auditor. Does anyone reading this know any IRS auditors?
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/
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.
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)
And don't forget the Klez virus, which picks a random address from Outlook's address book to forge the "from" as well as the "to" field. So even if you don't use Outlook or have the virus, people can still think that you're infected and spamming them.
I would imagine that there's two kinds of spam operators:
- Basically legitimate "entrepeneurs" who stretch the law as far as they can but actually try not to break it. Same class of person as you might find at Enron or WorldCom.
- Scam artists. These guys have an "angle" on everything, work all in cash and have been involved in other fraudulent or criminal activity.
I'd expect the entrepeneurs to engage in petty tax games, like declaring stuff they're not supposed to and so on, but not engaging in out-and-out tax fraud. The scam artists I'd imagine are largely working for themselves (promoting sham businesses, stocks or products) and are fully engaged in the all-cash underground economy, and don't even file taxes.If I were an IRS auditor, I'd consider spammers as prime candidates for shakedown.
Report them to the IRS as suspected tax cheats. It's your duty under the government's new anti-terrorism programme..
Which is why, in pre-revolutionary France, people were ever so polite about resolving social disagreements with bloodshed.
An armed society might have less line-cutting, but might also have most of its line-cutting result in shooting injuries and deaths.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
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.
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!
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.
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.
what about telemarketers? are they protected by the first amendment? I'm not really sure..
cpeterso
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}
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...
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 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
institute a nice, fat $1000 fine and forfeit all prepaid fees, and let'er rip.
Great, if you can actually collect the judgement..
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
And some of them will, quite frankly, hate you enough to make up bogus information just to punish you for spamming. Don't do it.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
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
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)
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
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