Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Meet the Spammers

Posted by timothy on from the ask-them-for-viagra dept.

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."

15 of 713 comments (clear)

  1. This is *why* we need laws! by Marx_Mrvelous · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!
    1. Re:This is *why* we need laws! by nanojath · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I don't know why people think laws against spammers would be ineffective

      Absolutely agreed. I believe 90% of the unwanted spam we all hate so much could be stopped with a short list of simple guidelines.

      1) If you apply an e-mail to an officially sanctioned opt-out list, it is illegal and subject to fines to e-mail an unsolicited e-mail to that address.

      2) Make it illegal to send solicitations for age-restricted products (pornography, cigarettes, gambling, katmandu temple kiff...) to minors. Don't give me a free speech spiel. Go try and put up a billboard for hot rape sex porn. And for the people that bust this one: don't bother with the fines. Send 'em to jail.

      3) Make it illegal for any business to solicit without providing as part of the solicitation a valid contact for feedback, or to misrepresent their identity by using false addresses/spoofed headers, or to provide an opt-out/emoval link that feeds into anything other than a sanctioned opt-out list.

      4) Finally, and here's your free speech, make it illegal for ISPs to dump any spammer that complies with these laws, but also illegal to knowingly serve any spammer that does not.

      There's not much point in moaning about these spammers being nasty clueless jerks. Listen: several THOUSAND members of the Municipal Credit Union, ordinary people from all walks of life, stole about $15 MILLION (!) from ATMs. They knew it was wrong. They knew they were taking advantage of the tragedy of the attacks on the WTC towers. At least some of them must have known they at least stood a chance of being caught. But they did it anyway. Because they could. People are greedy and always ready to make a special moral exception for their own crummy behavior.

      BUT...

      Because there are rational theft and fraud laws in place, something can be done about it... Like throwing the most egregious offenders in jail, and forcing the rest to pay back what they stole. With a little common sense legislation we can do the same to spammers.

      --

      It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries

  2. And yet... by Maran · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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

  3. The Origin by Erik+Fish · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:The Origin by FurryFeet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've been a journalist for over 8 years. I see a lot of misconceptions in the two lines of your post.
      Maybe it's the TV's fault. Maybe you've grown used to think about Dan Rather or Barbara Walters as journalists. They're not. They're celebrities. A journalist walks his beat, watches, listens and reports the facts. Just the facts.
      I've interviewed murderers and rapists. I've also interviewed way more politicians than you'd ever care to meet. And when I come back to my desk and write the story, I simply report what they said. Nobody cares what I think about it; my job is to tell you what they said.
      So, taking their words at face value is NOT shoddy journalism. It's real journalism. You, the reader, should decide what to make of their words.
      Shoddy journalism would be to assume spammers lie, and mocking them, distorting what they said. It would be a lot more gratifying for antispammers, yes, but it would also be the worst kind of journalism: A distortion of the truth.

  4. Re:Basic math by kalimar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Must.....Stop....Fist..of.......Death.... by Zapman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    {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
  6. Excellent news! by Jeppe+Salvesen · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Five years ago, Balan says, he would send 30 million messages in a day. Most would get through. He earned up to $10,000 in commissions for a good day's work. Now, even though Balan keeps a database with 240 million e-mail addresses, only a fifth or fewer get through the filters. An average mailing earns him a paltry $250.
    I found this very encouraging. If we keep making life hell for them, we will not only stop recruitment, but also drive them out of business. Are we already making sure to poison their databases with non-existent but probable email addresses, btw?
    --

    Stop the brainwash

  7. Re:is it Legal to Stalk Spammers? by Fat+Casper · · Score: 5, Funny
    Just wondering is it legal to stalk spammers?

    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.
  8. Spammers fight back by MeNeXT · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It's funny that this came up today but I guess it's starting to hurt spammers and they are starting to fight back.

    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...
  9. Ah, but to rub their noses in it.. by realgone · · Score: 5, Funny
    one spammer whines, "My operating costs have gone up 1,000 percent this year."

    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!!!

  10. "Stalker's" website by pbemfun · · Score: 5, Informative

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

  11. 1,000 percent? by Patman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

  12. Re:Anti-spam law will not achieve much by schon · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  13. Detroit News Spammer Article by nuxx · · Score: 5, Informative

    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)