MonsterHut Jammed for Spam

DeAshcroft writes "Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lottie E. Wilkins has ordered MonsterHut, its CEO Todd Pelow and CTO Gary Hartl to stop behaving badly. The New York Post has a story on the ruling. The suit, brought by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in May 2002, alleges that MonsterHut sent over 500 million messages, fraudulently claiming that they were opt-in, and ignored at least 750,000 requests by consumers to be taken off their lists. Newsday also has coverage. The AG has an official release on the case. Penalty hearing is scheduled for Feb 11, 2003."

Comments

Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Officials were quoted as saying the CEO would be punished by being force fed thousands of cans of Spam a day.

How long

[tmark]

Before all these spam companies just move off-shore to avoid litigation ?

Re:How long

[Anonymous Coward]

Like that'll stop US courts deciding they have power over everything out of their borders.

Re:How long

[PhxBlue]

A better question is, would it do them any good to move offshore? Skylarov (sp?) lived in Russia, and the American government still managed to yank him into their "justice" system.

Re:How long

[Anonymous Coward]

He lived in russia, but they didn't bust him until he came over here.. Once he came into america, he came into the jurisdiction of the american justice system.

Re:How long

[bill_mcgonigle]

You can make that argument for any law.

If the person still owns/runs/profits from/operates the business in the US, they're still in the reach of US law enforcement. If the person actually moves out of the country, there's not much that can be done.

However, I suspect there are many spammers who do it because it's easy, profitable, and has very low risk. Once it becomes criminal, they're going to find something else to do.

Re:How long

[Steve B]

Spammers need a point of contact to collect the loot from the suckers, and as a practical matter that needs to be domestic (international postage and currency conversion would eat the profits, unless you pull off something like the Nigerian scam where the sucker loses a lot of money). If the spam operation is illegal, the authorities can close down the money contact point.

Re:How long

[Pig Hogger]

Before all these spam companies just move off-shore to avoid litigation ?

Just as somebody who gets a contract on someone else is liable for murder, US companies who spam through abroad spammers will be liable for spamming.

Re:How long

[Zeinfeld]

Before all these spam companies just move off-shore to avoid litigation ?

Have you been to Grand Cayman? Would you want to actually live there?

Moving the data center operations of a spamhaus offshore does not prevent prosecutors charging owners living in the US. If the criminal activity takes place in the US they can prosecute in the US.

It is quite likely that the offshore havens can and will prosecute also. Hosting SPAM senders does not bring anywhere near the amount of revenue that the traditional offshore industries of banking and shipping do. Any country that is in the offshore game is anxious to ensure that it does not draw unwanted attention to its current scams by allowing high profile criminal activity. You don't get much more high profile than businesses that anoy millions of people an hour.

Offshore havens are not by and large lawless, in fact the cayman islands sells itself on the fact that as a result of its British administration it has a government and banking system that have very high integrity. Cayman is not going to do anything to threaten that reputation and its existing business. So that leaves the spam senders with places like Congo, Nigeria and Afghanistan where the civil government has collapsed (though few 'libertarians' seem to want to live inthose countries).

Moving data centers offshore is in any case a high cost and would be a significant barrier to entry for new spam senders. If you have to move to a jurisdiction where the civil government is corrupt costs are going to rapidly spiral out of control.

The 'regulatory arbitrage' stuff is all about ideological commitment rather than analysis.

Re:How long

[shilly]

I realise that you're pissed off with the previous poster, but nonetheless, I don't think that you can reasonably argue that either European countries or the US have a great human rights records. That said, I think it's also worth bearing in mind that much of the rest of the world's governments restrict their citizens' liberties far more severely. It's not just hate speech that's banned in Zimbabwe, it's criticism of the government; women as well as minorities have restricted rights (e.g. driving, walking unaccompanied in public) in Saudia Arabia; and if the worst failing of the Chinese intelligence agencies was that they didn't operate under democratic supervision, the practitioners of Falun Gong would be very much happier than they are. It's worth keeping things in perspective.

Re:How long

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the point he was making was that some countries are more restricted that we are at the present in the states. idiot.

Re:How long

[Anonymous Coward]

make it illegal for a US citizen to be involved with a spamming operation. Its illegal for a US citizen to have sex with someone under the age of 18 in other countries and can be charged on their return. Make spamming the same. Whats worse is that they dont have to move off shore, just into another state. This needs to be a felony offense.

Re:How long

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, he broke American laws and was arrested in the US. It's not like they sent the CIA after him.

Re:How long

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you been to Grand Cayman? Would you want to actually live there?

I will add that if you did decide to live there, you would find yourself quite poor. To gain permanent residency status (even temporarily) you must have a clean police record. I'd like to see the spammers we've heard of on Slashdot get past that requirment.

Re:How long

[rutledjw]

Then the courts restrict business that can occur in the US. France put restrictions on Yahoo! when Yahoo! was selling stuff in France they didn't like.

The same can occur here. It's illegal to sell, trade, or barter any product or service which uses SPAM as a marketing/advertising mechanism.

Perfect? No. But it will stop a LOT of the issues and MOST IMPORTANTLY, increase the cost of SPAM. The only reason SPAM works is that it is so cheap, 1 hit per million is profitable. If you increase the cost, the economics are against SPAMers...

Re:How long

[Anonymous Coward]

whoah there buckaroo.

Libertarians do NOT advocate the collapse of government. That would be an ANARCHIST. To a libertarian, government is there to protect individuals from FORCE and FRAUD. I think prosecuting Spammers would qualify. Preventing terrorists from setting up camps in our borders would qualify. Invading other countries preemptively...Probably not.

There's a big difference between limited government and no or ineffective government.

Re:How long

[chimpo13]

They yanked him into our "justice" system for doing something that's legal in Russia.

I can't wait to get speeding tickets when I'm on the autobahn. "Well sir, the limit in the US is 70, and you were doing 90. Here's your ticket".

Man, the US has voted for insane governments.

Re:How long

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worth you shutting the fuck up, you wanker.

Re:How long

[Anonymous Coward]

not diluted by the ridiculous ban of the so called "hate speech"

LOL! U must b new hear. U'll never fit in hear with that kinda speling ;) Heres a gide 4 U 2 get U started:

WRONG --> RIGHT
ridiculous --> rediculous
piques --> peaks
almost --> allmost
truly --> truely
jibe --> jive
too --> to
sense --> sence
agree --> aggree

Re:How long

[sakeneko]

Before all these spam companies just move off-shore to avoid litigation?

Good point, but there's also a good answer. The answer is that all spammers are not alike.

Some spammers undoubtedly will move offshore, if they haven't already. Spammers of illegal or otherwise questionable products -- stuff like travel scams, herbal "Viagra", Make*Money*Fast pyramid schemes, 419 Advance Fee Frauds, stock manipulation stuff, and the like -- are the 21st century equivalents of the 20th century boiler room telemarketers. The laws never could do much about them.

But many spammers have established businesses and customers in this country. Businesses like Verisign/Network Solutions, Encyclopedia Britannica, Citibank, Barnes & Noble, and Real Networks (makers of the RealPlayer) have all spammed repeatedly. Some of these have done their own spamming; others have paid "legitimate" marketing companies to spam on their behalf. In either case, they are legally responsible, at least in the United States, because in the U.S. companies are responsible for what their agents do. And, just like laws against abusive telemarketing practices have stopped legitimate companies from doing abusive stuff, laws against spamming would stop legitimate companies.

The moral is that laws won't stop an outright crook, or a crooked company that appears one day and disappears the next. However, they DEFINITELY affect the behavior of companies that have established products, established places of business, an established customer base, and a reputation to loose.

So I'm all for using the laws against spammers. Just don't abandon blacklists, filtering, and other tools. :)

Re:How long

[jazman_777]

Before all these spam companies just move off-shore to avoid litigation ?

Let's set up a nice place for spammers on an island somewhere. Then, one nuke. Very clean.

Re:How long

[jazman_777]

It's worth keeping things in perspective.

Yes, and it's also worth remembering that we are always blowing our own horn about being the "leader of the free world" and being morally outraged at others' sins. We set a high standard (with our words) for everyone else's behaviour--we ought to behave that well, at least.

Re:How long

[melonman]

If the spam operation is illegal, the authorities can close down the money contact point.

So the spammers couldn't run an e-commerce site on one of their servers and take payments by credit card? Also, note that the money lost in currency conversion etc becomes negligable once you get over a few thousand dollars. Plenty of people choose to put money in Swiss bank accounts despite the costs involved. Probably including quite a few spammers...

Very easy solution

[Epistax]

To end all spamming once and for all, do this simple tactic: For every piece of spam mail you get, email the provider which sent it, ten times. Now any providers that are left after an hour will realize they need to crack down. So who wants to set a target date? :)

Re:Very easy solution

[mistered]

Actually it's not a very easy solution, since in most cases "the provider which sent it" can be very difficult to determine. The From: address is completely useless, of course. You can track back through the Received: headers to find (most likely) an open relay that send the spam to you. More than likely it's in China and complaints to its owner will do nothing. Spammers also like open relays that don't add useful Received: headers (i.e., don't put the IP address in) so good luck finding out where the spam really came from.

Re:Very easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he means that if a spammer sends out 500.000 spam mails the responsble provider will receive 500.000 times 10, 5.000.000 mails back complaining about spam, although it's not really the message of the e-mail that is doing the trick.

Re:Very easy solution

[odaiwai]

It's not just China: ISPs in South America don't care about spam either. Also, some major US ISPs like UUNET, Level3 and Worldcom don't, in my experience, give a fig about their users spamming, or undertaking any abuseive activities. I get probed by all three regularly and get no response when I send LARTS to abuse@ anyone of those three ISPs. Well, i get a response from Level3, but they just send my complaint to the spammer and I get more spam.

The major backbones in the USA condone spam. What makes you think a Chinese ISP will condemn it?

Shove all of Worldcom, UUNET and Level3 into SPEWS, that's what I say!

dave "rot in Spews"

Re:Very easy solution

[spikedvodka]

This is why I have all of China blocked at the fire-wall level. Well, that and most of the scipt-kiddy attacks I've seen against my servers have been from China. What I do, is I go back to my mail server logs, which logs where the connection actually came from. Being abuse@mydomain has it's priveleges, including blocking major spam-sources

Ironic

[jyuter]

That Monsterhut.com lists links to spam filters.

Re:Ironic

[Uninvited Guest]

Do you suppose they also sent out spam ads for spam filters?

Re:Ironic

[ShinmaWa]

Not really ironic.

The page you saw actually belonged to Ultimate Search -- a rather infamous squatter company.

Its no suprise that ultsearch put links to spam filters on there.

Re:Ironic

[fjin]

And every listed filter looked to be Commercial one. At least I didn't seen Spamassasin or Razor there.

So, even Spam filter link list was just one way to make money.

pattern?

[mschoolbus]

I don't think the "*huts" are doing to well... I mean, Fingerhut, Monsterhut, etc... But i wonder about Pizza hut? =P

Re:pattern?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I heard, Jabba the Hut wasn't doing so well either.

Re:pattern?

[bje2]

you forgot "Jabba The Hut" (Strangeled by Leia) and "Pizza The Hut" (Eats Himself)...

Re:pattern?

[Jiggy]

Pizzahut offering Spam topping? Spam and Pinapple maybe?

Or perhaps Spam, Pinapple, Spam, Eggs, Chips and Spam. :-)

With extra Spam.

Re:pattern?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Pizza Hut is having some issues. I'm just waiting for them to get nailed for false advertising. Their "Ultimate Meat Lovers" which was advertised to look like it had more meat was really just a regular meat lovers with a 6-cheese blend. Plus, about a week before they stopped selling it, most locations ran out of the 6-cheese blend because the distributor stopped shipping it. They ended up throwing a couple grains of 6-cheese with all mozarella and selling it as an Ultimate.

Oh yeah, at least 3 of the locations here refuse to give their employees 10 minute breaks, and most of the time refuse to give 30 minute lunch breaks.

Niiiiiice huh?

A Swing in the right direction

[FortKnox]

Many states are implementing no-call(/spam) lists, spammers are getting nailed for not following the law 'to the T', and more spammers are just getting prosecuted for various charges. Looks like the law finally is on the side of the spamee's. Looks like we may be in for some good times in the near future...

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[robbins!]

It's too bad we can't get antispam legislation on a federal level, after all, most of it is interstate. ...Then again, the Feds would likely bungle it.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[Exotabe]

Looks like we may be in for some good times in the near future...

It's a sad commentary on the current state of communications when 'good times' are those in which we are merely free from spam.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[mark_lybarger]

Oh my.

it's quite too bad that we can't have engineers design and develop a communication method that doesn't allow this type of "abuse". these people are merely taking advantage of a flawed system and we want prosecution?

our freaking law makers are busy trying to figure out how we'll implement the "no child left behind act" from mr. gwb to spend their time making and implementing spam laws.

here's a wacky idea. educate the population. educate them A LOT. let them design a system which is secure, easy to use and easy to maintain. let them learn from our mistakes with telephone, email , cable tv and all the other failed communication mechanisms.

radio and over the air tv are about the only decent delivery mechanisms i can see. their major flaw is that they are only one sided in that you send a message and hope someone tunes it in. they're also highly regulated in that not everyone can get their messages out via those channels.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[olman]

Ok, I never thought I'd see the day when a /. reader is hailing Evil Goverment legislation. What next? Start paying royalties on downloaded MP3s?

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[odaiwai]

Why should we have to adopt a new system because antisocial thieves have rendered the original concept unsafe?

The system is not inherently unsafe, it's just that thieves are taking advantage of the inherent levels of trust in the system. surely we should punish the thieves, not develop some overly paranoid system in its place?

dave

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[walt-sjc]

Oh my.

It's too bad we don't educate our kids to learn how to use the Shift key.

But back to the topic at hand, if nobody can build a general purpose secure OS, how the fuck do you expect anyone to create a messaging system which the main purpose of is to allow any-to-any communication that is invunerable to spam and still a viable system to be used by businesses and the masses in general? Do you REALLY think that spammers won't find a way around technical limitations?

Imagine a society with no laws. You can be killed by anyone, have your stuff stolen, your daughter raped and no laws to stop it. Only the strong survive. Warlords control everything. This is essentially the internet as it is today.

Back in the "good old days" before AOL invaded Usenet, laws were not really needed. The community for the most part policed itself. This is no longer possible.

We now need laws to enforce proper behavior. Will this stop all spam? No. Do laws against shoplifting stop all theft? No. Do they discurage most people from shoplifting every time they enter a store? Yes, they do. They provide a way for shop owners to protect themselves.

The bottom line is that we KNOW anti-spam laws will not stop all spam. It will however reduce it significantly.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[mark_lybarger]

first off, i don't like getting uninvited emails, phone calls or USPS messages any more than the next guy (UPS packages are most welcome). I'm not a spammer nor a telemarketer nor a mass emailer. i'm a java developer.

first off, i can't quite see how the "antisocial" person had committed thievery? they haven't taken anything concrete. only given something that wasn't asked for. it's up to you to accept or reject the offer, correct? you pick up the phone or you don't. it could be a student loan consolidator who just wants to talk to you for a minute, or it could be mom calling to talk about nothing (either way it might be better not to answer :) ). in order to steal something to be a thief, you need to take something of value. the only thing taken is the recipeients time to decide weather or not to accept or delete the message. there's also your internet bill, but you elected to sign up for your email service from whatever provider plan you like. if you're provider is charging you per message and it's not working out for you, find a new provider.

secondly, yes, i do believe that the system should be designed as robust as possible and as flexable as possible. trust should also be inherant in any system. pagers for instance have a level of trust. the pager company doesn't generally publish your number so it's a pretty trusted environment for communication. you give people a pager number and they can page you. you know when you get a page that it's needed to be returned.

it's not the gov'ts job to play playground moderator telling people how to play nice together. their job is to protect the borders and uphold the constitution. your constitutional rights are not being infringed on by email spam or phone spam. your right to "privacy" is not infringed since you elected service from that particular company, and probably in the small small print was disclosed how the system works and weather they'll give your number/address to others, or weather it's just a guessing game. in a true monopolistic market there needs to be governement rules (they created the monoply after all) otherwise the rules will be created by the market and consumers. if someone doesn't give the consumers what they want, someone else will come along and do it.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[jellomizer]

You keep running your computer with all ports open. Keep your relays open on you e-mail server. never use secure anything, keep your car door unlocked no matter where, and leave the keys in it.
Thieves will always be there and now they can have computers and other peoples computers do the work for them. The thing is now the internet is beyond critical mass so doing crimes is now profitable because you can now get 0.01% of the stupidest people to give you money.
If you can deal with spam then it works fine for you if you dont then we neeed a new system.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[mark_lybarger]

yep, i'm going to run the spell/grammer checker on my writing before i click the submit. i'll even go through a few revision phases... please. grammer nazis should not be posting to internet web boards. if i were writing an article to be published i would worry about my writing. if i'm writing on a web board, which is the same as having a public conversation, i would relax my writing as well as i would relax my speach in a public spoken forum.

but back to the topic at hand :). laws are created to protect rights of the citizens. laws for other reasons are the legislatures imposing their morals onto a society. your constitutional rights are not infringed by spam. yes it's annoying, yes it's not welcome but i do not believe that your rights are infringed upon.

does anti-marijuana laws stop some marijuana smoking? sure. does that make it right? that's more of a moral debate than a constitutional one. what if we had an anti-suv law, or rather a law that required all vehicles to get at least 45MPG? after all it would be in the best interest of "society".

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[SquadBoy]

No they have taken something *very* concrete. They have used up bandwidth that I have paid for, they have taken up space on my HD, they have taken my time which is most certainly both of value and concrete. In addition to this they have used processor cycles and other precious resources on machines that do not belong to them to send out their stuff.

Then lets get into the other damages. If I where to send you half the stuff via snail mail that these people send out I would be arrested, as well I should be in that case. So in short yes they are theives and criminals and should be treated as such. So yes there should be laws against this stuff because it does cost me money and denies me use of resources I would otherwise have. It may be small in some ways. OTOH in the not having to look at their filth area it is big.

Having said that you are right we need a tech solution also. I think http://www.tmda.net/ have the right idea. Read about it install it and use it. I'm looking at a way to make it reject anything that is not signed (Think GNU Privacy Guard) with a similar message. This would be a good thing but we also need the law to be on our side and it should be.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[EatHam]

if the population was educated, they wouldn't vote for Republicans

Revised:
if the population were educated, they wouldn't dogmatically say Republicans == Bad && Democrats == Good

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[odaiwai]

Spam is theft.

They are stealing bandwidth. You may pay a fixed rate per month, but your ISP has to pay for extra load on their lines by having more powerful servers, more diskspace. These costs get passed to you.

They steal your time. If you don't care about stopping these thieves, you can just hit delete. How much time does that take? What if you never had to receive the crap in the first place? If you want to track them down (as you *know* that they're stealing from you), that takes even more time.

I can remember when getting an email meant that one of my friends or family wanted to communicate. Spammers have stolen that feeling from me. Now, when I get an email, I have to worry about whether I can open that email in the office, whether I'm going to be pissed off about someone intruding on my work with their marketing crap.

Spammers are thieves. Lowlife, scum-sucking thieves. They are taking advantage of a system built on everyone behaving responsibly and polluting it for everyone. They are greedy, self-centred and short-sighted. They are destroying a means of communication which had so much promise. Email is rapidly becoming worthless thanks to spammers. Thay have taken that from us. It didn't belong to them, it belonged to all of us, but they took it anyway and abused it until it was useless. It is the Tragedy of the Commons writ large.

dave

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[odaiwai]

This is not a good analogy.

If someone steals my car becuase I didn't have enough security on it, is it my fault? You can't say that the person who took it isn't a thief.

We had a world where you could trust people not to steal your car. In fact, you could leave your car unlocked (your relays open) and people who need it would use it, but not abuse it, and you wouldn't notice (it would be returned to you full of gas).

I had a friend lving in a village where the neighbours might come in (because the door was never locked) and help themselves to something from the fridge. But that was ok, because they'd always replace it or you could always just go round to their place for something. I remember being there when a neighbour dropped by and deposited a few cases of beer in the fridge ("we had a party and we've got beer left over 'cause we needed some of yours last night.") It was a tremendous environment. You *trusted* your neighbours.

That's what the 'net was like: "Hey, I need a news feed for alt.fan.pratchett." "Sure, leech some of mine, one of my users needs an account on your VAX." "No worries, point them here."

Now its: "Do I know you? No? Fuck off!"

That's what the spammers have stolen.

dave

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[mark_lybarger]

dave, they stole the feeling of being communicated by a family or friend from you? they might have changed your logic structure around it all, but the feeling?...

if (new_messages) && (from == someone_i_know)
then (you've got that lovin' feeling, oooh ooh that...)

if your isp charges you a fixed rate for bandwidth, then i suggest getting a new isp. one that is more flexable i imagine. i still contend that the market and technological measures can and should fix the problem (created by technological deficiencies). i also contend that it's not the business of the gov't to play playground supervisor.

email doesnt' belong to anybody. it is an idea (RFC?) that was implemented by various entities. it was sold as a service to many many people to use.

there's other communication mechanisms out there for you to utilize. there's an open IRC being developed (don't recall the name off the top of my head) with GPL implementations. this means that you can freely run your own chat server and restrict who connects and such. you want exclusive control over the communication, set it up. then when mom wants to tell you what's planned for dinner on the next holiday you'll get that warm fuzzy seeing the message.

if you're in a public forum, you have only the service provider to complain to. mr. isp, please let me give a do not accept from list. or please let me give you an accept only from list. that's only a general idea, i'm certain a thourough system could be implemented.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[Steve B]

your constitutional rights are not infringed by spam

I don't know what kind of Constitution they have where you live, but the one here in the US recognizes the concept of private property (e.g. the system resources stolen by spammers).

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[odaiwai]

You are completely missing the point.

Email used to be all about people sending you messages you were interested in. Now, that's been taken away from us, because there's so much crap coming through it.

If I have to tell my mother she has to download my instant messaging client, "and hey, mom, su to root, cd to that directory, do make clean; make all; make install, than add the davesIM service to your /etc/init.d directory", ok *my* mom can do that, but can yours? Why should she have to? What if she's running windows/amiga-os/beos/mac-os/etc?

My mom's in a different timezone. One that is eight hours different from mine. Instant messaging doesn't work in that case. Email works. It's asynchronous. Why should we tolerate it being abused by antisocial morons? Why should I have to jump through hoops to tell my mother her grandson is going "da-da"? Shouldn't it be the spammers jumping through the hoops?

dave

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[forevermore]

I live in WA, where we've had a spam no send list for quite awhile (unfortunately, no no call list as of yet). It hasn't done me one bit of good - you have to register individual addresses (I have hundreds of aliases at my domain and they all come to me - I often don't remember specific ones), and even my main address, which has been registered for a couple of years, receives way too much spam.

Also, we've seen how many "wins" from these laws? a handful at best? There's obviously something not right with the system yet.

Granted, heavy modifications to courier's bofh file (blocking bad addresses/mx's) has narrowed that down from 50-100 to 5-10 daily. But it's still annoying.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[mark_lybarger]

yep, and the lakes didn't use to be cluttered with those damn jet-ski's either. back in the day you could take a nice quiet ride on your boat and not be bothered by those pesky jet-ski's. we need a law to keep them off our (big boat owners) lake!

anyway. you don't have to run linux to use the oper instant messaging. it's called jabber (jabber.org) and there's clients for lots of platforms.

secondly, yes, instant messaging can be used async. with email, you send a message and wait for a respose. same with im, but you can tell if your person is there ready to respond. so you've got 5 pages to tell good old mom. type it up and send it via IM.

you don't have to jump through hoops to tell mom the baby is talking. if you want a convenient way that gives you that warm fuzzy inside then you've got to seek it out. the government doesn't need to protect your or my warm fuzzy world. the gov't needs to protect the borders and the constitutional rights.

the spammers do jump through lots of hoops in orde to send messages as anonymously as they can.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[dhogaza]

I once called 911 on a kid stealing stuff from my unlocked car stored in my unlocked garage, and the cops caught him (more precisely the german shepard they brought to the scene caught him).

The fact that my car and garage was unlocked did not matter. Kid was charged with thievin' and burglin' (a "II" and "III" low-level charge in each case since he'd only managed to run off with a book). Served a month and three years pro.

Now ... the fact that the garage was unlocked meant he wasn't charged with "breaking and entering" (or perhaps in my state's legal code a burglin' charge with a lower number, i.e. higher on the felony food chain).

The law does not view unlocked doors as being tacit permission to enter someone's home or garage, nor to remove their property.

Why should an open relay or otherwise unsecure system be treated otherwise? Theft of service is theft of service.

Not that I'm advocating one relay mail from unknown systems! Obviously in today's world if you do so you'll quickly have your system hijacked by people you can't track down. But the hijackers are still ... hijackers.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[Anonymous Coward]

um a lot of lakes are banning jet skis because they dump 40% of their fuel into the water

not to mention they are also loud and disturb others.

socially irritating and harmful to the environment.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[walt-sjc]

Please.

First, Marijuana is not spam. Right or wrong, marijuana is defined as a controlled substance. Should Heroin be legal?

Second, FYI, the US already has laws mandating minimum MPG for cars / SUVs. It's not 45MPG at the moment, but maybe someday it will be. I personally think that minimum MPG laws are good. Obviously enough people agree with these laws that the minimum MPG is continually increasing. Anything that can reduce our dependance on foreign oil is a good thing IMHO.

Third, the constitution has NOTHING to do with spam. Commercial speech is NOT protected under the constitution which is why there are limits on what can be advertized, how, and where, and what claims can be made. These limits just haven't extended to the internet yet, and they probably should be.

Fourth, spam is theft. It is theft of computer and telecommunication resources.
By some analysis, spam is now somewhere between 30 - 50% of all email on the net. Who pays for this? Guess what: It's not the spammers. It's you and me and everyone else in our internet access fees. They are stealing our disk space and bandwidth. If people want to advertize, there are PLENTY of other ways besides email. Nobody is restricting advertizers from putting up their own web page or buying banner ads.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[mattACK]

I won't let my five year old have his own mail box because I don't want hot and wet lolitas and horse fuck invitations hitting him. These messages reach children and that is CRIMINAL. The blanket pornography that is spam's staple must cease.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up, you goddamned spam apologist.

And learn to spell, you incoherent bastard!

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[Dimensio]

if your isp charges you a fixed rate for bandwidth, then i suggest getting a new isp.

I pay a fixed monthly fee for unlimited bandwidth, so 'spam' does not directly increase my ISP bill. However, my ISP still has to deal with the extra bandwidth resulting from the spammers shoving their scam offers into my inbox without my consent. It adds up to a REAL cost that is passed on to the consumers, and the spammers are NOT paying their fair share.

All spammers should be skinned alive, impaled and have salt poured onto them as they are left in fields to die as a warning to all others.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[zenofjazz]

Ok, so someone calling your cell phone, and burning up your minutes isn't stealing from you? Bandwidth, diskspace, and administrative time all cost money. You may not see them itemized on your ISP bill, but when your ISP raises their rates, this is part of the reason..

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything that can reduce our dependance on foreign oil is a good thing IMHO.

Me too. How about drilling for oil in the US? In Alaska? In ANWR?

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[mark_lybarger]

i agree... but I think that it's not the governemts job to punish the spammers. i don't know how the isp's should charge for their bandwidth, but if it is such a huge issue where these spammers are doubling your ISP bill ( i know you didn't say double, i just threw out a number ), then the market should correct itself.

people who drive from one state into another to drive on a foreign state's roadway system also aren't paying their fair share, but that's kinda minute in the grand 'ol scheme of things.

that REAL cost that spammers impose on the "real" consumers bandwidth bill I think i neglegeble compared to other unnecessarry costs the company has to endure (employee unemployment benefits, VP expense accounts, etc).

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[mark_lybarger]

Should Heroin be legal?

maybe. i'm sure there's quite a few folks around who we'd all be better off if they were heavily sedated. hell, maybe they'd actually get a job so they could go to the heroine store and buy their heroine laced cigaretts. let's outlaw carbohydrates. those adkin's wackos all say carbs are bad for the body. we need a movement in this country from the health care industry to outlaw all carbohydrates. they're not needed at all for human survival after all.

interesting. what are the current MPG restrictions for cars/SUV's? i was aware of many environmental restrictions for the vehicles (emissions) but not MPG restrictions.

i'm tired of doing research today and probably should get some work done. i would be interested to see how commercial speach is not protected as free speach under the constitution. also, what are some limits of advertising? where can certain (not the heavily regulated industries such as tobacco, alcohol, medicine?) people not advertise?

fourth. spammers consumer their resources sending a message. they send it in such a way that your systems take that message and process it. DON'T TAKE THE MESSAGE! DON'T LISTEN TO IT!. what? your systems can't do that? you're making yourself velnreable by subscribing to the system.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[Anonymous Coward]

While at the anti-spam conference last week in Cambridge, someone came up to me and proposed a mechanism where a recipient of mail would charge a tiney fee to recieve a message.

If anyone I don't know, wanted to mail to me, they would get an auto-reply telling them how much it would cost them to get me to read their mail. If I wanted further communication with this person, upon mutual agreement I would allow all further Email to be free, then add them to my "white list".

Of course a method of payment (something less expen$ive then PayPal) would have to be adopted to allow payments of small amounts of money to be made to the recipient.

I would then charge spammers a 25 cent fee for my time to read their smut. Hmmmm - I get 2500 spam messages a week. That makes for $625 a week. NOT BAD - It's certainly a lot more then what I'm making now.

Of course a lot of technical issues have to be solved.... Better mail authentication, micro cash transfers, white list management... but it's all doable...

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree with you. Spam laws are like putting perfume on a pig. They still stink...

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[akb]

I have a hard time understanding this ruling, so can't really tell if its going in the right direction. It says that the spammers must refrain from "further engaging in any of the fraudulent, deceptive and illegal acts and practices". Why does it take a court order to get them to refrain from illegal acts? If they've committed illegal acts then there should be a penalty. Was there a penalty already and enjoining them from ever spamming again is a bonus, kinda like permanent probabtion?

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[Nerull]

You tell me how to make my ISPs mail server magicly reject all spam without using any resouces to check for spam (while, of course, letting legitimate mail through), and i'll do it.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[PhxBlue]

I disagree. We don't "need laws to enforce proper behavior" on the Internet. At least, we don't need new laws. We already have laws that enforce proper behavior--we need to enforce the laws that currently govern "real-world" behavior, on the Internet. Any internet crime has a real-world equivalent--I suggest we find the parallel and make the case using what we already have.

I know the US Congress likes to look busy; but 95% of the time, they either don't know or don't care about the American public's interests or needs. Seriously, what was the last good internet law that went through Congress?

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[Xtifr]

At least, we don't need new laws. We already have laws that enforce proper behavior--we need to enforce the laws that currently govern "real-world" behavior, on the Internet.

That's been tried -- there was a fairly concerted effort to get the anti-junk-faxes laws to apply to spam. There's a lot of similarity: cost is to the receiver, etc. Unfortunately, the existing law was apparently too specific, and I don't believe this approach has been successful.

This is a two-sided coin -- if the law is too generic, then it may not actually be a good fit when new technology comes along and disrupts the existing paradigm. Contrariwise (as in the case above), if the law is too specific, then it may not apply in a new case where it probably should apply.

Any internet crime has a real-world equivalent

So nothing on the Internet is new? It's all just old things in new clothing? I disagree -- I don't think there's any exact equivalent to rooting a bunch of machines and using them to launch a DDoS. That scenario pretty much requires a set of intelligent, programmable machines networked together (i.e. the Internet).

Seriously, what was the last good internet law that went through Congress?

Yeah, if at first you don't succeed, throw up your hands and give up. That "try, try again" stuff is for idiots! :)

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was the job of the parent to protect their own kids, not the government.

On the subject of shoplifting, the Internet is based on electrons moving around from wire to wire. And you don't own them. I suppose next your going to say breathing should be outlawed because, i am using up your oxygen.

You are just a bunch of crazed liberals, trying to enforce you're perfect world on other people. Some of us want less regulation and laws, not more. In my opinion, it's horrible as is that the government is preventing people from making lawful copies of their own media, we dont need laws governing what is "allowed" on the Internet too.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[DavidTC]

I'm just wondering...why do you think heroin should be illegal? It's a fairly safe drug, except for the whole 'hard to get off of quickly' thing.

Re:A Swing in the right direction

[mattACK]

I'll bite. I play video games WITH my children. I watch TV WITH my children. I would never EVER let anyone walk up to my children and give them hardcore pornography. My oldest can't have an email address because I can't prevent pornographic spam . I couldn't be a more responsible parent. I love them dearly.

I feel silly responding to an AC, but am not a bunch of crazed liberals nor do I mind you consuming my oxygen. Posting anonymously is intelligent, as your response is not.

I love Monster Hut.

[tps12]

I don't care what anyone says, Monster Hut has the best monster anywhere. Nice and thick, with plenty of sauce, and cheese that's gooey but not too stringy.

Now I'm making myself hungry. I think I'll order up some monster for lunch.

Re:I love Monster Hut.

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing I hate is that I really get the screaming shits after eating there.

Good thing my life long bitch dosen't complain about it, he loves it!

-tps12

New York

[WPIDalamar]

Too bad all the spammers aren't in NY ... then maybe we could actually do something about most of them.

Re:New York

[NerdSlayer]

Too bad all the spammers aren't in NY ... then maybe we could actually do something about most of them.

Huh? I don't get it.

Maybe you're going to take the spammer to a game at Yankee Stadium. Or... push them off Niagra Falls. Perhaps some boating on the finger lakes or a tour of the Statue of Liberty? Crack smoking in Canarsie?

Re:New York

[Thud457]

I think the poster was referring to New York (city ?)'s crackdown on "quality of life" crimes instituted by Rudy Guiliani (sp?).

Re:New York

[Anonymous Coward]

KaZaA is being prosecuted in CA even though they said they have no ties with CA. The CA prosecuter got it into court with the agruement that 100,000's of CA residents have downloaded it and therefore have contact with them. Use the same to get these fuckers in court in every state.

Re:New York

[Anonymous Coward]

Like send them over niagra falls in a barrel.

Re:New York

[WPIDalamar]

The NY Attorney General was prosecuting a spammer.

Do spammers get prosecuted many other places?

What's not to get there?

Catching them on fraud

[PhysicsGenius]

That's a very good plan. They claimed to be opt-in but weren't, so sue them. Nice. Kind of how they got Al Capone for tax avoision, not racketeering or murder. It's a lot easier to prove the former.

The best of it is that they can put these guys behind bars while skipping right by the free speech issue. While normally I hold the first amendment to the highest standards, I favor suspending it for spammers.

Re:Catching them on fraud

[Uninvited Guest]

Fraud is not protected speech. There is no free speech issue for such cases.

Re:Catching them on fraud

[odaiwai]

Spam is not free speech. Spam is not about content, it's about consent. No one is preventing spammers putting their message on a webpage or in a print advert. What we want to stop is spammers sending advertising to us on *our* *dime*. If you have to pay ten cents for each ad on TV, or pay one dollar each time some telmarketer rang you up, you'd be fscking livid. with spam, *your* bandwidth is paying for *their* advertising.

It's not free speech - if they wanted that they can make a web page - it's theft.

dave

Re:Catching them on fraud

[adam613]

That's a very good plan. They claimed to be opt-in but weren't, so sue them. Nice. Kind of how they got Al Capone for tax avoision, not racketeering or murder. It's a lot easier to prove the former.

Um. "avoision" is only a word if you have a heavy Brooklyn accent and meant to speak of "aversion". Al Capone was the boss of Chicago, and tax aversion itself is not a crime.

Re:Catching them on fraud

[Trekologer]

Pratically all of the spam I've been receiving lately has claimed that I've opted-in to it. I certainly have not. I'd like to see one of these spammers "prove" that I've opted-in.

Maybe I should take a ride over to the local courthourse and file some lawsuits.

Re:Catching them on fraud

[Maxwell'sSilverLART]

1. "Avoision" is not a word.
2. Tax avoidance is legal. I do it every year--deductions, credits, rebates, and so forth. You'd be a fool not to.
3. Tax evasion is a crime, and is the crime of which Al Capone was convicted.

Re:Catching them on fraud

[funwithstuff]

Um. "avoision" is only a word if you have a heavy Brooklyn accent and meant to speak of "aversion".

Or if you're Kent Brockman. Never underestimate the influence of The Simpsons.

Re:Catching them on fraud

[tps12]

If you have to pay ten cents for each ad on TV, or pay one dollar each time some telmarketer rang you up, you'd be fscking livid.

By that same token, if you only had to pay a tiny fraction of a penny for each ad you saw on TV, you probably wouldn't care. You have to consider the other side of the coin, which is that spam is orders of magnitude cheaper in resources and time than any existing form of intrusive advertising (snail-spam and telemarketing). Just my 2 cents.

Re:Catching them on fraud

[Mitreya]

The best of it is that they can put these guys behind bars while skipping right by the free speech issue.

As mentioned, fraud is not protected by free speech clause... but even more importantly who is being put behind bars? The executives of MonsterHut...? They are being asked not to do this anymore from what I understand... sorta like MS.

Re:Catching them on fraud

[Dimensio]

Spam isn't about first amendment issues. Spam is about consent, not content. I couldn't argue first amendment protection if I ran up to people and screamed my opinions into their ears until they went deaf.

Spammers deserve to die because they are criminals and thieves, every one, not because they might be committing some fraud advertised in their spam. I hold all spammers to the same level of contempt, regardless of whether they peddle charity or porn.

Re:Catching them on fraud

[Anonymous Coward]

If you encounter any spammer not honoring opt out requests, or claiming you opted in when you didn't, then send your spam to "uce@ftc.gov" - In subject header, say something like "not honoring opt out".

I assure you, the FTC Does investigate these, aws they have a staff of more then 100 people processing mail sent to them.

Although they get more then 40,000 spams a day, they DO enter them into a database, and the opt out mechansim is tested. Those that bounce, or bring up a 404 error (DO) get investigated.

While at the anti-spam conference, I learned of a new open source project to develop a "Spam Management System" that all spam haters would really want to have.

I have no details on it yet, but stay tuned to good ol /. for more details as I get them.

I suspect an announcement is coming soon.

Re:Catching them on fraud

[DavidTC]

That's a genius analog. What if you had to pay .0001 cents for each ad you taped off TV. Not that bad, eh? I wouldn't mind. Tape a show, pay .003 cents for the ads. In fact, you probably do pay that much with wear and tear on the tape, and no one minds at all.

But...what if the ads were free, and the advertisers could insert as many as they wanted? Suddenly, you can't fit a show on a tape, you have to sit there and swap out tapes when the show comes back after two hours of ads, you go through tapes like mad, you can't even find the damn TV show, the advertisers are making the ads look like the TV show they're appearing in...

Hang em high

[Anonymous Coward]

They used to hang horse thieves.

HOW TO Deal With Chinese Spam

[Amsterdam Vallon]

The government just ordered all ISPs in China to start monitoring email for subversive phrases and the like, so I started replying to Chinese spam with little replies of the form at the end of this spam. Might be a useful tactic on companies who think that unsolicited email is "just regular advertising."

"Jack(export manager)" wrote:
>
> Dear Sir
> How are you .
>
> We are a lighting factory in China ,It is glad
> to introduce ourselves to you:
>
> I am XUBIN (Jack) , XUBIN is my chinese name , you can just
> call me Jack !! , I am export manager of [deleted] ,
> China, our group have four factory
[snipped]
>
> Here is our company profile :
>

[Rest of sales talk snipped]

(And now, the reply)

Thank you for your coded order. The weapons and ammunition will ship by way of the usual route in ten days, and you already know our secret Swiss bank account number to wire the payment to.

It is a pleasure doing business with you for so long, and I hope your cause will prevail. I am new to this particular computer, so I hope the encryption is working and the monitoring authorities cannot read what I am sending you.

Long live the Falun Gong! Free Tibet!

Best regards, Your arms supplier

(from http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/02/Feb/spam.html )

Re:HOW TO Deal With Chinese Spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this bad news if *you* ever decide to take a trip to China?

Re:HOW TO Deal With Chinese Spam

[wrabbit]

I'd agree with socratic method's comment in response to this -- don't actually do this, for reasons sm explains -- but there is an interesting point about the role of spam in the third world as an industry. I've seen a few articles that claim that internet cafes in Nigeria, for example, are almost universally funded by people sending out 419 spams. (http://slate.msn.com/id/2072851/ is the article that googled up first)

I don't think it's relevant in the case of US cases like this one, but there's something that's not all bad when we're seeing the spread of internet access into Nigeria fueled by folks in the developed world hitting the delete key.

wrabbit

MonsterHut Wins

[telstar]

Not only did his spam get distributed, his story got coverage by the media, and it's now a front-page story on slashdot which all will result in an increase in traffic to their site.

I'd argue that spam DOES work.

Re:MonsterHut Wins

[bwalling]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Send out a ton of spam, get your message out, and just get told "Bad boy". Gee, what a price to pay...

Re:MonsterHut Wins

[OldMansHands]

And how many slashdotters do you think will click on adverts on that site?

Re:MonsterHut Wins

[Eric Savage]

Keep in mind the adage "There's no such thing as bad press" applies only to show business...

If you wanted to market a product, are you going to give money to a company thats in court for what you are paying them to do? I'd be worried that they would receive injunction before they performed the service find some way not to give my marketing budget back.

Re:MonsterHut Wins

[ninewands]

Oh, I do NOT think you can equate a permanent injunction with getting told "Bad boy!".

You see, if MonsterHut disobeys the injunction they can be held in contempt of court and, in most jurisdictions, fined ... usually something on the order of US$500 PER VIOLATION!

Let's see ... 500,000 e-mails in one fraudulent run times US$500.00 equals US$250,000,000 ... more like being told "VERY bad boy!" ...

In addition, the principals in MonsterHut could face a sentence of as much as six months in jail PER VIOLATION.

Hardly a slap on the wrist at all ... and quite a likely outcome when you consider that judges tend NOT to have a sense of humor when they are called upon to enforce their orders against those who have willfully violated them.

Re:MonsterHut Wins

[bwalling]

The point is that they were basically told to stop. They have already done something, and they are getting off without punishment. That's what I don't get with all of these cases. They always get told "You broke the law. Do it again and we'll punish you." Punish them the first time. That will prevent someone else from coming along and doing what they did.

I just don't understand why you get one "free pass".

Re:MonsterHut Wins

[PhxBlue]

Good point. Next time, the submission needs to have a link to MonsterHut as well; that way we can counteract any benefits of their exposure with a well-deserved slashdotting.

OK, I'll bite

[PhysicsGenius]

MonsterHut is not a restaurant, the similarity of names notwithstanding. If you had RTFA, you would know that it's a big name job search site and they were spamming applicants.

Re:OK, I'll bite

[zapfie]

Parent's parent's post has been close captioned for the humor impaired.

Doesn't help (Re:How long)

[edgrale]

That's what KaZaA was all about and yet the RIAA (or who ever) was able to sue them.

It's about time

[andyring]

I'm glad judges and juries are finally seeing the light and understanding this whole spam mess. Free speech? Nope. It's just like junk fax laws, junk faxes are actually illegal because the recipient pays for the fax machine, paper, toner, etc. Same reason why telemarketers cannot call your cell phone (if you do get a call from them on it, just tell them it's a cell and they'll hang up quick) because you're paying for those minutes. With spam, I'm the one paying for my 'net connection, and after a certain amount of traffic, I pay by the byte. If only I could force direct mail marketers to stop snail-mailing me crap all the time. Why does a single 24-year-old guy need coupons for feminine hygiene products?

Re:It's about time

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does a single 24-year-old guy need coupons for feminine hygiene products?

Odds are, we dont want to know.

Re:It's about time

[jhines0042]

Actually Tampons are quite useful for stopping up large puncture wounds and bullet wounds. Do you get shot at often? That might be the reason. :-P

Of course what I don't get is the people who called me to sell me windows and aluminum siding when I was living in an apartment. Figure that one out for me...

Re:It's about time

[jdreed1024]

If only I could force direct mail marketers to stop snail-mailing me crap all the time. Why does a single 24-year-old guy need coupons for feminine hygiene products?

Actually, I've found direct-mail marketers are the most amenable to taking you off their lists. Their marketing method actually costs them real money each time they send something (well, so do telemarketers, but they probably have deals with the cheap long distance carriers), so they're not interested in sending things to people that don't want them.

When I moved into my new apartment, I got the usual barrage of of "Resident" catalogs and coupon books, and credit card offers with the "low, low rate" of 24% interest. They died down a little, but were still a lot. I called the opt-out number for the credit-bureaus. (888) 5OPT-OUT. It's automated, takes two seconds, and then you just need to fill out and sign a form they send you. That gets you off the free credit offers for all 3 credit bureaus.

The other aggravating thing was that in the Boston Area, if you don't subscribe to the Globe, you still get the advertising circulars by direct mail. (Some people love this). However, I got the return address, looked them up in the phone book, and called them. They have a menu option to be removed from their mailing list - press it, and you get a real human being on the other end (that surprised me). She was very nice, and promised that I'd stop receiving the flyers by the end of the month. And indeed I haven't gotten one since.

Re:It's about time

[Anonymous Coward]

Useful for bullet wounds? How did you come across this piece of information?

Re:It's about time

[Anonymous Coward]

If only I could force direct mail marketers to stop snail-mailing me crap all the time.

If you live in the north, get a fireplace or wood burning stove. Then snailmail spam is quite useful.

Those Bastards

[Matrix2110]

I am so glad that they got fingered. Serves them right for abusing my email...

Next spammer please.

Search and destroy spam is one of my finer goals in life. (Next to popup killing that is)

10,000 pop-ups not served and counting.

Re:Those Bastards

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had a way to contact you, I would tell you about this SMS system to look forward to... I know little about it myself, but it's coming soon, and if you want to get back at spammers, then this is the tool for you.

I think someone might post some future /. announcement. I'm hoping anyway.

What's scary

[Anonymous Coward]

is that there are 750,000 idiots out there who tried to have their names taken off a spammer's list.

WTF?

[Amsterdam Vallon]

Getting technology news from the New York Post is like getting medical advice from an Ask Slashdot.

"ignored" - hardly

[AssFace]

ignored at least 750,000 requests by consumers to be taken off their lists.

I'm sure they didn't ignore them - they use those responses to determine that they now have a confirmed live e-mail address which is worth more than a bunch of e-mail addresses that nobody checks.
so I'm sure they don't just ignore them - they likely instead do just the opposite and have much interest in those 750,000 responses and gave them a little extra attention... like logging them in their database as "live" or something like that.

All I have to say about this is 1) I wish I had thought of it all in 1995 - could have made a bundle and 2) SpamAssassin rules!

Re:"ignored" - hardly

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they have several "lists"... so you reply to one and say "take me off the list", and they take you off *that* list, and add you to all the others as a valid email address. Not sure of the legalities behind it, but it might actually hold up in court.

Point of clarification...

[Compulawyer]

...for all the non-lawyers (and non- "Law & Order" watchers) out there. In New York, the "Supreme Court" is the trial court - the lowest level in the system. The next step is the Appellate Division and finally the Court of Appeals. NY's C of A is analogous to other states' Supreme Courts. And no, I have no idea why they did it like that.

Re:Point of clarification...

[Compulawyer]

P.S. - why did I post this? Because I wanted to point out that this is just the beginning of the battle - not the end. I hit the "submit" button too soon. Sorry - sue me.

Re:Point of clarification...

[Any Web Loco]

Thank you. BTW - are you in computer law? Am an Australian law grad hoping to get into the field..

Next thing..

[will_die]

Go after what ever companies that keep sending me that pasta machine do hicky.
3 of thoses a day is more then enough. I am almost of the verge of reading one of thoses just to make sure I never purchase one, but then I realize I am smart enough to know that to make good dried pasta just requires:
water
salt
Big pot
dried pasta
heat
collendar
And since I have thoses why spend some amount of money of a stupid product that would add nothing.

Re:Next thing..

[agilen]

But MAN, you can put the colander and big pot TOGETHER with the new pasta pro XG-5000. For only $39.95, you can save an average of 14 SECONDS, each and every time you cook pasta!!! Just think of all the money this is going to save you, the extra time you can spend with your family. You are a fool for not taking advantage of this outrageous offer.

Spitzer strikes again! (Spitzer for President)

[egoff]

Working in the financial services industry, I see Eliot crack down time and time and time again on evil-doers in investment banking. Its good to see he's not so focused on just one area. This guy is really great guy, always focused on the little guy. For he's a jolly good fellow!

Re:Spitzer strikes again! (Spitzer for President)

[telstar]

$1000 says he makes a run for president a couple elections from now.... I've always thought that myself...

The Penalty Hearing is on my birthday!

[Saint Aardvark]

w00t! What a gift! I didn't think Lottie Wilkins even knew my name...

If it were MonsterShack

[ch-chuck]

then RadioShack would have smacked them down long ago - there is only one 'shack' and they tolerate no rivals. A shame PizzaHut isn't so agressive, in this case.

Re:If it were MonsterShack

[Anonymous Coward]

Joking aside, I am surprised that Monster.com didn't go after them. The names are definitely deceivingly similar espcecially since Monster has subsidiaries like MonsterMoving. MonsterHut could easily be confused as a sub of Monster (which is a sub of some other brick and mortar company).

Re:If it were MonsterShack

[Scrameustache]

They now have merged with one true Shaq to become RadioShaq! PH34R RADIOSHAQ! ;- )

DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[socratic method]

While the parent post is quite funny, I would seriously recommend that no one actually take this route to cut down on spam. It is very possible that such a reply could get someone/someone's family killed. In China, it isn't like it is in the West... there may not be an opportunity to refute such charges before an impartial court. Couple a technically illiterate local government agency with the language barrier, and you could make some awful big trouble for a (relatively to the crime) innocent person.

sm

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[Steve B]

you could make some awful big trouble for a (relatively to the crime) innocent person

Multiply the number of spams by the time it takes to deal with them, and hasn't the spammer, in effect, taken a life? That puts a different spin on the "relatively innocent" argument.

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[Wolfier]

What if the address is spoofed to some other person's legitimate email address?

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[Helter]

It sure as hell would make them think twice before sending out spam though...

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[zaren]

Multiply the number of spams by the time it takes to deal with them, and hasn't the spammer, in effect, taken a life?

I don't care how many spams I get and how much time it takes me to report / delete them, there is NO way to compare the inconvenience of spam to putting a bullet in someone's brain. That is taking a life. I'll stop using email if it comes down to a choice like that.

We (tinw) know that AlRal had some of his spam boxes hosted in China, and someone sent a Falun Gong-type message to the ISP that was hosting them... all of the machines related to that message were confiscated by Chinese officials and carted off, simply due to the Falun Gong reference. No clue what happened to the admins, but it wouldn't be a stretch to assume some sort of reprisal was brought down upon them.

Fscking around with a government like the one in place in China, one that ignores internationally established human rights policies, and forbids freedom of expression and freedom of religion, all for the sake of a funny, is NOT a good idea.

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[socratic method]

There is a difference between time and life. Spammers do waste a large amount of "person/hours," but that is a far cry from taking a life. The essence of a person is not destroyed, their family doesn't have to cope with the loss, etc.

That puts a different spin on the "spammers should die" argument.

sm

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[Nicolas MONNET]

I completely agree with you, doing this could get a spammer and his family killed.

I have a question though, why do you seem to imply that this a bad thing?

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[Anonymous Coward]

OK,

Suppose this spammer sends out a spam email.
Assume it takes the average user 5 seconds to read/realize what it is, and delete it.

A spam to 1,000,000 email users (not unrealistic)
wastes 5,000,000 seconds of human life. That's 57 days worth.

A little over 600 such emails would take up the entire lifetime 100 years (entire, never sleeping, etc).

That life is gone. Wasted. These guys send out much more email than that routinely. If one of them gets taken out by the Chinese government, too bad. I won's shed any tears.

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[wytcld]

In China ... there may not be an opportunity to refute such charges before an impartial court

An understatement. There's no impartial court, so no opportunity. Still, a friend's band is called "The Nail Nippers," with some samples on an mp3 site. They keep getting e-mails from China and elsewhere in Asia offering to supply them with nail nippers. These letters are written in good enough English, apparently by someone using data mining software to find every e-mail address on every Website that mentioned "nail nippers" - since if a human had read my friend's site it's just obvious it's the band's name.

So, is every factory in China staffed by people who write sophisticated data mining software? Or is there some quiet central government program that is helping facilitate spam in order to build China's export businesses? There's a certain likelihood that really doing this (replying to the spam with dangerous keywords) would really be tripping up the Chinese government, not some innocent little factory spam manager.

Of course, if you don't share my view that the legitimate government of China sits in Taiwan you may still consider this a bad thing. Those of us who favor armed insurrection on behalf of Tibet, Fulun Gong and freedom generally might even welcome it if the illegitimate government got more involved in chasing its own tail, rather than focusing effectively on suppressing and killing Tibetans and those with unauthorized spiritual faiths.

Sure, the innocent could suffer the worst fates; but the innocent already do. It's the sort of tough ethical dilemma where a choice may spare two innocent lives, but take another.

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[Rocko Bonaparte]

OK then, how about something WORLD DOMINATION ADIRATIC DATA HAVEN CBNRC OFFENSIVE INFORMATION WARFARE like the spook script that's JOHN OATES ASO NATIONAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE in emacs? Just insert some of those goodies into JUWTF FORTEZZA NORIEGA SEARS TEOWER [HELLO TO ALL MY FRIENDS AND FANS IN DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE] ASSASSINATE SOUTH AFRICA CYPHERPUNK UZI a nice, polite email.

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[Tackhead]

> [using fake subversive responses to provoke the Chinese government] sure as hell would make them think twice before sending out spam though...

And that's why I think it's a Good Idea.

You're a Chinese admin in charge of a chunk of Chinese netspace. You regularly take money from Alan Ralsky and other American spammers and provide them with "bulletproof" hosting. One day, you get disappeared because the Chinese Government has discovered that your actions have been supporting counterrevolutionaries and mystics.

Your next-in-line admin - now has a very clear choice: (1) Continue to support American spammers, and be disappeared in the same way, or (2) Cease support of American spammers, and live.

Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas, I say.

If only there were some way to establish links between the spammers knowingly hosted by the uu.net/Level3/Verio/AT&T Axis of Spam, and middle-eastern terrorist groups.

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[secolactico]

Even if you are the most selfish bastard that has ever replied to an email, consider this:

No matter how smart you are (or think you are), the Chinese goverment (and virtually every goverment) has far more resources than you. So unless you work for another intelligence agency, they might be able to track you down and send someone to knock at your door. Things can get ugly from there.

Paranoid? Who, me?

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[Dimensio]

If a Chinese admin is unethical enough to allow Alan Ralsky continued hosting, I really don't care if he gets a bullet put into his brain.

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[tgibbs]

Don't worry. I'll send them two polite requests first to stop spamming me. If I get more spam, then I'll send the "Falun Gong" letter.

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be really careful about doing this. I ave a friend in China I'm dealing with, but over the last 4 weeks, I've lost total contact with him.

My relation was to ask him to provide me with a means of contacting Chinese Open Gatways to get a better handle on why there are so many of them.

In return, I was going to proxy some "banned" sites for him....

But having visited many "Communist" countries in the past, I get the feeling these people don't mess around. YES! they are bribeable, YES! they are corrupt, but they CAN do a lot of killing.

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[Anonymous Coward]

Your request will go on deaf ears... They either pipe you complaints into /dev/null - or nobody looks at them, because they don't know English.

But speak to them in Chinese, from a Chinese mind set, you'll get a lot better (AND SAFER) results.

Visit the chat rooms, you'll find a lot of really cool chinese people who are really eager to talk to you and help you.

I've gotten myself off of MANY lists from Chinese spammers, you just have to communicate with them on their terms

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[JoshWurzel]

Yeah, but the spammer dies. Isn't that what's really important here?

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[rhizome]

Well, the general idea is that "trouble" is the point, but how do you really know that death is one of the results? Keep in mind that conditions of the Cold War Soviet Union were greatly denigrated and exaggerated for propaganda purposes.

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[DavidTC]

So your theory is that Chinese government will track down people who fake links to Falun Gong and disappear them from other countries, risking international sanctions and a PR nightmare (Obviously, if they go to the trouble of tracking you down they will know you actually have no link.) but they continue to blantantly ignore people in the US who do actually have links to Falun Gong? Like the people wandering around in public parks practicing it?

Alternately, you're an idiot.

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[secolactico]

Geez, Louise, some people just don't have a sense of humor.

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[Prohest]

People People !!

Look at us, were actually talking 'bout taking a another persons life, just for spamming....

I mean, is there no way of actually makein sure
they also get 4-8 hours of intense torture _before_ they kill them ??

Something like :

".. And I totally agree, Deng X. Ping really is
a closet capatalist, and we (CIA) are completely behind you, in your plans to assasinate him and the entire Secret Police top Managegment, when we take over." ..That should do it...??

-P-

- What is more wrong ?. Killing two 100 pound persons, or one 300 pound fothermucker ?? -

Re:DON'T REALLY DO THIS

[Anonymous Coward]

It possibly makes trouble for a spammer, and it certainly generates noise that interferes with ChiCom crackdowns on dissidents. A win-win situation.

I feel good but I would like a definition

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel good that I only sent 11 millions mails within the past 2 years and customers are able to unregister themself, but, I would like to have a clear legal definition of spamming.

Is there a clear legal definition somewhere of spamming?

And what about regulation from where it's sent?
US law do not apply if I'm from Canada...right?
So I cannot be brought into a US court if I'm spamming from outside US! ?

Re:I feel good but I would like a definition

[legojenn]

Just don't take a trip to Buffalo or Detroit to get some cheap gas and stuff, of take a holiday down there....

Re:I feel good but I would like a definition

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, first I wouldn't go to Detroit. I went there....it's ugly and boring.
Secondo, I prefer to go to New York or Boston....closest to Montreal and better.

But that doesn't answer my previous question.

Re:I feel good but I would like a definition

[Dimensio]

There is no 'legal' definition of spamming. Some spammers include a 'disclaimer' about why the message cannot be considered spam, but they are appealing to a nonexistent law from a bill that died in committee that didn't contain any text that defined 'spam' in the first place. This is because all spammers are unrepentant liars.

Spam is bulk e-mail sent unsolicited. If the recipient did not request to be put on the mailing list, it is spam. There is no other qualifier. All spammers are criminal scum who deserve to be tortured to death. If I meet someone who is a spammer, I will probably kill them.

Re:I feel good but I would like a definition

[Anonymous Coward]

That is NOT so.... if the DCMA can reach around the globe and enforce THEIR laws, then why not us ordinary folks.

track then down, and sue their ass... it don't matter where they live.

There may not be laws against spamming, but there ARE laws against DDOS and Computer Harrassment.

People need to know this, but tracking them buggers down DOES take a little work.

Re:I feel good but I would like a definition

[Xtifr]

Is there a clear legal definition somewhere of spamming?

No.

And what about regulation from where it's sent?

What about it?

US law do not apply if I'm from Canada...right?

US law applies if you do business in the US. Of course, Canada may be reluctant to allow US cops to arrest you (assuming this is a matter for arrest) if you never actually enter the US. On the other hand, Canada and the US have a lot of strong trade agreements, so it might not matter.

So I cannot be brought into a US court if I'm spamming from outside US! ?

Depends. If you defraud or otherwise infringe on the rights of a US citizen, the Canadian government might decide to be cooperative and hand you over to the US for prosecution; likewise the other way around if you're a US citizen who has defrauded or spammed a Canadian. It's probably safer to spam US mailboxes from Canada than from somewhere in the US, but it's hardly a get-out-of-jail-free card.

My suggestion is: move to Iraq or North Korea... :)

datacommarketing.com

[Openadvocate]

Maybe someone could do something about the infamous datacommarketing.com. It is so annoying to get your mail servers spammed by their name guessing server(65.242.117.50).
Now I can't see their homepage because I have blocked their entire subnet in my router :), but I seem to remember their homepage saying that they don't spam. Sorry, but I have got the logs to prove it, and so does many others.
How on earth can a company like that just continue act like they do?

Re:datacommarketing.com

[odaiwai]

They're on a lot of blacklists: Choose from one of the following

http://openrbl.org/ip/65/242/117/50.htm

dave

Re:datacommarketing.com

[spikedvodka]

You and me both, They're blocked, with a "550 This attempt has been logged, Go Away" Message, but they still kept trying. However, I've found that if you e-mail their high honcho e-mail address saying "cut it out you creeps" they do stop.

What's really annoying though is that they try to guess names, and if they aren't there one day, they try the same set of names again the next day.

I want to find whoever sold them my domain name, and hang them slowly, by their toenails.

Funny thing, their website seems to be down right now too.

Re:datacommarketing.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they can get away with it.... That's why!

Spammers hide behind the privacy policies of the ISP's.

All they really have to do, is to put the IP address of the sender of the mail in the header of the message. Spammer can't forge that, because the mail ad already left the spammer.

Now, the IP address of the PPP port can be obtained which leads to the specific machine the spammer is using to run his/her spam program.

This would be really easy to implement. ISP's can make good use of this in tracking them down, so you can now "Hop past" the ISP to really indentify the spammer.

I'm already getting mail with this information in it. It seems to appear to be a future trend.

Of course, this would require the cooperation of the ISP "now, where have I head this before? Sigh!"

Corporations want first amendment right too

[Anonymous Coward]

Fraud is not protected speech.

Oh, but it will be soon

"...Instead of refuting Kasky's charge by proving in court that they didn't lie, however, Nike instead chose to argue that corporations should enjoy the same "free speech" right to deceive that individual human citizens have in their personal lives...They took this argument all the way to the California Supreme Court, where they lost. The next stop may be the U.S. Supreme Court in early January"

Neat, ain't it.

Re:Corporations want first amendment right too

[StevenMaurer]

Nike is not arguing for the "free speech" right to "deceive" - that is a twisted interpretation made by the author you quote. They are arguing for the "free speech" right to make a political argument. In this specific case, the right to assert that their actions in third-world countries do more good than harm.

Given that today even Michael Moore calls Phil Knight (the founder of Nike - who made the company's first sneakers himself using a waffle iron) one of the "good guys" in terms of corporate responsibility, that isn't an unreasonable position.

And even if you disagree, it certainly isn't fraud.

is it possible

[ChuckMaster]

but if all spammers move offshore, could we black list providers at routers where they come into the country? If a provider refuses to remove a spammer, can they be added to a black list, so that any packet with an ip from those routers get tossed? Or packets without received ips in their email headers? I know its kind of an extreme solution, but it would defintely attact the providers attention if their users can no longer send email to usa or canada

Re:is it possible

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, the ISP I work at already blocks huge IP address blocks originating in China, Korea and lately, Brazil and Argentina. If customers complain about lack of access we tell 'em to go somewhere else, because the large majority of our customers are fed up with all the fucking spam being sent from foreign ISP's and we are responding to their needs.

declare WAR on spam!

[AwesomeJT]

No more passive deletions: get active, sue them to the stone age, send them "snail mail" spam, post their address on /., do whatever to get even!

I hear a case where someone started sending spammers bills for the time used to delete messages and investigate who sent the message, etc. The funny thing is, a large number of spammers actually paid or were forwarded to collections. I'm hoping this was not another urban legend -- I want to start doing the same.

Re:declare WAR on spam!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've already done that (posting names/addresses). Go to my homepage, home.earthlink.net/~kspandle and click on the Rantings and Ravings link.

Then go to Miscellaneous and the most recent article titled 'Fight back against spammers'. At the end of the article I have a link to a text file of every person/organization I have been able to track down who have spammed me. I include name, address, phone number and email whenever possible.

I have also begun to sign up those that repeatedly send me spam to various mailing lists and free offers.

Re:declare WAR on spam!

[Anonymous Coward]

I still like the idea where if a spammer is dumb enough to use a forms page to solicit information, then "submit" it millions of times.

Do it with a script. It DOES get their attention.

Haven't they already?

[kiwimate]

Correct me if I'm wrong (probably no need to ask for that), but hasn't Alan Ralsky already done this to a large extent? He claims he has servers in India, Canada, China, and Russia, and most of his mail is now sent from overseas countries. (This is taken from the second link provided.)

Re:Haven't they already?

[Cyberdyne]

Correct me if I'm wrong (probably no need to ask for that), but hasn't Alan Ralsky already done this to a large extent? He claims he has servers in India, Canada, China, and Russia, and most of his mail is now sent from overseas countries. (This is taken from the second link provided.)

Would it even matter? It's the person who commits the crime, not the server; I'm sure if an American were storing, say, child porn or national secrets on a Russian server, the FBI would still be able to bust him - why would illegal spam stop being illegal just by going via a foreign relay? (UK law certainly makes it a crime for anyone under UK jurisdiction to crack ANY computer, wherever it is, so I think a US spam law could do the same...)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Looks like we found you!

[Anonymous Coward]

we all knew somebody would fess up to getting all those feminine products. Now we know who it is... want some more?

Re: Offshore spammers

[Ride-My-Rocket]

Does that mean we could declare war on them, in the name of protecting US citizens from outside aggression? There's nothing I'd enjoy more than returning the favor to these spammers...........

Free Speech (was Re:Catching them on fraud)

[Anonymous Coward]

This is *not*, I repeat, not, a free speech issue. It is an issue about a) forcing communication on people and b) making false claims about opt-in.

Monsterhut was just spamming, but imagine they sent out some extremist hate e-screed and claim you opted in for it. Welcome to the Ku Klux Klan, mister. The FBI would like to have a word with you about the company you keep...

Re:Free Speech (was Re:Catching them on fraud)

[Anonymous Coward]

Last I checked, being a member of the KKK was not a federal offense. Thanks to a little thing called the Constitution, you can keep any company you wish.

Re:Free Speech (was Re:Catching them on fraud)

[Anonymous Coward]

Riiiight. Keep company with immigrants in their mid-twenties from middle-eastern nations, and see how long you remain free of intrusive goverment investigation. I dare you.

Welcome to the Stalinist States of America, mister.

Moderators, please mod the parent up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod the parent up. It really deserves to be seen.

Results

[tiltowait]

This apparently actually produces results:

Earlier this month, said Ralsky, somebody told the Chinese government that a Web company from which he leases e-mail servers in Beijing was sending messages critical of Chinese policy.

Police promptly raided the business and confiscated Ralsky's servers. Although they were returned a few days later, Ralsky now tries to cover his tracks better, so opponents won't know what companies and servers he's using.

Linford said he heard of the raid. "It wasn't us that caused it," he said. "But there are a lot of anti-spam activists, and apparently some of them on their own started organizing a campaign to get the Chinese government to think that Ralsky was supporting" the Falun Gong, an outlawed spiritual group the Chinese government considers subversive. "We didn't endorse that, but it shows you how deep the anti-Ralsky feelings are."

- http://www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend22_20021122.h tm

Re:Results

[DavidTC]

Ralsky is a liar. He actually is supporting Falun Gong. I'd be very surprised if he ever sets foot in China, I'm sure they're on to him by now, they aren't total idiots. The 'anti-spammers are trying to frame me' only lasts so long.

Tax on spam/bulk email?

[Alcohol Fueled]

Maybe there should be a law stating that if you want to send bulk email over a certain number, say more than 1000 or so, you are REQUIRED to pay a $.02 tax on each email sent. I think that would make spammers think twice about sending any spam.

Re:Tax on spam/bulk email?

[Stonehand]

Unenforceable, arbitrary and pointless.

1- It's unenforceable because (a) nobody tracks such things, and (b) go ahead, convince admins in South Korea, China and Taiwan to collect a tax for the US. Yeah, right.

2- It's arbitrary. What constitutes bulk email? If the sender uses a script to send 1000 slightly different (random junk attached) e-mails, would that qualify? How about two mailings of size 999 each, 30 seconds apart? How about two people from the same company each mailing out the same message, 500 times each?

3- It's pointless, because of the above two points. Even if it were enacted, it'd be about as effective as asking consumers to pay Use Tax on all those mail-order and online purchases from out-of-state companies. It's not legal in most states, but I'd figure that a /large/ percentage of transactions via AMZN are currently treated as tax-free by customers.

Re:Tax on spam/bulk email?

[Anonymous Coward]

that would be virtually IMPOSSIBLE to enforce. Most use open gateways that pass mail from ANYONE. There are just too many of them to police or control.... (I hate that word "Police")

How I deal with spam.

[Big Mark]

See those wee "click here to be removed" or whatever links in spam? Click there, be removed. That's some spam you won't receive again.

Yes, it validates your email address. So does the fact that the spam didn't bounce. And with those images that are downloaded off the web if you open a spam they accomplish the same even if you delete the spam.

Admittedly I don't get all that much spam (well, for now at least, ya bastards! :p ) but when I do get one I just click the remove me link and I never see it again.

Well, until I use Google Groups that is. I get hideous volumes of spam after I post to netnews using that. I think I'm onto something...

-Mark

Re:How I deal with spam.

[Tim C]

Yes, it validates your email address. So does the fact that the spam didn't bounce.

No, not quite. The mail not bouncing validates the address; it does *not* prove that anyone's actually reading the mail. Clicking the link proves not only that the address is valid, but that someone read the mail, too.

Re:How I deal with spam.

[schon]

Yes, it validates your email address. So does the fact that the spam didn't bounce

Yeah, because spammers would never use a fake From: or Reply-To: address, right?

Spammers never see their bounce messages, because they relay-rape someone server in Korea, and/or use fake addresses, so the bounce messages go somewhere else.

Re:How I deal with spam.

[blibbleblobble]

"Yes, it validates your email address. So does the fact that the spam didn't bounce."

There are several email programs which can bounce email... KMail, Evolution and The Bat are the ones which spring to mind (I may be wrong)... certainly would be useful as a filtering option in MozillaMail

Re:How I deal with spam.

[eaolson]

Yes, it validates your email address. So does the fact that the spam didn't bounce.

Since the overwhelming majority of spams fake the From and Reply-to addresses, they don't see the bounces, either.

Re:How I deal with spam.

[Phroggy]

And with those images that are downloaded off the web if you open a spam they accomplish the same even if you delete the spam.

Mozilla has an option to disable inline images in HTML e-mail, but still render the HTML itself (so it's readable). In addition to eliminating the problem you mentioned, this also prevents porn pictures from popping up on your screen while other people are around.

Re:How I deal with spam.

[Nerull]

Well, until I use Google Groups that is. I get hideous volumes of spam after I post to netnews using that. I think I'm onto something...

Its well known that spambots scan usenet groups for email addresses, so thats not suprising...

Re:How I deal with spam.

[PhxBlue]

The downloaded images are a good point. A good way to defeat this, though, is to deny your E-mail client access to port 80 via firewall or router. I know Eudora's software, at least, uses port 80 to download in-line images; so shutting that down saves bandwidth and keeps the images out of any spam I might receive.

Re:How I deal with spam.

[jameswoodward]

You're not getting a lot of spam because there are so many people out there working hard to stop innocent email readers from receiving it.

I don't think the old "head in the sand" policy is a viable solution.

I dont see that many drug dealers around where I live, so I don't think they're a problem in the world. What is all the fuss about? I live on a small island 500 kms north west of Australia with a population of 12. And whenever I do see one, I just ask them not to sell drugs to my kids and everything's fine.

Re:How I deal with spam.

[evilviper]

But of course, they don't need you to click a link... All they need to do is include an images in the email, that loads from their server, which passes some ort of unique ID which they can parse and automatically enter into their database.

<IMG SRC="http://spammer.com/image.cgi?fred@mail.com"&g t;

Re:How I deal with spam.

[Karora]

The fact that the spam didn't bounce might validate your e-mail address, but it doesn't do that for the spammer because in almost all cases they fake the From address, and they send the e-mail through an unattended open relay.

They never see the bounce message.

I have had a spammer regularly using our companies domain as the RHS of their fake address, and I know exactly who receives these bounces :-(

Personally I get maybe 200-300 spam per week because I post on mailing lists, and my e-mail address is on the internet in a variety of places. Even running both spamassassin and bmf over my incoming e-mail I get around 30/week (but no false positives).

He should get 47 years in prison.

[pclminion]

Assuming that only 1/5 (100,000,000) spams reached human recipients, and assuming each person wasted 15 seconds recognizing it as spam, cursing, and deleting it, we have a total waste of time:

15*100000000/3600/24/365 = 47 years.

Maybe he should have 47 years of his time wasted.

(No, I'm not actually serious. But that's a lot of wasted time.)

Re:He should get 47 years in prison.

[pjrc]

... and assuming each person wasted 15 seconds recognizing it as spam

Now-a-days, a good portion of all users have spam filters. Some are highly effective (spamassassin) but even the lesser filters still remove a large portion of the spam.

So a lot of modern spam gets automaitcally deleted by filters.

Re:He should get 47 years in prison.

[Tom2K2]

yeah it's a lot of wasted time, but still not as much time wasted than the many, many man years spent on developing an MS product.... But really though, spam isn't that bad. If people would just follow some simple guidelines it wouldn't be so bad. A) don't give out your personal address. If you wanna sign up for something at whatevernewsletter.com, just use an alternate account and set up a rule there to forward it to your real account. B) There are some free spam filters out there, try using them and you will be surprised how it cuts it down to managable numbers... C) If you don't want spam, just don't use email, easy as that. There are bad sides to everything, we just have to live through them.

Re:He should get 47 years in prison.

[Amazing Quantum Man]

You still have to wade through the spam periodically to check for false positives, in case something you did want to receive got filtered.

Re:He should get 47 years in prison.

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada he could serve them those terms in parallel; not much of a deterent in that case.

Re:He should get 47 years in prison.

[CharlieO]

Yeah it's a lot of wasted time, but still not as much time wasted than the many, many man years spent on developing a legal system.... But really though, anarchy isn't that bad. If people would just follow some simple guidelines it wouldn't be so bad. A) don't give out your personal address. If you wanna keep your property safe from theft, just use an alternate house and tell all your friends where your real house is B) There are some ways of getting guns out there, try using them and you will be surprised how it cuts down muggings to managable numbers... C) If you don't want laws, just don't live in a civilised society, easy as that. There are bad sides to everything, we just have to live through them.

Re:He should get 47 years in prison.

[The Bungi]

yeah it's a lot of wasted time, but still not as much time wasted than the many, many man years spent on developing an MS product....

Or the many, many years spent on making wild-ass and offtopic associations between things like spam or two-headed llamas and Microsoft. And then posting them here for our continued amazement.

Re:He should get 47 years in prison.

[Coward, Anonymous]

Spending 47 years in jail is not a waste of 47 years of time since in or out of jail he would spend a third of his time sleeping, 70 years in jail would give him 47 years worth of conscious time imprisoned.

Re:He should get 47 years in prison.

[hhknighter]

15 seconds? That seems like an awfully long time to recognize subject headers like: bigger your little buddy, or second chance schooling, get better chances.

Or perhaps that long to "read" through the samples from "young teens needing your company"

'net of liars

[Anonymous Coward]

Fiction: "We require registration to enhance your experience"

Reality: "ignored at least 750,000 requests by consumers to be taken off their lists"

Keep using those cookies, suckers.

Your name, that's nothing

[KalvinB]

I overslept on a jury duty day and as I was frantically trying to call them I got a page from the court reporter despite never ever giving them that number.

Fortunatly the trial was delayed but on the last day I was "randomly" selected to be the extra juror and the court reporter asked for my number to call to let me know what the verdict was.

Apparently her voodoo only worked on Monday's.

Ben

Hit the payload, not the provider

[Kludge]

Every piece of spam has a web site or email address (not the "From" address) to which a luser is supposed to respond. Create a script which hammers on this web site repeatedly. The people hosting the spammers should cut them off.

There aren't enough hyperlinks in that story!

[Anonymous Coward]

The submitter forgot to include hyperlinks to dictionary.com for each word. I'll never be able to figure out what the words "alleges", "suit", or "Penalty" means without them.

Maybe not idiots after all

[Anonymous Coward]

If those 750,000 people hadn't tried, the court might not have had enough evidence to rule against monsterhut.

4. ???

[Anonymous Coward]

5. Profit!!!

That's not really 3 different points. And none of them are relevant. And you are wrong, "avoision" is from The Simpsons.

But was were the spammers penalized?

[phr2]

I looked at all the news articles and all I saw was that the spammers got an injunction against sending more spam, which they shouldn't have been sending in the first place. I didn't see anything about their having to pay one cent in financial restitution, much less anything like doing jail time.

That's sort of as if the Beltway sniper was served with an injunction against shooting any more people, but otherwise let go unpunished.

How is this a win against spam?

Re:But was were the spammers penalized?

[Anonymous Coward]

What part of "Penalty hearing is scheduled for Feb 11, 2003" do you not understand?

Re:But was were the spammers penalized?

[Phroggy]

How is this a win against spam?

Not getting any more spam from MonsterHut is a win. We just need a lot more wins.

Re:But was were the spammers penalized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Word to the wise: it's "excellent."

Re:But was were the spammers penalized?

[Phroggy]

Wow, I never noticed the typo. Thanks!

It's time to teach spammers an explicit lesson.

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that people will spam if they know that the penalty is a slow and painful death. Impale all spammers! And when you run out of sharp stakes, put 'em in the iron maiden!

Re:It's time to teach spammers an explicit lesson.

[DavidTC]

Sharp stakes? Let's use dull stakes.

Differences between speech (free and protected).

[El Camino SS]

Honestly people, please look this stuff up. IN the US Constitution, there is a difference between free speech and protected speech.

Free speech is a more nebulous term, it allows for the rights to freely congregate and express opinions about anything. If you use that to hawk wares with people that is fraudulent, then you may be prosecuted for your behavior. If you are falsely yelling "fire" in a theatre, then you may be prosecuted for injuries in the stampede. However, protected speech is a little different.

Protected speech in the US is Political Speech. Meaning that you cannot be restricted from standing in a public place and protest an event within reason. All political opinons are considered protected, and part of the democratic process. But even this has limits. You cannot disrupt or cause a public nuisance with this, like say blast a recording of the Communist Mannifesto every day with 1k watt speakers at the White House Lawn. That would disrupt the political process, and infringe on others rights to a working government.

In a word, we do have free speech, but these are solicitations... not political speech.

Also, corporations should not have free speech, because they are not citizens, do not vote, cannot be jailed for disruptive behavior, and do not pay any real taxes compared to their earnings.

Either way, free speech is not a license for fraud.

Spam is no longer a problem

[A Gremlin In Kremlin]

Don't worry, spam is no longer a problem. You see, the past week I have recieved at least ten (to three of my accounts) offers to buy anti-spam software. ;)

You're all wrong.

[El Camino SS]

You were fishing for the term "tax evasion."

Repeat after me... "Al Capone was busted for tax evasion."

Not "avoision." Definitely not "tax aversion," Mr. English teacher.

It is not just THESE spammers that matter

[Anonymous Coward]

There is some punishment that these spammers had to shut down their spam operations and pay for lawyers.

But a side effect is on other spammers who might have second thoughts about setting up shop in New York. With a case law precedent, other judges in New York will likely act more quickly on similar cases.

There are also other state AGs looking to this case as an example of what to do in their own state. Expect action elsewhere sometime between now and the next election for Attorney General.

I knew the devil matters!

[MS]

MonsterHut sent over 500 million messages, fraudulently claiming that they were opt-in, and ignored at least 750,000 requests by consumers to be taken off their lists...

That's roughly one complaint every 666 e-mails sent. Or 0,15% if you like.

Re:MonsterHut Loses

[tbetz]

MonsterHut.Com has gone into default and was bought by a vulture capitalist, Ultimate Search. Nobody involved in the spamming business that used to live there has anything to do with the present web site.

or pay 197 million dollars damages

[MS]

In Italy you are entitled to 250,- Euro from the spammer if the spammer is unable to show written evidence that you allowed him to use your personal data (the e-mail address is part of it) for sending you an e-mail.

As 750.000 people requested to be taken off the list, I can assume the following:

The damages to pay back to the complainants amount to 197.500.000,- Euros.

I thank you for the money!
:-)

So..

[Anonymous Coward]

Then I can get modded up for cutting and pasting someone elses joke as long as I include the url?

Shit from now on I will just karma whore by stealing someone elses work. I will make sure to include a url, since as long as I include where I stold it from I will get lots of mod points.

Maybe I should also take up trolling as well. karma whore, troll, karma whore, troll, its a never ending cycle of fun and laughing at moderators.

Re:Differences between speech (free and protected)

[Uninvited Guest]

Honestly people, please look this stuff up. IN the US Constitution, there is a difference between free speech and protected speech.

Actually, that's not correct. The US Constitution has no specific reference to protected speech. Protected speech is a term that is synonymous with free speech, in the sense that all speech which is protected from restriction by the government is free speech. In particular, political speech is not the only form of protected speech.

Some forms of speech (obscenity or threats) have no right to protection at all. Corporations have the right to free, protected speech, but in a more limited form. In the case of this article and lawsuit, what the spammer puts in his ad might be unprotected speech because of false content, but the case seems to be based on misleading email recipients about the opt-in nature of the email. The following links offer some insight on free speech and protected speech.

Free Speech the First Amendment and Censorship
FreedomForum.org - The First Amendment

DO IT NOW OR ELSE.

[Erris]

If you send it, some innocent spammer and everyone they know may be purged.

IF YOU DON'T SEND IT, THIS INNOCENT PUPPY GETS IT.

The choice is now yours. Which evil bastard will you satisfy?

Re:DO IT NOW OR ELSE.

[Artifex]

Touch the puppy, son.

Oh shits!

[Anonymous Coward]

I ment to type:

-tp

Why not?

[Zone5]

So let's recap.

Sending the reply this way is funny.... Check.
The reply could get someone killed.... Check.
The person killed is a spammer.... Check.
So my reply could kil a spammer.... Check.

What exactly is the problem, from either a moral, ethical, or legal standpoint?

Spammer dead = less spam = me happy. Hell, I'll even cough up the price of the bullet it it makes Beijing happy!

Re:Why not?

[dusanv]

It is a known fact that most spammers are in the US and they just use the open relays in China. Wanna kill someone because they have problems reading English manuals and therefore can't lock down their servers? Seems a bit harsh. Nuke the server or something... Now if that were a real spammer in China I wouldn't have any objections.

Re:Why not?

[Beliskner]

The reply could get someone killed.... Check

There's no need to come across so strong. The ethical argument is much easier.

If the Chinese Government starts killing innocent people/spammers randomly, then the Chinese people will overthrow the Government. Therefore you're doing a service for freedom. If the actions of US citizens are dictated by the fear of Chinese Government, then the fight for freedom is already lost, might as well sell GPL-PGP to Microsoft, and change US law to make non-corporate licenses like GPL default to Micro$oft.

If the Chinese Government doesn't get overthrown, and keeps killing innocent people, then we're in the same situation that we're in now.

If the Chinese Government starts killing people in other countries for sending an "interesting" spoof weapons-shipment email, then war will be declared and the country will be destroyed.

We've fought hard for freedom in the West, yet you're *afraid* of even upsetting a tyrannical regime overseas. Upset them as much as you like, millions died in 2 world wars to defend your right to attack such regimes peacefully or otherwise. THIS IS ETERNAL VIGILANCE. We've forgotten the meaning of fearing our own Government here in the West, and how to fight it, lessons forgotten are destined to be repeated.

IN COMMUNIST CHINA....

[gleffler]

Spam abuses you! (sorry, but it had to be done.)

Just follow the opt out procedures...

[Eric Damron]

MonsterHut officials claimed that the reason 750,000 people where not removed from their mailing lists was that they had failed to follow the proper removal procedure. The procedure is apparently more involved than just clicking 'NO' and includes bringing a shrubbery to the MonsterHut headquarters.

Re:I want to know one thing about bulk e-mail ads.

[Dr. Cody]

You bastard! Do you realize how much it hurts to have dr. pepper shoot out your nose!?

Re:HOW TO Complain About Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Example #7

Hey Erik, FUCK YOU

Hold on a minute....

[Anonymous Coward]

"We (tinw) know that AlRal had some of his spam boxes hosted in China, and someone sent a Falun Gong-type message to the ISP that was hosting them"

How do "we" know that? If you're gonna say that you saw it in the Detroit Free Press article, I believe that quote came from AR himself. I'd sooner believe the Moon was a cube than anything he said.

I have my own suspicion about the likelihood of my email being a deadly weapon to everyone in China. Not that the govt. isn't a bunch of SOBs, but I kinda doubt they're going to randomly frag people based on spam complaints, no matter what's in them. I'm not going to take the chance, though.

OH OH OH!

[Anonymous Coward]

We find some of our friendly neighborhood thugs to pay them a visit. It wont matter if they go off shore, they'll be wearing cement over shoes!!! :o)

You're way too soft on spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

While the parent post is quite funny, I would seriously recommend that no one actually take this route to cut down on spam. It is very possible that such a reply could get someone/someone's family killed. In China, it isn't like it is in the West... there may not be an opportunity to refute such charges before an impartial court. Couple a technically illiterate local government agency with the language barrier, and you could make some awful big trouble for a (relatively to the crime) innocent person.

Nonviolent drug dealers, who have no effect on me whatseover, get decades in prison. Why should spammers, who do measurable damage to me and my family, and to hundreds of thousands of other people simultaneously, not face lifelong imprisonment or a lethal injection for what they do?

We should base punishment on the damage done by the criminal. When compared to the punishment considered appropriate for the rape or murder of a single person, an appropriate punishment to hand down for spamming and making millions of people unhappy becomes quite clear: life time prison sentences or death. Is there any kind of criminal that is worse than the criminal who commits a crime against hundreds of thousands of people at the same time? I don't think so.

So, do not feel in the slightest bit guilty about reporting a spammer that could cause prosecution by a court of law and the potential handing down of a lifetime or death sentence. That is as it should be. In terms of sheer human misery caused, spammers are right up there with murderers, war criminals, and Enron and Halliburton executives. Lifetime imprisonment or death would be a perfectly reasonable punishment for criminals such as Ralsky and Pelow.

Cheers!

Use Spamcop!

[Jadrano]

Spamcop is very good for reporting Spam. It analyzes the headers automatically, and I think it's very good at doing that. I report all my spam via Spamcop. Quite a lot of spam comes from China, but it's all over the world (there's a lot of spam from servers in Brazil, for example). There's nearly always someone to report to - if there's an open relay that doesn't add useful Received headers report to the upstream provider of that open relay (and saving IP addresses to lists is useful). As far as I know, Spamcop does all that and although it takes a few seconds extra effort per spam mail, I prefer reporting to just deleting.
What Spamcop does, as well, and which is perhaps even more important, is reporting to upstream providers of spamvertized websites. While spammers can switch mail servers very easily, it causes some additional work or cost for them if they have to upload their websites again and again because many free webspace providers spammers use remove spamvertized sites (you can also report e-mail addresses in the mail body, but that's off by default because you could easily lart yourself since spammers often include recipients' addresses in the body).
I'm very satisfied with Spamcop, and while there are certainly administrators who don't care about spam, but others do and I think especially fast reporting of fresh spam (to administrators/upstream providers of both mail sourse and spamvertizes sites) can help a lot in the fight against spam.
Spamcop also offers filtering (based on mail source). I personally found the filters not really usable - an unacceptable number of false positives and also a lots of false negatives, probabilistic content-based filtering we have heard a lot about recently are certainly better. However, even without using this filtering, I have registered for this paid service because it also makes reporting even faster (just a few clicks) than with the free web-based interface (where you have to use copy-paste). So, it doesn't take too much time to report every single spam mail (at least in my case, I don't get that much spam mails, after all).

Re:Use Spamcop!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two immediate problems with SpamCop:

1. It assumes the reporter has send a valid spam
2. Any references in the headers are listed as 'spammers'

So, lets take an email filtering program which puts in an arbitary "This has been filtered" header and also sends out a 'report' if the email has been blocked.

Next, an overzealous triggerhappy person gets an email from this filter and sends it to SpamCop. All that happens is that the email filter group probably gets blocked out because of the administrator of an email server put in a referential URL in the headers for the sake of assisting any would be downstream administrators.

This happens a lot with a lot of companies and people. Making the assumption that the submitter of the "spam" has correctly identified the email is a potentially fatal flaw.

It's not about content

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need to suspend the First Amendment to prosecute spammers. While the was a fraud issue in this case,the general issues are theft and trespass. There is ample case law, from Rowan vs US Post Office Department on to the effect that freedom of speech does not give you the right to force your speech on others or to use the property of others to convey your message.

Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns the press.

They both spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Both .cn and .tw are spam sources, so for me there is no legitimacy issue. I consider getting the spammer in trouble with the authorities to be a legitimate act of self defense. If they shoot him, that's his problem.

Following the Python Reference. . .

[PhxBlue]

Oh, what sad times are these when passing spamhausen can 'spam' at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land, nothing is sacred.

Re:Ironic - Monsterhut vs. Paetec

[billstewart]

Part of Monsterhut's problem is self-inflicted. Back in 2001, they were using an ISP called Paetec, who cut them off when they started spamming, so they sued Paetec to prevent being cut off, and got a judge to issue a temporary restraining order preventing Paetec from cutting them off. Last May, it finally got to trial, and Monsterhut got thrown out on their ears, which is when the NY Attorney General started chasing Monsterhut. If they hadn't tried sueing, but had instead gone and used some other name to trick some other ISP into doing business with them, they might have at least avoided notice from the NY AG.

I haven't looked at the NY AG's case to know if he's actually got one; obviously the Monsterhuts are sleazy spammers, but I'm not convinced that being sleazy or a spammer is sufficiently illegal to do much with. Claiming that they have permission to spam you makes them lying scum, but isn't necessarily illegal. On the other hand, if they're the kind of spammer business that charges product-sellers to deliver their spam, as opposed to somebody who's spamming about stuff they're selling themselves, it may constitute fraud and misrepresentation in some way that's criminal, or at least that's a good civil suit by some of their customers who failed to M4k3 M0ney Fa5t or to sell lots of widgets or who got flamed out for hring a spammer.

Re:I want to know one thing about bulk e-mail ads.

[jameswoodward]

Vegemite and spam are absolutely nothing alike.... Physically, they are completely different, and more importantly, Australians love vegemite, it is never the focus of jokes..

You mexicans all sound the same to me

punishment?

[hhknighter]

Can there be any severe punishment for spammers like this? Hang? Shot? Hang by their balls? Dipped in honey in a room with fire ants, listen to britney spears / Macy Gray songs non-stop...

alright, just asking.....

The internationalization dodge

[billstewart]

For some spam, the spammer sending the mail is the person who's selling the product, which is traceable to an address in the US where they could actually bust somebody if they were violating a law, as long as the Feds could figure out that they're the ones sending it through that Korean relay.

• But often the spammer sending the mail isn't the person selling the product, they're an email-marketing contractor, and the person selling the product is shocked, shocked to find out that they're spammers when they claimed to be a legitimate permission-based quadruple-opt-in spam-free delivery service. (And that's if there's a product at all, as opposed to a M4k3 M0n3y F45t pyramid scam or a Nigerian corrupt politician's poor starving grandmother, and the product seller might not be based in the US, e.g. they really _are_ corrupt Nigerians, or they're selling made-in-China herbal Viagra substitute.)
• Since there isn't a US-wide law against spamming, the emailer might be a US business or individual, once you've backtracked through broken Korean proxy servers forwarding mail from Chinese ISPs. But if there ever is a US law, you'll increasingly find out that the email-sending company or the product-shipping company is a Cayman or Panamanian or Lesotho corporation, and if spam isn't illegal _there_, then Panama etc. won't bother them.
• If spamming _is_ illegal there, the most that happens is that the government seizes their petty-cash bank account, and if they've got an office, seizes their desk and typewriter, and if they're using their own PC instead of renting one, they seize that too.
• But the money all got paid as dividends to the one stockholder, who if he's an American was certain to report it on his taxes, except that the stockholder is likely to be a corporation in another country, which is really just a bank account.
• But that would be too obvious, so SendYourMail, Lrd. didn't pay dividends to its one stockholder, because it didn't make any money, because it had a lot of expenses buying internet technlogy consulting services from InternationalTeXn0C0nsult, Ltd., who hired some temps to produce this nice consulting report that analyzed their business plans and told them that Spamming would be Bad, Bad, Bad and they shouldn't do it.
• Now, there's certainly no criminal case against ITX0C0,Ltd, because they didn't spam anybody, so there's no way to get whatever tax haven country it's based in to divulge the name of its one stockholder, who happens to be a real person in the US who (if there were a real product being shipped) might hypothetically look like the proprietor of the company shipping the useless product or running the tastefully legal pr0n site that any hypothetical customers were hypothetically convinced to pay money for as opposed to just browsing.
• But if the delivery of the product were also illegal (not inherently but because it was promoted using spam that violated some new tough War-On-Spam laws), then that can also be delivered from outside the US - shipping from the Caribbean doesn't cost _that_ much, or if the product is a pr0n site, it can be hosted just fine in Amsterdam.

Now, it's unlikely that any US anti-spam law would be something that involves jail time or extradition treaties - at most it's a fine of some kind. Fines are only useful if you can collect them. Overseas corporations are good at preventing effective collection like that, and they're good at making the cost of collection exceed the amount of money collectable, and since for the spammer, it's all about the money, and for the Feds, it's mainly about creating some impression that they're attempting to enforce some law that some Congresscritter passed to look good, but it's really not a high priority unless the spammer's advertising pictures of the current FBI director modeling J.Edgar's black negligee. (Or unless there's child porn involved, or the "herbal viagra" is 50% Iraqi cocaine, or something inherently annoying to them.)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:I want to know one thing about bulk e-mail ads.

[jameswoodward]

Nope.... thats not a joke,Australians eat vegemite sandwiches....Handing an aussie a vegemite sandwich is a welcoming symbol.

Re:did anyone see the new story

[Prohest]

"You worthless faggots talk about free speech but it only counts when you are stealing from others or posting porn or something"...

First of all let me say, thank's for sharing...!
mmmmmkay...???

Now go take your medicine, your having a "incident" again, perhaps it's once again time to take a "few week off" at the "clinic" again ??

Then the nice Doctor and the pretty nurses, can help you not listening to the tiny men in the wall again ?? Mmmmmmkay ???

Remember, it's not _really_ your fault, you'r the victim here !!!. We'll never now what it's like
to suffer like you do !!!

I blame you'r Mom.... (That's what happens when
promiscous female Welders, dont look after them selves...!

No go play with razorblades...!

Hugs

-P-

- My mother refused to breastfeed me, she said she only liked me as a friend ! -

Heebeegeebees

[jefu]

For telemarketers I now quite prefer the "counterscript" . I've used it a few times and the telemarketers do NOT like it. I had one guy so disturbed that I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

"Why does a single 24-year-old guy need coupons for feminine hygiene products?"

Now there's a question for the ages. Enquiring minds do want to know. There's always wallpaper, confusing the supermarket tracking your purchases in their database, anticipation (buy them in the hope ....). You could always take the coupons to singles bars and hand them out to likely prospects (laugh).

laws ....... only deter the lawful.........

[Anonymous Coward]

your bit about 'everyone would die with no laws!' is just plain silly.. if anything, there would be less crime cause the bad guys would realize they were taking a real risk of getting shot (or worse) for their troubles..

'this store has a strict shoot-all-thieves policy'
would not bother me one friggin bit.