Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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
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.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
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.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
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...)
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.
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.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
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.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
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
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
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. :)
Catherine
How is this a win against spam?
Not getting any more spam from MonsterHut is a win. We just need a lot more wins.
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
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.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
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!
"So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."