Habeas Seeks Poetic Justice for Trademarked Spam

Remember the company who started using haiku to fight spam? According to a news.com article, it will now be tested in court. Habeas is suing two internet marketers, saying that they've included Habeas' haiku in their mail, thereby lowering their SpamAssassin score by 6 points, but allegedly violating the trademark. It's interesting because the end effect of this will be more or less spam, but it's based on trademark law. It'll also be interesting to see how well this holds up across national boundaries.

Comments

National boundries don't matter

[WCMI92]

For spam to American e-mail addresses to be effective, a product has to be delivered TO an American physical address.

Any judgement against the spam should be enforced against the money being transacted to the spamvertiser.

Cut off the money supply to the spammer's customer, cut off spam.

Re:National boundries don't matter

[ringbarer]

This spring in Baghdad
Thousands of muslims will die
Serves the fuckers right!

Re:National boundries don't matter

[dvdeug]

For spam to American e-mail addresses to be effective, a product has to be delivered TO an American physical address.

Any judgement against the spam should be enforced against the money being transacted to the spamvertiser.

Cut off the money supply to the spammer's customer, cut off spam.

On of the first spams I got was for a Russian carpet cleaning service. I frequently get spams in Korean and other Asian languages. They aren't targetting American consumers; they just get caught in the spread. You can't stop that from America.

Fake news!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a news.com.com article. Obviously com.com is a parody site to trick those who can't spot the repeated suffix in a URL.

Re:Fake news!

[Lazyhound]

Com.com is owned by ZDNet. It's a legitimate site.

Re:Fake news!

[Anonymous Coward]

Parody site? No. Stupid and dot-comish? Very much so. They suck dick.

fuck you all.

[Anonymous Coward]

89B'Y8B 8D8
8B8 ,'Y 89BB 8D8B e8D'8B8 89B ee Y8b Y8D8P e8B 8De 8B8D 8B8D
8B8C8 89BB 8D8B 9BD8 '8 8B8 P Y8D Y8P 9BB8 8D8b 89BB 8D8B
89B " Y8B8 8D8P Y8B8 , 89B b Y8b Y Y8D8 8B8P Y89B 8B8P
8D8 "8B 8D" "8B,e8' 89B 8b 8D8 "8B 8D" "8B 8D"
8B8
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8B8 8D8
,"Y8Bb 89B 8B8
"8" 8D8 8B8 89B
,ee 8B8 8D8 8B8 9BD
"8B 8D8 8B8 89B Y8P

TO JOIN THE TROLL-KORE, PLEASE INSERT THE FOLLOWING GREETING AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR POST.

We are the lowest of the low trolls;
Trolling in-between bans.

- TROLL-KORE FOREVER
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irc.freenode.net
#trollkore

spamspamspamspam

[B3ryllium]

spamspamspamspam ...

Oh, and gobe is back in business! But I guess that's spam too, or at least off-topic.

Slashdot needs SpamAssassin for comments :) If your comment triggers as 3.5 or higher, it should yell "YOU FAIL IT!" at the user. Automatic 3.0 points if you're an AC.

Re:spamspamspamspam

[usotsuki]

Would certainly reduce the number of OT fr1st ps0ts (yeah, I'm guilty of that too)...

-uso.

Re:spamspamspamspam

[Ponty]

I think that's the intent of the lameness filter, but it just ends up being pretty lame.

Tagging

[rf0]

Well I hope that the spammers get whats coming to them. Keeping stats of my email recently there has been a dramatic rise in the amount of spam I've been getting I've thankful for spamassasin to filter off all the crap.As a slight aside I found out today that debian charges $1000 for each advert (spam) posted to the list. Now that is a cool policy :)

Rus

Re:Tagging

[B3ryllium]

Root on your own server from $25/mo

What a novel idea, charging people a monthly fee so they can access their own server. Don't touch my FreeBSD machine.

(Oh, wait, you probably do some sort of co-lo service ... nevermind.)

Re:Tagging

[rf0]

Is this any better?

Rus

Re:Tagging

[B3ryllium]

lol :) well, yes - hopefully I didn't offend you, though.

Re:Tagging

[WCMI92]

I've been using PopFile for the last month and a half... Out of thousands of emails I've received, Popfile has made only a handful of mistakes. It runs over 99.3% accurate. I've used the same e-mail address for 5 years, and it's obviously on virtually all spam lists...

I too have noticed that the number and voracity of spam has increased DRAMATICALLY in the last few months. And lately some seem to find their way around my blockers.

I don't get it... If I am going to such extremes to AVOID spam, why should the spamemr WANT to go to lenghts to get around it? I obviously am someone who DOES NOT and WILL NOT patronize their products... So why waste the effort?

PopFile, btw, is free software:

http://popfile.sourceforge.net/

Re:Tagging

[rf0]

Nah. Its fine. I can take a joke as much as the next one...

Rus

Re:Tagging

[rf0]

Whats really annoying me now is that I'm getting spam selling anti-spam software. I mean how stupid do spammers think I am. I know how stupid they are

Rus

Re:Tagging

[WCMI92]

"Whats really annoying me now is that I'm getting spam selling anti-spam software. I mean how stupid do spammers think I am. I know how stupid they are"

And what moron would buy anti-spam software from a Spammer?!

That is as smart as buying your "secure" communications gear from the NSA... ;)

Re:Tagging

[Pig Hogger]

I don't get it... If I am going to such extremes to AVOID spam, why should the spamemr WANT to go to lenghts to get around it? I obviously am someone who DOES NOT and WILL NOT patronize their products... So why waste the effort?

See rule#3.

Re:Tagging

[moncyb]

What a novel idea, charging people a monthly fee so they can access their own server.

Soon Microsoft will be doing this. What do you think Palladium is for? ;-)

Hmmm...maybe I can trademark my computer's name and sue them for stealing my trademark. ;-)

Re:Tagging

[gmuslera]

Considering that most spam is, directly or indirectly, an insult to the intelligence of the one that receives it, this kind of things is simply coherent with other messages.

Re:Tagging

[Ponty]

I like the idea. It's akin to those "if you lived here, you'd be home by now" signs on the highway.

"If you had our software, this wouldn't be bugging you. Buy Spam-Proof Pro." :-)

Re:Tagging

[Anonymous Coward]

don't you mean the USA?

Re:Tagging

[dasunt]

The parent poster writes:
I don't get it... If I am going to such extremes to AVOID spam, why should the spamemr WANT to go to lenghts to get around it? I obviously am someone who DOES NOT and WILL NOT patronize their products... So why waste the effort?

Easy enough answered. Now you and I probably both use spam filters on our private accounts, and would never respond to spam. Thus, evading our spam filters is a pointless, pointless task.

Joe Blow's internet/email provider (MSN, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail) also have been promoting spam filters. Some of their customers are ignorant or foolish enough to respond to spam, as long as the spam gets through their provider's spam filters.

Thus, the action of spammers bypassing spam filters isn't from stupidity, its from making an extra buck.

Re:Tagging

[Zeinfeld]

Whats really annoying me now is that I'm getting spam selling anti-spam software. I mean how stupid do spammers think I am. I know how stupid they are

In most cases that is not quite what is going on, sale implies that they own the goods in question which most spammers do not. Basically they are taking credit card numbers in return for the promise of spam software.

In many cases you don't get the spam software anyway, if you do it probably won't be a legal copy and you are likely to find your credit card billed for very substantially more.

Of course then there are clueless services like spam arrest that have a challenge/response spam filter scheme. Then they spam all the people who tried to send email to their customers. Privacy abuse and spam all in one go!

The challenge response schemes are in any case a way of displacing spam, not reducing it. Everyone who sends a user of those vile schemes a message gets a spam set back in return. If everyone used them we would spend all our time answering callbacks and the spam senders would quickly adjust to autoreply. If someone's email has a callback loop on it I send them a fax or fed-ex and add in a note that their email seems to be broken.

Re:Tagging

[WCMI92]

"Considering that most spam is, directly or indirectly, an insult to the intelligence of the one that receives it, this kind of things is simply coherent with other messages."

True... Only the LEAST INTELLIGENT among us respond to spam. They are the .001 percent that encourages Ralsky and company to ANNOY MILLIONS WHO FUCKING WANT TO KILL THEM WITH REPATED STRIKES WITH A HAMMER TO VARIOUS LIMBS THEN THE HEAD who wouldn't buy a HEATER from them if stranded on the South Pole to reach them...

Fine the *originating* companies

[nurb432]

I've been saying this all along.

If you fine the people who advertise improperly, then they will stop hiring spammers to do it.

Plus its easier to track down the company that is offering the product/service then the scummy spammer that will hide from you.

Re:Fine the *originating* companies

[Chymaera]

Hey, that had too many syllables! Fine advertisers And they stop using spammers Reseller quick find

Re:Fine the *originating* companies

[Chymaera]

Ugh...:(

Fools who don't preview
Should never be modded up--
Should leap from tall cliffs.

Re:Fine the *originating* companies

[rf0]

The problems I've seen from large companies is that they hire "marketing" companies who say they have "opt-in" lists and then proceeds to spam the living hell. Complaining seems to just get you listwashed so I just end up blocking them. Seems to work

Rus

Re:Fine the *originating* companies

[WCMI92]

"he problems I've seen from large companies is that they hire "marketing" companies who say they have "opt-in" lists and then proceeds to spam the living hell. Complaining seems to just get you listwashed so I just end up blocking them. Seems to work"

Doesn't matter how many layers deep the originating company buries it. Somewhere there is STILL a transaction of money from that company that ends up in the spam.

And somewhere from the spam there is a resulting transaction that results in profit for that company.

Which, if it's a LEGAL enterprise, is all on the books. Else the company, managers and officers are comitting felonies.

If it's NOT a legal enterprise, then obviously the spammer himself is aiding and abetting, itself a crime.

How many want to guess how much crime and fraud have been aided and abetted by Ralsky and co?

Re:Fine the *originating* companies

[wolf-]

I have to agree with you completely.
We run spamassassin in house to filter out spam destined for our employee accounts.

It gets dropped into a very large file.
Then once a month, 2 employees go through the messages, if the product is from a large national company, we print out the message, find a PR contact and upper level management for the company, and we have a nice form letter that goes out. The idea is, we know who you are, its YOUR reputation on the line (as anonymous spammers have no reputation) and we are letting you know that we know.

Yeah, it costs some man hours. Is it effective? Can't really tell. Have had some large firms appologize.

Re:Fine the *originating* companies

[Threni]

"companies who say they have "opt-in" lists"

Then a $1,000,000 dollar fine should convince them that it's worth ensuring that the companies they deal with don't lie.

Re:Fine the *originating* companies

[gl4ss]

i would totally mod you up but since i lack mod rights..

it's illeagal for a company to hire someone else to do the dirty work, much like it is illegal to hire anyone to commit crime, and afaik, here even if the company doesn't know they're hiring them to do something illeagal they're still guilty(they should check what they are hiring them to do, especially if it sounds suspicious "you'll reach million people with this advert!"). they're contracting the another company to do some magical marketing. suppose some company pays the mafia that they "remove their competing company", and mafia goes and blows up the offices of the another company and somehow this gets up in the police investigation, it would be a very weak excuse to say that "gee, we didn't know they were going to blow them up, we thought maybe they would buy their company or something nice".

much like it is illeagal to buy stolen goods even if you didn't know they were stolen when you bought them(sure, it might be so that you end getting zero punishment, but it's still a crime).

if microsoft paid to some thugs to spraypaint ms logos allover some city, ms would most certainly be facing some sort of punishment for that(i don't know about the chalking of logos on streets in usa more than that something like that has happened).

Re:Fine the *originating* companies

[fishbowl]

"Which, if it's a LEGAL enterprise, is all on the books. Else the company, managers and officers are comitting felonies."

It's not a crime to do private transactions for goods and services, as long as the goods and services themselves are not illegal, and as long as you aren't trying to avoid a tax or other regulation.

If I, an apple salesman, go to an orchard to buy apples, I don't have any obligation to show a paper trail from that transaction. I and the farmer can make the agreement, negotiate terms, exchange cash or barter, and walk away with nothing more formal than a handshake and a box of apples.

Are you suggesting to me that one of us has committed a felony by not reporting the trade?

Until spamming itself is illegal, your argument isn't valid.

Re:Fine the *originating* companies

[BuckaBooBob]

I must say that the headline for this is outright Punny! its one of the Punniest ones I have seen yet!

Try being a canadian on the internet.. 99.9% of Spam Doesn't even come close to applying to us.. Yet we get it anyways and treamendous ammounts of it.
Its sickening and annoying has hell and there is so little you can actually do about it. Fixing Email so its alot harder/impossible to anonymously spam is taking too damn long.
With the number of ISP's decreasing in North America it should be getting easier and easier to impliment a new Protocol for sending mail.. if you take the top 20-30 ISP's in north america and utilize a new more secure protocol for sending mail you will have a massive portion of people on the ineternet.. and Throw in Webmail hosts I wouldn't be shocked if suddenly you have 70%+ or more of the email addresses Suddenly Spam free (Or next to it).. Once you have achived that level of penatration of a new protocol it would be treamendously easier to identify Spam and get rid of it long before it gets into a Inbox of a user that would make some sort of responce to it to fuel the spammers to do it more often.

For example DNS for your domain returns a record that you Support the new protocol so any inbound traffic from that domain that isn't in the new "secure" format can be tossed away as it will be forged... Suddenly The number of domains available for spammers to spoof from is drastically reduced. Secondly once 90% or more of the likely legitimate mail passes easily through the mail servers. Suddenly incomming Spam will be highly obvious as the volume of inbound spam is virtually impossible to hide amongst Legitimate Email. Couple that with unassured delivery of the old protocol will put pressure on mail providers to upgrade to the new Protocol so there should be a fairly rapid change of protocol.

Hopefully the OSS community will develop the new protocol and scaleable mail engines so the cost of implimentation is extreamly and Large ISP's will be movitvated to adpot it while making it attractive for the little guys to use aswell.

After all if all the major ISP's were to donate even .05$ a month to a fund such a OSS project they would gain quite a decent return on that investment as all the hardware used to filter spam ect would not be required.. Look at the ammount of money being spent to reduce spam that is delivered instead of inhibit the sending of it.

The idea of moving to a more secure mail protcol just seems to be one of the most common sence things you can think of.. You almost woner if there arn't a bunch of patents out there preventing this from happening. :)

Re:Fine the *originating* companies

[darien]

Even that shouldn't be necessary. Any company that isn't 100% stupid will already have an indemnity cause in all of its advertising contracts whereby the advertisers agree to reimburse the company for any legal costs incurred to the company as a result of the advertisers' actions. These companies must know where the spammers are (after all, they hired them); so they can pursue them for reimbursement of the fine. Or, if they can't find them, they can call the authorities - it's all gravy.

Linux is not what it appears

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello,

Recently I've been introduced to an operating system known as Linux.

Lured by its low cost, I replaced Windows 98 on my computer with Linux. Unfortunately the more I use it the more I fear that this "Linux" may be an insidious way for the Dark One to gain a stronger foothold here on Earth. I know this may be a shocking claim, but I have evidence to back it up!

To begin with, Linux is based off of an older, obsolete OS called "BSD Unix". The child-indoctrinatingly-cute cartoon mascot of this OS is a devil holding a pitchfork. This OS -- and its Linux offspring -- extensively use what are unsettingly called "daemons" (which is how Pagans write "demon" -- they are notoriously poor spellers: magick, vampyre, etc.) which is a program that hides in the background, doing things without the user's notice. If you are using a computer running Linux then you probably have these "demons" on your computer, hardly something a good Christian would want! Furthermore in order to start or stop these "demons" a user must execute a command called "finger". By "fingering" a "demon" one excercises an unholy power, much the same way that the Lord of Flies controls his black minions.

Linux contains another Satanic holdover from the "BSD Unix" OS mentioned above; to open up certain locked files one has to run a program much like the DOS prompt in Microsoft Windows and type in a secret code: "chmod 666". What other horrors lurk in this thing?

Consider some of these other Linux commands: "sleep", "mount", "unzip", "strip" and "touch". All highly suggestive in a sexual nature. I know that our Lord cannot approve of these, and I urge them to be renamed to something appropriate to the Christian community. Interestingly "CONTROL-G" (the sixth key from the left of the keyboard) does an abort. To write files a "VI" editor is included. All these are to ensnare the unsuspecting christian who could get tempted by typing "VIVIVI" all day long.

Fourth, Linux uses a flavor of DOS known as Bash. Bash is an acronym for "Bourne Again Shell". On the surface this would appear to be supportive of the Lord. However, remember that even Satan can quote the bible for his own purposes! While I believe Linux may be born-again, its obvious by the misspelling of "born" that its not born-again in an Christian church. Will the lies ever cease?

Additionally, one of the main long-haired hippies involved with the GNU Free Software Foundation supports communism, contraception and abortion. He has consistently supported 60's counter-cultural "values", and his web site even advocates government support of contraception. He also wears fake halos, and has quips about his made-up church that relates to his free software. I find such blasphemy to be extremely unsettling.

One must also remember that the creator of Linux, a college student named Linux Torvaldis, comes from Finland. I'm sure all the followers of Christ are aware of the heritical nature of the Finnish: from necrophilia to human sacrifice, Finnish culture is awash in sin. I find little reason to believe anything good and holy could arise from this evil land.

Finally, let us remember that there is an alternative to using the Satan-powered Linux. I think history has shown us that Microsoft is quite holy. I'm told that its founder, William Gates is a strong supporter of our Lord and I encourage my fellow Christians to buy only his products to help keep the Devil at bay.

I wish I had more time to expound upon my findings. Unfortunately a family of Jews has moved in across the street and I must go speak to them of Jesus Christ before they are condemned to eternal hellfire.

Please investigate this as you see fit and I'm sure you'll reach the same conclusions that I h

Trademarked Haiku

[idfrsr]

I have trademarked this
Use it at your own expense
I'll see you in court

Re:Trademarked Haiku

[ketamineX]

Hiakus on my Brain
They are driving me insane
Please make it stop

Poetic justice

[NicolaiBSD]

Haiku fighting spam
Now spammers spamming Haiku
Poetic justice?

Re:Poetic justice

[idfrsr]

Poetic Justice?
I don't think so until we
have spamming sonnets.

Re:Poetic justice

[Anonymous Coward]

But what I want to know know is th-th-this: Will it be enforced by the Poetic Justice League of America?

Re:Poetic justice

[401k]

The Trouble Alert!
Spam clogging Bat Computer!
Summon Aqua-Man.

Re:Poetic justice

[AndroidCat]

This looks like a job for the dynamic rhyming couplet of Iabicpentameter Man and Limerick Lad!

There was a spammer named Dave,
Who continuely acted the knave,
He lived in a trailer,
Now jail with a sailor,
And forced to do acts deprave'.

Re:Poetic justice

[Anonymous Coward]

Be warned: Limerick Lad is perhaps not the expert his name might imply!

The first line of his poem is a syllable short (the missing syllable should presumably come before the word "spammer"). The second line does carry the correct number of syllables, but only by corrupting the five-syllable word "continually" into the tetrasyllabic "continuely."

The third and fourth lines are metrically unexceptionable, though their slightly obscure grammar would demand (for example) a full stop or semicolon at the end of the second line, rather than the comma which appears.

The fifth line appears to be grammatically wrong in at least one respect: the opening should presumably read "was forced." The sense as written is that Dave is the one doing the forcing in some unclear intransitive manner. Moreover, though the final word of the line should presumably be "depraved," the author opts to omit the final "d" for the sake of rhyme. To his credit, he does mark the omission with an apostophe, but this is still a nonstandard usage which smacks of having been coined purely for convenience.

Finally, this line is also missing a syllable, unless we assume an archaic bisyllabic pronunciation of "forced" as "forcèd." Since this would jar with the register of the rest of the poem, we are left with the unenviable choice of irregular pronunciation or irregular metre.

I present below a more formally correct version of the limerick, with apologies to the original poster.

There once was a spammer named Dave
Who repeatedly acted the knave;
He lived in a trailer,
Was jailed with a sailor,
And now performs acts which deprave.

Re:Poetic justice

[AndroidCat]

Wait! You're not Anonymous Coward, you're .. you're Pedantic Man! ;^P

huge Biotech/WTO meeting in sacramento in june

[Anonymous Coward]

come down and help shut it down.

http://biodev.org/sacramento/

How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[Farley Mullet]

I'll admit that I find spam as annoying as the next guy, but I try to take precautions and use a fairly effective junk mail filter, so spam at best rises to the level of minor annoyance. Aren't there better things to spend our money and time lobbying lawmakers and dragging people to court about?

Just a question.

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

If you don't think bandwidth use is a problem, if you don't think needing spam filters is a problem, if you don't think storage space is a problem, if you don't think that losing legitimate email when a spam filter malfunctions is a problem, if you don't think unauthorized computer access is a problem, if you don't think that crashing mail servers under abusive volumes of traffic is a problem, if you don't think wire fraud is a problem, then consider this:

Spam is threatening connectivity and shutting down useful services. Open relays used to be a public convenience. Because of spam, if you set one up today, you'll find thousands of places blocking your traffic. Mailing lists used to allow non-subscribers to post. Because of spam, you now have to subscribe first before asking a question. We used to imagine the net as a worldwide utility. Because of spam, many people are now blocking everything from China.

Does this answer your question?

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[xactoguy]

There are better things, for sure, but spam is not a small problem. It's fine that you can block out most of it and make it a minor annoyance, but what if everyone would do that? The end result would that there would that you would get more spam, because the spammers would be forced to find a way around your filtering system, which undoubtedly they eventually would do. Also, spam is overall a drain on resources: a drain on bandwidth, a drain on processing power passing them on from server to server, and a drain on disk space storing them, so spam is a problem, and it should be stopped, even if right now it is only a "minor annoyance".

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[WCMI92]

"here are better things, for sure, but spam is not a small problem. It's fine that you can block out most of it and make it a minor annoyance, but what if everyone would do that? The end result would that there would that you would get more spam, because the spammers would be forced to find a way around your filtering system, which undoubtedly they eventually would do. Also, spam is overall a drain on resources: a drain on bandwidth, a drain on processing power passing them on from server to server, and a drain on disk space storing them, so spam is a problem, and it should be stopped, even if right now it is only a "minor annoyance"."

So, we should all leave our front doors unlocked, and the keys in our car's ignitions just to prevent the crook from having to WORK HARDER to violate our space?

I fail to see the logic in your agument, though I agree filtering is not the answer.

What should be illegal is unsolicited advertising that uses the victim's RESOURCES. That is theft.

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[Farley Mullet]

It's funny that the anti-spam company's name is Habeas, because, from where I sit, the erosion of habeas corpus rights, and civil rights in general is much scarier than having to sign up to mailing lists before you can post, and the inconvenience of not being able to have open relays

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[WCMI92]

"Spam is threatening connectivity and shutting down useful services. Open relays used to be a public convenience. Because of spam, if you set one up today, you'll find thousands of places blocking your traffic. Mailing lists used to allow non-subscribers to post. Because of spam, you now have to subscribe first before asking a question. We used to imagine the net as a worldwide utility. Because of spam, many people are now blocking everything from China."

Spam has basically made e-mail useless. What we need is an alternative to the current SMTP/POP3 system itself.

I have used filters, the first being McAfee Spamkiller (which uses static filters that they periodically update).

That was effective for a couple of months, but I soon realized that static filters would NEVER be able to keep up.

Then I got PopFile, which uses Bayesian filtering and works like a proxy server, and for the moment, I have my inbox back...

For how long, I don't know.

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[401k]

Not to mention some spam content is outrageously obscene, and if you're using HTML-enabled mail on Outlook (which I had to, at my old job), you'll get filthy porno pictures, web bugs, cookies, fucking POP-UPS, all kinds of shit. We'd get this because angry customers would sign us up for it, but frankly it could end up in any little kid's inbox if they went to the wrong website or left their email addy out there hanging.

Just wait until anti-abortion activists start spamming everyone with pictures of dead babies, or terrorists start sending out gruesome pictures of dead Iraqis, and maybe those worthless luddites in government might do something. Or we'll just abandon email altogether. Sigh.

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[moncyb]

Because of spam, many people are now blocking everything from China.

Funny, I thought China was blocking everything from many people.

Maybe all the spam coming from China is their government's secret conspiracy for everyone to block them.

They want to block you, but in Soviet China, you block them! =:-O

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[Caveman Og]

Spam is a VERY big problem.

The trouble is that you, as an end user, can't possibly SEE how big the problem is. In addition, filters, while protecting you, the end user, only MASK the extent of the problem.

The costs incurred by spam are incremental, and are spread out among all the various parties who must decide whether to transmit, or block each spam message. These parites include far more than the sender and the recipient.

There's an interesting whitepaper at

http://word-to-the-wise.com/whitepapers.htm

The first doesn't bear on this issue, but the second one was a presentation given at the recent meeting of the IRTF's Anti-Spam Research Group. Those are real-life figures based on what real Internet providers are seeing.

The numbers, when you add them up, are scary.

--Og

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[gmuslera]

Lets say that you are sick, and for that you head hurts, and you take an aspirin to solve this. You just did a temporary fix to one of the simptoms, but not are cured of the real problem. And worse, you became addict to aspirin, so you will have another problems (i.e. have the risk of losing a critical mails).

Ignoring a problem will not make it disappear, but could make it grow worse until you really notes it, and maybe then will be too late.

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

im trying to fucking eat here man... jeez AC

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[moncyb]

Perhaps, but don't you realize one technique of fascist states is to waste nearly all the resources, which causes the common people to become so busy and distracted, they don't have time to do anything about reclaiming their rights? Didn't you read 1984?

Yeah, Orwells point talked about war and building war machines, but it can apply elsewhere. A consumer spending -> throw away -> replace economy.

An economy where everyone thinks they have to have own piles of cash and expensive (but low quality) merchandise, so they all go out and work 100 hour weeks, and (among other things) leaving children to depend upon government control and marketers for "parenting".

An economy where the companies are so out of control, they do anything to get money--including fraud, decit, stealing other's resources, getting unjust laws passed to improve the bottom line (at the expense of the rest of the country), forceably taking away everyone's time and social life through invasive "advertising", etc.

Don't you think problems caused by out of control companies, who manipulate matters of state, are a serious problem? Don't you think they've helped the government become this way? There is more than just habeas corpus rights at stake. Yes, they are important, but other rights can't be ignored.

MOre specificly onto this subject, spam affects (takes away) free speech. Just think if slashdot was filled with spam messages. We wouldn't be able to find each other's posts, let alone have a conversation. If spam becomes out of control, you probably won't be able to read such slashdot story--it would be filled with advertising.

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[amcguinn]

Spam is a small-to-moderate problem. It's big enough to attract attention, but not big enough to justify the sensible solutions.

It's a spin-off of anonymous internet use. The SMTP mail infrastructure allows anyone to anonymously send email to anyone. The solution to spam is to replace the system with a new one that accepts mail only from satisfactorily identifiable people. With that in place, all sorts of mechanisms -- technical, commercial and legal -- can be used against spam. Without it, all measures will be at best ameliorative.

Once the problem gets bad enough -- and it almost certainly will -- these steps will be taken. Very few people need to be able to receive mail from anonymous sources, and they will be able to use other arrangements.

Incidentally, in terms of punishing my inbox, Windows viruses are as big a problem than commercial spam. If all commercial spammers were wiped out, I would still get about 80% as many Kilobytes of unwanted mail as I do now.

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[Thing 1]

Just think if slashdot was filled with spam messages.

You're new here, right?

Try reading at -1 and you'll see a lot of spam. Not necessarily selling you stuff, but a ton of noise. Moderation improves the signal-to-noise ratio.

Perhaps there's some sort of moderation we could do to our incoming email? (Hint: try SpamNet if you're running Outlook.)

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

you would get more spam, because the spammers would be forced to find a way around your filtering system

Why? Are spammers that stupid?? Yes- I know the rule "All spammers are stupid", but Are they really so stooooooopid they don't get it?
If I'm taking active steps to block spam, I don't want whatever you're freaking selling!!! Spam people who DON't take active steps to block you- they just-might-possibly actually want your product.

So, I guess the question is: "Why would spammers waste time and effort trying to circumvent anti-spam technologies? (as opposed to the idiot spammers who just buy email addresses in bulk or use dictionary attacks.)

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Door to door salesmen just go away if you don't answer the door. They don't try the fropnt door, then the back door, peer in thru weindoes, get a ladder and try crawling in thru an upstairs window....

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[dubl-u]

I'll admit that I find spam as annoying as the next guy, but I try to take precautions and use a fairly effective junk mail filter [apple.com], so spam at best rises to the level of minor annoyance. Aren't there better things to spend our money and time lobbying lawmakers and dragging people to court about?

This sounds reasonable. People said it when spam was just getting started. They said it when spam was a few percent of email. And again when it was 10%. Now it's circa 50% and still growing rapidly.

There's no particular reason to believe that this trend will improve. And spam is a classic evolutionary arms race: every advance made in spam defense is met with an advance in spammer offense. And as with any parasite/host relationship, the parasites have a much stronger interest in succeeding (because it's their whole livelihood) than the hosts do (because spam is just one of many problems in their lives).

So our options are A) try to fix it now, or B) wait until it reaches some increased level of annoyance. Personally, I think the billions of dollars wasted on spam each year are enough to justify the effort of extermination.

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[moncyb]

I suppose I wasn't clear and precise. How about: "Just think if slashdot was filled with spam messages at +5." Does that work?

Perhaps there's some sort of moderation we could do to our incoming email? (Hint: try SpamNet if you're running Outlook.)

Hmmm...interesting system (though I don't use OE). Looks like it might work very well. Only problem is, what if some joker starts marking all the messages on some mailing list as "spam"? Some might do it to be evil, but also some stupid people sign themselves up for a list without knowing what they are doing, then start yelling "WHY ARE YOU SENDING ME SPAM?" (I've seen it happen).

Then of course, there are the ones who get signed up for a list by some troll, but I think most opt in systems have elimiated the problem--however if the registration message gets marked as spam, then you'll never be able to finish the subscription. Does this system ignore minor differences. I think they have to because many spammers use randomly generated strings, so their spams don't set off filters. There is no way (without AI) for a filtering system to differentiate between passwords and the random junk.

Then again, why not use an AI system? Have it read your email, chuck the spam, summarize the messages, and tell you which ones are important. Science fiction is a good thing. ;-)

Re:How Big A Problem Is Spam Really?

[Codeine]

It certainly suggests the cure(s) (as in many other substance or technology distribution regulation problems) are nearly as bad as the "problem," the famous Pyrrhic victory...

I think if we get back to P2P or E2E, with good tools for users to opt-in to (enforcing filtering is as unpleasant as enforcing reciept) and the marketers realise that there is zero marginal value in sending to a user who has even the mildest filtering, as they are not going to buy... nor is it likely the random strings addressed in the spam-honeypot domains like hotmail.com...

It'll stop when they stop making money bothering unwilling recipients.

Why does spam exist? To sell, and if the spammers are too stupid to realise that I'm not going to accidentally buy their stupid product, not going to come to my senses and realise the value of extra throbbing inches .

patent

[Anonymous Coward]

Habeas has patented this idea. I don't know if this means they will block others from using the technique, but if so, I hope they go out of business pronto.

This idea is cute but until I wake up one day and get zero spam and zero false positives, I'll remain sceptical. The patent just makes it more annoying.

Re:patent

[Anonymous Coward]

its not a patent, its a TRADEMARK
its not a patent, its a TRADEMARK
its not a patent, its a TRADEMARK

Re:patent

[Anonymous Coward]

1. It's not "its", it's "it's" - it's is short for "it is", you would use "its" only for the posessive (as in "It sharpened its claws") or for a multiple (an example sentence does not spring to mind ;-)

2. They may well have patented the idea of using a trademarked haiku, and the report I read about this a few days ago implied they had.

Re:patent

[Anonymous Coward]

> Habeas has patented this idea. I don't know if this means they will block others from using the technique, but if so, I hope they go out of business pronto.

Link, please? The article only talked about trademarks.

Re:patent

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not the original poster.

Here is Habeas's FAQ. You'll may have difficulty refering to the part where Habeas refers to the fact that they've applied for a fricking patent to cover their method - it's only in the answer to the FIRST FRICKING QUESTION.

Re:patent

[zcat_NZ]

"Habeus SWE(tm)" is a trademark.

The Haiku is an original artistic work, protected by copyright.

The business method of using copyright and trademark laws to combat spam has been registered, and is Patent Pending. I can see where they're going with this; Eventually they'll be granted a patent, part of which involves the concept of using a copyrighted and trademarked phrase to identify non-spam email.

And spam send using the Habeus mark will then be in clear violation of their Copyright, their Trademark, and their Patent.

I've read the FAQ, and I think this might actually be the smartest and most productive legal move anyone's made since Richard drafted the GPL..

biotech is evil, help destroy it

[Anonymous Coward]

http://biodev.org/sacramento/

you should come shut down the WTO and the biotech industry.
its gonna be a one giant 3 day street party!

Purpose of Spam

[Alan Holman]

The purpose of spam has always been to annoy people so much that they'll go to your web-site, or buy your product. It's cheap advertising, and effective if done correctly; however, it's intrusive, and often pornographic, and therefore legal limits should be forced upon spammers. Me telling people about my anime web-site in virtually every post I make to Slashdot, I guess, falls into the category of spam; however, at least I'm not a) advertising porno. b) e-mailing you. c) e-mailing you badly composed haikus about porno! Some of the spam I get is just plain weird; it's like "let's play a fun game/at my pornographic site/so come in it's fun!" Seriously, I get stuff like that in my inbox. Kids have e-mail accounts, and they shouldn't be bombarded with that stuff, but they are. I remember when it used to be that when you turn eighteen, you start getting that kind of spam in your Hotmail (proof that Bill Gates sells e-mail addresses to spammers); however, it's not
like that anymore. My seven year old brother Sam started a YAHOO! Mail account so that he could talk with his older brother, but now he's seen things on the net which -- well, to put it lightly, he's probably more aware of ...err...human nature... than I was at that age, all because of the evils of spammers. They should go to hell...the porno ones should go to hell, I mean. My anime site is rated PG.

Re:Purpose of Spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Please die.

Re:Purpose of Spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to nit-pick, but here is actually what you claim on your site regarding it's rating.

(c) This site represents content which is suitable for MOST audiences (PG-13).

Re:Purpose of Spam

[geoswan]

...Me telling people about my anime web-site in virtually every post I make to Slashdot, I guess, falls into the category of spam...

Are you sure? This classic definition of SPAM is the one I like best -- SPAM explained in simple sentences.

I just checked out half a dozen of your comments. Half didn't mention your site at all. And others mentioned it only in passing, sometimes in an amusing way. I don't think this makes you a spam artist.

And I disagree with whatever moderator moderated your comment "off-topic".

Re:Purpose of Spam

[Alan Holman]

Thanks. Your comment justifies my method of expressing myself on the internet. I wish certain others understand what you understand.

Re:Purpose of Spam

[NewtonsLaw]

I think the issue of "nett value" has to be considered when deciding if something qualifies as spam/junk-mail.

For instance -- if someone sends me an unsolicited piece of junkmail printed on crapy, cheap paper and promoting some product or service in which I'm not the least bit interested then it's spam.

However, if that same person sent me the same piece of junkmail, printed in water-soluble ink on the back of a $100 note then I think it would simply be a very clever marketing technique.

In the first instance the communication contains absolutely *no* value to me. In the second, the nett value is $100 less the value of the time required to wash off the water-soluble ink.

The same goes with online spam.

One of the most effective methods I've ever used is to promote my products or services in the .sig of my newsgroup postings.

So long as the posting contains a positive contribution to the thread concerned then the fact that I include two-lines of "pitch" still means that the whole thing represents an acceptable level of "nett value" to the reader.

The big problem is that your average spammer is a thief. They only want to take and not give anything in return. The "nett value" of most spam is decidedly negative -- and that's why people hate it.

It also says a lot about any vendor that would start picking your pocket (by spamming you) before you've even bought anything from them.

Sales made by spammers are just a way of fining the terminally stupid I guess.

It's not the first use of trademark law

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Didn't the lawsuits from providers like Bigfoot target the spammer's forging of someone else's trademarked business name in the return address?

You know, it's funny

[Anonymous Coward]

People here will scream and cry because they aren't allowed to warezzzz everyone else's hard work, yet they have invented this concept of "theft of bandwidth" to battle spam.

In reality, that's called a double standard.

It's a bitch when the ol' economy of plenty bites YOU in the ass isn't it?

Can't bitch about theft of bandwidth while you're zero-daying the Game of the Week, fellas. Make up your mind.

Reminds me of Coy

[bahwi]

perl -MCPAN -e shell
cpan> install Coy ...blah...blah...blah...
cpan> exit
bash-2.05b$ perl -e 'use Coy; die();';

-----
Lao Tse departing
beside a dam. A
singing lark. A dove.
-----

Bankei's commentary...

Died

(Sayings of -e: line 1.)

Ahh, at least perl can die a nice death. Check the man page too, all in Haiku.

Now if only PHP and GCC had this. Then I'd be truly happy and transcending. Or at least able to procrastinate a bit longer.

Re:Reminds me of Coy

[NicolaiBSD]

See the online docs here. Quite funny.

Re:Reminds me of Coy

[Anonymous Coward]

And if "beside a dam. A" was 7 syllables, it would even be a haiku! Wow!

Haikus are also supposed to be three completely unrelated lines which become related when you think about them. That "haiku", even if it had the right syllable count, doesn't even bother to keep SENTENCES to one line.

embolden?

[DataSquid]

It's a perfectly cromunlent word.

Re:embolden?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sausage? Sausage?

Damn you're eyes!

Waiting....

[telstar]

In this overly-litigious society, I'm just waiting for Hormel to file suit against everything and anyone using the word SPAM.

Re:Waiting....

[mistered]

Nah, Hormel's cool about using the term spam to describe unsolicited commercial email. It's so refreshing to see a company have some common sense when it comes to trademark issues.

We do not object to use of this slang term to describe UCE, although we do object to the use of our product image in association with that term. Also, if the term is to be used, it should be used in all lower-case letters to distinguish it from our trademark SPAM, which should be used with all uppercase letters.

This slang term does not affect the strength of our trademark SPAM. In a Federal District Court case involving the famous trademark STAR WARS owned by LucasFilms, the Court ruled that the slang term used to refer to the Strategic Defense Initiative did not weaken the trademark and the Court refused to stop its use as a slang term. Other examples of famous trademarks having a different slang meaning include MICKEY MOUSE, to describe something as unsophisticated; TEFLON, used to describe President Reagan; and CADILLAC, used to denote something as being high quality.

Re:Waiting....

[AndroidCat]

Yeah, Homel and LEGO are on my Good Guys list. (LEGO: See the Slashdot article a year or so back. That has to be the most polite "please don't violate our trademark" letter that I've ever seen. Hack our boxes, reverse engineer, write replacement software, cool! Gotta love 'em!)

ode to spam

[1nv4d3r]

I love to get spam
you can block it all you want
meanwhile, my dick grows

Re:ode to spam

[Drakonian]

How many syllables do you consider "meanwhile" to be? I'd say 3.

Re:ode to spam

[Anonymous Coward]

learn to speak: 1 for 'mean', 1 for 'while'.

Re:ode to spam

[Anonymous Coward]

mean...while....QUACK!

Damn, you`re right!

Re:ode to spam

[essdee]

in a can waiting hermetically sealed pig flesh never expires

$100 reward for information about a spammer

[Animats]

I, John Nagle, owner of the US registered trademark "Downside", will pay $100 to the first person who can provide to me the identity of the actual person or persons behind any of the following sites:

• girlswhocry.net
• contipay.com
• profitabill.com

Why? I've received over 16,000 mail bounces from spam advertising these sites. They, or some person associated with them, has been spamming with "downside.com" return addresses.

Rules and comments:

• I already know what Whois and traceroute will tell me, and I know who hosts those sites. That's not helpful. I do have information that indicates that the operation is inside the United States. So I will only pay for a US name and address at which a process server can deliver a summons.
• The sites for "contipay.com" and "profitabill.com" look like sites of businesses that do billing for third parties. They're not real companies; they're false fronts.
• These sites have changed hosting providers and billing arrangements since I started looking for them and talking to their hosting providers. But they tend to stay up, although they move around.

I can be reached at "spammersearch@downside.com". Thank you.

habeas business plan

[1nv4d3r]

step one is haiku
step two is vast deep unknown
step three is profit!

Re:habeas business plan

[cperciva]

step one is haiku
step two is many lawyers
step three is profit.

Re:habeas business plan

[1nv4d3r]

mod parent to five
this was the best I could do
insensiteve clods

Interesting...

[Fnkmaster]

You could do this same thing with any arbitrary bit of text that is long enough to be considered a novel work under copyright law. There is nothing particuarly unique about their "SWE" haiku-containing chunk of email header text. The interesting part is that I gather they were aiming to produce something long enough to be copyrightable (the haiku is a "work of art" that is definitely protectable under copyright law) and the use of their trademarked phrases and slogans in the header pattern is protectable by trademark law.

This gives them a dual-pronged legal attack approach on anybody who uses their header without permission, which I suppose makes it easier to enforce. And, in fact, they force their own hand by including trademarked slogans, because failure to sue violators would result in possible loss of trademark rights over time.

However, the part that irks me is that according to their FAQ they have patented their "system". Their system? How the hell can you patent the use of a legal mechanism? There is no technical novelty to their spam filtering mechanism, and in fact, they provide no spam filtering themselves, you just set up Spam Assassin or other programs to account appropriately for their particular headers. I've seen plenty of other header-flagging schemes for assisting spam filtering. The novelty then is claiming both copyright and trademark to the header text? Okay, this makes me not terribly fond of this company, even though it's nice and all that they are giving royalty-free "licenses" to individuals, I am not clear that they could ever successfully prosecute a patent case against anybody else who uses header-filtering of copyrighted or trademarked text of their own choosing to fight spam. Anyone have any information on case law describing patents of legal constructs? How would that differ from trying to patent a tax shelter mechanism? If you could actually do that, don't you think KPMG et. al. would have been using patent law to protect their legal constructs all along?

This is just one of those funny, small, novel legal ideas that would be nice to generate and give away to better humanity, but is simply crazy to try to build a business around.

Re:Interesting...

[Maserati]

Actually, the point of it being a haiku is twofold:

It's a relatively small amount of text. This makes it simple to stuff into a mail header.
Haiku is a recognised art form. This is intended to clearly establish coyright protection.

Re:Interesting...

[Alsee]

They are not using copyright law. They are using TRADEMARK law. The difference is important to the story and the legal case.

I'll leave it to an expert to explain exactly why the difference is important here.

-

Re:Interesting...

[Fnkmaster]

No, they are using both. Go to their web page and try reading it again. The reason they use a haiku embedded in the header is that a haiku is a known form of art, and thus is protected under copyright law. They use their service name as a trademark embedded in their header as well. That's the whole point - a two pronged legal defense against unauthorized use of their header, so if one challenge fails in court, they can use the other.

Why put the poem in the extended headers?

[1nv4d3r]

haiku in header
not viewed by your Aunt Tillie
she won't know to sue

In Soviet Russia...

[Sir_Bill_William_Jen]

Spammers would be non-existant. No corporations thus no need for annoying advertisement. But internet would be banned too. No Internet = No Spam. Think about it.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[jayspec462]

Soviet Russia
Feel the zen; it is upturned
Spammers haiku you.

Re:In Soviet Russia...

[Sir_Bill_William_Jen]

Zen is religious..

Marxist-Leninist are anti-organized religion.

I bet they have a nice place in Siberia for scum like you!!!! :P

Here's the challenge

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you come up with a technical means that has the backing of a law, that:

1. Can be used to authenticate non-spam to a mail filter
2. Cannot be used to authenticate printer cartridges to a printer

If these guys win, then Lexmark is going to become the Haiku king among printers. Not only will manufacturing a Lexmark-compatable cartridge be a DMCA violation (where DMCA is on the iffy side of being a legitimate law) but a trademark violation too (a law that is much more respected).

Re:Here's the challenge

[amcguinn]

Well put. As another poster has pointed out, this legal action is (fortunately) a non-starter (Sega vs Accolade).

The key difference between your two examples is that in case 1 the owner of the computer which receives the mail is the one who would want to take action, and in case 2 the owner of the printer which recieves the cartridge would not want to take action (since he's the one who chose to insert the cartridge anyway -- or if not he has a valid complaint).

The ideal set-up would use my intellectual property or confidential data to send mail to me, not some remote third party's, so that it would be up to me to decide whether it was actually something I objected to or not

truth about trolls

[401k]

You stupid troll you're
an inefficient spammer
one post at a time.

Hey, France!

[Anonymous Coward]

U.S. armor and soldiers are in Baghdad --- and finding arms and ammunition that YOU fuckers sold them. Do you see how MEN conduct themselves, you pansy-assed French fuckers???

Maybe after we're done with your pal, Saddam Hussein, we oughta swing over and take Paris. We'll fuck your women and they'll be thrilled to be with real men for the first time in their miserable, whore lives.

Habeas

[thomasiomichelangelo]

http://www.habeas.com/index.htm is obviously the homepage for the firm, it says in the news there that the second lawsuit is against the following: "Dale Heller, Stan Stuchinski (BigDogSecrets.com), and Clickbank, a division of Boise, Idaho-based Keynetics, Inc"

How to beat the spam detectors

[tramm]

If I were to ever become a spammer, I would:

• send my mail with gnus (-6.4 points)
• add an 'X-Cron-Env' header (another -6.4 points)
• add a fake 'In-reply-to' (-3.3 points)
• include the sendmail X-Auth warning (-1.008 points)
• have a sig dash with dense sig (another -6.4 points)
• include some diff -u output (-6.027)
• Have 'foo@bar wrote:' attribution (-6.6)
• Have quote text (-3.3)
• Fake a good Exchange ID (-5.8)

At this point, the message has a -45.135 bonus and would have to be super spam to be scored as spam. Let's hope none of those scum read the comments on Slashdot...

Re:How to beat the spam detectors

[Dwedit]

Mod parent down! Scum DO read slashdot! Censor this post!

Re:How to beat the spam detectors

[mekkab]

like thats gonna fix it?! perchance, are you a security expert for large corporations, or from microsoft? ;)

Scum do get past detectors. Not posting the rules won't hinder them.

Re:How to beat the spam detectors

[hey]

That, of course, is the problem with SpamAssassin and all similar spam detectors. They classify a certain group of bit patterns as spam (S) and another bunch as non spam -- ham (H). Anybody can download SpamAssassin and add a bunch of H to their content.
SpamAssassin will unfortunately be on a treadmill -- playing catch up -- forever.

Re:How to beat the spam detectors

[TheDanish]

Taking the highest numbers possible, here's some typical stuff we see in spam:

• "another mailing" will "never" be "received" (2.900)
• "one time mailing" doesn't mean it isn't spam (1.626)
• Claims you can be removed from the list (0.100)
• Claims you can be removed from the list (2.900)
• Claims you can be removed from the list (2.297)
• Claims you were on a list (1.681)
• Nobody's perfect (2.511)
• Claims to be legitimate email (1.814)
• Claims you opted-in or registered (1.637)
• Claims you registered at their site (2.900)
• Claims your address was obtained legitimately (4.300)
• Claims you're receiving this offer for a reason (2.900)
• Claims you have provided permission (2.900)
• Claims you received an ad because you wanted it (4.300)
• Talks about how to be removed from mailings (2.678)

Altogether, 37.9809. Personally, I think that's off by a couple orders of magnitude, but that's just me.

Re:How to beat the spam detectors

[Michael Spencer Jr.]

If I were writing spam filter rules, I think I would fix that problem with extra rules:

mail sent with gnus and with an Exchange ID: +6.4 points
mail sent with gnus and with an 'X-Cron-Env' header: +6.4 points
mail sent with an Exchange ID and an 'X-Cron-Env' header: +6.4 points
mail sent with gnus, an Exchange ID, and an 'X-Cron-Env' header: +6.4 points
include diff -u output and have 'foo@bar wrote' attribution: +6.6 points
include diff -u output and have quote text: +3.3 points
include diff -u output and have 'In-reply-to': +3.3 points
mail has 'In-reply-to' and an 'X-Cron-Env' header: +6.4 points

In total, the message would then have -45.135 +45.2 = 0.065 points.

Re:How to beat the spam detectors

[uid8472]

If I were writing spam filter rules, I think I would fix that problem with extra rules:

[...]
include diff -u output and have 'foo@bar wrote' attribution: +6.6 points
include diff -u output and have quote text: +3.3 points
include diff -u output and have 'In-reply-to': +3.3 points

Except that all of those would apply to the same legitimate mailing-list message if someone replies to another message and attaches a patch. If I cared I could probably find just such a message in the wild without too much effort....

Sega v. Accolade

[Anonymous Coward]

Look it up. Or look up IBM versues the VGA clone makers.

First of all, the Haiku issue is based upon copyright law, not trademark. The headers are allegedly covered by trademark.

But anyway, if you use a piece of data merely for data verification and interoperability, it loses all copyright protection because it is no longer the type of work copyright covers.

Sega v. Accolade

Junk Faxes Too

[Badmovies]

Going after the people who hire spammers is a good idea. If they know that their company will be held liable for spam, they will not hire anyone.

I play the same game with junk fax idiots. I call each and every company and talk to a company officer about the TCPA violation. At the end I make sure to remind them that they have been informed their advertiser is willfully breaking the law. Then I forward a letter to the FCC (copies of faxes included) asking for action to be taken against the parties.

Eventually a federal law will be passed about spam. Then there will have to be some work to get other countries oboard with mutual enforcement agreements.

Of course, the other option is overhauling how email works. 1/100th of a cent for each email? Sure.

Re:Junk Faxes Too

[Anonymous Coward]

Charging for email will not work. Why? we already have a 'free' system. No one would willingly replace a 'free' system with one that costs money. Yes yes I know the system is not totaly free there are other costs in involved. But it is percieved as free, the other costs are just that 'other'. Add a cost directly associated and no one will use it. Not even the people you target.

Your first method is MUCH more effective. As people selling things these days are SO politicaly correct they squeek. They would never want to offend anyone!

Early response from judge in the case

[Anonymous Coward]

here

Sounds dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an interesting idea, but what are the implications? It reminds the reports we heard at some point that Microsoft might patent, copyright, and/or trademark their protocols. For example, if the file system interface is patented, then Samba would not be able to operate. In both cases, intellectual property law is being abused to prevent access, not to protect intellectual property.

Re:Sounds dangerous

[amcguinn]

Absolutely right. We're all more or less anti-spam, but this is actually a frightening development. The same sort of tricks have been tried before, I believe, for example requiring console game cartridges to print a specific copyright message in order to have them run. I would like to see this lawsuit fail, on the grounds that the spammers are simply "reverse engineering" the interface of the anti-spam tools.

A better mechanism would seek to apply anti-cracking laws rather than IP laws. (I don't know US law, but for example the Computer Misuse Act in the UK outlaws unauthorised access to systems.) If someone could work out the details of a scheme that forced the spammers into breaking that kind of law it would be much healthier than this operation.

The crucial difference is that in this case the purported legal victim is a more-or-less unrelated third party. If unauthorised access laws are being used, then the legal victim is the real victim -- the recipient of the spam, whose systems have been accessed in a manner they do not approve of.

Re:Sounds dangerous

[Steve B]

A better mechanism would seek to apply anti-cracking laws rather than IP laws.

The law should treat any attempt to circumvent an anti-spam filter exactly as it treats any attempt to circumvent any other attempt to keep an unauthorized user out of a computer system.

Re:$100 reward for information about a spammer

[callipygian-showsyst]

Good for you!

I used to own a domain name that was a common word. (I registered it years ago, before the WWW.)

I had to give it up because spammers were forging email from "my" domain, simply because of the common word I had registered.

After spending a few weeks seeing if there was anything I could do about it (I was getting letters/phone calls from idiots (mostly Macintosh users for some reason!) who thought I was spamming them, I just decided to retire the domain.

In a perfect world, the people ruining my good name would be sitting in jail (or dead.)

Re:$100 reward for information about a spammer

[Anonymous Coward]

I would guess offhand the farm porn spammer can defend himself with your usename "Animats"

BTW, he's in Russia. Good luck.

Missed his point

[siskbc]

So, we should all leave our front doors unlocked, and the keys in our car's ignitions just to prevent the crook from having to WORK HARDER to violate our space?

No, his point is that, at best, spam can be solved only for the technologically aware elite who know how to use mail filters and such better than others. His point is that if everyone else learns how to use our tools, spammers will find better tools, forcing us to find yet better ones.

In other words, it's like the old joke about two guys that are attacked by a tiger. One guy puts on his running shoes, and the other guy says "You think you're going to outrun a tiger?!?" The first guy says, "No...I only have to outrun YOU." Point is, the only reason we don't get so much spam in our inbox is that spammers are perfectly fine feeding off of people who don't have our abilities, and I'm not OK with that. As you say, it doesn't mean I'll take off my mail filters, but I don't think anyone was suggesting that.

Ultimately, I agree with him - I think finding a solution that works not only for me but for less capable compter users is a good thing.

And, as he says, eventually the bandwidth problem will be so severe that spam will increase the cost of internet access for everyone, and that, I think we can agree, is bad, and makes spam a problem that is worth solving - ask any operator of an ISP how much of their traffic is spam-related.

Re:$100 reward for information about a spammer

[AndroidCat]

If you want to unleash the experts on the people who joe-jobbed you, you should post this to the newsgroup news.admin.net-abuse.email. Most of the people there would help out just to bag these turkeys. (And some might have a good idea of who they are already.) High noise ratio, but no worse than Slashdot.

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[account_deleted]

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all your base

[wattersa]

One time they told me
All your base are belong to __
Since then I've been scared.

Go, Habeas, go!

[eggboard]

I signed up for Habeas more because I wanted to help essentially fund their ability to sue spammers. I figured it would be a very short period of time before someone violated their trademark and copyright.

If Habeas takes off, then everyone's headers will have Habeas lines in them, making SpamAssassin even more useful. If their spam suit succeeds, then spammers will be too freaked out about judgements to include Habeas headers.

Of course, it won't solve spam, but anything that reduces volume and immunizes email -- spam can't necessary mutate against Habeas's particular immunity -- has a positive benefit.

SpamAssassin now filters out about 95 percent of the spam I used to get. Since installing it in January, I believe I have saved myself several hours of deleting and filtering email, reduced my download time for email when I'm on the road (even headers), and made my email box so delightfully clean.

And I have received not a single call or follow-up from someone whose email wasn't received that should have been. That is, no false positives at a level that I filter to /dev/null.

To borrow an argument...

[Cappy Red]

If you fine the people who advertise improperly, only the people who advertise properly will have spam!

Or something like that. Or is it the cruminals?

*honk*

Re:$100 reward for information about a spammer

[Animats]

A subcontractor for the web designer is in Russia. The money goes to somewhere in the US.

Re:$100 reward for information about a spammer

[AndroidCat]

I didn't think you'd mind, so I reposted your message to nanae. Look for the thread "Reward offered for joe-jobbers!"

I really do think that the fact you're prepared to sue will generate more interest than the reward. (Spammers getting hit by a Big Fscking Mallet 9000 *is* our reward!)

Anyone remimber the IBM secret message in the BIOS

[sequence_man]

Back in the good old days, IBM made a PC, and pretty much only they made it. They put the phrase

copyrighted by IBM (1980)

in the BIOS. This then ended up in the ROMs that were burned on to the boards. When the clones came along, some code started testing to see if it was running on a "real IBM PC" or a clone by looking for this copy right message.

My favorite way of fight back by the clones was inserting a message:

some code expects to find at this location the phrase "copyrighted by IBM (1980)"

Amazing how much two double quotes can change the legal status of a message. I wonder if this can be used as an unfortunate precedence in this situation. I hope not.

Dean

Spam by any other name..

[gmuslera]

The problem is that the spammers NOT use the word spam to describe what they do, they call it "multilevel marketing", "internet promotions" or crap like that. The ones that use that name are mainly the ones that fight against it, and avoiding that they use the word "spam" will make that, well, could complicate things (more people understand what is spam that the ones that understand what UCE means)

We need a new protocol for mail

[infernalC]

Internet springtime
the academics messaged
amongst their boxen

the diverse systems
without the scourge of commerce
by s m t p

cooperated
microsoft and sun and dec
unisys, hp

then came eye candy
if you build it they will come
e-commerce flourished

summertime came soon
venture capital dodo
the money dried up

quick buck was desired
send lots of mail to granny
she is rich and dumb

in greed's bosom born
marketing technique evil
electronic mail

spam spam spam spam spam
filtering is most futile
protocol not good

header forging easy
there must be a better way
new rfc please

even with new way
migration would be a bitch
forget about it

Re:We need a new protocol for mail

[Thing 1]

Great haikus. I would change only one line:

spam spam spam spam spam

to:

spam spam eggs and spam

YHBT.THT.HAND

[Anonymous Coward]

yhbt.yht.hand.

Why this might not be so good.

[mindstrm]

Because.. it's a trademark suit. Trademarks must be defended.

Now. those people actively using this trademark in their emails, do they have a contract with the trademark holder?

If not, what differentiates their use from a spammers use of the mark?

Yes, we know what the trademark holder INTENDS.. but remember, a tradmark is a mark identifying a product or service.. and they must be defeneded, and clearly indicated as a trademark.

Trademark does not give absolute power over a series of words.

If this wins, it could set bad precedent.

Re:Why this might not be so good.

[sharph]

Yes, they do have a contract with the contract holder. They give away the right to use the trademark in e-mails for personal or ISP use.

A better idea...

[Dimensio]

If you kill the people who advertising improperly, they won't be able to hire spammers to do it. Then, if you kill the spammers, they won't be able to spam. Personally, I see that as the ideal solution, but so few agree :(

Re:A better idea...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been quietly thinking this for a long time; 90% of my spam appears to be from the same 15-20 sources. The entire spam problem could be greatly reduced be mailing a few pipe bombs and anthrax/cyanide laced letters to the appropriate sources.

the double quotes did nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

It was determined to be legal to use that phrase merely because it was used as a key phrase and thus it was not copyrightable. The quotes did nothing. Many of the cloners didn't use any quotes.

And yes, this is precdent. See my Sega v. Accolade post below.

Re:$100 reward for information about a spammer

[quintessent]

IANAL, but couldn't you sue "John Doe", and then find out who they are via discovery from their hosts?

Re:$100 reward for information about a spammer

[Animats]

It may come to that, but I have information that some part of the operation is in California, where I am, while their hosting operations are elsewhere. If I can find them, it's an easy lawsuit.

Re:Anyone remimber the IBM secret message in the B

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL, but this is different IMO.

In the former case, this sounds like they were just looking for this text to see if someone blindly copied large portions of the bios. The statement itself probably isn't copyrightable (although it uses a trademark) because it is too short.

In the case of Habeas, we have a "work of art". Not a particularly good work of art, but a work of art. The question of Fair Use of course comes up, but Fair Use wouldn't normally allow quoting an entire poem.

Re:$100 reward for information about a spammer

[meringuoid]

I thought digging spammer dirt was just Shiksaa's hobby. Now she's going to be paid for it.

trademark?

[autopr0n]

Intresting that the people filing the suit don't even understand trademark law. This is a copyright issue, not a trademark one. There's nothing illigal with using someone else's tradmark in a string of text, just using that trademark as a name for your product or service.

I can say "google" all I want, but I wouldn't be allowed to start my own search site called "google"

Huh?

[autopr0n]

it's illeagal for a company to hire someone else to do the dirty work, much like it is illegal to hire anyone to commit crime, and afaik, here even if the company doesn't know they're hiring them to do something illeagal they're still guilty

Yes, they would be guilty, if spamming were illegal. But spamming is not illegal, so you really don't have a point.

Re:Huh?

[zcat_NZ]

He does have a point;

Unauthorised use of a Trademark is illegal.
Unauthorised copying of a complete artistic work such as a Haiku poem is illegal.
Unauthorised use of a Patented method of having your email recognised as not spam is also illegal.

Spam containing the Habeus headers BECOMES illegal not because it is spam, but because it is an unauthorised use of a registered trademark, a copyrighted Haiku, and a registered patent.

That's the whole point. Go read the FAQ.

Re:Huh?

[autopr0n]

Unauthorised use of a Trademark is illegal.

It's not illegal to use trademarked text in other works.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

So why do you often see U*nix, and why do most programming books have notices at the front saying things like "Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corp" etc? I mean, why bother if you don't have to? Why did Infocom's `New Zork Times` have to change it 's name? It wasn't even using another companies trademark!!

Re:Huh?

[zcat_NZ]

Not in this context.

For example, I'm free to mention the word "SPAM(tm)" which is a trademark of Hormel; I can mention the relationship between the SPAM meat product and bulk email. I can mention SPAM in a comedy sketch, although I probably couldn't use a restaurant full of vikings since that's too similar to a previous and still copyrighted work. Or I could sell a recipe book that mentions SPAM as an ingredient, as long as it was clear that the book was not an official publication of Hormel foods.

OTOH if I was selling my own processed meat product under the name "SPAM", I would expect to hear from Hormel's legal department fairly promptly.

Re:$100 reward for information about a spammer

[AndroidCat]

I don't know if she'd take the money. On the other hand, a donation of Godiva might be acceptable. ;^)

spammer vs. spammer

[Anonymous Coward]

the interesting bit is that habeas are still spammers themselves. all they're trying to do is shut down the competition.

Trademark

[autopr0n]

God. Why is it so hard for people to understand the diffrence between trademarks and copyrights. I can use all the trademarks I want as long as I don't use them as my own name or the name of my products/services!

Re:Trademark

[Kylow]

Dude, "copyrighted" is four syllables. Stop being such a buzzkill.

Where's the fraud enforcement?

[swb]

Where's law enfrocement when it comes to fraudulent businesses, anyway? At least half the spam I have is for products that are obviously fraudulent, and some (like untested medical products) that may be illegal.

About the other half is for porn, of which I presume a large precentage are running credit card scams.

The Iraq T-shirts ad may be about the most legit spam I've gotten, but who knows. But I got only one. The other 99 in my bogofilter-current directory are all total BS.

Is it the war on terror or something, or does the federal government just not give a shit about prosecuting fraud?

Re:Where's the fraud enforcement?

[darien]

Is it the war on terror or something, or does the federal government just not give a shit about prosecuting fraud?

It's called being "pro-business." Welcome to the land of the free market. Caveat emptor.

For a different approach, see Guarded Email

[dwheeler]

For a different approach to countering spammers, see "Guarded Email" at: http://www.dwheeler.com/guarded-email

The Habeus approach is interesting, but since they've patented it, they could easily make it the only game in town. In particular, I concerned that they might be able to tax any email sent/received! I'd prefer to see methods where there is no centralized authority. Decentralization removes the danger of a single point of failure (and the taxes that often come from one).

Re:For a different approach, see Guarded Email

[zcat_NZ]

Perhaps they should make it the only game in town; similar to DNS, the usefulness of this technique is diluted if there's an ever-growing number of new antispam outfits all pushing their own trademark and haiku.

And I doubt they would charge for it; the big and easy money comes from sueing spammers. If more people use Habeus and more people filter on it, the mark becomes more valuable and they can claim larger damages when spammers misappropriate it. If there were even the smallest charge for personal use, the mark would become worthless overnight, not because of the cost but because of the administrative effort in paying. Most people would not bother; they'd just stop using it.

It's 5-7-5 syllables, season or nature themed

[spun]

A flower blossoms
Poetry fights evil spam
Fresh spring for email.

Spammers pluck blossoms
good idea wilts like cut
flowers in summer

A golden leaf falls
Harvest time for Habeas
Copyright on poems

Alas, bitter cold
These lawsuits are frozen in
Chinese court system

Re:$100 reward for information about a spammer

[Alsee]

I can be reached at "spammersearch@downside.com". Thank you.

Dear spammersearch,
You can increase your penis size by 1 to 3 inches...

-

Re:Anyone remimber the IBM secret message in the B

[CPgrower]

Attack of the Clones?

Encryption and signature anyone?

[Qbertino]

If they want to get a spammer by the balls this is a good way. If they want to seperate important internal and client mail from junkmail they could do better with the more than obvious:
Digital Encryption and Signing.
There is no problem whatsoever in building a mailserver that only accepts a set of allowed public keys and signatures. All you have to to is train your folks to use encryption (easy: only send encrypted msgs) and convince your clients to jump the bandwagon when mailing to you (aka tell them you only accept encrypted and signed mail and explain to them why). That would make for some quality increase of email culture too.
And if the idea spreads spammers will have a hard time.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:$100 reward for information about a spammer

[frostman]

Ditto what AndroidCat said, but also:

$100 seems a bit cheap, unless you figure someone just happens to know the info you want and will send you an e-mail for the $100.

If someone's going to actually investigate this for you, even online, you should offer a greater reward, even if it's mostly symbolic.

How about $100 plus half of any damages you collect (minus legal fees)?

Or $0 and a free ticket to $WHEREVER_YOU_LIVE and some nice gesture of personal thanks?

Or $500 donated to a good charity in the name of the successful sleuth?

Don't get me wrong, I think you will probably find someone who can help you and will do it just on principle. But if you're going to offer monetary compensation for technical assistance, you should either up the ante or hire a private detective.

Anyway, good luck with your search.

PS: I assume you've already asked Miroslav Karel in Prague...

Re:$100 reward for information about a spammer

[Anonymous Coward]

Common knowlege who they are. It's a gang of Russian child & animal pr0n spammers known as "Seanamedia" & "top555" & "VXhosting" and many dozens of other names.

Good luck ever suing them. Spending that $100 towards a trip to Russian and on some "boys" there who don't care much about breaking geekneck would work better.

That being said, you might be able to get their hosting partners at Eltel.net to rat them out, but I doubt it as bossman Dmitry Samarin (sam@eltel.net) may in fact be part of their operation. He's quite the liar too, so be ready with a big shovel.

If you want to find them in the USA, try their long time US hosting partners and allround scum: Henry Chen, Michael Huang & Joey Odesser of "Surfxpress" (jodesser@sxpress.com) - these twerps are in Hackensack, NJ. BTW, NJ also has "boys" there who don't care much about breaking geekneck - only cost more.

As I find with most big spamming outfits, they are blacklisted all over the place. SPEWS seems to have the most info, but Spamhaus and others have some too. Check these and the links within for enough to get your man, or get your $100 for an out-of-work dotcommer /.er!

spammer info 1
spammer info 2
spammer info 3
spammer info 4

Me? I don't need the $100, I'd blow it all on $5 hookers and crack anyhow.

Last Post!

[alpg]

"Cheshire-Puss," she began, "would you tell me, please, which way I
ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't care much where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...