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Spammers Sue Anti-Spam Groups
SuperBanana writes "The Register reports in a story today that spammers have banded together under the name EmarketersAmerica.org to sue various anti-spam groups- days before a large conference on spam hosted by the FTC(which will be attended by many spammers). Anti-spam groups think the timing is not by coincidence, but believe the move may backfire because they will be able to countersue and get access to spammer's internal documents. By the way, if you're wondering who these guys are, check out Spamhaus's directory of top spammers."
It wouldn't really matter anyway, some other people would simply step up to fill in the void. .45 caliber handgun and about 180 loud bangs. Most of the anti-spam groups seem to view spam as equivilent to rape.
As for what, "spirited off internet" means, I think it involves a
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Think about this the next time you advocate centralizing the Net (in terms of SMTP) on large ISPs in order to "solve" the problem of residental users spewing spam (directly or by relay).
The residential users are annoying because there are so many of them, but if, 10 years from now, the only way you can send mail is to relay through a large ISP's mail servers... who do you think said ISP's best business partners will be?
For an answer to that question look to the US Postal Service's largest customers: The US Federal Government and bulk mailers.
THAT is exactly the business niche that spammers are evolving into. All they need is for users to have slightly less choice and ISPs to have slightly more power to tell their users how the Internet works rather than the other way around.
Push to keep the Internet a network of peers while establishing a system of identity, trust and responsibility (which should in turn also by non-centralized, but rooted on an arbitrary number of certificate authorities and trust databases), and you will do yourself and the rest of the world a large favor!
Okay, I read the first few pages of the lawsuit, and then I couldnt stomach the legalese anymore... I'm not a lawyer, after all...
anyway, the way it sounds is that they are being sued because they sell products/list information that people use to stop the flow of "crap" from these companies. From what I read, they didnt attack these companies, they didnt DoS them, they merely provided tools that people could use to stop spammers from contacting them.
The people that are using these tools probably never would have purchased anything from them anyway, and if they are like most of us, the emails are blocked/auto deleted/instantly trashed when they do get through, so its a moot point anyway.
I think these people are just ticked off because their scummy business is being threatened by people who are intelligent enough to "work the internet", not just "use" it.
thats just my thoughts, I could be wrong...
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
We know which companies sell their email listings, right?
More than a few of us can write a script...
A clandestine server running in an undisclosed location--perhaps a public wireless hotspot--can go forever properly filling out the forms of these companies with complete and total gibberish.
It won't crash servers... nobody will even know until it's pretty much too late and the offended databases are loaded with utter garbage.
Recently, I wrote about passively doing this to spambots. I keep the page on the server for good measure.
My tech articles are geared to a nontech audience so don't give me crap if they sound lame. I don't preach to the choir except when hanging out at Slashdot.
That said, I don't see why this concept can't be expanded. They have no defense against form scripts.
Laws are for people with no friends.
DOS, schmoss. Why the hell aren't each and every one of the spammers' filter-evasion tricks prosecutable under the computer-cracking laws, as they are clearly deliberate actions aimed at bypassing the access security placed on a computer by its owner?
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
- This is an amazing comment on the ineffectiveness of spam.
Only if you don't complete the math. I haven't priced a spam-campaign, personally, but I have seen adverts for software you can "run from home" that retail for as little $75.So let's play a numbers game. Let's suppose I want to sell narfing-irons. I can manufacture them cheaply in India, so I have a good supply, and can make a 60% profit if I sell them for $35 a pair. I want to use a spam campaign, because I know how effective they are. I buy a service for $350, and they will send spam out to 4 million addresses. Just 2% will result in page views. That's 80,000 hits. Let's assume we get a sales rate of .5%. That's right, one-half of one percent. That's 400 sales. Or, total revenues of $14,000. Around $8000 of that is profit, from which my $350 spam-campaign is taken.
And that was only one run of spam. If I run, say, 10 or 12 campaigns from different services, with similar rates of return, my narfing-iron business will net me in the vicinity of $80K-$100K in profit from Internet-based sales alone. And I didn't lift a finger, other than to ship the product.
NOW do you see where they get people who will pay for this service?
Believe nothing, not even if I say it, if it violates your sense of reason -- Buddha