Spammers Threaten Techdirt With Lawsuit

An anonymous reader writes "Found over at Declan McCullough's Politech, some spammers who had been written up in the NY Times found their contact info displayed on Techdirt, after they wrote about the NY Times story. Apparently, someone was trying to pull a Ralsky on the spammers. The spammers got pissed off and threatened to sue Techdirt - even though all the info was publicly available and other court cases have shown it's legal to post spammer's contact information. Techdirt, interestingly, took the contact info down because they feel that no one should get spammed. I'm kind of torn on this one. On the one hand, I respect Techdirt for taking such a stand, but on the other, I feel that the spammers clearly deserve to be spammed back. The fact that they threatened Techdirt, despite them not having done anything wrong (it wasn't even the folks at Techdirt who posted the info - but some readers), makes me even angrier at the spammer."

Comments

You have the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you risk the lawsuit. We all know what American justice is like. I'm not suprised at all, and their decision (to pull the info) has nothing to do with morality, or right and wrong, just common sense.

Re:You have the money?

[frankie]

Then you risk the lawsuit.

RTFA. Techdirt specifically said the threat had nothing to do with their decision, since it was unlikely to happen and even less likely to succeed. They pulled the information out of respect for privacy.

Personally, I disagree. In general, a business has little or no right to privacy; their address is required by law to be public knowledge. IMHO, a business that intentionally intrudes on people's lives deserves none at all. But more importantly, contact information for Alyxsandra Sachs is public, not private:

• Whitepages
• Infospace
• Switchboard

Furthermore: from the NYT article: "These antispammers should get a life," she said. "Do their fingers hurt too much from pressing the delete key? How much time does that really take from their day?"

Between downloading it from our mail server, sorting it into a local folder, skimming the preview, and pressing delete, my office spends a couple thousand dollars a year in salaried employee time. Does that answer your question, Alyx?

Re:You have the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA. Techdirt specifically said the threat had nothing to do with their decision, since it was unlikely to happen and even less likely to succeed. They pulled the information out of respect for privacy.

I don't believe them. You don't risk losing your business/hobby/own money because you, as a non-lawyer, `think` you are `unlikely` to lose.

Re:You have the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore: from the NYT article [nytimes.com]: "These antispammers should get a life," she said. "Do their fingers hurt too much from pressing the delete key? How much time does that really take from their day?"

If it were only the time to delete the spam, I wouldn't be terribly upset. I did a back of the envelope calculation at a previous job and determined that my employer could save money by dedicating 2 people full time to stopping spam if they could reduce it by at least half. However, here are some of the costs of spam:

• I spend time deleting it. That is time I could spend doing more worthwhile things, like flossing the cat. I get to decide what is more important than spam. Any spammer who thinks otherwise can FOAD.
• It takes up space in my mailbox. When I'm down for days because of a storm, I risk other e-mail bouncing because spam is taking up my quota.
• It contains stuff that crashes some older mail clients.
• Spammers forge fake reply addresses. If you lie to me about one thing, everything you say is a lie.

Re:You have the money?

[frankie]

You don't risk losing your business/hobby/own money because you, as a non-lawyer, `think` you are `unlikely` to lose.

Umm... That's exactly what I did . Techdirt's case would have been even stronger, since they merely provided a discussion forum and a 3rd party posted the information.

Re:You have the money?

[minus_273]

ah you mean this:

Sachs, Alyxsandra

112 Catamaran St
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
(310) 578-1728

Re:You have the money?

[www.sorehands.com]

If a company uses a baseless lawsuit to try to shut me up, I become louder.

Bullies should not be allowed to win. By allowing a bully to win, you encourage them to bully others.

Re:You have the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory Monty Python quote:

Come see the violence inherent in the system. Help, help, I'm being repressed!

Re:You have the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

How, then, do you deal with the costs? Seriously. I think I visited your site some years ago, and though you outlined the battle, I don't recall details on how you financially managed your victory.

I've thought many times about setting up a politically unpopular web site. But I'm just scared of having some huge megacorp sneeze at me and destroy my family's existance. I don't make a lot of money (I make about $50k/yr), I don't have much in savings -- my only assets are a 3 pieces of property and a car.

I feel ashamed to admit my cowardice in this regard, but my family's well being takes precedence at this point in my life. I assume many others feel the same way. My only safe course of action right now is to lobby for my ideals (NRA, EFF, and ACLU).

Re:You have the money?

[www.sorehands.com]

In my case, it was a counterclaim so that the discovery for the employment lawsuit was the mostly same for the libel counterclaim.

I did most of the legal research and analysis. Some states provides an anti-slapp statute which provides for a quick resolution to a slapp case.
Casp.net provides a list of state laws about SLAPPs.

Re:You have the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sachs, Alyxsandra

112 Catamaran St
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
(310) 578-1728

Oops, there go some more catalogs. Does anyone know a URL for anynymously reporting random crimes to the california police?

Re:You have the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, it doesn't matter what they SAID, just because they're the 'good guys' doesn't mean they won't spin. They pulled the info because defending themselves (or even just getting legal advice on their options) would probably cost way too much. There you go, the american justice system in action yet again.

Re:You have the money?

[flyneye]

uh it may be a good idea to write
"delete me from your list forever scumbag "
in the subject,should you choose to email them.

Re:You have the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fascinating. I've been stalked relentlessly by a Mr. Michael Sims. He took away my web site, and that doesn't shut me up. It makes me become louder. I am interested in pursuing a civil action against the evil Michael Sims to cover my pain and suffering caused by the loss of my web site. Please e-mail me at sethf@sethf.com or reply here.

Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein

Laughable.

[Tinfoil]

they feel that no one should get spammed

How very naive of them. Why shouldn't the people that force us to take extreme measures for a little bit of privacy, convenience, not be made to deal with the same garbage that we do?

Re:Laughable.

[bwalling]

How very naive of them. Why shouldn't the people that force us to take extreme measures for a little bit of privacy, convenience, not be made to deal with the same garbage that we do?

Because they are idealists, which means that they will never get anything done and they will always be inconvenienced by their ideals. That said, we can all benefit from those who believe so strongly in their ideals since the majority of us are weak enough to compromise our ideals any time it is convenient, profitable, fun, or whatever other excuse we invent.

Re:Laughable.

[Tinfoil]

You know, I hadn't thought of it that way. While it *is* nice to see someone stand up for their ideals, I just finished cleaning some 70 spams that got past Spamnet (Cloudmark). Perhaps I was a little hasty.

Re:Laughable.

[Anonymous Coward]

Having beliefs and living with them are two different things. Convictions mean the most when you can afford them the least.

Of course, what I think is interesting also it that ultimately it is the lawyers that won. Techdirt attracted attention to itself and the issue, the spammers had their information taken down (although I suspect more people will find that information in the Google cache or other websites) and the lawyers got their $500 fee for sending that letter.

Everyone wins, except us.

Every time a website that posts spammer's addresses recieves that letter, they remove it, but ask that some others continue the fight.This could create a model for civil disobedience, where the primary intent is to provide overwhelming numbers of targets that sending all of them cease and desist letters would be financially ruinous.

Just some thoughts.

Re:Laughable.

[Daetrin]

I've always been an eye for an eye type guy myself. If you knowingly commit a crime or immoral act, then you forgo your legal/moral protection from the same. No one complains when a thief gets fined or when the murdering bad guy in a movie gets killed (people get much more worked up about state-sanctioned death penalties, but that's more of a political thing)

If they want to send unsolicited junk mail, either because they think that it's okay, or they don't care that it's wrong, they've got no right to complain about the same thing being done to them, and people who have been spammed by them suffer no karmic penalty for doing so.

Likewise, if the spammers are going to try and claim that the right to free speech protects them, they've certainly got no right to try and sue people who use their right to free speech to tell their friends which incoming email addresses they should block.

Re:Laughable.

[Anonymous Coward]

You should be stoned to death in the streets for disagreeing for your god-king, George W. Bush. If we're going to resort to such savagery as retributory "justice" then I want to see you stoned to death for inflicting us with your stupidity.

Re:Laughable.

[jvervloet]

If they want to send unsolicited junk mail, either because they think that it's okay, or they don't care that it's wrong, they've got no right to complain about the same thing being done to them, and people who have been spammed by them suffer no karmic penalty for doing so.

If people are sending spam to a spammer for this reason, I think they're not very different from the spammer himself. They think it's okay to send unsolicited junk mail (to the spammer), so they've got no right to complain about the same thing being done to them.

If you continue this logic, a spammer has an argument to keep on sending spam.

I think that errors of someone else should never be used to justify one of your own.

Re:Laughable.

[Baron_Yam]

That's bloody brilliant, and you posted as Anonymous Coward???

A Distributed Civil Disobediance Attack! DCD!

However, I'd suggest that everyone post it immediately after the first C&D and create all the targets right away. By the second iteration, you could hardly have any credibility claiming you were mirroring the original article without knowing about the original C&D. I suspect that would cause problems in court if the sender of the C&D decided that more than a C&D was in order.

Re:Laughable.

[poot_rootbeer]

No one complains when a thief gets fined

But do we let the victim into the thief's home and let them pick out something to keep?

or when the murdering bad guy in a movie gets killed

In the movies, murdering bad guys usually don't have families that care about and love them. In the real world, they do.

Your analogies are weak.

Re:Laughable.

[LarsG]

If people are sending spam to a spammer for this reason, I think they're not very different from the spammer himself.

I beg to differ. The anti-spammer is only sending mail to spammers, not to the rest of the world.

I.e. "By sending unsolicited email to me, you accept being added to my spamback list."

The difference is opt-in vs opt-out.

Re:Laughable.

[Daetrin]

But do we let the victim into the thief's home and let them pick out something to keep?

We return the stolen items to the victem and/or give them some cash, and let the thief figure out what to sell to come up with the cash, so? How exactly does that relate to the question at hand? An eye for an eye is a metaphorical example, and even people who believe in the general idea don't insist that it be carried out in an exactly literal way for every case.

In the movies, murdering bad guys usually don't have families that care about and love them. In the real world, they do.

So it's okay to murder people as long as you make sure you have a loving family first? I'd feel sorry for said loving family, i'd also feel sorry for them if they became destitute because of huge damages levied against him in a civil trial, and i'd feel sorry for them if they never got to see him again cause he got sentenced to multiple life-times in jail. That doesn't mean however that i think that if criminals have people who will regret the punishments levied against the criminal, perhaps even totally innocent people, that they shouldn't be punished, which is what you seem to be suggesting.

Your analogies are weak.

Your's are nonsensical.

Re:Laughable.

[Daetrin]

If it truly is retributory justice, shouldn't i just be subjected to someone else's "stupidity"? It's an eye for an eye, not an arm and a leg and your head as well for an eye.

Personally i think having Bush as my unelected "god-king" is more than punishment enough thank you very much. It certainly meets the stupidity requirement in my opinion.

Re:Laughable.

[Warlover]

In the movies, murdering bad guys usually don't have families that care about and love them. In the real world, they do.
===
well yeah, but fuck 'em.

Re:Laughable.

[maxpublic]

It doesn't matter how well liked a murdering bad guy is. The very fact that he murdered makes him fair game. We might let a court system decide whether or not he's truly guilty, but if he is then he deserves nothing less than death.

An eye for an eye sounds just and equitable to me, not to mention very, very satisfactory.

Max

Re:Laughable.

[Buggernut]

In the movies, murdering bad guys usually don't have families that care about and love them. In the real world, they do.
Then they too are at fault for sticking behind such garbage.

Re:Laughable.

[Buggernut]

What's more, why should they feel any guilt about any unaffiliated third parties spamming them using the information they have provided? They didn't actually do the counter-spamming themselves. They just made the information available to the public, which is in itself not a crime nor a sin, and kept their hands off of the rest.

Heck, even if these spammers got murdered by some crazed anti-spam vigilantes using the information they released, they should still feel no guilt because of it. They should instead cheer loudly, knowing fully well that something good was accomplished without having to pull the trigger themselves, and not let any misguided conscience cost them any sleep at night.

Re:Laughable.

[poot_rootbeer]

An eye for an eye sounds just and equitable to me, not to mention very, very satisfactory.

Those who think this end up blind.

Re:Laughable.

[Alsee]

Because they are idealists

LOL, spammers are idealists? And you got modded to 5? The correct word is HYPOCRITES. They are complaining about getting bombared with unwanted messages, yet that is EXACTLY what they do. That is hypocricy.

-

Re:Laughable.

[SoSueMe]

That's great until lawyers start sending their letters in the form of "Bulk Solicitor E-mail" (SCRAM?).

Re:Laughable.

[WebMasterJoe]

This whole "eye for an eye" thing assumes that the world is much more perfect and fair than it is. I suppose you can rationalize this idea as something that is "fair," but life wasn't meant to be fair. If you are innocently driving down the street when you are cut off by an inconsiderate driver, how do you react? Do you announce that this person is an asshole, then tailgate him or her? Do you do anything to harass this driver in the same way that you feel you were harassed? If so, then you've lost the "battle." You've allowed yourself to get angry (and most people would rather be happy than angry), and put yourself at risk of getting into an accident. Did that other driver piss you off? Wait until you rear-end him because you were so angry. Then you'll be mad and humiliated.

The key is to realize that everybody loses in a battle. You shouldn't waste your own time trying to make others miserable, because at best you'll break even (you spend time, and derive some pleasure at somebody else's suffering). At worst, your plan for revenge backfires (as is often the case) and you end up angrier at your target, as well as angry at yourself and anybody who may have assisted in screwing up your plan.

You have to realize that the world is not fair, and the best thing you can do is direct your efforts toward your own happiness, not somebody else's misery. It may be wrong for a spammer to flood your inbox, but all you have to do is find something else that makes you happy. Revenge is typically a waste of time, and just opens yourself up to more trouble. Go queue up some good music, chat with a friend, have a tasty snack, drink a tasty beverage, or, if it's your thing, spark up a joint. Dwelling on the bad people takes away from time you could spend being happy.

Re:Laughable.

[Tim C]

No one complains when ... the murdering bad guy in a movie gets killed

Perhaps that's because it's not real?

There's a hell of a difference between a demonstrably guilty movie bad guy being killed by the hero, and a real-life person being executed.

Re:Laughable.

[Anonymous Coward]

An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind. -gandhi

Re:Laughable.

[jvervloet]

I.e. "By sending unsolicited email to me, you accept being added to my spamback list."

This is indeed a justification for you to send spam. But I guess all spammers think they have a justification to send their unsolicited emails. This illustrates that there are `good' and `bad' reasons to send spam.

I guess you are able to decide yourself wether a reason for sending spam is good (e.g. spamback list) or bad (e.g. making money from spam), but I'm not sure everyone on the Internet is.

That's why I think no one should send unsolicited emails for wathever reason, because people who don't see the difference between `evil' and `other' spam can use your behaviour as an excuse to send spam themselves. (They shouldn't, but they will.)

Re:Laughable.

[LarsG]

But I guess all spammers think they have a justification to send their unsolicited emails.

unsolicited adj : not requested; "an unsolicited nomination" [syn: {unsought}]

I'm not advocating the use of spamback lists, but I think there is a difference between people who use spiders to harvest mail addresses and people who make a list of people they have received uce from.

That's why I think no one should send unsolicited emails for wathever reason, because people who don't see the difference between `evil' and `other' spam can use your behaviour as an excuse to send spam themselves. (They shouldn't, but they will.)

The sticky point is determining what is unsolicited and what isn't.

If you send me an offer for viagra, you obviously seek a business relationship with me. If I send you an offer back, is that really unsolicited?

Which spammers?

[gbjbaanb]

So, just out of idle curiosity you understand, who were these spammers that threatened the legal action?

Re:Which spammers?

[christoph_s]

it would be great if someone posted their addresses here - talk about going from bad to worse... i'd rather be flooded by the techdirt- than the slashdot crowd ;-)

Re:Which spammers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alan M. Ralsky
6747 Minnow Pond Drive
West Bloomfield, MI 48322

The reason you're torn...

[DoofusOfDeath]

It's very much like capital punishment, or the "eye for an eye" rule in the Old Testament. The normal way out of this connundrum is a follows: What makes a certain act wrong, normally, is that a party without the proper authority does it. I.e., it's more OK for a judge to send someone to jail than for you to. Same thing in the Old Testament. You can't just go around killing other people, unless it's doing so to uphold a law established by God. So in this spamming scenario? If it's not breaking the law, then retribution at *least* seems just.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Eric Ass Raymond]

If it's not breaking the law, then retribution at *least* seems just

Law is not supposed to grant retribution.

The law should protect the society by preventing people from harming the collective and not cater to the base human instincts like the hunger for revenge.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[spot35]

If the whole world acted upon "an eye for an eye" then everyone would be blind.

I think I've paraphrased a little and I think the original quote comes from Ghandi or someone similar.

In other words, anyone can commit a crime but only a certain few can punish said crime. I know that's a little facetious but in practice it does alleviate anarchy.

The parent isn't flamebait, it's insightful.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[DoofusOfDeath]

I'm curious how you justify that the law "should" be for such-and-such a purpose.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Surlyboi]

If the whole world acted upon "an eye for an eye" then everyone would be blind.

Ah, but in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man
is king!

Moral? You get one eye poked out, hide out and wait
for the poking to stop, then declare yourself king.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[hesiod]

> I know that's a little facetious but in practice it does alleviate anarchy.

A bit of a nitpick here, but...

It does not alleviate anarchy... Having the "ruling force" is the opposite of anarchy. That's like saying not having any symptoms alleviates SARS.

Also, just because Ghandi says something does not make it right or even insightful. If the whole world acted upon "eye for an eye" we wouldn't have an overpopulation problem. If everyone actually feared retribution for anything they did, they would be less likely to do those things. Therefore, the first generation may become blind, but the undesireables would be gone. So, eye for an eye, IMO is a very valid philosophy, assuming equality of punishment for crime and not lashing out radically.

Plus the whole world is blind.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Eric Ass Raymond]

Pure utilitarianism: whatever is the most logical course of action. Revenge via proxy does not benefit the society as a whole and is counterproductive in the long term.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am no biblical scholar or anything, but doesn't "eye for an eye" come from the Code of Himerabi (Hamerabi or some similar spelling). I do not think it says anything like that in the Old Testament :^)

Re:The reason you're torn...

[PerryMason]

Law is not supposed to grant retribution.

Well you'd better tell that to all the justices over the years who've awarded exemplary damages.

Exemplary damages are awarded in addition to general damages, where the court wishes not only to compensate the victim of a tort, but to punish the defendant. They are also known as punitive damages or retributive damages. The court is more than happy to award retributive damages and cares not a whit for the motivation of the applicant.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Eric Ass Raymond]

Well, in my mind retributive damages are wrong in principle and also in practise since they encourage people to sue each other just in the hope of getting rich.

You got beaten up? Have the perp pay your hospital and general recovery bills. "Pain and suffering" is subjective, ill-defined and too easily abused and should therefore not entitle you to any compensation.

Joyriders trashed your new car? Have them buy you another one and meanwhile compensate for the immediate costs of having to live without a car (i.e. cover the costs for your essential transportation).

Someone killed your friend/family member? Lock the bastard up for life.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[fredklein]

If it pisses the spammers off to the point they see the light and quit spamming, it sure as hell DOES benefit sosiety!

Re:The reason you're torn...

[fredklein]

If the whole world acted upon "an eye for an eye" then everyone would be blind.

BULLSHIT!

I absolutely HATE it when people say this. It is patently FALSE. The only groups who would be blind are the victims (who would be blind in any case) and the criminals. The rest of us (non-victims and non-criminals) would be just fine.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[FearUncertaintyDoubt]

OT reference: Exodus 21:22 "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [5] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

Leviticus 24:19 If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him: 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured. 21 Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death.

Deut 19:16 If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime, 17 the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the LORD before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. 18 The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, 19 then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you. 20 The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you. 21 Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

New Testament reference: Matthew 5:38 "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'[7] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

The nature of the "eye for eye" in the OT was not one of personal revenge, but of defining appropriate punishments to be handed down by lawful authorities (i.e., the courts). What Jesus was referring to was the idea of taking the law into your own hands, and doing it out of a sense of revenge (justice's ugly cousin). It is also interesting that the OT seems to have the harshest words for people who commit perjury.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worth pointing out that the "eye for an eye" notion of the pre-Christian era was superseded by the "love your neighbor" idea.

We've come a long way since "eye for an eye." I think many people would do well to make a note of that.

(Incidentally, capital punishment is not based on the notion of an eye for an eye. You're off the mark there.)

Re:The reason you're torn...

[beanyk]

Hear hear. Punitive damages as they're done now are stupid. Punishing the offender if they've shown excessive hubris in their actions might be OK, but there's no good reason it should go to the [I]victim[/I] after some minimum level. Anything above that should go to charity, or the public coffers. If this happened, litigious plaintiffs wouldn't be so quick to chase ridiculous awards.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Anonymous Coward]

Note: Spam is not a societal problem. It is a minor inconvenience of modern life. Let's try to keep at least a tenuous grip on our senses of perspective, mmm-kay?

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the whole world acted upon "eye for an eye" we wouldn't have an overpopulation problem.

We don't have an overpopulation problem. Some small areas of the planet have a limited overcrowding problem, but we have no overpopulation problem. That's kind of a modern-day myth.

That point aside, though, there are lots of solutions to this notional overpopulation problem that we on the whole would find unacceptable. Eating babies (thank you, Mr. Swift) would solve the (imaginary) population problem, but we would never do it. (Not unless we reach a point of depravity where we can no longer rightfully call ourselves "human," that is. Which is evidently a possibility.)

So arguing that so-n-so would limit our population doesn't mean a damn thing one way or the other.

If everyone actually feared retribution for anything they did, they would be less likely to do those things.

We have adopted the idea of proportional punishment. Ever heard the old saying, "Let the punishment fit the crime?" There is a good argument against this practice. A wildly disproportionate response to a perceived offense will guarantee that that offense does not occur again. This is sometimes referred to as the "house-train a dog by cutting off its head" theory.

But we reject the idea of the wildly disproportionate response no matter how effective it appear on paper. We prefer to live in a society where the punishment fits the crime.

Therefore, the first generation may become blind, but the undesireables would be gone.

Ah, yes. The old "let's get rid of the undesireables" rallying cry. A fine idea in theory. But it fails because we, collectively, really suck as being able to distinguish "the undesireables" from ordinary, regular people.

Plus the whole world is blind.

Not really. Just you, mostly.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Anonymous Coward]

The rest of us (non-victims and non-criminals) would be just fine.

If you honestly believe that you've never been either a victim nor an offender, then you're living in a dream world.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[manonthespoon]

So if I get beaten up... I should sit idly by? Forgive? Assuming I'm hurt seriously enough to need to spend time in the hospital, they likely exerted more then a reasonable amount of force. Even if you start a fight, that rarely justifies someone beating you until you end up in the hospital. At that point, it's not a fight, it's assault.

Hell yes, if joyriders trash my car they can certainly at least pay to fix it up. That is in the unlikely event that I know their name, address, phone number, etc and can make them.

Someone kills MY friend or family member they'll be lucky to be locked up for life, god forbid I get my hands on them.

You seem to be having difficulty seperating RETRIBUTION and RESPONSIBILITY. If you do something, you are responsible for the consequences. If someone punches you in the face and in return you break his leg and a couple of ribs, be prepared to spend some time in jail, or pay his medical bills. If you commit a crime you deserve to be punished. We live in a society that gives you rights, and with those rights comes responsibility to others. There is a point, possibly where someone has killed another person where simply killing the killer makes little difference or sense(it's just more death, you can't bring back your friend or family member now can you.) In terms of medical bills, repair costs etc, that is simply a case of someone being responsible for abridging someone elses rights.

In this case I think that those people who feel like spamming the spammers have a good idea. It's essentially a way of taking the protest directly to the spammers, and it get's this argument on whether spamming is criminal into public forums.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[fredklein]

If I am or ever was a victim (ie- had my eyes poked out), I'm already blind.
If I am or ever was an offender (ie- poked out someone elses eyes), I deserve to be blind.

And no, neither actually applies to me, so what's your point?

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Anonymous Coward]

My point is that you're full of shit.

It's all well and good to sit back in your comfy chair (or whatever) and say that a judicial system based on brutality would only affect "them" and not "us," but it simply isn't true. Ever exceeded the speed limit? Ever crossed a street against the light? We're all criminals in one way or another. But our society embraces the idea of proportionality. If every teenager who ever shoplifted a pack of gum from the bodega were to have his hands cut off, we'd be living in a world of amputees.

So unless you're prepared to be the first person to step up and accept your wildly disproportionate "eye for an eye" punishment, shut up.

And if you are, I, being a person heavily laden with sin, will happily volunteer to cast the first stone.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[BlueGecko]

The other thing I'd add is that, at least for the Exodus verse, the Hebrew translated here as "take" actually means more like "put in the place of"--i.e., monetary restitution. I'm too lazy to look up your other two quotes, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the same thing.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Elbereth]

And if you break copyright law, you will accept your punishment without whining? Maybe you should be punished for the mental anguish your music and software piracy caused Lars Ulrich and Bill Gates, respectively.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Alidar]

I'm sorry but I think if we were cutting off the hands off shoplifters I would hope most people would be smart enough not to shoplift.

Oh, that's the point of a justice system....

Re:The reason you're torn...

[2short]

If every teenager expected their hand would be cut off for shoplifting, they probably wouldn't shoplift. Why do lot's of people flaunt certain laws (speed limits, jaywalking)? Because they are not enforced.

I've been to a country where they cut off your hand for stealing. I didn't notice any amputees. But my father accidentally left his wallet behind in plain view on a busy street. It was still there the next day.

I'm not arguing for amputation justice, but if there was a hefty fine for speeding and loss of license on say the second offense, and cops pulled over speeders at every oportunity, would we all be walking? No. We just wouldn't be speeding.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[fredklein]

It's all well and good to sit back in your comfy chair (or whatever) and say that a judicial system based on brutality would only affect "them" and not "us," but it simply isn't true.

Yes it is. With "them"= 'those that hurt others' and "us"= 'those that don't'.

Ever exceeded the speed limit? Ever crossed a street against the light?

Both of those are victimless crimes. No victim 'blinded', no need for the one who broke the law to be 'blinded', either.

?But our society embraces the idea of proportionality. If every teenager who ever shoplifted a pack of gum from the bodega were to have his hands cut off, we'd be living in a world of amputees.

Firstly, that's not necessarilly so. *I* don't steal- do you?
Secondly, this is a Strawman argument. The topic at hand is "an eye for an eye", not "lop off a hand for a pack of gum". YOU are the one ignoring proportionality.
A teenage gum-pack theif should have to give back the gum (or pay for it), and then be penalized the equivelent of an extra pack of gum. A pack of gum for a pack of gum.

So unless you're prepared to be the first person to step up and accept your wildly disproportionate "eye for an eye" punishment, shut up.


YOU are the one who thinks "an eye for an eye" means "lop off the hands of theives", and you tell ME my ideas are "disproportionate"?!?

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. A fucking libertarian. Shut the fuck up now, okay? You're an even bigger idiot than I originally thought.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe. But there are two big problems with that idea.

One: it would be impossible to enforce such a brutal law the first time. It's simply unfair.

Two: nobody would accept a society where proportion is given so little consideration.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Slime-dogg]

That's usually what most anti-Christians say. The fact is that the majority of Babylonian literature came from Jews. The oral histories, for instance, are very very close, but the narrative contained within the pentateuch are much more accurate than anything from Babylon. Since Moses wrote the first two books, it goes to show that the Jewish culture was the one to be cloned.

Interestingly enough, they were also the ones that were subjected to slavery the most. It's not the first time, however, that the masters have adopted the oral histories of the slaves.

The epic of Gilgamesh is a corruption of Noah's ark. The Babylonian version of the Exodus are completely lacking, while the Biblical version has yet to be proven wrong.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[rifter]

Spam is not a "minor inconvenience." It most certainly is a societal problem. It is an outgrowth of the synthesis of several other problems in our society, and in act the most extreme form of some of them. It is an unwanted advertisement for false goods which to add insult to injury the end-user ends up paying for. Right now there is a serious deficit in IT jobs, but companies are paying billions of dollars on spam. Wouldn't it be nice if they could spend that money on more workers?

Spam is so bad right now it accounts for over 50% of email handled by a lot of providers. It accounts for significant amounts of total internet traffic. Now think about that, spam and kazaa take up pretty much the whole internet. Why do you think these are areas ISPs are starting to focus on?

Spam has at times caused smaller companies' mail servers to crash. When the white house mail server crashed because it took in too much mail a few years ago, I wonder how much of that mail was spam? Great so now spam is keeping us from contacting our government.

People have been trying to point out since the beginnings of the commercial internet (and actually somewhat before that time) that spam was a monster that would just grow and grow and get worse if we do not address it "real soon now." Well, here we are at a stage where many billions in my and your tax dollars and internet fees and cable fees and telephone charges are going not to improve education, not to fund the rebuilding of Iraq, not to try and fix the big fucking potholes in the interstate highway system, but instead, to pay for the actions of spammers, some of whom (the Nigerian money spam) might just be linked to al qaeda. (The Nigerian money spam predates the Internet actually, and is linked to powerful multinational Nigerian gangs who I would not be surprised if they dealt with al qaeda, if only to get more heroin.)

So it's not just a "minor inconvenience." Paying $100 for the Nikes made by asian kids who don't get $1 a week is a minor inconvenience. Spam is a serious problem. :P

Re:The reason you're torn...

[st0rmcold]

You hit the nail right on the head, and you still don't understand.

Imagine a plague of small time theives, shoplifters, they pick on certain stores all the time and it hurts their business as well as drives prices up.

You run a store that dosen't get hit, but you feel the effect a bit cuz the society as a whole is affected, but not all in the same way.

Now imagine you run one of those stores that gets hit, and you lose alot of money, it's not just an effect, it hurts you at the core of your business.

See how perspective can be defined? Just because YOU in your life are not affected by spam as much as neihbor is, some people are in fact affected by this, and through a larger scale, so their perspective of it is far worse than yours, so stop seeing life through your plain eyes and see the big picture, just because your perspective dosen't rank spam on a high priority, it dosent mean others are in the same situation.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[2short]

Brutal? Losing you drivers license for driving recklessly is brutal and unfair? Hell, I even said it should be on the second offense.

People accept societies where they cut off your hand for stealing, which is certainly (IMO)disproportionate and brutal. You don't think they can accept a society where speed limit signs are meaningful? It's unfair to have repercussions for breaking the law? The current system is unfair. Speeders are ticketed so infrequently, it's chalked up as random misfortune, and whether you get ticketed is mostly about how good you are at talking your way out of it. You can't very well expect people to have respect for law in general when nobody takes certain laws seriously. Speed limits should be abolished or enforced; the current system is like some parents I know who continualy tell their child "don't do that" but make no real effor to stop them, and there are no repercussions. The child quite reasonably ignores everything they say.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[Anonymous Coward]

If every teenager who ever shoplifted a pack of gum from the bodega were to have his hands cut off, we'd be living in a world of amputees.

How is an eye for an eye disproportinate? If I steal $100 I pay back $100 in fines or community service. That would be an eye for an eye. Your scenario is more like an eye, arm, leg and kidney for a finger nail.

Re:The reason you're torn...

[fredklein]

So, what's YOUR answer to what to do with a thief? It's easy calling other people names (whether or not they fit), but hard to actually think yourself.
,

Spamassassin helps.

[popeydotcom]

But it irks me to have to maintain this stuff, just so I don't get a gazillion spams a day.

Maybe we should just resign ourselves to having to treat spam like viruses. Fixing the symptoms and not the cause.

It's a sad fact of modern life...

[JessLeah]

...that all it takes to bring virtually any effort to a screeching halt is for somebody with more money than you to threaten a lawsuit. At that point, whammo, you have to stop what you're doing.

When you are a small site, or an individual person without a tremendous income (read: everyone short of a CEO), that basically means "any company, or even individual, can threaten to sue you, and there goes whatever you were working on."

This seems to be a rather disturbing new part of our market reality.

Recall the DeCSS case. Several dozen named defendants, and several hundred "Does", were threatened in court by the DVD-CCA, acting as a representative of the interests of some of the largest companies on Earth. Whammo, most of the people capitulated, the courts bowed to the pressure of the RIAA's fat pocketbooks, and the DVD-CCA's will became law-- DeCSS is now effectively "illegal". Cases like this spam one seem to be the result of "trickle-down" thinking-- or as Star Control 2 would have it, "dribble-down"-- whereby smaller and smaller companies begin to adopt the same nasty tactics.

Let's face it-- if you run a small and/or non-profit site, and if some company or businessperson with lots of money (or even a moderate amount of money) makes a credible threat to send in the lawyers, you're at least as likely as not to give in to their pressure. It's simple survival instinct-- no one wants to get sued, especially (A) in this economy and (B) by someone with much fatter coffers than themselves.

What this is leading to is a situation where the rich can effectively (and, as close to possible, directly-- about the only more direct way would be to put a gun to one's head!) force the poor to do whatever they want. No laws (legal, moral or otherwise) really seem to touch the really "big fish" (RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft, etc.), and they get away with a slap on the wrist-analogue at worst; now, even smaller entities like these spammers can effectively throw their monetary weight around to silence dot-bomb-impoverished techies running innocent sites.

I fear that this trend will become far more pervasive, and will get far worse before it gets better. If it ever gets better... I personally do not believe that the current Powers That Be in the US really care that much about "the little guys" getting spurious lawsuit threats every time they do something someone Richer-Than-Thou happens to dislike...

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[black mariah]

Maybe I'm just stupid. If someone threatened me with a BS lawsuit like that my response would be three simple words. Bring it on. I have the time to fight crap like this. The problem isn't one of money. It's one of inclination. Are you willing to put up with a ton of BS for a long time to prove yourself right? Personally, I am. Then again I'm an annoying little bastard that's stupid enough to act as my own lawyer.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[selderrr]

I agree with you, but compare this to the situation in the past : 100 years ago, we had the same issue with industrialists. 200 years ago with big farmers vs small farmers. 300 years ago with big guns vs small guns.
Don't pretend this to be the disease of the 21st century just because we're using the law instead of money or guns. And then again, the laws have always been bent by the guys in charge.

While i don't approve of it, it seems to be the nature of the human beast. It's amazing how we haven't exterminated ourselves.

As a side note : i find the way Berlusconi is CEO of Italy far more frightening than what the US is doing. After all, we europeans excpect US politicians to be puppets in the hands of the big corporations. But Berlusconi is a whole other matter.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why we should all ditch the WWW and go back to USENET and BBSs.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[surprise_audit]

Recall the DeCSS case. Several dozen named defendants, and several hundred "Does", were threatened in court by the DVD-CCA, acting as a representative of the interests of some of the largest companies on Earth. Whammo, most of the people capitulated, the courts bowed to the pressure of the RIAA's fat pocketbooks, and the DVD-CCA's will became law-- DeCSS is now effectively "illegal".

I realize this is wishful thinking, and way too late, but what do you suppose would have happened if the various DVD-player-for-Windows software houses had taken that lesson to heart and declined to produce their players? Would the sudden lack of legal players for Windows have had a noticeable effect on the MPAA? It would certainly have had some effect on their potential market, but would it have been enough?

Ah well, too late now. And anyway, it would only have required one software house to not give a damn...

BTW, do any of the legal Windows DVD players work well in Linux?

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Rick.C]

Let's face it-- if you run a small and/or non-profit site, and if some company or businessperson with lots of money (or even a moderate amount of money) makes a credible threat to send in the lawyers, you're at least as likely as not to give in to their pressure. It's simple survival instinct-- no one wants to get sued, especially (A) in this economy and (B) by someone with much fatter coffers than themselves.

The issue here is your "comfort zone." If you, a geek, start talking tech in a threatening way to your techno-phobe neighbor, he's not going to argue with you or try to fight back. He's out of his element. Same with a geek who is being intimidated by someone who is law-savvy. We tend to cringe, apologize and hope they go away. The fact that they might be able to hurt us financially makes us take their threats seriously. If they did the same thing to a lawyer they would probably get a far different response.

Think about it - you and you neighbor have a little spat about a fence or a barking dog or something. You threaten to "route his Roadrunner connection through your proxy sniffer and VPN his DoS to every kiddie-porn site in the country." Imagine the expression on his face. What are his options? Hire a techie to defend himself? That costs money. He doesn't even understand what you said, except that it sounds bad and you sound serious. He's gonna fold.

What we really need to do to stop this legal-bullying is to get more familiar with the law.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Anonymous Coward]

Berlusconi isn't a puppet, he's a puppet master. He doesn't represent big business interests, he has the same interests.

Damn italian people can be dumb sometimes. Hopefully this war thing will come back and kick him in the ass.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[CausticWindow]

More like a sad fact of modern US life.

Anyway, according to the Techdirt folks, they didn't consider a lawsuit when taking this down. Quote:

Please note: we did not remove this info due to the threat of the lawsuit, but simply because we think spam, of any nature is bad. Even if it's against those who practice it on others. I, also, am not sure what sort of lawsuit they could level against us. We did not do this to "play it safe" - because I don't believe there's a real threat. We did this (after some internal discussion on the matter) because we thought it would set a good example.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[JessLeah]

Not to be dismissive or offensive, but this sounds like a polite way of covering up their shame at their (PERFECTLY RATIONAL) fear of a lawsuit. The fact of the matter is that spammers, as a group, have lots of money; TechDirt (I think) does not. You don't have to be an Einstein to be afraid of the spam-scums, when they routinely buy those fancy big houses in Florida with the pools with their ill-gotten money...

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[CausticWindow]

If this is indeed how americans view their legal system, then I think it's time for them (you) to do something to change it.

It's one thing that your only measure of quality of life is wealth, another one entirely that relative amount of money is the only thing separating right from wrong. While the judicial system is no absolute in right vs. wrong in theory, it is in practice.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[JessLeah]

It's mighty easy for someone (an American or otherwise) to throw that idea around, and terribly difficult to actually make it a reality.

The sad fact of the matter is that there hasn't been an effective widespread protest movement since the '60s here in the US. And there won't be any time soon.

The apathy of the American population is growing, not shrinking. Attempting to motivate them to protest anything at all is an exercise in futility.

Not to be a pessimist, but... that's how I see it. YMMV.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[selderrr]

read my post : i said But Berlusconi is a whole other matter.


thats' why i'm so afraid of the situation. In the usa, you know that the bigshots can be kept happy by keeping the public quiet and the bigshots rich. Berlusconi gives the impression that that isn't eonough for him. I mean, the guy is a fucking billionaire ! He's stinking rich. He doesn't need to be prime minister to achieve power & wealth because he allready had those BEFORE he went into politics. The guy is quite hard to pinpoint on the political field.

he does remind be though of a few illustrous 'politicians' 70 years or some ago...

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Zoop]

Which is why lawyers, if they are officers of the court, should be court employees as well, and free to anyone who wants them.

This of course will mean they are civil service rather than high-flight professional jobs, but will democratize access to legal representation. Since it won't be he-who-has-the-best-lawyer-on-retainer wins, it will be a much chancier thing to threaten a lawsuit.

It might even make people take a deep breath, step back, and think whether we really need 1/5 of our economy or more to be tied up suing one another.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Textbook Error]

The guy is quite hard to pinpoint on the political field.

It's not that hard - wherever you are, just look over to your right...

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Jerf]

The apathy of the American population is growing, not shrinking. Attempting to motivate them to protest anything at all is an exercise in futility.

I disagree, the problem is not apathy but how out of touch the wanna-be protest organizers are with America.

Of course anti-war protesters, many of whom cut their teeth in the 60's, couldn't mobilize America as well as they would have liked. Most of America saw right through their outrageous lies and bombastic rhetoric. (Hint: No matter how many times you saw it, you will not be convincing the public that Bush is a Nazi. Just ain't gonna happen.) The wanna-be protesters were so out of touch with reality that even many genuinely anti-war people wouldn't be caught dead at one of their abortive rallies; just because you're anti-war doesn't mean you want to be seen protesting next to the communist* party, white supremecists, or anti-Semites. (I wish I was exaggerating, but those groups made up a large portion, if not the majority, of the protesters you saw, and they were responsible for organizing nearly %100 of them. This is documented, so if you disagree with me, go look it up, read the facts, and change your mind.)

On the other hand, convincing people of something legitimate, such as over-powerful corporations, might not be so difficult if you can concentrate correctly on just that issue and resist letting the toxic leftists participate, and promptly hijacking the platform and turning it into just more leftist noise to the people of America. ("The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is very untrue; start thinking that way and your enemy's enemy will do more damage to you then whom you are technically against.)

It's also worth pointing out that protests should be seen solely as a vehicle for getting onto the news and communicating with the people, to make your issue an issue in the next election. By and large, protests are a weak forum to actually get anything done, they're much more useful as agenda-setters. (For instance, while protests may have given dark-skinned people official civil rights equality, look how many protests it took. Each protest did not accomplish much, for protests to effect direct action it takes a lot of them... and it did take a lot of them, big ones at that.)

And you must always be willing to face the possibility that no, the people aren't on your side and they just plain disagree with you, not because of apathy or any other frankly insulting ideas like that. This is another thing that wanna-be protesters seem to have a problem with.

Frankly, until the 60's-era wanna-be protesters are bumped out of the position of organizing these things, and some more realistic folks start organizing on some more tightly focused issues, the protest movement will remain dead. I wouldn't mind participating in an anti-corporate power movement, but if you want my help it's going to have to be focussed. I won't demonstrate next to Communists, anti-Semites, or white supremecists, and I won't demonstrate on a flat anti-corporation platform either; corporations aren't inherently evil, it's their protection on equals as people and their excessive power that's bad, not the idea of people grouping together and trying to make money.

*: By the way, if you've made it this far into the twenty-first century and unless you've been totally blinded by their rhetoric, you should realize that communists belong right next to the anti-Semites and white supremecists on the evil scale. At the beginning of the 20th century one could be an honest communist without being evil, but advocating a political system with a cumulative death toll in the hundreds of millions is just evil now. Whatever accusations those people might be legitimately able to lay at the feet of capitalism absolutely pale in comparision to what their political philosophy is directly and undeniably responsible for. If they were halfway honest people they'd be protesting against Communism themselves. If the US government directly killed as many of its own citizens as Communism has, the US would be dangerously close to completely unpopulated...

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Anonymous Coward]

You chose a bad example. DeCSS was a piracy tool, and it should have been illegal. If you want to illustrate the inherent injustice of a judicial system based on the tradition of civil equity law, then you should probably avoid picking examples where that system worked splendidly.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Anonymous Coward]

what do you suppose would have happened if the various DVD-player-for-Windows software houses had taken that lesson to heart and declined to produce their players?

I don't understand. Why would they have? People who produce a licensed product with the permission of whomever controls that product don't have a single thing to worry about. It's only the people who break the rules that have a problem on their hands.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a clue for you: the least-common-denominator approach means equal suckage for all.

It might even make people take a deep breath, step back, and think whether we really need 1/5 of our economy or more to be tied up suing one another.

People have conflicts. That's part of life. Would you rather they solve them through a civil institution with a centuries-long tradition of fairness and impartiality, or would you prefer we go back to the bad old days of gangsters and sabotage and mob hits?

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Dylan Zimmerman]

Well, if all of the companies that produce Windows DVD player software decided not to make it, then there would be tremendous market pressure on the MPAA to retract their opposition to DeCSS. I dont know about everyone else, but several of my friends and I never watch DVDs using dedicated players. We all use our computers because our computers have much better soound systems.

Anyway, getting back to the topic, if all of those companies had done that, then they wouldn't have to deal with MPAA licensing, and would, therefore, have higher profits or lower costs.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[JessLeah]

Gee, AC, you sound an awful lot like a lawyer for the MPAA. Nice try. Come out and show yourself please. The DeCSS source was eventually adapted into precisely what many (including myself) had hoped it would end up in-- A Linux DVD player. Yes, player. Not ripper. Not pirates' tool. A player. That's all anyone wanted.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, AC, you sound an awful lot like a lawyer for the MPAA. Nice try.

Hmm. I thought you were better than that. I'm disappointed.

DeCSS source was eventually adapted into precisely what many (including myself) had hoped it would end up in

"Was eventually adapted into." You hit the nail right on the head there.

Let's consider two things. In the one hand, we have a DVD player. Any kind of player; it doesn't matter. A hardware player, or a hardware/software player. Whatever. In the other hand, we have DeCSS. Let's compare them.

The player reads the data off the disc, decrypts it, displays the decrypted data, and then discards the decrypted data. DeCSS, on the other hand, reads the data off the disc, decrypts it, and writes the data to disk.

And writes the data to disk.

Go back and read that again, because I want to be absolutely certain that the point is well understood here. DeCSS is not a player. When used on an encrypted DVD, it creates an unencrypted copy of that DVD on the user's hard drive. The user can then do whatever he wants with that unencrypted data.

That's why DeCSS had no right to exist. It's sole and only use, no matter what the alleged intentions of its author, was to create unencrypted copies of encrypted works. That's all it did. That's all it was for.

All the stuff about Linux DVD players is secondary, and irrelevant. First of all, the DVD CCA would have happily licensed the CSS decryption algorithm to anybody who wanted it. They have since done so, and there's a licensed software DVD player for Linux. But more importantly, DeCSS was not, in and of itself, a player. It was a decryption device, and nothing more. To say that it "was eventually adapted into" something legitimate misses the point.

DeCSS was nothing more or less than a tool for the unauthorized decryption of encrypted content, an act that is illegal under Title 17 of the United States Code and a whole host of other bodies of law.

Unfortunately, the world is full of small-minded people who think that continuing to distribute a prohibited device is somehow okay. There's really nothing anybody can do about that, I guess. It's part of the perverse side of human nature to selfishly do whatever one wants no matter whether it's right or wrong and no matter who might be hurt by it.

It's disappointing, thought, to see that a person of such obvious intelligence as yourself has bought into the crypto-anarchist propaganda. I really wish you'd take a step back, examine the facts, and think for yourself instead of simply believing what the EFF or whomever tells you.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if all of the companies that produce Windows DVD player software decided not to make it, then there would be tremendous market pressure on the MPAA to retract their opposition to DeCSS.

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts... how does that go again?

There is no reason for anybody to refuse to make DVD playback software. You call the DVD CCA, talk to somebody in licensing, fax them back a few forms, and you're done. All nice and legal, and totally standard procedure to anyone who has ever licensed anything.

I dont know about everyone else, but several of my friends and I never watch DVDs using dedicated players. We all use our computers because our computers have much better soound systems.

Yes, there are people like you out there. Not many. A few. Most of you are college students-- or even younger-- who have essentially no disposable income anyway. You are, to the commecial world, effectively irrelevant.

Anyway, getting back to the topic, if all of those companies had done that, then they wouldn't have to deal with MPAA licensing, and would, therefore, have higher profits or lower costs.

Uh. If "those companies" had "done that" then they wouldn't have a product to sell, so their profits would have been precisely zero. Granted, their costs would have been lower. It's always cheaper not to do business than to do business. But that's hardly justification for shutting down your business, is it?

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[JessLeah]

I've not bought into any sort of propaganda. When I first became acquainted with DeCSS, I saw it as precisely what it was-- a program written for Windows which decrypted a DVD. A "proof of concept", if you would, demonstrating how to decrypt a DVD, and providing the code (small, neat and efficient) to do so. It obviously was not going to help any real "pirate" much, since the "pirates" already had many other ways of duplicating a DVD (and the really serious ones, I've heard, actually have the technology to simply duplicate the entire disc, using the same "stamping" technology the movie companies do to make "the real thing".

At the time I found this code, I did not have any Windows machines. As such, it was useless to me as a program. I only found its source useful-- useful as a possible future source of a DVD player application for Linux. At the time, I was using an ancient cabinet-mounted television and a set-top DVD player to play my DVDs; nevertheless, I had installed a DVD-ROM drive in my computer prior to going all-Linux, and I wanted to be able to use it.

So I posted the thing on my Web site, in the hopes that some hacker, more clever than I am in the ways of multimedia and device I/O, would use the DeCSS source as the core of a nice new DVD player program for Linux.

Fast forward perhaps a month. I received an emailed nastygram from the DVD-CCA's lawyers. Not only did it tell me to take down the mirror (which I did), but it told me (in overwrought legalese, of course) that they were particularly miffed at me, since I had disregarded a previous notice which they had sent me in the past.

A previous notice which I never received. And searching through my inbox (which typically holds several dozen THOUSAND messages, as I'm one of those ditzes who never deletes anything until I run out of RAM to hold the spool in), I could not find it.

I eventually signed a consent injunction to get out of the suit. Which in and of itself was an exercise in frustration. They wouldn't take me seriously over the phone until I had my boyfriend take the phone and demand the attention of someone who could actually help me obtain and sign the "chickening out" forms.

Then I got to take a nice visit to the DVD-CCA's lawyers in Manhattan, where I sat in their ridiculously outsized lobby for what must have been an hour. Finally, as I was finishing counting the number of tiles in their floor (well, just about), I hear "Hello, Ms. (lastname)?" I answer; great! Someone's ready to talk to me.

And of course it's an assistant to an assistant to an assistant of the understudy to some secretary who does part-time work for one of the lawyers' brothers on alternate Tuesdays. He takes the forms, repeatedly tells me he isn't involved in the case, can't answer any questions, etc. etc. etc.

I leave, disgusted, and thankfully have not heard any more from them.

I suppose the moral of all of this is thus: The DVD-CCA, the people who turned "DeCSS" into a dirty word and "legal Linux DVD player for desktops" into a myth (and incidentally, the legally licensed Linux DVD player you mentioned DOES exist... however, it's only available to embedded device manufacturers. Not terribly useful to, say, an end user. So, yes, it exists, but no, you can't have it! Great.), are an immensely powerful organization, and think nothing of threatening and frightening small individual citizens like myself to obtain their goals. They are much like a larger version of these spammers-- using their considerable money and power to frighten people and organizations much smaller and weaker than themselves. Where I come from, we call such behavior "bullying".

But I digressed a bit from my story about DeCSS. Perhaps some summary is in order, so as I'm already tired from all this typing (and need a Tums as I'm getting a bit of indigestion from recounting this whole unpleasant experience), I'll bullet-point what I have to say.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[invid]

Anyone should be able to legally distribute whatever information they have legally purchased to anyone else.

Here's why.

In order to make people stop distributing this information, the government is going to have to do one of two things:

Choice 1: Rein in the wild internet and make it easy to monitor who sends what to whom. They could change the actual architecture of the internet and force people to register with the government in order to get online.

Choice 2: Only catch the biggest and baddest distributors, and the occasional little distributor, but make the punishment so severe that it will discourage everyone else. This was the kind of thinking that led to the British hanging people for stealing loaves of bread in 18th century London. Crime is rampant, you can't catch them all, so scare the pants off the rest.

The government is trying choice 2 right now, but it may eventually move to choice 1 if it (I mean its financial contributors) feel that the people are ripping them off by not paying through the nose for legal entertainment.

What it comes down to is that any legal means to prevent people from distributing information will lead to greater injustice than that of the distribution of copyrighted information. Now, I bet you're saying something like If everyone was running through the streets killing and looting, should killing and looting be allowed to happen because it will take martial law to stop it? My answer is that martial law under those circumstances is (hopefully) a temporary solution, while the loss of freedoms in order to save the money of those with copyrighted material will have to be permanent.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Anonymous Coward]

A "proof of concept", if you would, demonstrating how to decrypt a DVD, and providing the code (small, neat and efficient) to do so.

Uh. No. DeCSS wasn't a "proof of concept." It was a decryption tool. It actually decrypted an entire DVD. It created a copy of the DVD that had no encryption on it. It removed encryption from an encrypted work.

This isn't "proof of concept" type stuff. This is "burglary tools" type stuff.

It obviously was not going to help any real "pirate" much, since the "pirates" already had many other ways of duplicating a DVD (and the really serious ones, I've heard, actually have the technology to simply duplicate the entire disc, using the same "stamping" technology the movie companies do to make "the real thing".

It's not practical to transport entire DVD's over the Internet. They're too big. DeCSS made it possible for pirates (kids, mostly) to re-encode DVD's into more highly compressed formats to make them suitable for transport over the Internet, a la Napster. DeCSS served NO purpose other than to remove the encryption that prevented that very act from taking place.

The DVD-CCA... are an immensely powerful organization, and think nothing of threatening and frightening small individual citizens like myself to obtain their goals.

Translation: the DVD CCA will act when its rights are violated.

Where I come from, we call such behavior "bullying".

Where I come from, we call it "protecting your interests," and failing to do it is not only unwise, on the part of a publicly traded corporation (which isn't exactly what we're talking about here) it's criminal.

The DVD-CCA banned DeCSS entirely, when they should instead have banned the use of any tool (including but not limited to DeCSS and its derivatives) to pirate their movies.

DVD CCA didn't ban DeCSS at all. They don't have the power to do that. They're a private institution, not a legislative body. They sued the individuals who created and distributed a tool that had no useful purpose other than to facilitate piracy, as was their right.

You can use knives to cut up steak or to kill people; surely no one believes knives should be banned because they have possible evil uses. Same thing with the DeCSS source.

No, not the same thing with the DeCSS source. We allow people to have knives because knives have significant legitimate uses. We ban assault rifles because they have NO significant legitimate uses. DeCSS had no significant legitimate uses, so it was entirely proper that those who created and distributed it should be stopped from doing so.

But I do recall that when the New York DeCSS case was progressing, no one was able to find any evidence that pirates were actually using DeCSS in their piracy.

Once a DVD has been converted to a QuickTime or a WMV or whatever, it's impossible to tell what software was used to do it. The standard in that situation was unreasonable.

For every person who'd want to use DeCSS to pirate DVDs and sell them, there are a thousand who'd want to use it to simply trade them for free. (Still illegal, but in my book far less odious)

So what you're really saying here is that the continued availablility of DeCSS would, indeed, have contributed to the epidemic of widespread casual piracy that has swept the world in the past few years? It doesn't really matter whether you think casual piracy is "far less odious" or not, it's still illegal and wrong, and any tool that serves NO USEFUL PURPOSE other than to facilitate an illegal act has no business existing.

For every person who'd want to use DeCSS to trade decrypted DVD rips for free, there are a thousand who'd want to use it to simply play DVDs. That is why projects like LiVid and Mplayer exist.

So use one of the MYRIAD ways of playing DVD's that are not based on piracy tools. Buy a $50 DVD player. Use one of the HUNDREDS (maybe even thousands) of software DVD players out there. Simply saying, "Naw, we don't wanna use the licensed devices that work far better, we'd rather use devices that depend on a piece of software that also lets people pirate DVD's" is just absurd. Selfish, and absurd.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[maxpublic]

Money and power make the law in every country, not just the U.S. Any country in Europe is just as much a whore in this regard as America is.

This system isn't new; it's as ancient as civilization itself. What's happening in America is the same thing that's been happening in America and all over the world since time immemorial.

And protests change nothing. At best they manage to oust one powermonger and replace him with someone a bit more intelligent and a bit less obvious. The movements of the Sixties did nothing to improve this country, and in case you haven't noticed the very same protesters are now Boomers happily electing anti-liberty politicians and passing anti-freedom laws just to buy themselves the illusion of safety. These former radicals are more invested in the status quo than their parents ever were.

The 'apathy' of the 'average American' (read: anyone in Gen X or younger) is entirely due to the fact that the system resists all attempts at change, and everyone who is older and already 'has theirs' is actively assisting the system to crack down on anyone who wants change. Change = danger to the power structure, and is therefore evil if you're already set and happy with things just the way they are.

Max

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[maxpublic]

While much of your post made sense, your rabid anti-communism makes you look like a loon.

The so-called 'Communists' in the former Soviet Union and modern-day China are actually fascists. Their economic systems have nothing whatsoever to do with communism. Most intelligent people recognize there's a huge difference between the communism-as-theory and communism-as-rhetoric. The Soviet Union and Communist China were, or are, communist in name only. Their use of 'communism' is nothing more than a propaganda tool.

So if you're a reasonably intelligent sort you can indeed be a communist without backing the fascist propaganda states of the Soviet Union or China. It's really quite simple.

Equating little-c communists with Soviet or Chinese Communists is just plain ridiculous. The two have nothing to do with one another.

Max

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Jerf]

When you take enough cracks at something, and you fail miserably every time, it becomes time to question the value of what you are advocating.

I don't care what the Chinese or the Soviet Union "really" were, not to mention all the other communist states over time. Everybody claiming to be communist and creating a state has created a horror, many of which did decay into fascist states in short order. The logical conclusion is that communism leads directly to fascism, because the whole philosophy is so very wrong in almost every conceivable way that it's impossible to even implement partially correctly! Communism is built from step one on a fallacious model of a human being; to understand how fallacious compare it to Adam Smith's model, and compare how successful the predictions were. The reason nobody's ever build a "true communist state" is that such a thing isn't possible with our species, and this isn't an idle philosophical debate, either, because when it fails, it kills. Millions.

To think that communism will work, ever, if we just "try harder" is to be blinded as I was talking about. Communism sounds great but history shows, over and over and over again, how well it works. It requires extreme denial to believe that it will ever work, denial of the kind that requires shutting off your intelligence to believe.

To advocate communism at this point in history is madness. Communism-as-theory leads directly to what you call "communism-as-rhetoric", without fail, over and over again. It boggles the mind that people still want it.

(Extreme capitalism has its own problems too; as I mentioned in my post I wouldn't mind participating in an anti-corporate-power demonstration. But it pales to the evil of any given communist regime in the history of man.)

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[JessLeah]

You said:

"No, not the same thing with the DeCSS source. We allow people to have knives because knives have significant legitimate uses. We ban assault rifles because they have NO significant legitimate uses. DeCSS had no significant legitimate uses, so it was entirely proper that those who created and distributed it should be stopped from doing so."

This is an opinion. And whether or not your opinion in this matter happens to be shared by the DVD-CCA, by a lawyer, by a judge, or by the President of the United States, it remains an opinion. My opinion differs, and my opinion is that DeCSS did have a "significant legitimate use"-- actually, two of them.

USE 1: To decrypt DVDs to the hard drive under Windows on a "dual-boot" system; the user can then reboot into Linux to play them using whatever MPEG player they wish.
USE 2: As a proof of concept, a useful font of critical decryption source code, and an inspiration for creating a Linux DVD player by showing that decryption of the CSS algorithm is not only possible, not only feasible, but trivial.. The instant I laid eyes on DeCSS, I knew that if anything would lead to a Linux DVD player (legal or otherwise; my only wish was to play my legally purchased DVDs, and any question of "is the MPAA happy with the particular player software I am forced by lack of alternatives to use" is moot), it was DeCSS itself. Ultimately, I was correct; numerous DVD player packages for Linux/Unix were released based, in part, on the DeCSS source. Had Jon Johansen not created DeCSS in the first place, none of this would have been possible. Instead of having a number of illegal, unlicensed ways to play one's legally owned DVDs under Linux/Unix, there would be no way at all. I consider the current situation preferable to this unfavorable alternative, albeit still highly odious.


You also said "Use one of the HUNDREDS (maybe even thousands) of software DVD players out there.". Here, I must again question whether or not you are a MPAA (or DVD-CCA) "astroturfer" or another sort of cretinous troll. Are you deaf, or simply not listening? THERE ARE NO LEGALLY LICENSED DVD PLAYER SOFTWARE PRODUCTS FOR LINUX, with the sole exception being products for EMBEDDED SYSTEMS ONLY, which my computers are not, and licensable to EMBEDDED SYSTEMS MANUFACTURERS ONLY, which I am not, and licensed IN BULK ONLY, which would render the whole rot completely moot as for the cost of licensing LinDVD for the 1,000,000 embedded Linux boxes I don't own, I could just as easily buy 10,000 brand new set-top DVD devices.

The only person in the past who has ever told me (incorrectly) that there is a product I could buy, right now, legally, with a DVD-CCA-approved license, to play my DVDs under Linux... was a DVD-CCA member himself, attempting to convince me that, in a great many words, "There's no problem here... move along." Needless to say, he was incorrect, as are you.

Again, repeat after me: There is no legally licensed DVD player for Linux desktops (or laptops or servers or "workstations" or whatever you choose to call "computers that are not embedded systems and are actually used by Ordinary Joes and Ordinary Janes to do their Ordinary Work in the Real World"). Period. End of story. So please stop spreading this nonsense about legal DVD players being available for Linux. They are not. I have already done my homework and came away dejected, disgusted and depressed.

Am I "selfish" to desire the ability to play a legally purchased DVD on the operating system of my choice? Perhaps, though again, that is your opinion. Certainly it would not be hard to argue that, since the Constitution and the United Nations both fail to guarantee my right to choose whatever operating system I wish to utilize my legally purchased products with, I have no such right. In a legal sense, I suppose you are right. Nevertheless, this is the real world, and in the real world, people don't give a

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[maxpublic]

The logical conclusion is that communism leads directly to fascism, because the whole philosophy is so very wrong in almost every conceivable way that it's impossible to even implement partially correctly!

That's bullshit. No one has ever attempted to implement anything even remotely like communism. The Soviet Union, China, and Cuba are simple fascist dictatorships that have used the rhetoric of communism without applying any actual communism whatsoever.

BTW, I'm not a communist, I'm a Randian libertarian. I think real, marxist communism is extreme bullshit idealism without any grounding in real-world human behavior. But I recognize, quite clearly, the fundamental difference between a dictator claiming communism and an actual attempt at communism, and the latter has never happened.

By your reasoning if these societies had instead claimed to be 'democratic' and 'capitalism', any person claiming to be a capitalistic democrat who tried to institute such a society would invariably be nothing more than a monster prepped to kill millions. Oh, wait....

Max

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Zoop]

Yes, but then it is equal suckage. Now it just sucks for 50%.

I would love it if there were an institution with a centuries long unbroken tradition of fairness and impartiality, but unfortunately the tort system ain't it.

It has become notoriously unfair and partial, in addition to being simply ludicrous at times.

So maybe people could not take every conflict to court in the hopes of winning the lottery, and maybe companies would find something other to do than suing to keep their business model afloat.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Anonymous Coward]

Now it just sucks for 50%.

Oh, of course it doesn't. The vast majority of Americans never have a problem with the legal system. Hell, the vast majority of Americans never even interact with the legal system above the level of a speeding ticket or an episode of Law & Order.

You really have no idea what you're talking about. Our system works far better than you seem to think it does.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Doug Neal]

This isn't "proof of concept" type stuff. This is "burglary tools" type stuff.

OK. I'm lost. Please explain what is being stolen here and who from?

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Kobun]

I was in Rome for the Rally for him, the night before that election. Now THAT was a wild party. :)

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Dylan Zimmerman]

I know all of that. I was just pointing out what my original post's grandparent was trying to say.

As for the part about me not having disposable income, how else do you think that I got a hideously expensive audio system? I have plenty of money that I could spend on DVD players, but I don't want them. I simply have no reason to own one.

Re:It's a sad fact of modern life...

[Zoop]

I have plenty of ideas about what I'm talking about. And even if you don't directly get sued, you still get screwed: the price you pay for things reflects litigation costs, especially "protective" legal services vis a vis liability, trademark, patents, regulation, and taxes.

Additionally, our environment gets thousands of tons of extra packaging dumped back into it each year because some idiot laced some Tylenol with cyanide. Sure the safety hue and cry is not the legal system's fault, but the fear of lawsuits for any company that doesn't immediately take ineffective steps to put their product in blister packs is.

And the threat to free speech is quite real, go read chillingeffects.org for a second, would you? Then you can go back to your law books and plan a career tracking me down and suing me to the ground for disagreeing with you.

sounds like spammers can't take their own medicine

[prmths]

This type of story is too common lately. Spammers get their emails discovered, the address is posted and they whine and bitch because they get spam. How about all of us get together and compare notes on which spams we get, find the responsible party and get busy on 'em. After all we are 'hackers' are we not? I'm sure that within the slashdot crowd lies the potential to really deal a blow against spammers. heh
we should launch the friggin holy war of tech against spam.
we have bayesian filters, RBL lists, white lists.. all sorts of tools that only attack the tip of the problem. We all need to get together and destroy the many bases of spam. The US government has its war against terror. We nerds should launch our war against spammers. We are just as capable to fight this war as the US is to fight theirs.

good plan

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a good plan, anybody still has the names?

we can take justice in our own hands ... every slashdotter could send them a friendly message, and post their names on every single newsgroup know to man,

of course preferable something with porn ..

post here?

[Anonymous Coward]

What would happen if information was posted here?

Or perhaps post it to Usenet and then post the link to the Groups.Google archive here?

Techdirt is in the US? What happens if the info is posted on a server in another country. They have to realize that they can't win in the long run.

Re:sounds like spammers can't take their own medic

[worst_name_ever]

We all need to get together and destroy the many bases of spam.

I thought that the war for all the bases wasn't scheduled to start until A.D. 2101...

Re:sounds like spammers can't take their own medic

[prmths]

that'd be 'all your base' ;)

"all your spam are belong to marklar"

Two wrongs don't make a right.

[Joe the Lesser]

Or as Ghandi said, after awhile, an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right.

[Angry White Guy]

Then we start on the ears!

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right.

[nurightshu]

That's true -- Mohandas Gandhi favored ten eyes for an eye. When the Nawab of Maler Kotla issued an edict demanding ten Muslims dead for every Hindu killed in the state, Mr. Nonviolent-Resistance gave it his blessing. Oh, and let's not forget the fact that up until World War I, he was just fine being an officer in the British Army (fought in the Boer Wars and the Zulu wars). Or that he let his wife die because he didn't want her to receive a penicillin injection to fight her pneumonia (hey, the guy had his principles). Of course, those principles didn't extend to refusing the quinine that saved his life when he was suffering from malaria.

Not to jump all over you in particular, Joe, it's just that I'm sick and tired of everybody talking about Gandhi like he wasn't a total dick. I mean, Christ, the guy told the Jews that they would be better off killing themselves than resisting the Nazis.

Sources: Richard Grenier's article "The Gandhi Nobody Knows," published in the March 1983 Commentary, and William L. Shirer's Gandhi: A Memoir (1979).

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right.

[Joe the Lesser]

I admit I don't know shit about Ghandi(sheesh, I guess noone's perfect), but I do like the quote because I hate hypocrisy.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right.

[nurightshu]

Like I said, it wasn't a personal attack on you. I just think that Gandhi getting all preachy about revenge is a freakin' riot. You know, "Pot, this is Kettle. Kettle, Pot..." I hate hypocrisy as much as the next guy (and I'm guilty of it myself sometimes), but Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, nobody who sanctions ten murders for every one should be allowed to look down on Lex Talionis.

Sorry if it came off like I was bashing you -- that really wasn't my intent, and I'm usually harmless.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post is quite ironic after all the spam I get from ghandi.net. Their policy even says they don't take action against the spammers they hid. Yes, I reallize ghandi.net isn't connect with Ghandi the man.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right.

[fredklein]

BULLSHIT!

I absolutely HATE it when people say this. It is patently FALSE. The only groups who would be blind are the victims (who would be blind in any case) and the criminals. The rest of us (non-victims and non-criminals) would be just fine.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right.

[manjunaths]

When the Nawab of Maler Kotla issued an edict demanding ten Muslims dead for every Hindu killed in the state, Mr. Nonviolent-Resistance gave it his blessing.

This was statement has been taken out of context, he said "unless I demonstrate that nonviolence is more effective?" at the end. Which actually meant that if 10 muslims killed for every hindu then it would lead to more bloodshed and people may atleast learn from that. He was not exactly "blessing" the Nawab of Kotla and I think the Nawab of Kotla was a muslim. So the above poster's remark does not make *any* sense.

Oh, and let's not forget the fact that up until World War I, he was just fine being an officer in the British Army (fought in the Boer Wars and the Zulu wars).

Ofcourse! he was exactly a normal person like the rest of us, who gave up all his worldy possessions and involvement at a time when his involvement in this world was complete (wife, kids, great job et.,). He demonstrated "unattached work" the ability to be involved in this world and live in it and still be a monk. (Complicated I can't explain it here, read the Gita if you are interested or even the bible...)

Or that he let his wife die because he didn't want her to receive a penicillin injection to fight her pneumonia (hey, the guy had his principles). Of course, those principles didn't extend to refusing the quinine that saved his life when he was suffering from malaria.

This above sentence is wrong on so many levels. He considered the hypodermic needle, which is invasive, as an instrument of violence. This may be an extreme intrepretation, but it was his intrepretation. And quinine is taken orally so it is not violent. The other idea was at that time Indians were boycotting British Goods as a form of non-cooperation movement. Penicillin was a British product.

I don't have the contexts the other quotes from the above poster so I am not going to comment.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Or as Ghandi said, after awhile, an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.

Why don't you post your e-mail address here and see if you feel that way in a week?

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right.

[fredklein]

The only people who beleive "an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind" are those who would be made blind under the rule. Not the victims (who would be blind no matter what punishment was given to the criminal) - the criminals.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey shit for brains you already posted that.

Re:sounds like spammers can't take their own medic

[Anonymous Coward]

If this happens, watch how quickly every tool you "hackers" create to wage your "war" upon the spammers gets subverted and used against you. Very soon you are exactly the same as the spammers themselves and meanwhile the average users gets caught in the contest of who has the largest penis....

Re:sounds like spammers can't take their own medic

[Angry White Guy]

The problem with this is, especially during this market, it is difficult to authorize IT purchases. Companies are watching their pennies, and additional hardware and software purchases fall to the bottom of the list.

no.

[Unominous Coward]

Two wrongs don't make a right. If we are to take a stance against spammers, we have to practise what we preach, and that means that we don't spam anyone.

If somebody punches you, do you punch them straight back? Do you think doing so would leave you with any credibility?

"An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind".

Re:no.

[UnknownSoldier]

> If somebody punches you, do you punch them straight back?
That depends if he has friends with guns. :)

> Do you think doing so would leave you with any credibility?
Depends.

So a burgular breaks in and punches you. You beat him up enough so that he flees. The wife is happy because now your home is safe. You gained credibility for not being a wimp.

Re:no.

[Zebidiah]

" Two wrongs don't make a right. If we are to take a stance against spammers, we have to practise what we preach, and that means that we don't spam anyone. " We don't. We just sign them up for spam. They'd be doing it to themselves.

Re:no.

[spot35]

Agreed, two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do...

Re:no.

[ReTay]

Signing them up for free catalogs is hardly the same thing. Makeing them pay for it would be an eye for an eye. Most people have to pay for their access correct? In some countries access is metered. Mabey theft is not exactly right for the end user part of spam but it still costs you money.
Some food for thought.
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id =20011128

Re:no.

[Anonymous Coward]

"An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind".

The originator of this quote obviously didn't understand the philosophy behind "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". It's a little thing called "the punishment should fit the crime".

It's sad to see wisdom lost for the sake of a witty one liner...

Re:no.

[DeanT]

The originator of this quote obviously didn't understand the philosophy behind "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". It's a little thing called "the punishment should fit the crime".

Right. The "eye" saying would more correctly be understood as "Only an eye for an eye." Biblical scholars tend to agree that the intent was to limit the severity of the retaliation to the severity of the offense.

DeanT

Re:no.

[maxpublic]

If somebody punches you, do you punch them straight back?

No, I pull out my .38, point the barrel right between the son-of-a-bitch's eyes, and say "you want to try that again?"

When threatened with violence, the production of a firearm has never, in my experience, resulted in an escalation of that violence. In fact, the assholes who're being violent seem to discover pacifism quite quickly, as well as the location of the nearest available exit.

This works well for me. If it doesn't work for you, well then, don't punch me.

Max

Re:no.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that a wrong? If someone punches me, yeah, I'm going to beat them down. You're trying to equate self defense to going around and punching other people. Just because some asshole punches me, even if I punch back, doesn't mean I'm going to be some random punching asshole as well.

Re:no.

[Pig Hogger]

Agreed, two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do...

Not in Boston, mate, not in Boston...

So the only question is...

[autopr0n]

How long untill their info shows up in this slashdot thread?

Re:So the only question is...

[ReTay]

Less then 10mn not to bad... Heh

the motto

[VanillaCoke420]

"Let me spam in peace," or
"I hate spam, please let me spam you"

an eye for an eye

[jadriaen]

"An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth."

In general I really don't believe or support this principle, but in the case of spamming spammers, it is really really tempting.

they're missing it

[muyuubyou]

What's wrong with showing their contact information to everybody?

For instance, I would benefit those rich guys so much by offering some business opportunity in Nigeria I'm into.

Ah, praise the lord for those helping guys, always wanting to inform you about the latest and greatest offers, and refusing to accept anything in exchange...

There is no question that they deserve it.

[Baron_Yam]

That if spammers had what most slashdotters considered a fully-functional mind, the old "giving them a dose of their own medicine" routine would wise them up.

Since spammers seem to have selective ethics at best, all we can really do is enjoy them drowning in their own kind of filth for a while without the warm fuzzy that they're actually learning their lesson.

I firmly believe that people who engage in anti-social behaviour that negatively affects their social group should be subjected to appropriate retribution from the affected group... I'm very disappointed that as I post this, I have yet to see someone suitably sleuthful track down and post the censored information.

The BEST way to stop spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks, spammers are the messengers. You can shoot them all day and the spam will keep coming.

The target must be those who hire the spammers. After all, spammers are doing this for the money. No money, no spam.

Target the spammers income stream.

Re:The BEST way to stop spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

Best way to do that is to clobber the sites they direct you to, DDOS style.

Re:The BEST way to stop spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

You can shoot them all day and the spam will keep coming.

True, but what a fun day that would be!

Re:The BEST way to stop spammers

[vadim_t]

No, we have to go after both. What you suggest is something like going after the person who hired an assassin and leave the assassin go free because he was doing it for the money.

I know this isn't a very good analogy, but the point is: Everybody involved in commiting a crime should suffer the consequences. Not just who paid for it.

Re:The BEST way to stop spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

Great.

Now I'm envisioning the commercials with the Bambi-eyed teenagers saying "I helped waste bandwidth"... "I helped clog thousands of mail servers worldwide"... "I helped send penis enlargement ads to my grandmother".

"Where do spammers get their money? If you buy drugs, some of it might come from you."

shudder

Thanks.

Re:The BEST way to stop spammers

[Idarubicin]

The target must be those who hire the spammers. After all, spammers are doing this for the money. No money, no spam.

But if current spammers are grossly inconvenienced, their costs to do business will go up. That cost will be passed on to the people who hire the spammers. (Guess what--spammers don't send junk email just for kicks. They're in it for the money.)

If spamming becomes unpleasant enough for its practitioners, they'll have to price themselves out of the market just to try to break even. Fewer companies will hire them, and we can go after those organizations through other means. Right now there are too many companies who will hire a spammer--we need to make it too expensive to do so.

Re:The BEST way to stop spammers

[Steve B]

Folks, spammers are the messengers. You can shoot them all day and the spam will keep coming.

If spamming were properly prosecuted (i.e. any attempt to bypass filters were punished under the existing computer-cracking laws), then the risk of spending the next 5 years in prison would impel spammers to either quit or raise their prices beyond what the typical chickenboner quack can afford to pay.

Okay, bring 'em on

[chazzf]

Alyxsandra Sachs
112 Catamaran St
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292-5769
(310)578-1728

Sue me. I'm a poor college student with plenty of free time and malicious friends. Make my day.

Re:Okay, bring 'em on

[I)_MaLaClYpSe_(I]

W00h000!

Has anybody written that "DOS via SnailMail Skript" yet that Bruce Schneier mentioned in his last Cryptogram? It would come in kinda handy right now.

Im talking about this DOS Attack Via US Postal Service /. thread...

Also, if someone could please verify that address belongs _really_ to a known spammer. And an email address would also be cool.

Re:Okay, bring 'em on

[Omkar]

Since this guy doesn't like "opt-in" spam, or information on valuable oppotunities, say it with mail-bombs.

Re:Okay, bring 'em on

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent. I am generally not one in favor of forms of destructive retribution (death penalty, etc.) but in the case of spam I will sell my ideals out.

I think that the more often this happens, the more likely that some of the small fish will be scared away; but unfortunately I don't think this will help stop some of the biggest spammers who go to great lengths to keep their identities secret. To stop them, I think the best thing we can hope for is legislation.

Re:Okay, bring 'em on

[akadruid]

in case anyone lacks the imagination, some good places to start might be:
Free Catalogues!
Free Samples!
Free Magazine Trials!
my favourite:
Free Serenity Pads!
and a load more here...
Free Stuff! More Free Stuff! More Free Stuff! More Free Stuff! More Free Stuff! More Free Stuff! More Free Stuff! More Free Stuff! More Free Stuff! More Free Stuff!

A free gift for anyone who signs him up for more than 100!! Just post your address...

It is our duty to reward them for making a stand for spammers everywhere. These free items will come in handy for filling the extra space in those big houses.

Re:Okay, bring 'em on

[Anonymous Coward]

How about his web page (offline so it is a google page.)
I love google

http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:oROkYmh-m8I C: www.netglobalmedia.com/+netglobalmarketing&hl=en&i e=UTF-8

Re:Okay, bring 'em on

[Anonymous Coward]

You wouldn't happen to owe the *AA $98 billion would you?

Re:Okay, bring 'em on

[Thagg]

Now, I'm wondering what address checks from spam customers get sent to. If that physical mailbox was overwhelmed by, oh, free catalogs or something, then Alex wouldn't be able to get paid. That would be terrible, wouldn't it? A tortious interference with Alyx's business it would be, no question. How is Alyx going to make a living if each check from the customer is lost among a sea of snail-spam?

thad

from google

[Anonymous Coward]

http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:5ZxgA2bz1tUJ: www.techdirt.com/articles/20030424/2023243_F.shtml +techdirt+spammer+times+site:techdirt.com&hl=en&ie =UTF-8

and

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20030424/202324 3_ F.shtml

not the original, but has the links to the spammers involved.

Re:sounds like spammers can't take their own medic

[SanLouBlues]

I say posting their personal emails all over the place would be a good start. Imagine the irony of accidentally crapflooding yourself.

It'd be hilarious for two weeks until they exclude their own emails in the scripts they use. But then ISPs could red-flag anyone who recieves very low amounts of mail as under suspicion.

Spammers are scum

[rf0]

Plain and simple spammers are scum. They steal, in terms of using open relay servers and other peoples bandwidth. The lie in that 99.9% of the things they sell don't work. They cheat in trying to hide information. Also taking the amount of spam I get can make it really hard to filter the good from the bad even with filtering each and every message

Rus

What kind of idiot are you?

[Baron_Yam]

If somebody punches me (and I didn't deserve it)... I'd do whatever it took to ensure he never hit me again.

What would you do, Mr. Idealist? Stand there and take it while saying, "Please don't do that!"? Perhaps if you one day end up lying on the ground in a pool of your own blood you'll rethink this and consider that MAYBE you should have defended yourself.

Re:What kind of idiot are you?

[hesiod]

"Stop hitting me or else I'll say 'stop' again!"

Here's what you do if you come across a peace-loving hippie:
1. Punch him in the face
2. If he tries to fight back, point out nicely that violence only breeds violence, until he nicely agrees and stands down.
3. Go back to step one until the idiot learns to defend himself
4. Profit???

(Blatantly stolen and paraphrased from someone else)

Re:What kind of idiot are you?

[Jedi Alec]

What would you do, Mr. Idealist? Stand there and take it while saying, "Please don't do that!"?

Some people have suffered that same plight often enough to a) start thinking it's normal and b) take pride in it...quite often it starts in school gyms for one reason or another.

For those who are either young enough to still be in school or old enough to have kids in school already...yes, it is ok to hit back, and it's even better to give the other kid taking a beating a hand. Standing next to it and looking at it with a stupid grin only shows the fact we're still apes, just with a little less hair...most of us, in any case...

Re:What kind of idiot are you?

[Cedric C. Girouard]

For those who are either young enough to still be in school or old enough to have kids in school already...yes, it is ok to hit back, and it's even better to give the other kid taking a beating a hand.

Actually, while this is way-OT, I'm old enough to be the proud genitor of 65lbs of Canuck-hyperactivity (kid).
One of the first thing I taught him when he started school was that he was never to start a fight (by words, action, whatnot.) but if one started, he had to do his best to end it.
Lo and behold, a couple of months later, he gets picked on by kids older then him, and it ends up with two bloody noses (none his.)
Well... Seems that we're breeding a nation of pussies (no offense intended to the other gender.) because according to school regulations, you will be punished for defending yourself.

So what they're basically teaching kids is that it's ok for them to be taxed by bullies, to be physically abused and all, and that your only recourse is to take the beating, and then complain to a schoolyard monitor. Which will incur further beatings and abuses since they are but a barking dog with no teeths.

Goes without saying that I went to school, suffered a half-hour of the principal brainwashing, told my kid not to do it again, got out of there, and headed straight to the ice cream shop to offer my son one hell of a sundae, with a long speech on how he did the right thing and all...

Re:What kind of idiot are you?

[Jedi Alec]

Interesting...my teacher actually told me in person, when I was like 12 years old or so, that he'd be more than happy to look the other way if just for a change I'd do something back...different countries, I suppose, or different circumstances...perhaps the Union for highschool football players has monopolized agressiveness and bullying in the USA, assuming that's where you're from.

Re:What kind of idiot are you?

[Cedric C. Girouard]

Interesting...my teacher actually told me in person, when I was like 12 years old or so, that he'd be more than happy to look the other way if just for a change I'd do something back...different countries, I suppose, or different circumstances...perhaps the Union for highschool football players has monopolized agressiveness and bullying in the USA, assuming that's where you're from.

Our neck of the USA is called Canada...

And maybe it's changed since your were 12... I've had the same speech you did when I was 12.

But now they preach peaceful resistance.

New York Times culpability for attacking spammers

[GGardner]

I was surprised to read the article in the paper about these guys -- the NYT actually printed their picture.

I wonder if the NYT hates spam as much as the rest of us do, and knows that publishing articles about specific spammers will cause certain unpleasantnesses for those spammers?

I wonder whose e-mail addy this might be?

[Anonymous Coward]

alyx@netglobalmarketing.com Maybe we should find out. Maybe we should help the person at this address find some great deals on genetalia enhancement or how to make money fast! Perhaps they can use a college degree!

Re:I wonder whose e-mail addy this might be?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, but I just did them a favor and entered them into the 'remove' box from some spam that I got. This way I am sure that they won't receive anything.

Re:sounds like spammers can't take their own medic

[nurightshu]

Thankfully, they'll be able to enlarge their penises (penii? :) one to three inches with the new herbal supplement they're e-mailing each other about.

The end of Slashdot

[anonymous cowfart]

Score:5, Offtopic

Okay everybody, the game is over and JessLeah is the winner. Slashdot will now be closed.

LAST POST!

Re:The end of Slashdot

[JessLeah]

Heh, I love how negativistic SlashDot's moderation system was on this one. Almost as bad as pessimistic lil' ol' me.

The post started at 2 (cuz I have nice karma), and got a bunch of mod-ups and ONE mod-down ("Offtopic"). So the Slash code did the math and dutifully reported the score as 5 (correct)... and of course focused solely on the fact that my post was modded "Offtopic". Of all the modding done to my post, it only noted the ONE NEGATIVE MOD in the Score line.

And I thought I saw the world through blue-tinted glasses...

Ask yourself. "Re:What kind of idiot are you?"

[Unominous Coward]

What would you do, Mr. Idealist? Stand there and take it while saying, "Please don't do that!"?

When it comes to something like spam, you don't need to take into account your human instinct to survive. Spam won't kill you.

Even if my analogy is flawed in that respect, the principle still stands. In the long run, no problem will get solved if both sides keep escalating the conflict and spam is certainly not an exception. If you give the spammers enough reason, they *will* escalate the problem and the only way to catch them when they escalate it, will be to introduce draconian laws that will hurt everybody.

Perhaps if you one day end up lying on the ground in a pool of your own blood you'll rethink this and consider that MAYBE you should have defended yourself.

That's a baseless prophecy. What makes you think I wouldn't defend myself?

What happens

[tmark]

Sure it's funny to imagine that these spammers are themselves getting deluged with spam. But what happens if some nutcase firebombs their house, abducts their children, or murders their wife, as a direct result of seeing of the spammers' "outing" ?

Would it be funny or just then ?

Re:What happens

[sik puppy]

at the risk of being flamebait

after your scenario happened once or twice, I think we would see a dramatic reduction in spam.

I'm actually surprised that there hasn't been a case of spammer lynching as yet.

Like most people the only thing that keeps me from doing it is the thought of spending 30 years in prison. Not worth taking the chance of getting a couple of fellow rabid anti-spammers to sit on your jury.

That said, if you were sitting on a jury for the trial of someone who killed a spammer, would you vote for conviction?

Re:What happens

[xTMFWahoo]

Yes- spammer should all die-

seriously- they are one of the lowest forms of businessmen..

Re:What happens

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you *not* vote for conviction? Yes, spammers are scum, but as far as I know, murder is still illegal. The only possible legal argument would be if you tried to say you were insane while doing it, and that's not going to fly too well, I think. The other option is self-defense, and though spam is vile, I don't think that would fly either.

So if you murder someone in cold blood, even if they're a spammer, you're still a murderer. Why would I not want to put you away?

Re:What happens

[Idarubicin]

That said, if you were sitting on a jury for the trial of someone who killed a spammer, would you vote for conviction?

Um, yes? Premeditated murder is one of those things that most civilized societies prefer not to condone. (Save for when approved by the state in times of war, or when commited by the U.S. 'corrections' system.) Talk about a disproportionate response. Spammers are really, really, really annoying, and they're thieves without question--but we stopped hanging thieves more than a century ago.

On the other hand, maybe if someone just gave a spammer a really good beating, I could let that slide...

Re:What happens

[Anonymous Coward]

But what happens if some nutcase firebombs their house, abducts their children, or murders their wife, as a direct result of seeing of the spammers' "outing" ?

You say this like it's a Bad thing...

Since spammers are non-sentient lower life forms, it doesn't matter if you hunt them for food or sport. These poor creatures, if left without culling of the herds, would overpopulate thier environment and starve to death. That's why we NRA lovers support population control of wild herds of stupid animals through hunting and occasional neutering of thier young.
We should be able to go down to the local rangers for a permit and fill our quota each year. It's for thier own good, you see....

Re:What happens

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, I would laugh. They're scum of the earth, they deserve it.

Re:What happens

[FyRE666]

Would it be funny or just then ?

Yes. In fact I'd pay to watch...

Re:What happens

[ReTay]

I think it would be natural selection.
Nothing less nothing more.

Re:What happens

[JohnnyBolla]

Let's examine this.
There is no way to defend against a lone wacko, in fact, if a lone wacko decides you are the target, you're in serious trouble. Because of this, it's probably best to not let these wackos think of you at all. A bad way to stay off of wacko's lists is to send email to half of the Earth every twenty minutes. Eventually you are gonna hit Ted Kaczinsky or John Hinkley Jr.
If the house gets burned or the kids get snatched that's an unavoidable side effect of unsolicited commercial email.

Re:What happens

[elflord]

That said, if you were sitting on a jury for the trial of someone who killed a spammer, would you vote for conviction?

Depends. I'd let it slide if the spammer was beaten to death by a mob, provided that

• no-one in the mob did more than slap the spammer once (no crippling blows, just a stern slap on the cheek), and
• each assailant offered a "do not beat me" address that the spammer could use to unsubscribe from future beatings.

Re:What happens

[tmark]

That said, if you were sitting on a jury for the trial of someone who killed a spammer, would you vote for conviction?

Not only that, but I would seriously think about convicting the website proprietor who posted the spammer's personal information (assuming this was pivotal in the incident).

Re:What happens

[spasm]

Yes.

Next..

Re:What happens

[Anonymous Coward]

If that happened, it would, of course, be unfortunate for the innocents involved (if there were indeed any), but for the spammer - they got what they deserved.

Re:What happens

[Anonymous Coward]

That said, if you were sitting on a jury for the trial of someone who killed a spammer, would you vote for conviction?

Absolutely not. I would rule that since the creature slain in question was a spammer, and therefore not a human being, that "homicide" cannot be applied to the action. Perhaps if the spammer was given a well-deserved long and drawn out death over a period of many days we could give him a misdemeanor "Cruelty to animals" conviction.

failing that, I would definitely rule "Justifiable Homicide", or if in Texas "He needed killin'". A medal for exemplary community service should be given to whomever rid the world of this particular pestilence, a parade held in his honor, and all estates and assorted possessions of the spammer be given to its killer. The spammer's family, if it should have one, should be sold to the scientific community and hospitals for spare parts and experiments. Does that answer your question?

Not only that, but I would seriously think about convicting the website proprietor who posted the spammer's personal information (assuming this was pivotal in the incident).

Oh wait, I know you - you're one of those people who sits on a jury and when a crack-addled serial killer breaks into someones house, kills everyone inside but cuts himself on the glass of the sliding door he smashed to go about his rampage, you award to him six million in damages from the survivors of the family he murdered for his pain and suffering at cutting his finger. Good to know who's on what side!

Re:What happens

[Anonymous Coward]

"But what happens if some nutcase firebombs their house, abducts their children, or murders their wife, as a direct result of seeing of the spammers' "outing"?"

Do you really want us to answer that?

When somebody sends so many emails per day that they singlehandledly cripple national infrastructure, I have reason to believe that that's not acceptable anymore, in the same way that someone auto-dialling doctors' mobile telephones is unacceptable.

If the NY Times ran an interview with someone who admitted to thousands of counts of public lewdness, false advertising, graffiti, trespass, theft of "intellectual property" (email address and online reputation), obscentity, antisocial behaviour, and harassement, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of cases per day of criminal behaviour, do you think the newspaper would get away with just printing the story, as opposed to having security detain the man and calling the police?

No. So what's different with spammers that the newspapers so love him?

Re:What happens

[sik puppy]

Quite simply - justifiable homicide.

Re:What happens

[st0rmcold]

Being called for jury duty dosen't give the right to "convict" anyone there bud :)

Re:What happens

[Anonymous Coward]

"Um, yes? Premeditated murder is one of those things that most civilized societies prefer not to condone. (Save for when approved by the state in times of war, or when commited by the U.S. 'corrections' system.) Talk about a disproportionate response. Spammers are really, really, really annoying, and they're thieves without question--but we stopped hanging thieves more than a century ago."

And how common is theft now compared to back then? (Yes, its not that simple, but still.)

"Re:What happens (Score:3)
by Idarubicin (579475) on Monday April 28, @07:24AM (#5824532)
That said, if you were sitting on a jury for the trial of someone who killed a spammer, would you vote for conviction?
Um, yes? Premeditated murder is one of those things that most civilized societies prefer not to condone. (Save for when approved by the state in times of war, or when commited by the U.S. 'corrections' system.) Talk about a disproportionate response. Spammers are really, really, really annoying, and they're thieves without question--but we stopped hanging thieves more than a century ago.

On the other hand, maybe if someone just gave a spammer a really good beating, I could let that slide..."

Unfortunately, then he/she can come back and sue you for damages. There is no limit on pain/suffering etc from injured people. Wrongful death suits are generally capped in the $100k region. NEVER leave a survivor to come after you...

Re:What happens

[skinfitz]

Sure it's funny to imagine that these spammers are themselves getting deluged with spam. But what happens if some nutcase firebombs their house, abducts their children, or murders their wife, as a direct result of seeing of the spammers' "outing" ?

Then I'd buy the perpetrators a drink while dancing on the spammers grave.

Re:What happens

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe not funny. But I would bet the amoral asshole would STILL KEEP SPAMMING YOU afterward!

Re:What happens

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know - the media just LOVED Saddam. Dan Rather's gushing and fawning over Saddam still marks one of the lowest points in journalistic history -- but the sentiment was not unusual.

They LOVE villians. I guess they keep them in business. If we voted all the bad guys off the p,anet, who the hell would they report on?

I like the modified Golden Rule.

[jellomizer]

Assume that person x is following the Golden Rule. So person x would want the same done back. So you being a nice person knowing that he likes the same being done back to him, you help person x out.

Re:Nuremberg files

[funkman]

I fail to see how this is flamebait. People are posting spammer information and taking vigilante action.

The Nuremberg files did the same thing. In this case, no one feels for the spammers. But if any prosecution does go foward - the Nuremberg case will be used as a precedent.

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be known spammer Alyxsandra Sachs 112 Catamaran St Marina Del Rey, CA 90292-5769 (310)578-1728 info@netglobalmarketing.com 323-871-2000x11 Fax Number: 323-871-0625 Albert Ahdoot aahdoot@yahoo.com

Put Spammers where they belong ....

[Jeehoba]

on a plate with some cheese and eggs. Ummm spam ... thats some good eatin.

Class Action

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone going to file a class action against spammer in NY court, I will join and to seek $10 for every junk email I got.

I am sure many will join and the lawyer(s) will get a handsome amount out of my $10/junk email.

The names are...

[Anonymous Coward]

The spammers in question:
Alyxsandra Sachs
112 Catamaran St
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292-5769
(310)578-1728
323-871-2000x11
Fax Number: 323-871-0625
Albert Ahdoot
aahdoot@yahoo.com
info@netglobalmarketing.com

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[TopShelf]

Mod parent up, and rally the troops! War dialers, catalog mailers, religious missionaries, go get 'em!

Address/phone# i the reply to the post above yours

[mmmuttly]

What would happen if information was posted here? my hope is a whole new volley of crappola raining down on them.

The next best thing

[KrisJon]

OK, if spammers get their knickers in a twist and some have ethical issues with posting that information, do the next best thing:

Create and post a HOWTO showing how to find the information yourself. You can't find everyone on Google and unless you want to pay a service $$$, there is an art to finding someone's meatspace info.

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the old trick of replacing the www in the URL with 'archive" to get around the free registration broken?? Or am I just stupid??

It doesn't seem to be working for me anymore.

Take it up with his ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the RBL's but person to person...

dns 66.139.77.74
Top of Form 1
Bottom of Form 1
66.139.77.74 has badly configured reverse DNS.
The reverse DNS for 66.139.77.74 is usmnet.com , but usmnet.com doesn't resolve to anything.

whois -h magic 66.139.77.74
Trying whois -h whois.arin.net 66.139.77.74
SBC Internet Services - Southwest SBIS-SBIS-5BLK (NET-66-136-0-0-1 )
66.136.0.0 - 66.143.255.255
ServerBeach.com SBCIS-043002133006 (NET-66-139-72-0-1 )
66.139.72.0 - 66.139.79.255

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2003-04-27 20:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

pro se

[zogger]

--done this myself on a few occassions. It's learning some normal court room procedure and buzz words that is the most important. Usually the county clerk will help as well, finding the correct forms, etc. You can also research similar cases to see what worked and what didn't. I was actually so well prepared in two cases, cases actually against the government, that they capitulated shy of the actual court. One got to the court house steps before they caved though.

Throwing some cash at a good paralegal in advance helps too, they are usually the ones who prep their lawyers anyway, and are heaps 0 cash cheaper.

Think of court like any other construct. this does this, this does that. This comes first, then that, then that. If you follow their rules, they will let you play. and it really is just a big game, a game combined with some drama.

I haven't done it in a long time though, I imagine it's even easier now with having the internet to help with research.

I am sort of wondering now why there aren't more court cases brought against spammers in the states that have some laws against it. Even if it's hard to collect damages, just getting convictions in anti spammers favor helps establish more precedent.

Another really useful tool is to hold elected and appointed politicians and bureaucrats feet to the fire to uphold the laws via investigating if they're NOT doing their jobs, and are therefore in violations of their respective oaths,job descriptions, etc and see if they have ethics codes violations based along those lines.

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[FyRE666]

Just read the article you linked about Alyx Sachs and her cohort. To quote her:

"These antispammers should get a life," she said. "Do their fingers hurt too much from pressing the delete key? How much time does that really take from their day?"

By contrast, she said, "70 million people have bad credit. Guess what? Now I can't get mail through to them to help them."

Did anyone else reading that feel a powerful compulsion to punch her in the face? As someone who recieves anything up to 200 pieces of spam a DAY now, I know I did.

This COMES from /.!

[I)_MaLaClYpSe_(I]

I followed the link to a cached version of the techdirt site someone linked to, and you know what?

The Address of Alyxsandra Sachs was not posted on techdirt but a link to... you guessed it, slashdot! Someone only posted this link :-).

I find this extremely funny :-)

Re:sounds like spammers can't take their own medic

[FyRE666]

It's pretty simple to make their businesses unviable. Just visit the sites they're advertising! Not just once, not twice, but 24/7. Reload the biggest pages all day long everyone! Think a spamvertised company can still turn a profit while paying for 500GB bandwidth per day? I don't think so...

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

Punch her in the face AND rip her fingernails out. What a fucking bitch, ya lady, every fucking company is just blowing smoke when they talk about the loss of money to spam. She needs to be spammed, apparently she doesn't get it.

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

Reformatted for faster copying to webforms:

Alyxsandra Sachs
112 Catamaran St
Marina Del Rey
CA 90292-5769
(310)578-1728
info@netglobalmarketing.com

Albert Ahdoot
323-871-2000x11
Fax Number: 323-871-0625
aahdoot@yahoo.com

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

If junk mail drives you to violence, you should probably run, not walk, to your nearest psychiatrist.

Life is filled with little inconveniences. Junk mail, telemarketers, commercials, web ads. On the other hand, you don't have to run down an antelope if you want fresh meat for dinner any more, so on the whole I'd characterize our situation as having improved over time.

Remmeber 80% of all spammers

[linuxislandsucks]

Remember 80% of all spammers are the ones that believe in the internet myth of free money for no work and are in fact indiviuals..

They are assisted by componaies putting out free or low cost email spam scripting scripts and engines..

FFA is a good example of this..in fact I just killed of an attack on my own email account over 3500 + spams from the FFA network of ignorant people..

To kill spam you have to attack the low cost access ..education will not work..

Re:Remmeber 80% of all spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, probably 80% of spammers are individuals. But 80% of SPAM comes from three or four guys who really need to be voted off the face of the Earth.

Leave the FFA's alone; they are a good tool to use when you determine a real email address to retort to.

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent... just signed her up for several catalogs. One of which they said "don't send out free catalogs". I hope everybody is doing the same. That anonymizer.com account sure comes in handy now. :-)

Don't forget

[autopr0n]

google is your friend

heh, heh.

Re:sounds like spammers can't take their own medic

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure you use a "high anonymity" class anonymous web proxy when you do it.

Lists of anonymous web proxies can be found on yahoo.com.

I would dance on their graves

[autopr0n]

Seriously, these people are assholes. If something like that happened, just a few times, I bet Spam would go down a lot. I wouldn't like to see their wives or children hurt, though.

What I'd really like would be to see these guys thrown in jail. Most of these people are "hackers" at least, and could probably charged under the PATRIOT act for 'cyber terrorism' or something, if the government actually gave a shit...

Won't someone please think of the children?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody please sign her up for all these email newsletters!

Thanks!

In my family...

[Baron_Yam]

We tell the kids, "Never throw the first punch, always throw the last one."

Note that we use the verb, 'throw' and not 'land'. There is, of course, no need for the guy swinging at you to connect with your nose before you take action.

vigilante action

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously one would NEVER, EVER advocate vigilante action. CLEARLY, it would be IMMORAL -- whether or not it was also ILLEGAL. But I am a wee bit surprised that nobody has launched DOS attacks on outfits like netglobalmarketing.com.

Re:Ask yourself

[Baron_Yam]

Baseless prophecy? I prophesized nothing. I suggest that you'd rethink your attitude if you ever experienced your analogy in real life.

You asked the question, "If somebody punches you, do you punch them straight back? Do you think doing so would leave you with any credibility?"

I'd say that implies you wouldn't punch back.

Re:Nuremberg files

[Anonymous Coward]

No it won't. The Nuremberg case had to do with advocating violence against people who had broken no laws. The techdirt/Ralsky situation is one of perhaps suggesting the perfectly legal act of signing lawbreaking spammers up for every conceivable advertising list that can be found. There is no precedent set by the Nuremberg case here.

There might be precedent if some misguided sociopathic idiot put up a web site that explicitely advocated setting a spammer's house on fire while they sleep using Exxon unleaded gasoline poured liberally in and around the house's major exit points and subsequently shooting the spammer and his family as they tried to escape the smoke and flames, but that really would be terrible, and it's not what signing a spammer up for a thousand Fingerhut catalogs is about.

Questions, Options, Decisions

[Anonymous Coward]

On the one hand, I respect Techdirt for taking such a stand,

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?

but on the other, I feel that the spammers clearly deserve to be spammed back.

An eye for an eye?

Which is right? Which is preferred? Both? Neither? A compromise? Moderation? Does it depend on the situation?

Alyx Sachs (spammer quote):

[Anonymous Coward]

From the linked article, Alyx Sachs and her cohort, to quote her:
"These antispammers should get a life," she said. "Do their fingers hurt too much from pressing the delete key? How much time does that really take from their day?"

Then she CERTAINLY WON'T MIND GETTING 1000s or pieces of mail and spam per day. It is easy to hit delete, right?

As someone who's anti-spam blacklists block over 2000 pieces of spam per day, my fingers don't hurt, no.

How long until hers do is the question?

Not only perjury

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only perjury was treated harshly.

I think blasphemy & adultery were hanging crimes.

OTOH, rape was a bare misdemeanor I think; you could catch a young girl, rape her, and if you get caught, you only have to marry her or pay your way out; no problem.

I think maybe rebelling as a slave or a child was also treated harshly -- beatings or hanginge ?

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

Junk mail,

Subsidizes first class postage. Win.

telemarketers,

Let answering machine deal with them. Win.

commercials,

Program VCR to tape what I want to watch, fast forward thru boring commercials. Win.

web ads.

For the most part, don't even register. Win.

Spam comes postage-due. Imagine if you where charged US$0.01 for every 10 telemarketers who called you. Would you accept that?

No? then why accept spam as part of life?

Re:sounds like spammers can't take their own medic

[dolby2]

How are you gentleman? All our spam are redirect to you!

They were wrong

[alizard]

They should have let people decide for themselves how to respond to the spammers. One need not respond to spam with spam.

Perhaps some of the readers might have only had physical injury or substantial property damage to the spammers.

The techdirt people should also remember that spammers are in the most literal sense, enemies of all humanity and we are entitled to know who our enemies are and where to find them.

Congratulations

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations Alyxsandra and Albert. You succeeded in getting your contact info taken down from Techdirt, where maybe 1400 people saw it. Unfortunately, now it's Modded to +5 on Slashdot, and a good 140,000 people are probably looking at it. And taking action already.

Congratulations on your intelligence. On the other hand, I guess if you were smart, you might not have to be a spammer for a living.

Didn't Bernard Shifman try this stunt a while back

[cecil36]

I remember him getting the boot from the entire IT industry because of spamming. Looks like he will have some new friends to join him in his little pity party.

Ask her the same questions...

[Mr. Underbridge]

[nytimes.com]: "These antispammers should get a life," she said. "Do their fingers hurt too much from pressing the delete key? How much time does that really take from their day?"

Here's a better for question Alyx. How long does it take to throw out all of those catalogs that slashdot readers have thougtfully sent your way? You know, you could just have someone look through your mail for you (mail filter).

But you complain that the mailman won't deliver your mail when your box is full? Kind of how my mail gets rejected when my online account fills up? Well, get a bigger box! (Watch the lewd comments buys).

You know Alyx, you could just check your mail more often! Hell, put a big dumpster on your lawn for all that!

Or, you can maintain a private PO Box account and assume your public address is ALL SPAM- kind of like I have do online.

See, Alyx, it's pretty much the same thing. And it sucks. So don't cry to me.

Spamming = DoS attack?

[Aidtopia]

Has anybody tried to prosecute spammers for executing what amounts to a denial of service attack? When 99% of your email is unsolicited commercial bulk email, it makes that 1% very hard to find. Isn't this a small scale DoS attack on an individual? Isn't the cumulative effect on ISPs huge?

When I moved into my new home, I discovered the previous owners were mail-order people. I was receiving 100-120 catalogs every week (literally). My recycling company refused to cart off our weekly junk mail. Bills were getting lost, wedged between the pages of catalogs. I registered with the DMA, and I sent over 350 letters and made more than 100 phone calls to snail-mail spammers. Eventually it made difference. Now (three years later) we get about 10 catalogs a week. I spent a lot of time and money (postage, envelopes, etc.), but at least most of the 200 companies respected our wishes (in time, after multiple notices).

With email spam, we don't even have the option of complaining and opting-out. And yes, email bills are sometimes blocked by my ISP's spam filters. So haven't the spammers effectively eliminated our email service by flooding it? Isn't that a denial of service attack?

Re:Spamming = DoS attack?

[josepha48]

I'd like to prosecute them, especially since I am offended by some of the spam that I get that is about porn I don't want!

I also do not like the HTML that hangs my email program, essentially acting like a virsu and in some cases causing my email program to crash.

Know any good lawyers that want to file a class action GLOBAL lawsuit, to make spam against the law everywhere?

the address of the other two

[abhisarda]

Registrant:
Albert Ahdoot (NETGLOBALMARKETING-COM-DOM)
Net Global Marketing Inc.
18375 Ventura Blvd
Suite 326
Tarzana, CA 91356
USA
3238459660
2069841344
aahdoot@yahoo. com

Domain Name: NETGLOBALMARKETING.COM

Administrative Contact:
Richard Stewart support@usmnet.net
219 North Main
Suite 210
Bryan, TX 77803
USA
9798222827

Re:the address of the other two

[frankie]

Albert Ahdoot:

• Whitepages
• Infospace
• Switchboard

Richard Stewart is unfortunately a common name. There are at least 50 matches in Texas.

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

Spam comes postage-due.

Uh. What the hell kind of spam are you talking about? The kind I get-- which is very few and far-between-- doesn't cost me a thing.

Getting off the junk lists - permanently

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad you spent all that cash on postage begging the mailers... I would have simply gone to the nearest post office, and asked for form 1500 - the one that's used for opting out of pornographic mailings.

Complete one form for each catalog/advertisement that you receive, and return it to the USPS Prohibitory Order Processing Center. The USPS POPC will issue an order against the mailer prohibiting them under federal law from sending you anything again for the next 5 years - better yet, they have to delete your name/address from all their lists (except the do not mail listing) and can't sell, rent, lease, loan, gift, or otherwise transfer your information to anyone.

If they ignore the order, then you send a copy of what they sent you and a copy of the order to the POPC - they'll make a determination and file a complaint on your behalf with the local US Atty General against the mailer... Most mailers comply immediately, some require some followup (the Chicago Tribune took a lot of follow up, but they eventually stopped).

Best of all - you have complete, unfettered, and unreviewable discretion in what is and is not considered to be a pandering and/or erotic advertisement. In fact, you can declare a dry goods catalog to be such if you wish (e.g., coupons, anything qualifies if it's for sale). This is taken directly from a US Supreme Ct. case back in the 70's which was filed by the direct mailers v. a law that congress passed - the USSCt basically told the mailers that it was too bad - the law stands...

I've used it successfully and receive almost NO junk mail. The occasional piece that comes thru gets marked REFUSED, RETURN TO SENDER and goes right back in the box. The second copy that comes gets a Prohib. Order filed on it.

Now if I could only get the morons who deliver those door-to-door advertisements to read the sign that says "DO NOT LEAVE ADVERTISING MATERIALS. NO TRESSPASSING" I'd be set...

Re:Getting off the junk lists - permanently

[Pig Hogger]

Best of all - you have complete, unfettered, and unreviewable discretion in what is and is not considered to be a pandering and/or erotic advertisement. In fact, you can declare a dry goods catalog to be such if you wish

When I was a kid, I spent a few weeks vacation at an aunt's where I didn't have access to my father's pr0n. So I eventually resorted to masturbating looking at clothing catalogues - especially the bathing-suit sections...
I guess that's the reason a chick in spandex turns me on much more than a naked one...

Re:Getting off the junk lists - permanently

[Registered Coward v2]

Now if I could only get the morons who deliver those door-to-door advertisements to read the sign that says "DO NOT LEAVE ADVERTISING MATERIALS. NO TRESSPASSING" I'd be set...

You might be able to under local anti-littering laws. The police where I live suggested filling a littering complaint. What usually happnes is the contact the company whose ad it is with the complaint and fine them - not the delivery folks. If enough people do his, the word gets out not to leave those little mailbox stickies or toss flyers on driveways in certain neighborhoods.

Actually it was Hammurabi

[SolemnDragon]

The Judeo-Christian version was taken from a source farther back, in fact one of the earliest written legal codes ever discovered. The main source was a stone slab discovered in (i think) 1901, translation here.

"1. If any one ensnare another, putting a ban upon him, but he can not prove it, then he that ensnared him shall be put to death.

2. If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.

3. If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death.

4. If he satisfy the elders to impose a fine of grain or money, he shall receive the fine that the action produces.

5. If a judge try a case, reach a decision, and present his judgment in writing; if later error shall appear in his decision, and it be through his own fault, then he shall pay twelve times the fine set by him in the case, and he shall be publicly removed from the judge's bench, and never again shall he sit there to render judgement.

6. If any one steal the property of a temple or of the court, he shall be put to death, and also the one who receives the stolen thing from him shall be put to death.

7. If any one buy from the son or the slave of another man, without witnesses or a contract, silver or gold, a male or female slave, an ox or a sheep, an ass or anything, or if he take it in charge, he is considered a thief and shall be put to death.

8. If any one steal cattle or sheep, or an ass, or a pig or a goat, if it belong to a god or to the court, the thief shall pay thirtyfold therefor; if they belonged to a freed man of the king he shall pay tenfold; if the thief has nothing with which to pay he shall be put to death.

9. If any one lose an article, and find it in the possession of another: if the person in whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant sold it to me, I paid for it before witnesses," and if the owner of the thing say, "I will bring witnesses who know my property," then shall the purchaser bring the merchant who sold it to him, and the witnesses before whom he bought it, and the owner shall bring witnesses who can identify his property. The judge shall examine their testimony -- both of the witnesses before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then proved to be a thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article receives his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the estate of the merchant.

10. If the purchaser does not bring the merchant and the witnesses before whom he bought the article, but its owner bring witnesses who identify it, then the buyer is the thief and shall be put to death, and the owner receives the lost article.

11. If the owner do not bring witnesses to identify the lost article, he is an evil-doer, he has traduced, and shall be put to death.

12. If the witnesses be not at hand, then shall the judge set a limit, at the expiration of six months. If his witnesses have not appeared within the six months, he is an evil-doer, and shall bear the fine of the pending case.

" and so on....

there's a lot of 'shall be put to death," and so on, but the eye for an eye bit is what survives as a concept today.

Re:Actually it was Hammurabi

[maxpublic]

You forgot this one:

"unless a man tries to harm ye, or your family, or your property; or attempts to harm your neighbor, or your neighbor's family, or your neighbor's property; ye shall fuck off and mind your own business and tend to your own affairs.

but if that man does try to do harm to ye, your family, your property, or to your neighbor or his family or his property, then ye shall pull out your .38 and empty the weapon into him. And if ye have a second clip, ye shall reload and empty that one into him as well. And that man who wishes to do others harm will never raise a hand against anyone ever again, and life will be good."

That's gotta be my favorite.

Max

Even better

[0x0d0a]

of course preferable something with porn ..

The Feds have started doing bad things to people who they think are consumers of kiddie porn...hmm...

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[badfinch]

How can I get on these guys spam lists? I am part of a network that hashes spam into identifiers and matches it to others on the network to identify it as spam. The more spam we get the tighter the network. I have Herbivore so I don't worry about spam anymore.

Re:sounds like spammers can't take their own medic

[silentbozo]

No, no, no. Don't hit their biggest pages repeatedly, that's just rude. Instead, mirror their whole damn site locally, so you can browse their fabulous content at your leisure. Of course, we know you're busy, and your drive space is kind of important, so we'll forgive you if you have to delete the local mirror without ever having to read it.

But I'm sure the spammer will thank you for taking the time to save his information in the event his site is unreachable... :)

In the real world, they do.

[Hubert_Shrump]

Theives can be fined for what they steal, in reparation.

In the real world, all the murdered have families that care about and love them.

Your rebuttal is facetious.

Re:In the real world, they do.

[poot_rootbeer]

Your rebuttal is facetious.

You only think so because you didn't understand it.

The appropriate counter-action against theft is a fine and/or jail time. Not more theft. If it were, the societal rules against theft would deteriorate to the point of meaninglessness.

The appropriate counter-action against murder must not be murder, lest we condone vigilante justice and, ultimately, anarchy and lawlessness.

It's easy to cheer when the good guy murders the bad guy, but no see easy when the bad guy is someone you love.

Re:In the real world, they do.

[Hubert_Shrump]

Uh oh. Getting into political territory here.

I think we're on the same side of the fence - that vigilanteism isn't quite right.

And I can agree to disagree on what the law says we should do to thieves, liars, etc...

You're right, I hadn't detected the subtlety. *bows*

MOD PARENT UP

[Trusted Content]

Excellent post, thank you.

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[rifter]

When you download spam, it costs money. It is worse for people on dialup, and was really bad for people who are on dialup and also pay per minute charges. I understand that in small underdeveloped areas, like Europe, this is still common place ;).

Even if you don't pay per-minute charges, your ISP pays a fee based on the amount of traffic it handles. A very significant amount of this traffic is spam. This raises the price you pay your ISP. AOL is suing a few spam companies who cost them millions of dollars all by their lonesome.

Ok, so those are the costs you probably don't see, and maybe you don't care about those. You may not be paying additional fees just to have a "bigger mailbox" so all the spam can fit in there like many end-users do. (This is slashdot, so you have your own mail server on DSL running your favorite linux distro and have 120GB just for your mail right?) But like many things, spam is only free if your time is worthless. How much time do you spend going through your mailbox sorting out what is spam and what is not? Reconfiguring mail filters? Pushing the delete key until your fingers hurt? That time is money, mon frere, which could probably better be spent garnering valuable slashdot karma!

Live by the sword...

[aldousd666]

This all reminds me of an episode of Seinfeld in which a telemarketer calls Jerry during dinner. Jerry: Well actually I'm kinda busy right now, why don't you give me your home telephone number, and I'll call you back. Telemarketer: We're not allowed to give out our home numbers. Jerry: Why not? Telemarketer: We don't want people calling us at home. Jerry: [hanging up the phone] Exactly! Now that's poetic.

This is NOT civil disobedience

[Anonymous Coward]

Civil disobediance is not causing trouble to people whose practiced you disagree with or to bring attention to your cause. It is the purposeful disobeying of laws you believe to be unjust. Like refusing to go to the back of the bus.

With the civics lesson over, I hope these guys get CREAMED 'cause I hate them.

But it's not Civil Disobedience.

Re:This is NOT civil disobedience

[Baron_Yam]

Oops... unless there is a law against publishing materials a court has already declared must not be published. (Which assumes the original case goes beyond a C&D anyway)

Just in case, I repeat, "Oops."

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mod parent up, and rally the troops! War dialers, catalog mailers, religious missionaries, go get 'em!"

Perhaps some copyrighted scientologist literature could be leaked "from" his email address, with a contact address for more info...

I wonder how they filed their lawsuit....

[titzandkunt]

Probably sent a letter on forged headed paper, puporting to come from a respectable and established legal firm.

This would be sent to a real lawyer outfit, and would ask them to take over the litigation - don't worry - the ex-finance minister of Nigeria will cover all bills...

The legal equivalent of an open relay, no less!

T&K.

Ms Sach's email

[cj_goth]

I visited the Net Global Marketing website to look up her email, but for some reason it appears to be down. Maybe its a little busy right now?

Anyway, I'm going to keep hitting refresh every few minutes on the site - no doubt it'll be back up soonish ... heh

-- now where did I put that .sig

Related

[stikk]

>Techdirt, interestingly, took the contact info down because they feel that no one should get spammed.

Site which displays contact information and tracking stories/comments on spammers,
Spamhaus

Protect Bin Laden

[crazysim]

We will protect Bin Laden by hiding him in a secret cave so that he cannot be punished. We feel that anyone shouldn't be punished. -Bush

Re:Which spammers? These spammers

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I don't want to actually hurt them. Moreover, that would be illegal (as would deliberately inciting violence against them).

Knowing those Mormons, however, I did feel a strange compulsion to order a book of Mormon from their address via that commercial that's often on cable... You know, the one that comes with no obligation? ;)

Go after those that Eat the SPAM

[Anonymous Coward]

Like in the War on Some Drugs, you don't just go after those that would supply the drug, you go after those that would consume the drug as well.

Same with SPAM. What we need is a list of all those who have ever purchased something from a SPAM, and consider them as part of the problem as well.