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Virginia Anti-Spam Law; FTC Forum on Spam
kiwimate writes "According to this press release, the state of Virginia has just passed a statute making 'the worst, most egregious and fraudulent kinds of spam' legally actionable. And yes, this includes header forging. The article reads like a big AOL PR piece in some places -- the VA governor led the signing at the AOL HQ in Dulles. The story also states this comes on the eve of the first-ever FTC forum on spam in Washington D.C." The FTC also made the insightful discovery that most spam is fraudulent in some fashion.
This is the one that's always gotten me. It's obviously one of the worst possible things in spam. But how do you then track down who happens to be sending it and punish them for it?
This may be good for Spam originating in the US, for the residents of VA, however Spamers from other countries could still fill our inboxes.
Will they drive a spear through the heart of the spammer? I would move back to Virginia just to be part of that.
sulli
RTFJ.
So apparently we can use our 'common sense' to figure out what's 'the worst, most egregious and fraudulent kinds of spam'. I'm not sure I feel safe in a system where such a statute can be passed. The definition is too open for interpretation. Today it's porn spam with forged headers, tomorrow it's legitimate advertising getting outlawed.
If the state representatives don't have the balls to outlaw all spam outright, perhaps the residents of Virginia could grow some balls and vote these jokers out of office.
I have been pwned because my
The convicted spammers should be forced to use AOL the rest of their lives! :)
Yet, the FDA (also a bureau of the administrative branch of the U.S. goverment, for all you furriners who take exception to typical insensitive slashdot US-centric and clodish nature, just being clear), Food and Drug Administration, allows the marketing of 'Herbal Remedies', which effectively let all sorts of varmints claim to be marginally less illegal by offering these as body part enhancements, muscle mass builders, weight loss treatments, etc. This should make for more interesting fodder.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
And in further news, a minimum of two-thirds of all types of intrusive advertising contain false claims--telephone cold-calls, loud tv commercials, the crap that hides the funnies in the sunday newspaper, the daily pound of paper cluttering your mailbox, you name it. The more intrusive the advertising, the more fraudulent the content.
Remain calm! All is well!
OK, so were they planning to sample more than 3 typical e-mail accounts worth of daily spam?
I hope there can be a war on spam that is as effective as the war on drugs or the war on terrorism or the war on poverty.
This wont put even a tiny dent in spam. In Virginia or any where else. What it will do is set a precedent. This is one huge step in the right direction. Now you can write your local representative with "If Virginia can do it, why can't State X?" Lets take this spam victory and run with it.
I hate to say it, but if AOL can throw their weight around to rid me of spam then I'll stop bitching every time I get an AOL cd in the mail :)
:)
I wonder though- is there a place that we could report spam to the virginia prosecutors? Perhaps our state attorney general could setup a spam email and state residents could forward their spam there for the prosecutors to go after
Virginia has had an anti-spam law since 1997, which is part of the Virginia Computer Crimes Act (VA Code 18.2-152). It makes spam with forged headers illegal: http://www.spamlaws.com/state/va.html
AOL, Verizon, and other large ISPs based in VA have been suing under this law for years (though they almost always go to federal court, pursuant to U.S.C. 85 1332). I have burninated a few spammers in small claims court under this law as well (I was actually in court today suing etracks.com). The law allows the recipient to seek civil relief for the lesser of $10/message or $25,000/day. For ISPs, it's the greater of the two.
they signed the anti-spam law at the AOL HQ?
Isn't that one of the seven signs, or something?
Or
"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone."
~Epictetus
The forum is the perfict time to charge the spammers for their crap.
If you have any antispam laws in your states make sure to use them.
Also try to prevent the media from mistaking them from anything but criminals and beliving the spammers lies that they run an honest bussiness. They are doing PR control, as well as the usual trying to redefine spam to the kind that they do not do.
The NY times was belived them in this "story" (also shows how bad they are, with them trying to spin things with quotes taken out of context and spammers trying the "I am not a spammer, this hurts my business!" pitch).
I think Ralsky would get that many bounces in an hour, if he did not forge headers, and hijack mail servers.
Penalty is only $10.00 per email or $25K, whichever is less.
Not enough financial damage to spammers, but it is a start. If the statutory damages were higher, it might have a legitimate claim to being the toughest in the country.
Wind under Thy Wings
Amber
Suppose you did.
Suppose you did not.
You don't need to find who is behind the scene. Here are the steps to punish spammers without knowing them:
1. Write a small program that every user can run at home, on the seti model. Let's call it spammerSucker.
2. Identify an email as spam (this part is easy)
3. Find the website of the spammer (The email is generally full of http links)
4. Add the URL in the centralized DB of spammerSucker.
5. In minutes, millons of DSL/Cable users running spammerSucker are downloading every byte out of their server, initiating millions of sockets per second.
6. Their server is "slashdotted", and no one can access it.
Such a campaign would just result in destroying your website when you send a spam and so would make it a lot more dangerous for a company to send spam.
The danger is actually in step 2, because you don't want to blinbly suck any website...
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Apu is Sri Lankan. Not Indian.
1. Beat the crap out of the disc and package. Stab it, crush it, bend it, shatter it, etc.
2. Either send the original package, or the package in a sandwich bag back by writing "Unsolicited, return to sender!" on it and placing it back in the mailbox.
I haven't recieved a CD in several months, down from once a week or so.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
spam is in no way fraud. i make $50,000 a day posting to slashdot from home. you can too, email me back at ahk235hk2@yahoo.com. if that doesn't work, try my work email at 235hlj235hl2@hotmail.com.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
This is definitly a good solution... but how do you protect it from abuse? I mean, if one skript kiddie wants to spam his enemy's server, what's to stop him from forging a fake spam that he sends to himself and then posts to the centralized DB as a "spammer"?
Imagine what will happen when spamming is illegal in all but a few states....
I can see a federal anti-spam law on the rise, and for spammers it will not be pretty....
(-1 Redundant.)
The article reads like a big AOL PR piece in some places -- the VA governor led the signing at the AOL HQ in Dulles.
Hm, thats what I want, my Legislators delivering law directly from the BoardRoom. The same people who send you "buy this penis pump" emails will, next month, be sitting next to this Virginian Politician at a $5000-a-plate fundraiser... and the viscious cycle begins again.
Next thing you know, someone's gonna say the Pope wears a funny hat.
the coolest club on
Another drug war.
Spam is going to suddenly become alot more profitable to those who stay in the game.
Duuuh. That's because nobody selling something legitimate wants the negative side effects of spam- mainly, the disgust it causes. Hell hath no fury like a consumer who's just been spammed for a product; they'll probably, even out of spite, go for your competition, if they just so happen to be in the market for your item. Remember those stupid little remote control cars? They learned the hard way that spam didn't work; retailers reported a backlash from the spam, people coming up to them and chewing out -the store employees- for the spam other resellers were sending.
Please help metamoderate.
This is a situation where the law is countering an effect of a bad protocal. SMTP is the badness here, not so much the people that abuse it (but *they* are bad). It should be the responsibility of the people on the internet to simply ignore the spam since they are willinging participating in email to start with. I realize that SPAM is bad, but it is only possible because SMTP sucks donkie's. Same as war driving, it is very possible to drive around and find a free AP to exploite just as it is easy to scan the net for open SMTP rellays to exploit. The laws should place the burden on the standards organizations that certify things like SMTP, and the conglamerations of multi-national coorporations that controll the internet backbone that don't lift a finger to halt the bad protocals. In other words, SMAP is a feature, not a bug. It's practicalyl built into the protocal. Altering headers is possible, and could even bee viewed as a legitimate form of self protection/security.
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
I get sick of this spam shit! I see how it is legal that a company can send me something LEGALLY that I did not give them permission to. let me put that in another way, I own my mailbox- I bought it so that I can be contacted by whom I wanted to, by a company sending me mail that I did not give permission for, they are using MY PROPERTY without MY permision-- goes for the same for phones -instead of do-not-call lists, all though good hearted, there should be do-call lists -- the same thing should go for e-mail also, how can it be legal for a company to fill up my e-mail box that I paid for without my permission?? get the hell out of my mailbox, you bitches!
-Miko
Miko O'Sullivan
I forgot that AOL has a huge datacenter up North from here. Hmm.....
Mmmm. Virginia Spam! The best kind. They cure it different there, Smithfield I think.
"And after a while, you can work on points for style.
Like the club tie, and the firm handshake,
A certain look in the eye and an easy smile." Rodger Waters
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
If any spammers are reading this, let me tell you about the Virginia correctional system. If you are lucky you will go to the big house. If they put you on the farm you are fucked. Most penal farms in Va grow their own food and cut their own fire wood, etc. You will come out tan and fit, my friend. I taught literacy in Wise County at the facility there. No slack for misdemeanors and light felonies. They also operate road gangs (no chains. Work is time off from your sentence with good behavior) with the Boss standing over you with a 12-gauge full of rocksalt if you decide to make like Cool Hand Luke. Also, the Virginia State Police are ruthlessly efficient and will get you. This was the best state to implement anti-spam legislation if we want spammers to hurt.
PS. It is "The Commonwealth of Virginia" not the "State of Virginia." I didn't get my hands whacked with a ruler by Mrs. Underwood to have y'all malign my beloved home with the lowly name of "state."
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
An interesting debate arose from a story I wrote earlier this week in which I published screenshots from a spammer's mailboxes.
One reader complained that this was "hacking" and that it was an unjustifiable action.
In response to that complaint I asked my readers (part-way down the page) whether there was any difference between a spammer trespassing on someone's mailbox with their crap and someone trespassing on the spammer's mailbox to expose their mis-deeds.
Gathering by the responses it appears that the rule of "do unto others" can reasonably applied to spammers and their mailboxes.
Mirrored here I'm not sure how they plan to track people down.
Code Of Virginia: SB 1139 HB 2290
Since it is a felony, I wonder if they will attempt to extradite people from certain foreign countries?
The FTC has recently gone even further. They take the position that a beneficiary of the spam is responsible for it unless they took steps to stop it. This covers spamming by "affiliates".
The FTC's position is consistent with decades of false advertising law. The FTC has often prosecuted companies that let their "dealers" lie for them. The FTC has the authority to crack down on spam, and it looks like they're starting to do so.
I don't want to be Mr Opposition here, but I for one am against anti-spam legislation. Now, I hate spam as much as the next guy, and I do as much as I can to avoid recieving it (ie keeping email address confidential, filters, blocklists, etc.), but it is certainly not the government's job. If anything, such legislation robs individuals and companies of their rights, namely their rights to use internet email as the system stands to their own discretion, but also the right to communicate (dont reject this just yet, ill get back to it). Regardless of the fact that the majority of the population dislikes spam, whenever the government takes rights away from citizens, it is a form of tyranny. It is important that we do not allow the rights of any minority to be revoked, otherwise it becomes easier in the future for such to occur to other minorities. Today we may be taking away advertiser's ability to use a communication medium (because we dislike them), but tomorrow it could be you.
When the human race is destroying itself due to stupidity and hate, and the individuals that see this are powerless to do anything about it because those in power "dont like" their ideas, you can trace the cause back to laws such as these. PS. I may be exagerating the effect of this one law as a singularity: there have been and will be many more such laws, but that is no argument against trying to do the right thing...we must learn to think collectively through reason and justification, not mass opinion.
I'm sure people are going to respond saying "find a technical, not a political, solution." The fact is, this problem exists now, and a technical solution isn't forthcoming. Sometimes, a political solution is appropriate to legislate interactive conduct. A silly, but still applicable analogue: shoplifting might be considered a 'technical problem' with running a store - but we still pass laws against it! At the same time, stores employ technical means against shoplifters. Similarly, SPAM is probably best addressed from both sides - the public and private approach, if you will...
If nobody ever replied to spam, there'd be no point to it, so maybe it would dry up eventually. People who react to spam are providing the feedback that encourages the spammers to spam on.
-----
For great justice!
Have you ever seen such hogwash?! What, pray are, "a technical characteristics"?! Since when are headers and routing information common to "unsolicited bulk mail", but not "normal e-mail messages"?!Ok, so where do I trun myself in? I've certainly generated $1,000 from a specific transmission (we in the spammer game call it an "invoice") and I (just like tens of thousands of other evil spammers like me) forge headers and alter routing information. For example, I have mailing list managers that alter headers and routing information and then take that single modified message and send it to DOZENS of users! I also send mail from my laptop at home and claim to be me at work and visa versa!
Before tonight I didn't know I was a spammer, but if Virginia says I'm a spammer, I must be one! Is there a reward for turning my evil spammer ass in?
I'd add a smily, but this is just creepy!
DuH... isn't that what apt does?
Woo Hoo! I just talked to Governor Mark Warner in my VA Politics Class on monday (4.28.2003) at VCU... If I would've known he was gonna pass this before I would've especially thanked him for this one too. I will have to fly my Virginia Flag even higher now! Sic Semper Tyrannis! Virginia is for Email Inbox Lovers. This is definately a step in the right direction, IMO. Now if we can just repeal the virginia DCMA, and UCITA legislation... Time can only tell. -Jesse www.insanehippie.net insaneNOSPAMhippie@yahNOSPAMoo.com
I'm from Vehjenya too, and I've been all over the state. Let me clarify the bit about the state police. When he says "ruthlessly efficient", he means, "professional to a tee."
By my experience, they are not at all evil, they are just plain good.
I've been pulled over for minor driving offenses about four times in my life -- three of them were deserved, the other was in Blacksburg, Va by a local yokel [failure to stop at a stop sign, where the police officer's position was completely occluded by houses: he was 2 blocks back on a crossroad.] But two of the times, it was on state highways, by state police. They were efficient, smart, and knew their business. I was proud to show up for my day in court in Charlottesville, plead guilty, and say that the state police officer was extremely professional. Normally, I just stroke a check.
Two or three other times, I've had contact with state police officers, in cases such as where I pulled over because I was hearing a noise from my wheels [silly me, I had gone from state-highway asphalt to Richmond bypass concrete]. But it was clear that they were on the lookout for drug dealers. When I mentioned that I was hearing a funny noise from my wheels, a ringing, he said "perhaps it's the concrete." One or two more professional questions, a license check via radio, and problem solved, traveller on his way.
Those guys know their job.
5 years in a federal (pound-'em-U-know-where) prison... ;-)
Bet some spam "kings" (for the time being) will learn to really regret ever marketing these penis enlargements
...where countries like Iraq are attacked not because they are alleged to have weapons of mass destruction, but because they are alleged sources of spam.
The danger is in step 3 because it's hard to know what URL is the spammers' they often hide the url by by various means and include other sites in the email.
If your browser can get to the URL, it obviously isn't hidden enough.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
or bulk rate, I forget which. That means the post office does not return them to the sender. If something is undeliverable or refused the post office just throws it in the trash.
AOL isn't informed that it was thrown away.
I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people. - Jack Handey
Those damn annoying people who call my house all the time to sell me crap should be arrested too!!!
As the not quite so proud owner of a hotmail email account, I have recently noticed a new type of spam scam. Because hotmail is smtp based it appears that one particular spamer is using the hotmail smtp servers to "send" email from my account OR simply forges headers. These emails which appear to be from my account are send (with the add inclosed) to a non existant email address, which causes the message, with add, to be bounced back to me. Has anyone else seen this going on?