I, Spammer

PCOL writes "The Washington Post is reporting on testimony before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation by Ronald Scelson, an eighth-grade dropout and self-taught computer programmer from Louisiana, who claims that he sends between 120 million and 180 million e-mails every 12 hours, that he can break sophisticated software filters 24 hours after they are deployed, and that he has no choice but to resort to forging the sender information in his bulk e-mail so he can be anonymous and maintain his connection to the Internet. He added that he obtained all his addresses legally and that AOL gladly sold him the company's entire customer directory which Ted Leonsis, vice chairman of AOL, did not deny." It's a tough life. Here's another story about the Senate committee meeting.

Comments

Dang it, there goes my stomach lining...

[Saint Aardvark]

"This is censorship," he said, arguing that both anti-spam vigilantes and Internet providers that filter out spam are depriving people of their right to see their mail.

Dear God, I hope the committee saw through this pathetic little charade. Last time I checked, I had no oblighation to pay to receive advertising; I had no right to force others to pay the cost of carrying that advertising; I had no right to force others to put up with the deluge of complaints about that advertising.

And if he's right about AOL selling him their membership list and spamming their members (and AOL VP Leonsis' weasel words about "letting members opting out" does nothing to make me think otherwise), all that means is there are two assholes there instead of one. It doesn't give him any moral high ground.

But at least there's the proposal for a "federal antispam SWAT team". I'd pay good money to see a live video stream of that take-down.

Re:Dang it, there goes my stomach lining...

[Dark Paladin]

For me, the key word is "pay for spam".

One of the reasons why sending advertisements over the Fax is now illegal (without prior authorization, etc, etc, etc) is because it costs *me* money to recieve *your* ad.

In the case of bulk snail mail, 100% of the costs (if you don't include me physically picking up the mail, looking at it, and tearing the latest "Want a 0% interest credit card that jumps to 30% later?" envelope as cost) is payed by the sender.

In the case of a fax, *I* pay the paper, toner, etc. So even at $0.01 per ad, if it wasn't stopped I could wind up paying hundreds/thousands a year for the honor of recieving ads.

In the case of spam email, I believe that the same conditions apply. While I might not pay directly $0.01 per "spam email sent", I am paying by having my web space taken up (for those with ISP's that limit their mail boxes to 5 - 10 MB). And if my business relies on emails, *your* spam interferes with my ability to do work, thereby costing me money.

Add in that most spammers forge their address, hijack (or at least use without permission "open relays" (who should be closed anyway, yes, I'm looking at you, China, Korea, and any other country who's causing this problem)) other people's mail servers (thereby costing the mail server money they did not want to spend on bandwidth, storage, processor, etc).

I should hope that the Senate should make a very simple anti-spam plan:

If you send an unwanted email as an advertisement, you must have a method of truly getting someone off of the list.

If you sell the email addresses of your clients, you should be required to state to whom they have been sold so you can opt out *before* you get spam mail.

There should be a "national opt-out" spam list that all spam senders must check before sending a message.

Violating these agreements, or sending another message after the user has "opted out" is punishable by a $1000 fine per email sent.

Why do people do this?

[blumpy]

Why do people bother with doing crap like this? Just because they can? This guy has the mentality of a script kiddy. Someone find his info and organize a snailmail spam-a-thon.

Slam his customers

[st0rmshad0w]

Ok, another spammer, joy, so when are we going to start getting lists of those who HIRE these urchins? I frankly would love to start re-routing all the spam that comes to me BACK to the idiots who hire spammers. Oh, and how about some postal addresses on these spam-buying scumbags too, eh?

Lots of good info here...

[johannesg]

"People still buy this stuff," he said, claiming that his clients get a response rate to his e-mail of 1 to 2 percent.

Let's say 10 million emails per hour (lowest), 1% response rate (lowest), that's 100,000 responses per hour! That means that over the course of a year, we are talking about 876 million responses. Divide that by the 165.75 million internet users in the US, and we learn that each and every one of you respond to him 5 times per year!

Well, maybe he spams the entire world. I have no idea how many internet users there are in the world, but let's say it is something like one billion. That means everyone responds to him almost yearly! Amazing! Now I only have one question: those responses, are they sales or deaththreats?

DMCA

[Zed2K]

"He boasted that in 24 hours he could crack sophisticated software filters designed to block spam."

So isn't that in violation of the DMCA? Or am I stretching it? If he said he could get around them then its different but he specifically said he could crack them.

has everyone missed the point?

[maxpublic]

Do you honestly think Congress gives a good goddamn about spam? Congressman don't have to deal with this shit; their lackeys do.

This issue isn't about killing spam - it's about using spam as an 'issue' to kill anonymity online. It's yet another attempt by the government to throttle what remains of our privacy, and spam is a very convenient complaint to base this sort of legislation on.

Thanks but no thanks. I'll take the spam in exchange for privacy. My privacy is far more important than any government attempt to curb unwanted email, especially when it's just a ruse to eliminate what few rights I have left.

Max