Microsoft Files 15 Lawsuits Against Spammers

Popsikle writes "A Seattle Paper reports that 'Microsoft Corp. announced it has filed 15 lawsuits against alleged e-mail spammers in Washington state and the United Kingdom on Tuesday.' It states the tough anti-spam laws in UK and Washington allows ISP's to sue spammers. This could be a good test of the new anti-spam laws." There's coverage on CNN as well. Microsoft has picked a good venue for such a case.

Comments

Good Going Microsoft!

[notque]

"Today's lawsuits are exactly the kinds of action we need to put illegal spammers out of business."

Cause Lawsuits solve all of the worlds problems!

Old.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm interesting. If an article is anti-Microsoft or anti-SCO, it shows up within 15 minutes of being known. However, if an article casts Microsoft in a good light, it takes a day to come to the surface? Sorry Slashdot, I already read this a couple times yesterday elsewhere on the internet.

Slashdot
Gripes for Geeks. And other old news.

now I see the bigger picture, thanks.

[twitter]

Being required to use your ISP's SMTP server is not a big deal. SMTP security helps fight spam, and really, one SMTP server is as good as another, as long as the mail gets where it's going.

is a funny thing to follow:

The internet is a big enough place to accomodate peer-to-peer as well as client-server models.

From my persective, M$N/AOL have forced my connection to the internet into a client-server only model. They did this by demanding my ISP block ports that prevent me from running my own service. No web, ftp, mail or even M$ web share. NetBIOS could not compete so M$ bullied my ISP into killing all normal forms of sharing. M$ does not want it's "clients" to have email, then no one can. This kind of behavior will indeed trun the internet into M$/AOLnet instead of the big free place that fits into your "civil libertarian and reasonable" outlook. Please tell me how to avoid the M$/AOL - Carnivore fate while the last mile is still effectively monopolized. Then tell me how keeping people from doing what they can for themselves beter than what you do for them is anything but evil.

The new "nasty business practices that need to be stopped", as you put it, is the thing you just defended. Microsoft is not evil because they are Microsoft or even because they have a monopoly. Microsoft is evil because Bill Gates and friends are paranoid control freaks. They have a monopoly because they have destroyed technically superior competitors by screwing vendors in the same way they are now screwing ISPs. Blocking services that other platforms do better than you is more of the same anti-competitive practice we all hate.

small brain.

[twitter]

Where do you see that AOL/MSN threatened "smal" ISPs (i guess COX high speed internet is small in your opinion) to block SMTP for a competivie reason?

First off, it's what the tech said happened. I doubt he'd lie to me over something like that, so we should not debate the fact that it happened that way. Cox is big, but it's nothing like AOL, M$N or ATT.

Now for reasons. AOL does not let their clients do this already, for whatever dumb Time Warner reasons they have. If they keep other ISPs from doing this, they have reduced their competition. They also have a record of pushing smaller ISPs around. Microsoft has the same reasons and also has sucky software to protect in this way.

What's the competivie reason for the other ports in your link being blocked (Netbios, SQL, SubSeven). Seems if I was microsoft and throwing around my weight I wouldn't want you to block my SQL communication paths nor Netbios.

If you are Microsfoft, you have a few reasons to block these ports. No one is opening up their netBIOS anyway because it's so easy to hack. You don't want people adopting free software to do what your software can't do, because even M$ shills admit free software is better as a "server". You want to block MS SQL because that too is insecure and you don't want small businesses to be able to use one database at more than one site. Yes, the company that won't let two people use their text editor at the same time thinks like that. You would not do very well as a Microsoft Gorilla, though you are not a bad appologist.

ISPs have been blocking port 25 because spammers have been causing them tremendous pain.

There are two kinds of spammers, one that does it inetntionally and the other that has a cracked M$ junk box. The first is easy to cut off. The second will give you other problems regardless of what ports you block and is best combated though careful monitoring. You can watch port 25 traffic volume and kill a spammer's connection if you have the right software. You've been reading about "traffic shaping"? What's keeping them from doing that to protect themselves from "spam". The best solution, of course, is to recomend free software as a less troublesome platform and cut people who keep causing problems. M$ made this problem and needs to fix it.

MSN and Eathlink and 90% of the other ISP block port 25 now. They were not 'forced' too, they did this because it was the only way to stop the spam. And it worked,

I've already told you how M$ benifits from this, how do you know that Earchlink was not pushed into it?

Working? A quick check of my AOL account shows 519 new and offensive spams. I have not given that address to anyone but site registrations for the last 5 years. The problem has only gotten worse not better.

On my mail servers, to get around these blocks, I run SMTP on alternative ports. I have my users configured to use those ports in addition to the basic 25.

Who, besides yourself, listens for email on anyport but 25? Oh, I see, you must have a relay outside the network. That's helpful, but why should everyone route around this damage again? Some people don't have your resources, is it OK to screw them so long as you have your rights handed back to you as privalidges?