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Spamfighters Get A Hold Of Spammers' Incoming Mail

Posted by Hemos on from the read-the-juicy-bits dept.

Karin Spaink writes "On July 3 2003, cyberangels.nl was obtained by Spamvrij.nl, a Dutch foundation fighting spam. Previously, the domain was owned by the infamous Cyberangels, who are majorly involved in spamming. Cyberangels felt forced to drop the domain when the ground under their feet got too hot after BBC journalist Andrew Bomford connected Dutch ISP Megaprovider to Cyberangels. Since the MX-records for cyberangels.nl now point to spamvrij.nl too, they get all Cyberangels' incoming mail: bounces, spam complaints and what have you. Have a peek: what kind of mail does a major spammer receive in the course of three days? By now, they have a very precise answer: 6305 mails. Spamvrij.nl published an analysis of those mails on its site."

8 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. Errr...isn't this illegal? by PhysicsGenius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or at least immoral? I don't think "the end justifies the means" is really a valid defense, especially as there's no "end" in this case. They are just reading someone else's email. And "White hat hacking" doesn't apply either, as that refers to people who are asked to break in to a computer to test it, not vigilantes like our own Fyodor, who use their skills to merely harass people that annoy them.

    1. Re:Errr...isn't this illegal? by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Insightful
      They own the domain. There is possibly an analogy with getting smail for the previous occupant, but it's a very bad analogy. The Post is prepaid and government regulated.

      If they wanted their email, why did they suddenly drop the domain and run?

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    2. Re:Errr...isn't this illegal? by bishopi · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Or at least immoral?

      I'd go with Immoral more than illegal - since they ARE the registered owners of a domain that was voluntarily dropped, they are technically the "owners" of that mail at this point in time.

      Mind you, there's probably a few hundred lawyers out there who were spammed previously who'll defend them if it becomes an issue ;)

      Ian

    3. Re:Errr...isn't this illegal? by Nfnitloop · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you move into a house somebody just moved out of and receieve their junk mail (which is really all that they're getting here) do you think they're really going to care? It doesn't appear to have any personal emails or anything - just spam for the spammers. The nature of email doesn't put it in an "envelope" - it's synonymous with a postcard. If the postman or the person who received the card at their newly aquired address end's up reading it, big deal. There's no expectation of privacy.

    4. Re:Errr...isn't this illegal? by Petter3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      US laws still don't apply outside the US. Well, most of them don't. Not yet, anyway.

  2. Re:Not much success there... by mccalli · · Score: 4, Insightful
    6305 incoming emails and not one of them contained an order or anything else positive.

    You know, I was just putting together a response that said this too. Then it dawned on me - of course there weren't any positive responses via email, all the reply addresses on spam are faked anyway.

    Sadly, this encouraging count of zero doesn't actually reflect the number of potential respondants to spam. For that, we'd need to know if anyone called any of the telephone or fax numbers they list.

    Cheers,
    Ian

  3. Interesting autopsy by Migraineman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They've done a nice job of analyzing the residual influx of email, while not airing all the dirty laundry. They didn't post a complete session log, so there's no information that may get folks upset. The last business email listed as "1 other" is probably sensitive, and shouldn't be posted on the web (though sending them a "we know who you are" message may make them think twice about using spam in the future.)

  4. Follow the Money by mobileskimo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have a question. What occurs to credit cards and payments that scammers receive from their customers?

    Spammers are by no means stupid. Above all things they MUST get their money, otherwise none of this is worth doing.

    So if the scammers are getting their money, the credit card companies pay them. If the credit card companies pay them...

    [1] We have a breach of trust between the credit card companies and the customers. CC companies are not doing their due diligence in brokering payments for product/services. CC companies are issueing clearance of charges to unscrupulous people. We are entrusting them with our financials (whether we choose to "fraud-notify" them or not). They have all the information, both the consumers and the scammers.

    [2] The customers complain they never got their product. Report fraud. The credit card companies remove the charge, investigate it or not. This increases cost/risk for the CC companies. Higher interest rates? More cooking the books?

    Why is nobody investigating the money side (IMHO the lifeblood of this business) of this problem? As long as we concentrate on the technology, we'll always be distracted from the real solution. It's all about the money in the end.

    Anonimity
    + Privacy, Sharing, Voice
    - Scams, Theft, Hit/Run

    We asked for it.

    --
    "Last one in is a rotten goblin!" - Kepp