Slashdot Mirror
In Pursuit Of A Spammer
Kyle writes "Over at DSL Reports, We are currently pursuing a spammer from the West Palm Beach, Florida area. This wouldn't normally be news, but we think Slashdot readers may be interested in just how successful we have been. What's more interesting is that the spammer appears to be posting in the thread."
If we do, I hope it recounts the payback on Alan Ralsky, a fixature in /. lore.
When you don't have a leg to stand on, don't even get up.
he has an email newsletter. Let's all sign up!
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
Yes, sadly every time I go online it costs me money. Telecom NZ sells its badwidth dearly - 20 cents/MB when I exceed my limit (each month I get a whopping 1000MB to play with to my heart's content. Weehee!). It's not much but as the number of spam I get increases so do my costs. Directly. I'm not billing for my time to open them all, my electricity to power the PC or any other stuff.
It's not just spam, it's any unsolicited use of my bandwidth - and yes, viruses should be included too.
I am a leaf on the wind
Besides annoying the spammer in question, is there REALLY anything they can legally do to him? I doubt it. I have fought with spammers before, trying to get taken off of their lists, and they threatened ME with telling my ISP (a college at that time) that I was harassing HIM. I believe he would have done it, too. So I resigned myself to deleting hundreds of spams per week, and getting used to it. I can't wait until they make RIAA-style computer-nuking legal...we can all just start a computerized World War III.
All they have done so far is make a lot of links from one site/organization to another. There has been no action against the spammer. They are not certain of his real name nor his address. I think its great that they're tracking him down, but I would not go so far as to say they have been successful.
Notably, the most fervent researcher on the forum (Ameritec Tech) has discovered that the spammer was violating several people's copyrights. One of those people has replied and stated they are taking legal action against the spammer immediately for the violation.
For to end yet again.
Are you using metered bandwidth? How much per kilobyte do you pay?
Even on unmetered bandwidth, due you think that the ISP will soak up additional costs by cutting their salaries/profits? Chances are they will pass the increased costs onto the customer. And certainly, it won't be the spammer who pays.
Yes, but free speech is also somewhat limited. For instance, commercial speech can be regulated. Spam for the most part is commercial speech and thus should be put under the same regulations as any other advertisment.
.Robots file on their website or subscribe to a DoNotCall List, email is an invitation to ones home and the decision to allow it into your home should be yours to make and the gov't should be able to help one regulate this. If you are paying for something and others are invading its sancitity, you should be able to ask the gov't to help you out. If folks are not willing to respect this privacy before you have to say back off, the gov't should give you the ability to tell these guys to fuck off before they even get there.
That and freedom of speech is not something that is regulated by the gov't in someone elses home. It is limited to public properties. On private properties, you still have what ever limits of the freedom of speech that apply as well as those of the folks that regulate the private area.
By these two limits, email can and should be regulated. Much the same way one can place a
Again, freedom of speech is not an unlimited freedom. I'm sick of folks that think if it. If Taco wanted to edit my posts here on his site, its NOT infringing against my freedom of speech to do so...at least from a constitutional stand point.
blah
It's unfortunate that your comments were modded down to -1. Given the opportunity, I would have modded your statements Interesting even though I disagree with you.
This really drills down to the core issue of spam: money. Based upon what I've read on the subject, I (via my subscription fee) am subsidizing the cost of a spammer's business. I welcome any evidence that contradicts this, but until that time I would analogize your statement as follows: "It is their right to barge into your home and shove an ad in your face and it's your right to stop them....and by the way, this process will cost you $$."
That kind of thinking doesn't work because I can't legally put a bullet into a spammer's head. One's right to free speech ends at my doorstep. Any alternative interpretation of the First Amendment opens up a number of conflicts with the Fourth Amendment.
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
Now you have the IPs, the URLs, the company names, etc.
So report these to every blackhole list available, report the hijacked material on the sites to the original publishers, check his providers for more spammers like him, and report the provider if necessary (so they start taking an active part in this as well) and get on to the next guy.
If ISPs began taking basic measures to block spam, refuse services to spammers, contact the providers of spammers, and blackhole domains, IP's, and networks that spam or encourage spammers, the spammers would eventually end up in a spammers ghetto of unscrupulous providers that could be easily blocked or filtered.
If it is left up to law enforcement and legislation, there will be loopholes as there are in the National Do-Not-Call Registry, and we will have opened up the door to congess regulating the use of email.
Read, L
...having served in the military for a significant period of time, when I saw the 'patriotic business statement' by Heckman I did a 'quick and dirty' search of some databases -no listing of a Brad or Bradley Heckman deployed as member of the U.S. Army during Operation Desert Shield or Desert Storm. Someone tell the #1 spam hunter at DSL report webpage to try and get a unit ID from Heckman? For some reason I can't post to that forum and I couldn't find an email address for the #1 spam hunter guy. The best way to sink a fraudulent business that preys on patriotic people is to show them he's a fraud.
"Just an idea".
-Anonymous Cowardly Good Guy
Please tell me the "SPAMMER" did more then post 2 messages in an forum which actually shares the same topic as his posts?
Or is it just enough that someone labeled him a "Spammer" that we have to "dump garbage on his lawn"?
Was it just an AD? IF this really was only about 2 posts in a FORUM, not emails, not anything else, something that the forum moderator could delete if requested, then this actually makes me sick.