From Artist To Spam-Hunter

I am Kobayashi writes "Wired has a story about Andy Markley, a graphic artists, whose business domain name was spoofed by infamous spammer Eddy Marin and used to spam thousands of people. After the incident recurred at a new ISP, and at the risk of his business and sanity, Markley fought back. He tracked down Marin through several spoofed email addresses and several hi-jacked servers, and eventually was successful in getting Marin's current ISP to shut down his account. Too bad he was a graphic artist and not a professional bounty hunter...."

Comments

Identity theft

[BWJones]

So, this is identity theft. Why cannot spammers be prosecuted for assuming somebody elses "identity" and doing business/making money at the expense of others? This practice is illegal and there must be a legal precedent, yes?

If SPAM == $$$...

[thecampbeln]

...Then we should get laws that attack the $$$ part of the equation!?

Although the logistics of such a plan are always complicated, why not author laws that would hit spammers where it really hurts: their financial institutions!? Since you can buy the shit from these bastards, you should be able to determine where the money is going. So make laws that would seize any such moneys that are a direct result of SPAM activity?

Hell even put the onus on Visa/MC/AmEx so that they are charged with dealing with the financial fallout! Do you think even the idiots who buy shit form SPAM would buy again if they were charged double for their purchase (once from the spammer and again from the credit card company for the penalty)? Sure there are bugs in the plan as is, but stopping SPAM from the technical side is difficult (if not impossible), so lets make it financially infeasible!

nailing the bastards

[Stephen Samuel]

It's not that hard to take down a spammer who causes you problems beyond just sending you unwanted email... I had one friend who had a spammer run a couple hundred thousand emails thru his system (a bug had made it into an open relay). It took one stern call to the ISP hosting the advertised websites to get his hosting and DNS cut off at the knees.

This is more than just sending off a single email to a scantly watched abuse email.. This means getting hold of a real person and explaining, realistisay, what sort of legal liabilities they might be open to if they continue to support the spammer's actions. (Hacking laws, aiding and abetting, Trademark infringement and vicarious liability) often fit in there.

If more people would do this, life would get a lot harder for spammers.