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Spamhaus Guru Steve Linford Profiled

Posted by simoniker on from the snickety-snick dept.

BenLev writes "The New York Times has an article profiling Spamhaus Project director Steve Linford. The feature goes behind the scenes at Spamhaus, 'one of the leading groups that is trying to make the world safe from junk e-mail', showing that it operates from Linford's houseboat on the Thames near London, spammers don't like him, and his volunteer corps likens itself to the X-Men."

7 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. good idea. by waitigetit · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I like the idea of the do not spam registry that they mention in the article. But it seems like a real pipe dream considering how much trouble there has been getting the do-not-call registry up and running.

    Also, most telemarketing is done from in-country because of LD charges. Not so with e-mail. It's pretty hard to enforce US laws on a Taiwan spamhaus.

    Ah well, every little voice against spam warms me a little at least.

    --
    I could care less, but not without a lobotomy
    1. Re:good idea. by waitigetit · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If the only reason they don't call you is fear for punishment, that does not make them ethical.

      I think a more important difference is that it costs them money to call you. So, basically, a Do Not Call list saves them money because they do not need to call people who hate telemarketing.

      --
      I could care less, but not without a lobotomy
  2. We've got all the laws we need by jmv · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I really believe that we currently have all (well mostly) the laws we need to stop spammers, if only they were enforced. Even if SPAM is still not illegal in most places. What most spammers do is illegal. Instead of fining a spammer for sending Nigerian scams, jail him for fraud. Instead of fining a viagra spammer, jail him for cracking in other people's computers in order to send the spam. Much more effective I think. Why go for "minor" civil offense when the spammer is actually guity of a criminal offense. I know not all spammers commit crimes, many do.

    --
    Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
  3. Actually, you don't by simong · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You get email from someone pretending to be Spamhaus in order to discredit them.

  4. Re:first by Rasta+Prefect · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I get spam emails from this company, telling me to use their software to eradicate spam .. Pot calling the kettle black?

    Try looking up Joe Job.

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    Why?
  5. Re:epitome of laziness by Halo1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Our university had two install 2 new mailservers just to be able to run all incoming mail through spamassassin. Do you think the spammers paid for that "small annoyance"?

    --
    Donate free food here
  6. education of the people buying the stuff by martin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem isn't so much the spammers, it's the people buying from them.

    If people didn't buy the spammers wouldn't have a market and would go away.

    The issue is to educate the general internet populus that are are merely encouring the spam by purchasing from the advertisers.