NY Holds Spam Scam Contest

evilquaker writes "The state of New York's Consumer Protection Board is running a contest they call 'Spam and Bologna'. Their goal is to help educate the public, so fewer people will fall for Nigerian scams (and others) in the future. The contest is actually to find the most outrageous example of an email scam, and ends in one month. Yahoo! News provides some more information."

Comments

This is good.

[bl1st3r]

It's good to finally see education being used in an effort to stop spam instead of focusing on legal solutions to technical/educational problems.

I cringe when I see new laws being passed to limit what you can do on the internet. If you are using technology to exploit, there should be a technological solution. Once you start making laws, you begin heading down a VERY dark, dangerous path.

Re:This is good.

[bl1st3r]

You have made some very good points and I agree with you fully. I didn't intend to come off as you may have read into my post.

Theft is, and always will be illegal; using the Internet for theft shouldn't even be legally questionable. It's a crime.

However, what I AM afraid of is that laws are being passed specifically to prevent actions which are based on legal foundations, but somehow are misused for illegal practices. An example would be like your mailing list statement. Automated mailing or whatever they want to call it.

I'm just afraid that once you start using laws to strengthen weak protocols, then you've already set a precedent of using laws to support weakened ideas. The DMCA is a good example of this. You develop a weak protocol/program/encryption scheme and then make it illegal to show that it sucks. Anyone who would want to point out its flaws is a criminal for trying to help, yet the criminals are more than happy to stay just below ground and take advantage of it to its full potential.

Doesn't this encourage certain people...

[thrill12]

...to send out ('fake') scam e-mails ?
I hate to be caught up in a scam spamming contest...

odd.

[rkoot]

I always assumed that spam was a sort of lesson on its own.
I mean, if you fall for one of those scams once, you need to be very ignorant to fall for it a second time.
door salesmen are sort of spam too, and are people being taught to watch out for them too ?
I don't think it'll be worth the effort to teach the lot not to respond to nigerian scams and such.
I'm trying, without much success, to explain to my users that they shouldn't forward or answer on these messages, and it just doesn't help. I even threatened them with corporal punishment, and yet, they're just not impressed it seems.
in other words, I think it's wasted time and money.

r.

Good and bad

[swb]

While it's good to see the scammiest spams being publicized and good to see scam equated with spam somewhat generally, the bad thing is that they don't focus on the more common, everday spam that clogs most inboxes and its scam/ID theft/ripoff/illegality.

It's like crime prevention generally -- if all you do is focus on the most outrageous aspects of crime, such as serial killers, you lose focus of the more corrosive, every day crimes like car theft and burglary.

If they would pick the most common/popular spams and then report on the chances of getting ripped off by them, hurt by them, or even arrested for buying something you're not supposed to (X A N A X, FR33 PAY P3R V13W!), it might have more of an impact on it.

I'm afraid that if all they focus on is ridiculous shit like 419s, people will just dismiss the problem as something only fools will fall for.

Re:Good and bad

[Frater 219]

I'm afraid that if all they focus on is ridiculous shit like 419s, people will just dismiss the problem as something only fools will fall for.

You're echoing in microcosm a common concern in the anti-spam world. If legislative or technical efforts against spam target only the most egregious types -- 419-scammers, barnyard porn peddlers, password phishers -- then they may be, inadvertently, making the world safer for spammers who are less blatantly evil. So-called "mainsleaze" spam -- unsolicited bulk email from "legitimate" companies -- is also on the rise, and has just as much potential to destroy the email facility as "scams & porn" spam does.

There are millions of legitimate, aboveboard companies in the world. Spamming is cheap, so spammers rarely have an incentive to spam a targeted list of likely customers rather than the largest group they can. So imagine the result if just 1% of all legitimate companies sent you a spam once per year -- it would amount to thousands of spams a day. This would destroy email just as thoroughly as all the sUUp3r v14'6rA C14Li$ and h0+ T33,N L3$b1An spam could.

And quite a few "legitimate" companies have already dirtied their legitimacy by sending spam. E-pending, or searching out the email addresses of offline customers and spamming them, has become a fad among a certain class of marketers. Others contract out the job of spamming past customers to large operations like MessageReach and DigitalImpact (m0.net).

(Some claim that if you do business with a company, they should have the right to send "offers" to you by email without being considered to be spamming. But think about the number of companies you do business with in the course of a year, directly or indirectly. Suppose you buy a "Harry Potter" bath towel at Sears for your young cousin's birthday present. Should that give three companies -- Sears, the towel manufacturer, and Scholastic (publisher of Harry Potter) -- the right to "e-pend" your email address and send you ads?)

If email is to be protected from the potential onslaught of thousands of spams a day per person, it needs to be defended not only against blatant scammers, but also against anyone else who is tempted to scratch up a few more bucks by spamming.

Re:How to make it difficult for 419-scammers

[Anonymous Coward]

What's that supposed to accomplish? So they lose a free account, and now they create another one. BFD. Until there is some monetary risk, there is no reason for them to play by the rules.

For this and several other reasons, I've started blocking all free mail services. Specific senders who have worked out prior arrangements can get through, but the rest can go screw themselves.