Spammer Sues SpamCop

wolfgang writes "Just wanted to send you word that notorious spammer Scott Richter, President of Email marketing firm OptinRealBig.com, has filed suit against Ironport, which runs anti-spam site Spamcop. According to Richter, Spamcop's initiatives have damaged the reputation of his company. Richter filed for $1 million in damages. A similar suit one year ago, filed by Eddy Marin and his Florida-based Emarketersamerica.org against Spamhaus, was thrown out of court last October." We've mentioned Richter before.

Comments

what a suprise

[bwraith]

it seems that now doing the right thing will get you sued, oh wait there's no suprise here.

Re:what a suprise

[HTH NE1]

A lot of my spam seems to originate from OptinRealBig, and all of that share of spam is to the address only disclosed in the whois database.

Harvesting addresses for spam is a violation of the terms of service for whois.

Re:what a suprise

[QuantumRiff]

no, the threat of getting sued is often enough alone. Most small businesses can't afford the lawyers fees, they just fold up.. Its really a pathetic thing.. Big company (or rich person) sues a small company over something they wouldn't win. Small company knows they will win, but that it will cost $x amount of dollars for a lawyer, and the company can't afford to pay $x. So, they give in, and the evil people win, without having to go to court, because it costs a fortune to prove you are right. Why can't we go to a loser-pays system here in the US??

Re:what a suprise

[Buzz_Litebeer]

The risk is too high.

This would be even bigger deterrent. you could not sue someone properly, because no one could afford your lawyer, if they could afford your lawyer, they can afford bigger lawyers on there side, who would have provisions to get paid by the winner because the loser would likely to be poor.

its bad.

Re:what a suprise

[H1r0Pr0tag0n1st]

This is of course the same plan used by Direct TV and the RIAA in thier lawsuits, where the company/group with tons of money threatens people who cant afford to mont a defence and uses that to extort money.
Join and Donate to the EFF.

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

thats just it, although they have a good intention, they're NOT doing the right thing, and deserve to be shut down and/or sued out of existence.

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

See here. Contact Spamhaus and see if that information would in any way help them and in what format they need the information.

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Bleh, Spamcop. You get the idea. :)

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Say it with me...Cock Weasels...every last spammer out there...say it again...Cock Weasels

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

>This would be even bigger deterrent. you could not sue someone properly, because no one could afford your lawyer, if they could afford your lawyer, they can afford bigger lawyers on there side, who would have provisions to get paid by the winner because the loser would likely to be poor.

But if you know you will win, this argument is simply not true!

The current system of "I have more money than you hence I win even if I'm wrong" is FAR from being "justice" (or even "the law").

Re:what a suprise

[That's Unpossible!]

Please do some research on the idea of "counter-suing" and you may understand that our system of justice and civil law is not too bad after all.

Summary: You can often get restitution for lawyer fees (and even damages) related to being sued when you are on the right side of the law.

Re:what a suprise

[arivanov]

I will be flamed to charcoal, but anyway:

If he is correct for what he alleges, he will win. If SPAMCop anonymizes addresses it makes it impossible for this abhorrent slime to comply with current US legislation (CAN SPAM). The fact that he would have simply copied the complaint address to a higher rank "sucker alive" database is unfortunately irrelevant.

So no matter how much I hate to say it, he is likely to win thanks to the congrescritters. It is an unfortunate side effect of the CAN SPAM act. Now spammers have the right to expect to know who complains against them.

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

> Please do some research on the idea of "counter-suing" and you may understand that our system of justice and civil law is not too bad after all.

> Summary: You can often get restitution for lawyer fees (and even damages) related to being sued when you are on the right side of the law.

Counter-summary: you'll be broke, and out of your house. What lawyer will take you, a homeless person, as a client?

Yes, you're right. Dead (broke) right.

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

This is precisely why I support an amendment to our legal system in which if Big Ass Company A loses their lawsuit, they must cover Marginally Financially Viable Small Business B's legal fees.

What I don't get is that, at the rate at which America is producing lawyers, with the massive supply ever-growing, why aren't rates dropping?

Re:what a suprise

[ePhil_One]

Don't forget the converse, where pathetic wacko sues company while representing himself. The company is forced to spend tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, defending itself against the outrageous claims of the loon. All because he feels his hair dryer should have had a warning that it should not be used in the shower.

Sure, the company will win eventually, but that money and time is gone, and what would the company do with his trailer home anyway?

Re:what a suprise

[Ugot2BkidNme]

I get spamcop messages everyday. From peopel who visted our websites and said they would like to have special offers sent to them. of course we remove the addresses. But still I don't like spam cop its rather annoying.

Re:what a suprise

[Theatetus]

The complaint alleges that "prior to sending solicited complaints by consumers to the Optin's originating ISP's, Spamcop alters the complaints it receives by removing the email address of the person or entity seeking to be taken off a mailing list thereby rendering the email anonymous."

SpamCop does, in fact, do this, and I want to throttle them every time they do it. We work very hard to keep our mailing lists clean and we can't do it when complaints have their original email address taken out. As much as I dig what Spamcop does they're too heavy handed with legitimate mailing lists.

Re:what a suprise

[realdpk]

The user can send their complaint directly to the spammer, instead of going through Spamcop. There's nothing requiring Spamcop to forward the message on intact. That's what standard mail servers are for.

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

This is of course the same plan used by Direct TV and the RIAA in thier lawsuits...

The RIAA at least have the excuse that many of the people they're suing have actually infringed their copyrights.

Richter suing SpamCop is like a rapist suing his victim for reporting him to the police. If irony died when Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, what was that scream I heard just now?

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of a loser pays system, why not have a system where you take into account the net worth of the two businesses. For instance, if the suing company is worth 10x the smaller company, the suing company has to pay for all the smaller company's defense, to a value not exceeding their own lawyer's expenses. You can even make it scale, so if the they are worth only 2x more, maybe they only pay 10% of the smaller company's cost.

Re:what a suprise

[kinzillah]

I'd burn it, personally.

Make an example.

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I think the UK has that system. But the UK ain't the US.

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called, you countersue, asking for legal fees, plus punative damages for their unjustified lawsuit against you.

Duh.

Re:what a suprise

[EvilAlien]

Perhaps your mailing lists aren't as legit as you seem to think they are?

We all know that the Stupid People Theory means that there will be plenty of false positive complaints from bone-headed users reporting lists they signed up to as spam, but SpamCop is quite reasonable in working through those issues. It is also possible to refuse to accept the SpamCop mediated complaints if the email addresses are obfuscated. Many ISPs refuse such complaints because of this issue.

Re:what a suprise

[Lost Race]

It doesn't even take a big/rich plaintiff to threaten a small defendant, just someone with nothing to lose and time on their hands. Any idiot can file enough paperwork to get a case rolling, and the defendant pretty much has no choice but to respond with competent (expensive) lawyers. That's more or less what Marin did. His case was crap and got thrown out early on in the process, but it still cost the defendants plenty.

That ruling was a travesty by the way. It should never have been dismissed as it was, leaving the defendants unable to recover the cost of defending an obviously frivolous suit. Sure, they can counter-sue but that means opening up a new case and tracking down all the bozos involved, instead of already having them right there in court. Much more difficult!

Re:what a suprise

[budgenator]

Richter suing SpamCop is like a rapist suing his victim for reporting him to the police

No it's more like sueing your faithful wife's Dr. for telling her she had caught VD.

Re:what a suprise

[k8er]

Why would this matter? Under the current system pathetic wacko can still sue and cost a company money, and there is no compensation if the company wins. Besides that, you may think that a trailer is worthless, but if it is your home and that is all you have, you'll think twice before risking it unless you have valid complaint.

Re:what a suprise

[austad]

All of my spam comes from them too, and the only place I've posted my address is in my PGP key which was uploaded to MIT's keyserver. I have 2 addresses associated with my key, and both started receiving spam at the same time, and neither one got any spam before. It started about 2 days after I uploaded it.

Fucking bastards are pulling addresses from the keyservers. Personally, I'd be scared to be a spammer. If you're sending to millions of people a day, you're bound to find one that has a screw loose and might decide to take revenge upon you. Spammers are the most hated people on the net, and that can't be good for ones personal safety.

Re:what a suprise

[drinkypoo]

you may think that a trailer is worthless, but if it is your home and that is all you have, you'll think twice before risking it unless you have valid complaint.

Unless you're a pathetic wacko, in which case you won't think once. This is especially true if, as in the example contained in the GP, you think a hairdryer should need a warning label saying it is not to be used in the bathtub. Clearly someone who believes that isn't thinking at all.

Re:what a suprise

[nyseal]

They are....but as usual you get what you pay for.

Re:what a suprise

[Eggplant62]

Harvesting addresses for spam is a violation of the terms of service for whois.

Not to mention a direct violation of CAN-SPAM:

(from http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html)

--begin quote--
15 USC 7701

SEC. 5. OTHER PROTECTIONS FOR USERS OF COMMERCIAL ELECTRONIC MAIL.

.
.
.

(b) Aggravated Violations Relating to Commercial Electronic Mail-

(1) Address harvesting and dictionary attacks-

(A) IN GENERAL- It is unlawful for any person to initiate the transmission, to a protected computer, of a commercial electronic mail message that is unlawful under subsection (a), or to assist in the origination of such message through the provision or selection of addresses to which the message will be transmitted, if such person had actual knowledge, or knowledge fairly implied on the basis of objective circumstances, that--

(i) the electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained using an automated means from an Internet website or proprietary online service operated by another person, and such website or online service included, at the time the address was obtained, a notice stating that the operator of such website or online service will not give, sell, or otherwise transfer addresses maintained by such website or online service to any other party for the purposes of initiating, or enabling others to initiate, electronic mail messages; or

(ii) the electronic mail address of the recipient was obtained using an automated means that generates possible electronic mail addresses by combining names, letters, or numbers into numerous permutations.
--end quote--

It's obvious that Scotty doesn't understand the doctrine of clean hands.

Re:what a suprise

[Oliver Defacszio]

But if you know you will win, this argument is simply not true!

Ah, kids are just precious. In a "loser pays" scenario, the big company just makes it clear that they have better lawyers than you, and more lawyers than you. When you are faced with paying $2500 an hour when you lose to their best and brightest, you are no more willing to move ahead than you are in the current system.

The "winner" in court has nothing to do with who is right. Isn't that right, OJ? Hey, OJ! Get the hell out of my fridge!

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife's hairdrier does have such a warning label.

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

they can afford bigger lawyers on there side

"their".

Re:what a suprise

[Red Alastor]

Then SCO would not even need Microsoft's money to sue IBM...

Re:what a suprise

[jcr]

We work very hard to keep our mailing lists clean and we can't do it when complaints have their original email address taken out.

If you're getting Spamcop complaints, then you're not working hard enough at it, spammer.

-jcr

Re:what a suprise

[rixstep]

Harvesting is a violation, but spam-crawling is ethically worse, and there is no way this guy could get 45 million addresses through opt-in. Where on his site does he let people opt in? Or opt out for that matter?

He's a crook, pure plain and simple, and it took this guy to get me to side with Microsoft in a controversy!

* SLAMMERS FOR SPAMMERS *

Re:what a suprise

[JuggleGeek]

If he is correct for what he alleges, he will win. If SPAMCop anonymizes addresses it makes it impossible for this abhorrent slime to comply with current US legislation (CAN SPAM). The fact that he would have simply copied the complaint address to a higher rank "sucker alive" database is unfortunately irrelevant.

Not correct. There is no law requiring Spamcop to give him anyones address. People who choose to report spam to Spamcop do so by choice. Those people could, if they choose, follow the spammers "opt out" instructions. (For all the good that would do.) Some of them may have tried following the opt out.

SpamCop doesn't have to give him their addresses - no law requires that. Spamcop doesn't have to tell him that people complained at all. They can simply list his IP's.

This is a libel complaint. Richter has to prove that spamcop has said things about him that are a) Untrue and b) Damaged his reputation.

The first thing I would point out in court is what kind of reputation Richter has. It would be hard for Spamcop to damage a reputation like that - it's a reputation straight from the gutter.

The fact that Richter is already in legal trouble is going to help Spamcops case, since he's claiming they are harming his reputation.

I believe that most judges, when given the choice between defending Richter's honor, or ruling for SpamCop's free speech (the right to say "Here is a list of IP's that have been reported for sending spam) will go with free speech.

IANAL - but I've done some research into libel recently, after a spammer threatened to sue me.

Re:what a suprise

[JuggleGeek]

We work very hard to keep our mailing lists clean and we can't do it when complaints have their original email address taken out. As much as I dig what Spamcop does they're too heavy handed with legitimate mailing lists.

Without more information, such as the name of the list, there is no way to verify what you say. However, legitimate mailing lists are not going to generate a bunch of complaints to Spamcop. If they are getting a lot of reports about the emails you send, chances are, you are sending spam.

Re:what a suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe a pre-filter could be good. Why does have to be brought to court a case where someone says (p.e.) "I say he has stealed my car. It's just my word againts his"? If someone just has his/her word, no case is made.

A fine example would be SCO's case: "if you don't want to show what you have you can't go to court" instead or "let's go to court and we'll see if I want to show what I have" would be much better (less money spend on stupid litigants).

Re:what a suprise

[k8er]

If there was a judgement against Pathetic Wacko, couldn't the courts garnish his wages until the debt was paid? And if the PW is so averse to thinking, how can he pose a threat to even a low-end corporate attorney?

Re:what a suprise

[drinkypoo]

Certainly his wages, had he any, could be garnished. His government aid due to mental illness, however, cannot. Meanwhile, PW will probably not be representing himself in court, and at the very least any action in court will cost the defending corporation some money.

Re:what a suprise

[Ciggy]

if the suing company is worth 10x the smaller company, the suing company has to pay for all the smaller company's defense...[y]ou can even make it scale

And if the suer is the smaller business and is worth say 1/10x the suee (ie the party being sued is worth 10x the suer), what then? The suee has to foot the bill for both themselves and the suer, even though the case may be leaking worse than the Titanic?

Re:what a suprise

[ePhil_One]

And if the PW is so averse to thinking, how can he pose a threat to even a low-end corporate attorney?

The point isn't that PW poses a threat, its that the companies lawyers are ringing up hourly charges while laughing their buts off at his case, all the while making sure to cross all their T's and dot all their I's because they don't want to lose to PW on a technicality. Just because PW is willing to devote his time to reading enough law to become dangerous to himself and others doesn't mean small and medium sized companies can risk sending a mail clerk to defend themselves. These cases cost money, which is why they often get paid off to make them go away. which only encourages PW.

Nobody said PW was dumb, just that he's suffering from some serious failures in logic. The sort that prevent him from realizing how foolish it is to blow dry your hair while showering.

Think of it as SCO vs IBM in minature. Dozen's of small businesses go under because of brushes with PW robbed them of operating capital, sank them into debt, raised their insurance costs, etc.

Re:what a suprise

[stephenbooth]

If you tell SpamCop that you won't accept munged (their term for reports that have had the email address removed) reports then when someone submits a mail from you it will give them a choice of either not sending the complaint to you or sending it unmunged. That way you'll only get complaints with the email address intact so you can wash it out of your spam lists.

If you're claiming to be legit and someone reports you via SpamCop then just explain to them the situation and if they believe you they'll send a warning to the person who submitted the message. If you're signed up with Habeas then they'll definately warn the user. Too many warnings and the user will get cut off from the SpamCop service. I've noticed that a lot of lists I'm on have started sending out a message once every couple of months that contains no advertising material at all basically saying "Hey, you're signed up to this list. If you don't want to be here's how to unsubscribe.", somethign like that might add credence to claims that your not a spammer. The nature of the spam industry is that if what you do looks like it might be spam then the onus is on you to show that it's not, much like if you walk into a bank carrying a shot gun and wearing a mask the onus is on you to prove that you're not planning to rob it.

Stephen

Re:what a suprise

[mwvdlee]

AFAIK most loser-pays systems revolve around the plaintiff being able to proof he ever had any case to begin with. This takes away the risk of having to pay big corp lawyers if you loose a case which obviously had merit yet stops those happy-go-lucky claims some organisations seem to make these days. Ofcourse; no system is perfect but atleast it gives the underdog a better fighting chance.

/me ponders...

[grub]

Scott Richter's 32-employee firm [...]

Just out of curiosity, do Uzis jam or would one be better off reloading a trusty ol' six-shooter 5 times?

lighten up, it's a joke

Re:/me ponders...

[Thng]

I'd go for the six shooter, but I'd reload it six times.

Then maybe shoot Scott 4 times, just to make sure

:-) Yes, it's a joke too!

Re:/me ponders...

[rokzy]

they don't deserve guns. use some kind of chemical/biological agent so they die in agony.

or maybe so for something "ironic" like death from a million paper cuts where each cut is triggered by a spam detector.

Re:/me ponders...

[WormholeFiend]

from www.vectorarms.com/other/UZI_history.html

"After twelve Karas and five UZIs were placed on rigorous trial in 1951, the UZI emerged as the winner because of its ability to tolerate dust and grit without jamming, as well as its ease and low cost of manufacture."

I hope this answers your question... ;-)

Re:/me ponders...

[macdaddy]

Take your pick.

Re:/me ponders...

[WwWonka]

Just out of curiosity, do Uzis jam or would one be better off reloading a trusty ol' six-shooter 5 times? lighten up, it's a joke

Dear Mr /me ponders,

During normal inspection of our daily internet packet scanning and logging we came acroos this threat you made on the internet site "Slashdot".

We have reason to believe that you may indeed be a terrorist with plans to shootup any/all companies that deal with the legal practice of email marketing. Although this is a very annoying by-product it is no reason for you wanting to blowup federal buildings.

We have started a full investigation into your planned attacks on American cities and will pursue your capture and secret detention in an un-named facility. If you further threaten to drop a nuclear bomb on the state of Texas your family will also be incarcerated.

Please be aware this is for the protection of the world. We can not stand for your insistence on flooding the world for 40 days and 40 nights, or risk that possibility.

Sincerely,
US Attorney General
John Ashcroft

Re:/me ponders...

[wcbarksdale]

Grammatical/arithmetical nitpick: if you reload it six times, that means you load it seven times.

(Not meant to be taken seriously, but not meant to be funny either)

Re:/me ponders...

[Obfuscant]

If you turned your ol' six-shooter into a bigger, more woman-pleasing twelve-shooter, you'd only have to reload twice, and I can sell you the perfect herbal solution, no prescription necessary.

Re:/me ponders...

[sweet cunny muffin]

"They don't deserve punishment... [points hands as guns] ...the deserve gun-ishment"

Re:/me ponders...

[scrubmuffin]

"Just out of curiosity, do Uzis jam or would one be better off reloading a trusty ol' six-shooter 5 times?"

You had better be a great shot and hope for that old two birds and one stone thing or you're gonna let two get away.

Re:/me ponders...

[lightspawn]

Just out of curiosity, do Uzis jam or would one be better off reloading a trusty ol' six-shooter 5 times?

In my experience, the trouble with Uzis is not so much that they don't work when you want them to, but that they sometimes decide to work all by themselves.

(Also see: True Lies)

Re:/me ponders...

[evanbd]

Five is sufficient if you're planning on bludgeoning the other two with the empty pistol... Not a bad plan, after all.

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm, I thought it went like this:
1) Load the trusty six-shooter: 6 rounds
2) Proceed to discharge six times.
3) Reload the six-shooter five times: 30 more rounds, total of 36 (and 32 employees)
And, since this is Slashdot, I have to do...
4) ???
5) Profit!
This is all still a joke, but might as well not pick nits, eh?

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

I came home from the pub the other night to find my two cats sitting staring at the carpet opposite each other. They had found a spider with a small head a green body. It was an ugly bastard.

Apparently they'd be torturing it before I got home. I watched them torture it for another half an hour before I finally went to bed.

I imagine that after the "fun" was done, they just ate the critter, since there was no sign of the afore mentioned spider, but two very pleased cats asleep on my bed in the morning.

Not wanting to draw any parallels at all, but cats don't piss about with this sort of stuff, someone invaded their space, they tortured it and finally ate it. How is it that spam can invade my home each day and yet they can get away with it ?

Perhaps we need more cats ?

Perhaps I should get my cats email addresses, teach them to use OSX mail and see what they do.

Re:/me ponders...

[nizo]

I for one am going to miss your posts.

BTW, these guys suing SpamCom is like Michael Jackson suing a child he has been molesting (note that this in no way reflects his guilt or innocence in the current trial and is simply included as humorous content).

Re:/me ponders...

[edalytical]

32 - (2 * 12) = pistol-whip remaining 8 victims.

Re:/me ponders...

[wcrowe]

I recommend something like the Mossberg Model 500 or Remington 870 12ga. Consider: a single cartridge of 12ga 00 buckshot contains nine pellets of about .32 caliber. A .357 pistol fires 6 shots which are only a little larger than .32 caliber. So, basically, a single shot from a 12ga is like emptying a your pistol at the target -- and the Mossberg Model 500 is going to have seven cartriges in the magazine.

Plus, you really don't have to aim it.

Re:/me ponders...

[CrimsonAvenger]

right! you really don't want to load the chambe under the hammer, so the "six-shooter" will normally have only five chambers loaded.

Re:/me ponders...

[focitrixilous P]

Unless they are all in a small bunch you may go through a couple magazines of uzi rounds to get the job done. It's much easier to just take out the whole building at once.
The odds of a grenade jamming are mighty low.

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, one load 1-6 then 5 reloads would give you 36 bullets.

Re:/me ponders...

[Neon Spiral Injector]

That's what inertial firing pins are for.

Re:/me ponders...

[grub]

I for one am going to miss your posts.

Am I going somewhere? Ashcroft taking a visit to .ca? ;)

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, use those kick ass 000 buck 3 inch mags..... they are .38 and there are more of them (12 - 16 I think). (I always keep a couple in my pocket when hunting birds in bear country, they are heavy, like almost 2 oz's of lead)They kick like a horse at the nice end, I would hate to be on the "fuck you" end!!!! Would love to see a spammer or two take that load in the face........

Re:/me ponders...

[Dachannien]

Even John Ashcroft knows that Uzis are made by the Jews, and no self-respecting Islamic extremist would touch the Uzi when there's half a dozen AK-47s sitting right there.

Re:/me ponders...

[lizrd]

32- (12 + (2 * 12)) = 4 bullets left to shoot Scott some more.

Re:/me ponders...

[pegr]

Grammatical/arithmetical nitpick: if you reload it six times, that means you load it seven times.
(Not meant to be taken seriously, but not meant to be funny either)

Nope, not unless the gun was new, as you only load a gun once. Every time thereafter is a reload. I hope he doesn't try that with a new gun he's never loaded before. You need practice to make sure you do it right!

Re:/me ponders...

[nizo]

Am I going somewhere? Ashcroft taking a visit to .ca? ;)

Well considering Canada is one of our few remaining allies, I expect y'all to be declared an Axis of Evil country any day now.

Which reminds me of a great bumpersticker I saw the other day:

"Re-elect Gore in 2004"

Re:/me ponders...

[SquadBoy]

Deseret Eagle. nuff said

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

they don't deserve guns. use some kind of chemical/biological agent so they die in agony.

Who says guns can't be painful? Shoot their balls off first, one by one. Then start on the fingers...

Re:/me ponders...

[d_jedi]

I'd say a laser-guided 1000-pound bomb would do the trick.. Now, we just need to convince Ashcroft SPAM helps the terrorists..

Re:/me ponders...

[Maserati]

A Deseret Eagle ? When did the Mormons get into the arms business ?

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

32- (12 + (2 * 12)) = 4

You wanna try that again?

Re:/me ponders...

[the pickle]

DA: A revolver holds six bullets, not eight. I submit that this was not a hot-blooded crime of passion. That at least could be understood, if not condoned. No. This was revenge, of a much more brutal, cold-blooded nature. Consider this: four bullets per victim. Not six shots fired, but eight. That means that he fired the gun empty and then stopped to reload so that he could shoot each of them again. An extra bullet per spammer, right in the head.

Judge: You strike me as a particularly icy and remorseless man, Mr. Dufresne. It chills my blood just to look at you.

Dufresne: Well, you would have capped them both an extra time or two in the head, too, if they kept trying to get you to enlarge your penis with all the money you were getting from that nice Nigerian man whose hot college slut daughter wants to show you her boobs.

p

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

Main Entry: redundant
Function: adjective

1 a : exceeding what is necessary or normal : SUPERFLUOUS b : characterized by or containing an excess; specifically : using more words than necessary c : characterized by similarity or repetition d chiefly British : no longer needed for a job and hence laid off
2 : PROFUSE, LAVISH
3 : serving as a duplicate for preventing failure of an entire system (as a spacecraft) upon failure of a single component

Source: m-w.com

Can you meta-mod properly now?

Re:/me ponders...

[aaandre]

This is NOT funny...

Re:/me ponders...

[SquadBoy]

Ever here of a guy named John Moses Browning. :)

Re:/me ponders...

[dtfinch]

Better use two uzis. If one jams up, you still have the other.

> lighten up, it's a joke

It may have been a joke, but it's not a bad idea. Suppose they've cost us a billion dollars in wasted bandwidth, and divide that by 32. That's roughly $31 million dollars damage per employee, for a personal income of probably much less than a hundredth of that. To commit such an act requires a person to be incapable of feeling remorse. The only consequences they weigh are their own. They'd kill you for your wallet if they were 100% sure they could get away with it. They share the same personality traits as serial killers, terrorist leaders, SCO directors, and other villains that would break Godwin's law to mention.

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory Jackie Brown quote:

(Samuel L Jackson's character)

AK-47! The very best there is!

When you absolutely, positively got to kill every mothafuka in the room... ...Accept no substitute!

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno, I think castration would work better as a deterrent, and it'd prevent them from reproducing. :P

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

You win the award for most ironic .sig, since the ACLU certainly doesn't understand any part of "shall not be infringed."

Re:/me ponders...

[curious.corn]

you Sir are NOT funny, rather: an asshole.

Re:/me ponders...

[AndrewHowe]

That's a MAC-10, not an Uzi.

Re:/me ponders...

[red floyd]

Why it's not a good idea to drop bombs on spammers.

Re:/me ponders...

[nyseal]

'Ya know....I'm not a cat fan, but that was funny!

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear John;

How many spams did you get today?

-Flaming Rage, Spam Recipient

Re:/me ponders...

[shadowbearer]

Spammer: I'll sue! You've cost me my business!

Cat: Heh. So what? [ starts licking his ass ]

Re:/me ponders...

[Eggplant62]

Unless they are all in a small bunch you may go through a couple magazines of uzi rounds to get the job done. It's much easier to just take out the whole building at once.
The odds of a grenade jamming are mighty low.

I say we nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Re:/me ponders...

[edalytical]

Silly me. I thought it said load not reload. Oops!

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

Paper cuts and lemon juice.

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

you're not very good with word problems, are you?

Re:/me ponders...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not very good with math problems, are you?

Re:/me ponders...

[JuggleGeek]

self-respecting Islamic extremist

Now you're confusing me...

Re:/me ponders...

[focitrixilous P]

Sub-orbital giant drop trumps all. Just shoot a flaming arrow into the office and drop the giants.

Re:/me ponders...

[Grab]

And me with no mod points! +1 for smart reference, +1 for details from reference, +1 for funny, and +1 just for quality... :-)

Grab.

He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[LostCluster]

The law flat out says that he CAN SPAM. Say what you want about the guy, he's a big follower of truth in labeling....

Tthe key event is that when every you give your e-mail address to any site on the Internet you usually have the chance to opt in to getting commercial e-mail. Opt in with one of Richter's site, and just like the name of his company implies, you opt in REAL BIG to absolutely anybody who wants to Spam you via him. Oh, the dangers of leaving a pre-checked checkbox still checked when you submit the form.

Once you're caught in Richter's web, the only way out is to send an unsubscribe request email exactly the way that the CAN-SPAM says you should. Sure, responding to the unsubscribe link is a great way to get more spam from unethical spammers... but it's the only way to stop getting spam from a compling-to-the-letter-of-the-law spammer. He's untouchable, he'll plead guilty as charged to being scum... but he's breaking no laws.

SpamCop's free to spread its low opinion about OptInRealBig, but they have to be very careful they keep what they say in opinion territory. If SpamCop's willing to publish nameless acusations that OptInRealBig is sending e-mail to people who didn't really opt in, they'd better be sure those people have their facts straight. Richter's counter is that all these people really did opt in, they just don't remember when they did so. If they'd simply provide their e-mail address, Richter could likely tell them at what site and when they made their mistake of signaling that they were opting in, and if they've just send a proper e-mail to his unsubscribe address, he'll gladly unsubscribe them. But since they won't disclose their address, he can't do much for them.

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[Liselle]

He's untouchable, he'll plead guilty as charged to being scum... but he's breaking no laws.

Funny thing about Scott Richter, that's not true. To be crude: he's one of those people that thinks his shit doesn't stink. If you read any interview that he has done, he will repeatedly declare he is an "e-mail marketer", a regular hotshot internet entrepreneur. He's convinced himself he is a legitimate businessman. I suppose that's the only way a whackjob like Scott Richter can get to sleep at night.

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[Anonymous Coward]

i didn't opt in. i opened a yahoo email account within three or four days i received a single solitairy spam from optinrealbig.

being a good email person, i didn't reply nor did i hit the unsubscribe link.

within a week, the spam started pouring in.

now...two years later...without every distributing that email address to anyone...it received over 200+ spams a day.

scott richter is a liar and i'd love to know which court he filed with so i can file an amicus on behalf of spamcop attesting to his company's behavior.

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[tgibbs]

Although SpamCop obfuscates the address of complainants so as not to reveal their addresses to a spammer, it is still possible for the recipient of a complaint to communicate with the complainant--SpamCop will forward their response. On the rare occasions in which a SpamCop complaint recipient has responded and requested my email address in order to remove me, I've always responded (on the theory that it is not worth a real human's time to confirm my email address merely for spamming purposes).

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[tsg]

Opt in with one of Richter's site, and just like the name of his company implies, you opt in REAL BIG to absolutely anybody who wants to Spam you via him. Oh, the dangers of leaving a pre-checked checkbox still checked when you submit the form.

A checkbox asking for commercial email that is checked by default is opt out, not opt in. The user still has to take action to not get spam.

Do you want spam from us? [default: yes]
Do you not want spam from us? [default: no]

They both say "we will send you spam unless you tell us otherwise". Both are opt out.

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[LostCluster]

he will repeatedly declare he is an "e-mail marketer"

How is any form of "marketer" not one and the same with "scum"?

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[lightspawn]

Richter's counter is that all these people really did opt in, they just don't remember when they did so. If they'd simply provide their e-mail address, Richter could likely tell them at what site and when they made their mistake of signaling that they were opting in

This information (subscribed address, form URL, time and date) should have been legally required to be included as part of the email. Furthermore, unsubscribing should be done once per opt-in (not "once you opt-in once we get to sell your address to as many companies as we like, and you need to unsubscribe from each individually".

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[cmowire]

You certianly have an interesting view of things.

In fact, the biggest problem is that the entire spam industry has made next to no good-faith efforts to legitimize itself. OptInRealBig isn't helping.

I have found, based on experiments on my wepbage (explicitly denied *all* spiders by a robots.txt file, unique email address every time it is spidered, etc) that spammers do still spider addresses, opting out does not work, even if the site claims that they comply with YOU-CAN-SPAM. They all claim that I "opted in" by submitting my name to a "FFA" site or crap like that in the bottom of the message.

I did, at one point, get some information about how a spammer got my address. They admitted that they had purchased it from somebody else, who then claimed that I allowed them to because I forgot to click a checkbox on a third company's website several years prior, but wouldn't say who sold it.

Which, if you think about it, is bunk. If permission is that vaccuous, then giving one site permission, you are really giving every single spammer permission, because they can sell said permission freely. And they don't even need to drop you. If company A sells permission to company B and C, if OptInRealBig has purchased permission from company B and you opt out, they can simply obtain permission from company C and continue to spam. So it's pretty clear that YOU-CAN-SPAM isn't going to work, even if they manage to prosecute a few spammers here and there.

See, the big thing here is that SpamCop does not really need to concern itself with YOU-CAN-SPAM in the slightest. YOU-CAN-SPAM uses the term "Spam" but does not create a legal definition of it. Thus, SpamCop can create their own definition of what spam is, and list mailers that violate that. This is similar to how the BBB creates a list of companies who violate their definition of good business. So there's nothing "legally" wrong with creating a list of mailers who buy lists from others and mass-mail them. You can even call it a list of "spammers" and sell it. Which is what this case is really about. As long as SpamCop sticks to their definition of what spam is, there's no real case that can be made.

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[LostCluster]

It doesn't matter if the box starts at yes, starts at no... or if there is no box at all and the terms on the form simply says that by submitting the form you're agreeing...

You have to be taking a proactive action by filling out and submitting the form. That's enough to make it opt in.

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[Anonymous Coward]

>I suppose that's the only way a whackjob like Scott Richter can get to sleep at night.

Actually, I think the piles of money he sleeps on gives his spine just the support he needs to get a great nights sleep..

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[Liselle]

Yeah, I'll drink to that one.

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[tsg]

You have to be taking a proactive action by filling out and submitting the form. That's enough to make it opt in.

If the primary purpose of the form, from the user's point of view, is to get on the spam list, then yes, it's opt in. If getting on the spam list is a side-effect of filling out the form (for example, to get an email confirmation of an order), then it's opt out.

There are three possibities for any yes/no question: question answered "yes"; question answered "no"; and question not answered. It's what you do in the "question not answered" case that determines if it's opt in or opt out. If "question not answered" puts you on the list, it's opt out. If it doesn't, it's opt in. If you don't ask the question and put them on the list, it's opt out.

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[kvbeek]

Obfuscation is also done to protect the identity of the "deputy" members of the SpamCop team. They're the people that do part-time work digging through and documenting the spam they get. If their addresses are revealed to spammers, their ability to be effective is diminished. Once found out, spammers would just avoid their addresses to avoid being reported.

And these are smart people that know the difference between commercial email (that you agreed to get or asked for) and SPAM.

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[eaolson]

The law flat out says that he CAN SPAM. Say what you want about the guy, he's a big follower of truth in labeling...

Yeah, well show me the law that says I have to accept his email. I can block whatever I want, for whatever reason I want. I can block all email coming from an IP address with three 6's in it if I want. I can block all email sent on a Thursday if I want. And I can block email using Spamcop if I want.

No one is forced to use Spamcop. The people that use it chose to do so. They may do it themselves, or they may choose to do so by proxy, by choosing an ISP that uses Spamcop.

Richter's counter is that all these people really did opt in, they just don't remember when they did so. If they'd simply provide their e-mail address, Richter could likely tell them at what site and when they made their mistake of signaling that they were opting in,

Or at least manufacture evidence showing that.

No one on this planet can genuinely say that spammers don't exist. Therefore, someone out there is spamming, in violation of CAN-SPAM. It seems reasonable to me to conclude that of the *massive* number of accusations against Richter, they're not all made up.

Remember, Richter says that you opt-in to his spam just by viewing one of his websites. No email signup, no forms, just loading it in a web browser is enough.

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[riptide_dot]

IANAL, but I always thought that law centers on proof.
Take a case where the OptInRealBig people are suing someone else for defamation of character. The burden of proof would then be on OptInRealBig to prove that EVERYONE on their spam list in fact opted-in at one point. That in itself would be really hard to prove, considering (among other things) the sheer number of people they'd have to provide proof for. But, consider this: what if someone ELSE opted in using that person's email address? Doesn't OptInRealBig have to prove that the PERSON opted in, and not just the email address?

One of my previous employers had a disgruntled employee that signed him up for a bunch of porno magazine subscriptions in hopes that he'd have to pay for them. Since the publishers of these mags couldn't prove that it was in fact my employer that signed himself up, they had no claim to make when they wanted to charge him hundreds of dollars for the subscriptions, hence they couldn't sue him for a red CENT.

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[Brightest Light]

parent is exactly right.
have a look at the rules of spam

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[Trillan]

If he's following CAN SPAM exactly, he's legally able to spam.

But nobody says we need to accept it. All CAN SPAM did twas make some spam illegal. It didn't force us to swallow the rest.

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[pete6677]

And this is what will bite poor Scotty in the ass. Even if he swears up and down that he removes people from his lists, nobody will believe him since he is known to have harvested email addresses from whois info, dictionary attacks, and other unethical tactics. I feel no sympathy for a 'businessman' like this who gets to lie in the bed he made.

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[shadowbearer]

The law flat out says that he CAN SPAM. Say what you want about the guy, he's a big follower of truth in labeling....

Well, Microsoft doesn't think so.

SB

Re:He CAN-SPAM... the law says so!

[WoodstockJeff]

Opt-in can only be claimed when you have proof that someone visited a site or sent an email or did SOMETHING. However, if these are the people I think they are, they have sent hundreds of "opted-in" emails to a number of addresses that have not been valid on our system for longer than this clown has known what "email" meant... and before commercial websites existed.

Scott Richter

[Anonymous Coward]

Scott Richter

Phone number: (303) 550-9828(Daily Camera)
Email: scottrichter422@yahoo.com

Enjoy!

Re:Scott Richter

[netsharc]

All the messages Yahoo! users have marked as spam should go to this asshole. I wonder why Yahoo! lets him have an account anyway, kick his ass outta there!

On another point, the 2nd last paragraph of the article say,

Richter claims that he is strictly sending emails only to people who have signed up for his services on his website. "If someone does not want our emails, we can be easily identified and remove users from our list by request," he said.

so what form of request is sufficient? An email, a letter, a lawyer's letter, a subpoena? a letter attached to a brick?

Re:Scott Richter

[RetroGeek]

scottrichter422

If you are sending emails to him, don't forget scottrichter1 through scottrichter421.

Re:Scott Richter

[jhunsake]

a letter attached to a brick?

Preferrably dropped on his head, from three stories up.

Re:Scott Richter

[Tweester]

Sigh... to think I could have killed this guy in high school...

Re:Scott Richter

[lynx_user_abroad]

so what form of request is sufficient?

CAN-SPAM says (IIRC) that it's up to the spammer to decide what sort of hoops you need to jump through to get "unsubscribed".

For example, a spammer could offer you the opportunity to unsubscribe using a hypertext CGI command like http://example.net/cgi/unsubscribe_me_then_resubsu bscribe_me_again_in_10_minutes.cgi

Rule #1 is in full force here.

Re:Scott Richter

[Gogl]

There's no way he still uses that email address. It recently got some rather high profile and hilarious coverage (Daily Show clip, requires Realplayer).

Re:Scott Richter

[ohsoot]

HA!
That was great for a Friday laugh!
And don't let the Real player keep you away, get Real Alternative if you don't already have it.

I hope

[nberardi]

I really hope the court doesn't actually take this seriously.

Re:I hope

[Mysticalfruit]

Actually, if any past tort law is an indicator, he'll get the beat-down he deserves.

What would really funny is if during the trial the judge was to get spam flooded from the Mr. Richter's company.

Re:I hope

[Mysticalfruit]

Opps! I meant to write "decisions".

They'll be neither creating a law, nor will it be a law that's created through the actions of a judge...

Where's my Opt-Out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, they don't have way on their web site to get your email address off their "opt-in" email list.
So if you want to try and "opt-out", you'll have to contact them.

OptInRealBig contact info:
info@optinbig.com
phone: (303) 464-8164
fax: (303) 464-8218
1333 W 120th Ave
Suite 101
Westminster, CO 80234

Any questions regarding their Acceptable Use Policy should be sent to legal@optinbig.com

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[LostCluster]

That seems to be a valid contact address, but that's not their Opt-Out address.

The only place they have to publish their Opt-Out intructions is at the end of every e-mail they send. Can't tell the difference between Richter's e-mails and the other not-law-compliant spamemrs? That's your problem...

Yep, opting in is so easy you can do it without realizing you did. Opting out is so hard you have to strugle to get it done and will often fall into the trap of verifying that you read spam e-mail.

Oh, and you kill your spam before you read it? Oh well, you'll also end up killing the ever elusive opt-out info.

Somehow, this CAN-SPAM law isn't quite what we wanted in an anti-spam law...

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[ethx1]

Thanks for that info. I'll spam that email address and fax number and see how those bastards like it. I'll also get their phone number to a psychic hotline.

I read an article somewhere about faxing carbon paper (all black) continuously by taping 2 sheets of it together in a loop so it would go on and on and waste all their ink. hehe perfect time to try it. ;)

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[mcwop]

The funny part is that they don't have a toll free number. I wonder why?

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[ashkar]

Hmm, it's busy. I'll have to try again later.

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[hyperstation]

rings for me, some company directory. scott richter is not in it.

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[steveb964]

I read an article somewhere about faxing carbon paper (all black) continuously by taping 2 sheets of it together in a loop so it would go on and on and waste all their ink.

Ohhh, I wish I had mod points... I almost pissed myself laughing at the thought of this. + Funny :o)

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[rainman_bc]

I did that once. I phoned a spammer and asked to be removed from their mailing list. They just said "we can't do that". I emailed the local police department and still nothing. I gave up. Note that I'm in canada eh...

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[steveb964]

Hmmm, I never thought of /.ing a phone #.

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[TykeClone]

Is there any reason not to forward spam directly to the info@optinbig.com e-mail address?

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I'm sure they would honor a polite request to opt out, whereas using one of those online services to send them dog crap, or ordering them free samples of magazines, newsletters, etc. wouldn't do much but annoy them.

I mean, how would you like it if someone took all the free subscription cards out of the magazines at the local library and sent them in. I mean, they could even get several of the same magazine if you have extra cards and fill in different names, and that would just be mean. I mean, I'm sure they would stop sending you crap if you asked nicely, right?

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[RickHunter]

Somehow, this CAN-SPAM law isn't quite what we wanted in an anti-spam law...

No, but its exactly what the spammers wanted.

Of course, the ideal tool would mine the opt-out info from the bottom of the mail, automatically generate an obviously random address to use for an opt-out request, and send it off. Then when that address starts getting spam, I believe you've got what you need to nail the spammer.

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[dtfinch]

Tip for those of you who don't live in Westminster, CO:
Search ICQ for users in Westminster, CO, and offer them $20 to get your revenge. If you tell them who it is, they may even do it for free. Yahoo email search might work for recruiting as well.

Some ideas:
File a complaint in city hall, or at the police department. Say they're running an illegal spam operation, because they are.
Submit a story to the local newspaper.
Toss in a bucket of bricks, or whatever else perks your interest.
Fun with superglue.
Slash tires.
Follow Scott home and drop a bunch of marijuana plants in the backyard, then tip off police.

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[jaeson]

So your slashdot ID is ethx1 and you are advocating spamming scott richter and running his fax machine out of ink? This makes you different from him in which way exactly? This was a joke right?

And the mods rated your comment "Interesting"?

Un-fucking believable.

Re:Where's my Opt-Out?

[Piquan]

I read an article somewhere about faxing carbon paper (all black) continuously by taping 2 sheets of it together in a loop so it would go on and on and waste all their ink.

I'd recommend against carbon paper, since the carbon dust might get on the lens, in the gears, etc and pretty much waste your fax machine. But other things might work well. For an example, take some of his spam and print it out in white-on-black. Be sure to use a callout box for the bit that says effectively "You asked for this!"

SCO?

[Quai]

So, OptinRealBig.com does a SCO?

I was waiting for this...

Damaged reputation?

[AltGrendel]

According to Richter, Spamcop's initiatives have damaged the reputation of his company.

I would think that he's doing a fine job of that by himself.

How can he hope to win this suit?

[petard]

Isn't that a lot like suing the credit reporting companies because you went bankrupt and they put you on their "do not extend credit" list? You could call it "tortious interference" with your ability to get a credit card or a mortgage.

I think that's been tried many times and hasn't worked. Why would this?

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[LostCluster]

Isn't that a lot like suing the credit reporting companies because you went bankrupt and they put you on their "do not extend credit" list? You could call it "tortious interference" with your ability to get a credit card or a mortgage.

I think that's been tried many times and hasn't worked. Why would this?

Because the credit card company can show up in court with contracts that indicate you really did agree to pay that debt, and then you didn't. They can spread bad facts about you because they can bring supporting documents that stand behind those facts.

Unfortately... you can't exactly prove the negative that says you never did opt in to get Ricter's e-mails. In fact, if you're willing to give him your e-mail address, he'll gladly tell you when and where you agreed that he could send you e-mail about anything he wants to. And if you send him a proper unsubscribe request, he really will unsubscribe you.

One bullet-proof defense to all complaints of slander and libel is "It's true!". However, if you can't prove the truth of that statement, you're not going to get to use that defense.

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[the morgawr]

There's a little thing called discovery. He'd better be able to show that they did opt-in or the defending lawyers will have a field day and probably get it thrown out of court.

As for the opt out. It only takes one person who says they asked to be taken off and wern't....

With all of those addresses flying about odds are there is at least one.....

Just my $.02

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[LostCluster]

As for the opt out. It only takes one person who says they asked to be taken off and wern't....

Unfortunately, the standard is not that low.

It only takes one person who can submit proof that they complied with Richter's opt-out instructions to indicate that they wished to be taken off, and weren't.

Just saying you tried isn't enough... you have to have requested and requested correctly.

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[t1m0r4n]

As for the opt out. It only takes one person who says they asked to be taken off and wern't....

The catch here is that he will most likely be able to point out that you "unsubscribed" to abc.xyz.com only, but you did not ask to be removed from its affiliate def.xyz.com or any other the countless others.

And in regards to the person who stated that the e-mail address was only listed on a web site, and it was never used to "opt-in": It will be said that someone else used that address. As they never require confirmatiion from the owner of the address, there is no way to prove someone didn't. A really determined spammer trying to appear legit could easily whip up bogus entries for addresses that have been harvested.

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[Isofarro]

There's a little thing called discovery.

Last time, during Felstein's failed eMarketers America suit, the anti-spammers went for / insisted on a full discovery - unfortunately the Boca Raton spammers bolted when they realised their predicament.

I wonder if IronPort would oblige us by doing the same? Looks like Julian Haight still has a strong presence there.

Getting a good look at the innerworkings of a spammer may just provide a better idea of how to combat them (apart from the sheer entertainment value of watching em squirm).

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[Dimensio]

And if you send him a proper unsubscribe request, he really will unsubscribe you.

From where, exactly, did you derive this bit of fiction?

Scott Richter is a spammer. Therefore, by definition, he is a liar, a theif, an idiot, and he deserves to die.

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[gorbachev]

He isn't really hoping to win the suit, as such.

What he is hoping is that he can scare SpamCop and their new corporate owner into settling out of court to avoid costly litigation.

Exactly as he did when he sent Felstein after SpamHaus, SPEWS and the 7 individual spam fighters the last time.

Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers. The slower and more painful, the better

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Unfortately... you can't exactly prove the negative that says you never did opt in to get Ricter's e-mails."

Of course you can. The first time an email arrives to 5320f507515a0a3b2e8c820fb2e03d2f@yourdomain.com, you can prove that spam was sent to an email address that was obtained from spidering a website.

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scott Richter is a spammer. Therefore, by definition, he is a liar, a theif, an idiot, and he deserves to die.

Er, what? Who's definition is that? It sure isn't mine.

How on earth does merely wasting a small amount of your time each day deserve the death penalty? That's all spammers do, after all. I waste far more time browsing Slashdot than deleting spam - do the Slashdot editors deserve to die?

(Go on then, post an obl. "yes" and get a +5, Funny, see if I care.)

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one that's beginning to believe that LostCluster is or works for Ricter? He seems to be the only person on this thread that believes Ricter's claims.

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[RickHunter]

Of course, you then have to prove that this slimebag's company was the one that sent the mail. Which gets to be a little more difficult. A much more productive method would be to use the discovery phase to grab their e-mail address database and search it for stuff like that. Oh, and nail every single means of gathering e-mail addresses they've got with a subpoena while you're at it.

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[Control Group]

Unfortately... you can't exactly prove the negative that says you never did opt in to get Ricter's e-mails.

Everyone says you can't prove a negative. I've always been perplexed by this: if one can't prove a negative, how does one prove that one can't prove a negative?

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[Darth]

Everyone says you can't prove a negative. I've always been perplexed by this: if one can't prove a negative, how does one prove that one can't prove a negative?

it's a logical paradox. If you do prove you cannot prove a negative, you've proven you can and therefore you can't.

i would say "you can't prove a negative" isnt an assertion, it's advice to avoid a headache.

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[Piquan]

Everyone says you can't prove a negative.

And it's not entirely accurate. For example, I might assert that there's a computer disk with a program on it that solves the halting problem. You can prove that it doesn't exist through pure mathematics.

The idea that "you can't prove a negative" generally comes from the concept of a null hypothesis in statistics. Suppose that I want to demonstrate that caffiene affects you metabolism. My null hypothesis is the opposite: that the metabolism of persons who ingest caffiene is the same as persons who don't. My null hypothesis is one which states that a difference does not exist.

Now, I test a bunch of people: my control group doesn't injest caffiene, and my test group does. I then measure their metabolisms. I observe that the test group has heightened cardiovascular activity. So my null hypothesis has been rejected, thus the alternative hypothesis-- that there is an effect-- is justified.

Had I not seen any effect, then the null hypothesis would not have been proven. We merely would have failed to reject it. Perhaps there is an effect that we did not measure, for instance.

Re:How can he hope to win this suit?

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, if you're willing to give him your e-mail address, he'll gladly tell you when and where you agreed that he could send you e-mail about anything he wants to.

Been there. Had a spammer claiming to run a ligit list. The ISP asked for verification and he sent a bunch of made up stuff. I asked for the IP address that had filled in the form so that I could go after the offender. Turns out he didn't log that information. Spammers suck.

This one makes me laugh and cry at the same time.

[The I Shing]

I don't think I've ever seen a more obvious example of a SLAPP suit.

The bright spot for me is that SpamCop must be putting some kind of dent in Richter's business if Richter feels like he's got to sue to make SpamCop go away.

Funny how the tricky guys are the ones who talk about using the legal system to "send a message" to anyone who might defy them.

PanIP, the RIAA, and Scott Richter all seem to be cut from the same cloth. Their message seems to be we may not be entitled to a dime but don't you dare defy us, or we'll press this lawsuit until you're bankrupt.

Just lovely having people like this around.

One quote from the article that made me laugh out loud was this one:

He said that he already rejected an offer from Spitzer to settle the case for $100,000.

Oh, yeah, I bet. If Spitzer wanted to settle for $100,000 and Richter turned him down, Spitzer would've dropped it, don't you think?

The other quote that gave me quite a chuckle was, "Messing with us is a big mistake." Oh, yeah, nothing hurts a state attorney general's re-election bid worse than the ill will of a notorious and unrepentant spammer.

Umm, precedent?

[Deflagro]

If this kinda thing was tried before and i'm sure this guy is aware it has been. Hasn't the precedent already been set and they would just drop it?
This guy is a nut though for sure.

In other news ..

[Anonymous Coward]

OptinRealBig.com, SCO and Bin Laden announced the creation of a new company, MostNotoriousBastards.com, that will deliver terrosrist spam through unsecured SCO/Linux open relays.

Money Grubber

[Anonymous Coward]

All that guy cares about is money, obviously, so he'll sue anyone he can. His lawyers probably spend all day figuring out who to sue next.

Subject of legality.

[Obscenity]

If spam was illegal, this case would never hold up. But seeing as unsolicited e-mail is still totally legal, this case just might make it through.

Sidenote: In america, our first ammendment (Freedom of speech) rights SHOULD protect spammers. It will be up to the private sector to create efficient ways of blocking spam. Enacting new laws to regulate spam, only regulate more of our lives, when a companies could compete to stop spam.

Other sidenote: AOL does not want to stop spam. Hotmail limits you to 100 messages a day. My server no longer gets ANY hotmail spam. AOL has not taken this route, ovbiously they are pro-spam

Re:Subject of legality.

[nuggz]

Legality
Freedom of speech always has restrictions.
Commercial speech is even more regulated.

Outright fraud and violation of other laws makes some spam illegal.
Selling drugs (ie viagra), porn (obscenity laws) is illegal in some places.

Some spammers hijack computers or use them without the owners consent. This is also illegal.

Most spamming is against the service contract that of the spammers ISP. Contract violation.

Many people do not want spam, and do not want to pay for it, this is why junk faxes are illegal.

Freedom of speech ends when you're yelling in my ear.

Re:Subject of legality.

[Kenja]

"If spam was illegal, this case would never hold up. But seeing as unsolicited e-mail is still totally legal, this case just might make it through."

Blocking unsolicited e-mail is also still totally legal.

Re:Subject of legality.

[YankeeInExile]

Well, not quite ...

• The supreme court has made a distinction between normal speech and "commercial" speech, and that the latter may be limited in the public interest
• SPAM has nothing to do with freedom of speech. If Scott wants to stand on a street-corner and shout his views on why his advertising should be embraced by all users to all passers by, he is invited to do so.

People - the constitution regulates what government can do -- not what private individuals (or /. editors) can do.

Re:Subject of legality.

[Schmucky The Cat]

The first amendment has nothing to do with spam. My server, my mailbox, my private property rights. The legal term of art that defines spam is "trespass to chattel." Why your argument about first amendment rights continues to show up on Slashdot years after court cases based on private property rights were upheld is baffling. It's been wrong every day that Slashdot has an article about spam and it keeps being wrong.

Re:Subject of legality.

[phallstrom]

"In america, our first ammendment (Freedom of speech) rights SHOULD protect spammers. It will be up to the private sector to create efficient ways of blocking spam."

Taking that a bit further...

- you yell at me.
- i have the option of leaving so I don't have to listen.
- if you keep following me, you're harassing me and I can get a restraining order that *YOU* have to follow, not me.

I don't see the equivalent option when it comes to spam...

Re:Subject of legality.

[Anonymous Coward]

In america, our first ammendment (Freedom of speech) rights SHOULD protect spammers

And it does. Spammers are free to set up a website, and say whatever the hell they want.

They are not however, entitled to do so at my (or anyone else's) expense.

Spam is theft. Theft has nothing to do with "frea speach"

Moron.

Re:Subject of legality.

[FictionPimp]

I disagree, companys should be declared as not people, and thus NOT have a freedom of speach. Commercial speach should not be protected by the 1st ammendment, especially when it uses my resources without compensation. Can i come over and use your phone to call my mom? Free speach right?

Re:Subject of legality.

[cmowire]

The problem is that even non-commercial spam falls into the "fire in a crowded theater" category of when free speach doesn't hold. That is, because it's been growing nearly-unchecked, it has the real possibility of destabilizing networks and causing a flood of traffic that is still filtered out.

Well, that, and commercial speach isn't free speech. Really, people misinterpreting the whole freedom-of-speech issue is one of those things that makes me want to cause bodily harm.

Really, this case has nothing to do with the legality of SPAM. SpamCop is listing OptInRealBig because it falls within their definition of Spam, not because it is illegal. This is no different than somebody suing the BBB because they have a bad record with them.

Re:Subject of legality.

[schemanista]

If Scott wants to stand on a street-corner and shout his views on why his advertising should be embraced by all users to all passers by, he is invited to do so.

He may run afoul of municipal noise bylaws, however. Freedom of speech is still no guarantee of freedom to be heard.

Re:Subject of legality.

[pknoll]

In america, our first ammendment (Freedom of speech) rights SHOULD protect spammers.

Not according to the Supreme Court. From Rowan v. U.S. Post Office Dept., 397 U.S. 728 (1970):

P. 738: "In effect, Congress [w/ section 4009] has erected a wall--or more accurately permits a citizen to erect a wall--that no advertiser may penetrate without his aquiescence."

Commercial speech (advertisement) is not protected speech under the First Amendment.

Re:Subject of legality.

[Dimensio]

Blocking unsolicited e-mail is also still totally legal.

As is sending complaints regarding UBE to the ISP of the spammer.

Anything we can do to help?

[zulux]

Is there a legal-defence fund set up for SpamCop? Of do we keep on giving money to the EFF?

Re:Anything we can do to help?

[doublem]

Just subscribe to one of their services. :)

Everyone wins except the SPAM sending slime.

Re:Anything we can do to help?

[hypethetica]

Spamcop should see if a judge will let them just wait until Scott's other legal battles are over:

"Optinrealbig.com is currently the target of a lawsuit filed by Microsoft and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in December of 2003"

If there's anything left of him after this truckload hits him, it'll be that much easier to get this stupid lawsuit wiped under the table.

Re:Anything we can do to help?

[Anonymous Coward]

When someone sets up a fund for putting a contract on this cocksucker's head, I'll gladly donate.

Re:Anything we can do to help?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is there a legal-defence fund set up for SpamCop?"

Is there a legal-defence fund set up for the Spammer?

Unable to Identify Sender

[Nuclear Elephant]

Richter claims that because the complaints fail to identify the original email sender, Optin cannot comply with the CAN-SPAM ACT, which requires the sender of an email to remove the address of any person who does not desire to receive any further email.

In Soviet Russia, the spammer complains about forged headers.

Re:Unable to Identify Sender

[phoxix]

In Soviet Russia, the spammer complains about forged headers.

On slashdot, many are tired of these cliche, and unoriginal jokes.

Sunny Dubey

Re:Unable to Identify Sender

[Anonymous Coward]

On slashdot, many are tired of these cliche, and unoriginal jokes.

And many more are tired of the idiots who think it's worth complaining about them. Add a negative modifier to Funny moderations, take a deep breath, and relax.

(And doubtless there are even some who are tired of the idiots who complain about the idiots who complain about the idiots who still think ISR jokes are fully, but that's just life...)

Test of SPAM law

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

This may be a dupe, but I thought I should post a link anyway (just in case). Especially since we all hate spammers.

Can-Spam Law Meets Its First Test

Damaged reputation???

[dtjohnson]

How can anyone possibly damage the reputation of a spammer or a spam company?

Re:Damaged reputation???

[Nuclear Elephant]

Richter is claiming to be "opt-in" only. Apparently the whole world has opted-in and Spamcop is sorely mistaken.

Re:Damaged reputation???

[doublem]

Well, Hormel's rep could take a beating, as they do produce a lot of tasty food.

SPAM (n) Gefilte Fish for Gentiles.

Re:Damaged reputation???

[eclectro]

How can anyone possibly damage the reputation of a spammer or a spam company?

By saying you need a prescription for those pills???

Just wondering...

[filtur]

So what would be his mailing address... :) Just in case someone would want to send him a letter.

Diclaimer: I'm just kidding, no one on slashdot would participate in such a thing. Don't blame me.

Re:Just wondering...

[Anonymous Coward]

info@optinbig.com

Re:Just wondering...

[Nuclear Elephant]

That might not be a bad idea actually, if we all configured our spam filters to forward all spams from Richter back to his personal and company email addresses asking to be removed.

Reputation?

[gilesjuk]

What reputation? this is a spammer, they're reputation is dirt. Their mailing aren't even at the quality of mail order marketing, they email trashy adverts for utter garbage like penis enlargement scams.

Re:Reputation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Take that back. She's not a whore, she's a woman of easy virtue.

Close, but not quite!

[goldspider]

"Their message seems to be we may not be entitled to a dime..."

On the contrary, I think the organizations/companies you mentioned believe they ARE in fact entitled to make a dime!

SO, how long before....

[DasBub]

...police find Scott Richter's body in a shallow grave with a single can of spiced ham?

I'm certainly not suggesting anyone should initiate such action.... but if you already have, how much longer do we have to wait?

Sincerely,

- The General Public, xoxo

Re:SO, how long before....

[mcwop]

...or before he ends up in prison with a rapist cellmate that shows him what OptInRealBig really means.

Re:SO, how long before....

[c0d3h4x0r]

And wouldn't it be ironic if his rapist cellmate was extra-well-endowed thanks to all the mail-order Viagra he purchsed through Richter's spam?

Re:SO, how long before....

[Anonymous Coward]

if i were to choose a punishment appropirate for a spammer, it would be to have each of their fingers and toes broken, followed by the rest of their skeleton, and the only reply to their screams of agony and begging for mercy is "BUT YOU *OPTED IN*!!"

BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[Moryath]

Both his arguments, and yours, are completely fucking specious.

I keep a few email addresses around on various sites. One of them is literally present on only ONE site in the world, and it's in white text on a white background, with a disclaimer "this email address is a spam honeypot, don't send email to it" in text right next to it.

That address STILL gets Richter's spam-crap. Just like every other spammer out there, he's a liar, a thief (ripping off the people paying him to advertise), and deserves to be gotten rid of.

Re:BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[LostCluster]

That address STILL gets Richter's spam-crap. Just like every other spammer out there, he's a liar, a thief (ripping off the people paying him to advertise), and deserves to be gotten rid of.

Are you sure it's really Richter's spam-crap you're getting, rather than somebody else's spam-crap? You've got to be sure you're accusing the right people when you go accusing...

Re:BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[macdaddy]

It's trivial for a compotent person to track down the source of spam. I've been making good money doing it for years. There is always a money trail.

Re:BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[jdreed1024]

I keep a few email addresses around on various sites. One of them is literally present on only ONE site in the world, and it's in white text on a white background, with a disclaimer "this email address is a spam honeypot, don't send email to it" in text right next to it.

That address STILL gets Richter's spam-crap. Just like every other spammer out there, he's a liar, a thief (ripping off the people paying him to advertise), and deserves to be gotten rid of.

Good. Then write up an affidavit, and send it to the Spamcop folks to help them in their lawsuit. Seriously. Mentioning it on /. won't do anything.

Because unless SpamCop can prove that people who never opted in actually got mail from this guy, he might just win, thanks to the wonderful CAN-SPAM act and the arguments laid out in the parent post. And then we're all screwed. And don't say it can't happen.

Re:BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[LostCluster]

Good. Then write up an affidavit, and send it to the Spamcop folks to help them in their lawsuit. Seriously. Mentioning it on /. won't do anything.

And don't forget request that the court keep the e-mail address you mention in that affidavit under seal... otherwise it won't just be published on one website anymore.

Re:BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry 'bout that, dude. I found that email address and, as a lark, I submitted it to one of those opt-in websites. I figured you'd want to hear about the recent advances in herbal health care.

Re:BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[maximilln]

-----
One of them is literally present on only ONE site in the world
-----
And what you don't mention is that you've also tagged that page and the pages on the same server with the 100 most common search terms associated with people who typically buy merchandise from spam advertising in order to give your honeypot legitimacy. Web crawlers are color blind. Of course it was found.

Re:BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[Sapwatso]

The point is, the owner of the address did not opt in the address.

Re:BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[Anonymous Coward]

I did it for him. :)

Re:BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, you still are in a no-win situation. You posted your email address on a public site. I came across the address and decided that I would use your address instead of mine the next time I was prompted for one. I put you on Richer's mailing lists, now it's your job to opt-out.

Yes, this is a joke, but it does happen. It's an unfortunate consequence of no authentication or verification requirement when an email address is used to opt-in. As long as Richter can provide records of when someone visted the site and typed in your email address, he's won his case. He doesn't have to prove that it was actually you that typed it in.

Re:BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[Mateito]

> One of them is literally present on only ONE
> site in the world, and it's in white text on a
> white background.

You forgot to post a link.

Re:BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[Electrum]

One of them is literally present on only ONE site in the world, and it's in white text on a white background, with a disclaimer "this email address is a spam honeypot, don't send email to it" in text right next to it.

How do you know someone else didn't find it on your website and decide to opt it in for you?

Re:BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[Ugot2BkidNme]

I have been spamming myself recently with stuff about Penis Enlargment. As well as I have gotten the same e-mail suppossidly from alot of other agencies that do mass mailings to our perspective clients. This is very common. I even get spam cop reports telling me that I have been spamming all kinds of things that have come from our servers that accourding to all mail logs never went out. So you can't really say for sure if he is doing it.

Re:BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!

[cstream_chris]

What in the world makes you think that it is illegal to spider web sites in the US? The can-spam act of 2003 only prohibits sending of e-mail after you have opted out... and no individuals can't sue spammers (this is also spelled out in the Act) UK law on the other hand requires personal accounts to have opted-in to receive unsolicited e-mails. Any complaints in the UK are brought up with the information commissioner

Ironport

[macdaddy]

Well at least SpamCop can afford to defend itself now since it was bought by Ironport, a company that produces hardware that's designed to spam. Ironic really, biting the hand the feeds you.

Re:Ironport

[dacarr]

Not really ironic actually. Any computer can be used to spam - so by that rationale, IBM makes such hardware, eRacks and Penguin Computing make and/or sell such hardware, and Linux and Windows are the de facto standard means to spam.

Re:Ironport

[macdaddy]

We're not talking about an average machine or the components in it. We're talking about a box designed for the sole purpose of spamming. Have you ever seen or used and Ironport system? It's sole purpose in life is to send massive amounts of mail to a list of recipients. It doesn't have legit uses as a mailing list server (think SourceForge). All it is meant to do is spew mail. Take a peak at the Ironport A60 at refhost.net. BTW, refhost.net operates an MLM scam (pyramid scam). That A60 has been trained with over 275 MILLION recipient addresses. It has 600,000 queued up pieces of spam waiting for hotmail.com recipients alone. We're not talking about a PC made by IBM. This box was designed to fill our inboxes with their spam.

Re:Ironport

[kvbeek]

I also happen to know that Ironport makes a C-series, designed for incoming and corporate mail. It takes the same Ironport architecture and crushes spam and virii. And Ironport A-series customers, by in large, are legit email senders like Paypal (who sends *tons* of email you *want* to get). Those boxes are too expensive to be attractive to spammers who only care about sending lots of email very cheaply.

Re:Ironport

[Anonymous Coward]

> Well at least SpamCop can afford to defend itself now since it was bought by Ironport, a company that produces hardware that's designed to spam. Ironic really, biting the hand the feeds you.

Bullshit. Ironport boxes are Dell rack boxes running FreeBSD and some hacked version of Stackless Python. Their MTA has zero -- ZERO support for randomization, proxy and relay exploitation, listwashing, or other obfucation. It's just really fast and it supports binding to multiple network addresses. What a fucking crime, writing a fast MTA.

Re:Ironport

[PurpleFloyd]

OK, that's one Ironport that's being used to spew spam. With a little work, I'm sure I could show you a Windows/Exchange box, a Linux/Sendmail box, a FreeBSD/Qmail box, or a system running practically any modern OS and MTA that is used for spamming. Anything can be perverted; a chef's knife would probably make an excellent weapon, but that doesn't mean it was designed and built for murderers.

Even if Ironside's boxes are designed to send the same message to millions of recipients, though, what's wrong with that? The problem with spam is that it's unsolicited. If 500,000 people sign up for an email newsletter that I write, then I'm going to need some method of sending all 500,000 people the same message. Assuming I verify list membership with the recipients, I'm doing nothing illegal or immoral. I'm just sending an email to people who have told me they want to recieve it. That's not spam, that's what email was designed to do.

Spam is most certainly wrong, but you shouldn't go after Ironside just because they provide a tool that spammers happen to use. If a spammer who lives in your area buys his food at a local grocery store, should you picket that store until they stop selling food to the spammer? I would think that to be an incredibly futile and misdirected effort. Instead, you should focus your efforts on passing tougher anti-spam laws, designing and implementing better filters, and educating end users so they don't reply to spam. There are many more productive things you could do instead of ranting against one company that happens to provide a tool that some spammers use. Perhaps you should be doing one of them?

STELLA!!!!!

[dacarr]

I'm nominatin' this jackass for a Stella Award.

They're owned by a company now

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do they need a legal defense fund?

Re:They're owned by a company now

[Anonymous Coward]

What are the details of ownership?

I'd like to know before I buy a subscription. I thought it was just one guy running the show?

Is the glass half empty or half full?

[eclectro]

The Bad: A useful and honorable service is being sued and will have to waste resources defending themselves.

The Good: You can get a clean shot in front of the court house.

hmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

someone should send tons and tons of spam to the judge before the ruling.. :)

Exercise for the Reader

[ewhac]

Final Postgraduate CS Exam, Exercise 11 (Extra Credit): Design a new computer network, or a compatible retrofit for the existing Internet, that continues to express the priciples of transparency, open access, Free Speech, and anonymity-by-default while at the same time being resilient and resistant to intelligent sociopaths (both human and automated).

Schwab

Re:Exercise for the Reader

[Anonymous Coward]

<ecode>
[]-------------[]
^can ^string ^can
</ecode>

Re:Exercise for the Reader

[dr_dank]

What do I look like, Al Gore?

Re:Exercise for the Reader

[herrvinny]

That's an entire Ph.D. thesis in CS!

Re:Exercise for the Reader

[shadowbearer]

and win a Nobel Peace Prize for shortcircuiting the homicidal impulses of hundreds of millions of people toward spammers! :)

Retire at thirty, do the talk show circuit, write a few books while fending off the many hatemails/assassins, and move to the Carribean...

SB

SOMEONE GET PETER WELBORNE ON THE PHONE!!!

[strredwolf]

This one needs the largest mallet the legal community has -- and that is Welborne. He was able to smack down the spammers who dared to sue Spamhaus.org and SPEWS at the same time.

Well, I guess that means the stuff really works...

[mark-t]

Or heck, even if he doesn't really have a bigger penis, he certainly has bigger balls than anyone would have expected!

1...2....3...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Get Spammers e-mail address [ info@optinbig.com ]

2. Setup spamtraps... forward all spam to them.

3. Profit... or at least hope their system crashes

Re:1...2....3...

[WormholeFiend]

DDOSing their email system would just help them have an excuse not to have an "opt out" mechanism...

Re:1...2....3...

[Anonymous Coward]

DDOSing their email system would just help them have an excuse not to have an "opt out" mechanism...

If they sent the mail, then they could easily stop the flood of e-mail by not send it to the account that made it clear they didn't want it.

When you get something you don't want from the US postal service, you have every right to "return to sender". If a mail firm sends out millions of unsolicited mailings, and gets back millions cause people don't want it, they have NO right to complain.

Weapon use

[nuggz]

If you don't know, don't use either.

If you don't know how to handle a weapon, you're a danger, to both yourself, and the general public.

(Properly used/maintained weapons shouldn't have functionality issues)

Re:Weapon use

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be tough going through life not being able to read italics. I feel sorry for you.

No I don't.

Richter: Child Molester?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Richter, Spamcop's initiatives have damaged the reputation of his company. Richter filed for $1 million in damages.

He's an admitted spammer and is worried that someone else damaged his reputation? Idiot. He really needs to crawl back under that rock he slithered out from under.

Goodfella spamsters

[sssmashy]

"Messing with us is a big mistake," In a statement he describes the lawsuit as "PR stunt" and "one of the worst smear campaigns against legitimate internet business interests of recent times."

Is it just me or does this Spam guy sound like a Mafia cliche? The type who whines that he's a "legitimate businessman" who is only being smeared because he's Italian-American and his business associates keep disappearing. Don't mess with us, or we'll bust your knees. Or slap you with a frivolous lawsuit.

Spamcop just got my subscription

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using spamcop for at least a year. Been using their free spam reporting service, the 5 second delay doesn't bother me.

The satisfaction of reporting spam through spamcop far outweighs the time spend doing it. And it allows reporting of spam, without sending an email, which keeps my email address private.

The one problem I've had with SpamCop is that it was failing to pick up the web site urls referenced in the spams. I recently discovered, however, if I "view source" of the spam, and paste the source of the spam into the correct field (I go to the SpamCop web site through a bookmark, not by forwarding email), that by pasting the spam source, the urls of the email addresses referenced are also picked up.

Hearing about a spammer attacking SpamCop, I've decided to join the premium service, and send some funds to an organization or individual whose service I enjoy using and find useful.

So expect a payment from me today, SpamCop, via the disgusting PayPal service.

Re:Spamcop just got my subscription

[Jonny 290]

Believe me, from an admin that processes incoming spamcop reports, we just can't get enough of the hateful vitriolic email sent to us just because some customer of ours got picked to be the return address for a spam crusade. It's sheer joy.

p.s. i estimate the number of legit complaints vs bs complaints at least less than 15%

I respect the job that Spamcop has taken on, but they are overly zealous and almost fanatical in their 'reporting', which is more like "randomly blacklisting people who were ever mentioned in a spam email until they prove their shit's straight". and no, i don't work for a spamhaus, we're a perfectly boring regional ISP.

So,...

[Duhavid]

Collect the facts you have, make darned sure they are all 100%, hand them to SpamCop. They use it in this suit to disprove the "they just dont remember" statement ( 1 counterexample disproves a claim... ). Be ready to testify.

Re:So,...

[LostCluster]

Collect the facts you have, make darned sure they are all 100%, hand them to SpamCop. They use it in this suit to disprove the "they just dont remember" statement ( 1 counterexample disproves a claim... ). Be ready to testify.

Be ready to testify. When doing so, be ready to state your name, phyiscal address, and e-mail address for the public record...

So the non-Richter spammers can then pick up your e-mail address off that record... talk about a can't win situation!

Re:So,...

[dossen]

Well, the only e-mail address that is relevant to this testemony is the honypot address - likely not a big loss (e.g. just move it to a new one).

Re:So,...

[Duhavid]

I dont think you have to give an email address.

If you do, find Scott's and give that one!

What reputation?!

[aynrandfan]

According to Richter, Spamcop's initiatives have damaged the reputation of his company.

What reputation? He's a fucking spammer!

Spammers don't need other people to wreck their reputation; they lost it when they became spammers.

Re:Well, I guess that means the stuff really works

[Nuclear Elephant]

And what's worse is he's getting off right now at the idea of being on Slashdot. Why couldn't they link to optinrealbig.com in the slashdot article? We could've taken his network out for the day.

Scott Richter is a moron and a liar

[Anonymous Coward]

Snotty Scotty was interviewed on the Daily Show. He claims to be a "high volume email deployer" and not a spammer. He also claims that "People look forward to receiving mail. They call us. Email us. 'We didn't get our offer today. What did we miss?' We're like calm down, it's coming. Ya know, people enjoy getting email about our via-gel. People enjoy getting email about our energizer." Piece of work, huh?

The best quote of the show is this one, though:
Daily Show: "Why do you think the government doesn't want you making $20,000 a day?"
Richter: "Well, that's simple. That's the easiest question there is. Because the US Postal service is saying 'Hey, we need help. We're getting killed here. This guy can send email. He's not wiping out the rain forest. So what are we gonna do with all these little white trucks? We either gotta get this guy to pay 37 cents and buy some stamps... or we're done.'"

Scott's OptInRealBig has spammed almost everyone I know. Noone opted in. Placing an email address on a website does not consitute opting in.

If you're using the Spamhaus SBL to block incoming mail connections, you're already blocking OptInRealBig. If you're not, you can filter on the following domains:

optinrealbig.com
cpaempire.com
optinbig.com
c 4c01.com
bluerocketonline.com
ss01.net
dfmmb.co m
ew01.com
ss01.net
tekmailer.com
moosq.com
g eekpost.com

Re:Scott Richter is a moron and a liar

[puppet10]

One of the Daily Show's best interviews ever

Its online now at Daily Show: Corddry - Email Trouble (Real Player Stream).

(Only "The Daily Show Rocks comes close IMHO)

Re:Scott Richter is a moron and a liar

[scrytch]

Richter: "Well, that's simple. That's the easiest question there is. Because the US Postal service is saying 'Hey, we need help. We're getting killed here. This guy can send email. He's not wiping out the rain forest. So what are we gonna do with all these little white trucks? We either gotta get this guy to pay 37 cents and buy some stamps... or we're done.'"

Funny, I always thought it was Big Lumber, not the post office.

--
(Not) Member #236616 of The Lumber Cartel (There Is No Lumber Cartel)

Re:Scott Richter is a moron and a liar

[ChaosDiscord]

Snotty Scotty was interviewed on the Daily Show. He claims to be a "high volume email deployer" and not a spammer.

That was one of the Daily Show's best stories ever. Scott's email address was displayed on screen. "I provide a service." "Oh, so you're sort of like a garbageman. Only in reverse." And of course, after claiming to be a "high volume email deployer" he then called his opponents anti-spammers. When the interviewer corrected him ("anti-high volume email deployers") Scott tripped over himself trying to use the phrase. Watching a spammer be publically humiliated on national television was definately a highlight of that evening.

Re:Scott Richter is a moron and a liar

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I have to laugh at the claim that the "all addresses opted in" arguement. I work for a major web hosting provider and last week one of our machines was getting tanked. Looking into it I found that one domain was receiving an incredible amount of email. Looking at the mail queue there were about 10k messages still attempting to deliver or bounce to one account/domain.

I tailed the logs and saw 3 different mail servers sending email to this domain, with various usernames (some were obviously dictionary as they came in order). The 3 domains being sent from were ss01.net, tekmailer.net and moosq.net (all with various third level domains tacked in front). Amazing :)

The thing is that this domain has belonged to one guy for years, and he's only used 3 usernames for email. How would all those thousands of usernames for this one guy's domain get opted in? That's total BS. There is no opt-in here for those 10k messages.

Re:Scott Richter is a moron and a liar

[shadowbearer]

Similar here. Some time back I helped a local motel owner get things cleared up with his ISP after they shut off his email because he was getting more than a thousand spams a day - a large portion of them coming from or, as I found out, related to Richter's domains and efforts. He was extremely pissed off when I told him that it wasn't likely that any lawsuit against this fucker would succeed without him going thru a lot of legal effort.

After a lot of work me & his ISP managed to more or less spam proof his business addresses. The worst part of it was that he tried to contact me originally by email about the problem, but couldn't read my replies because they were buried in the crap he was receiving.

Richter should be glad that this particular business owner doesn't live near him, otherwise Richter would have had a ex-Nam/biker/business owner showing up on his front door with a shotgun. He was that pissed off...

SB

HAHA This is rich!

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Richter, Spamcop's initiatives have damaged the reputation of his company.

Suing on the premise that he had a good reputation to begin with!

No court would side with him

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone in the world has experinced the wraf of spam. Ritcher beign one of the top offenders is going to have a hard time find people that aren't on the internet to side with him.

Boiler-plate response:

[JeanPaulBob]

In america, our first ammendment (Freedom of speech) rights SHOULD protect spammers.

Email is closer to a fax than postal mail. Spam is no different from faxing unsolicited advertisement flyers. It can incur significant costs on the recipient. Thus, it should not be protected.

Next?

Send him to Iraq!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not do what they do in Iraq and torture and humiliate prisoners of war, in contravention of the Geneva Convention?

Oh, yeah, I'm sure it's him.

[Moryath]

doublechecked with spamhaus and the like, knowing what campaigns went out when and what the pitches were.

I'm 100% sure it's his spam.

Re:Oh, yeah, I'm sure it's him.

[Anonymous Coward]

*Shrug*
But that isn't to say that someone using that email address did not at some point opt-in to his system. Someone using random email address could have obtained it. Additionally, someone could have provided that name to a spam site without your consent ( I would be a big enough ass to do it, if I saw that.)

Re:Oh, yeah, I'm sure it's him.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, companies usually put the content out there for several marketers to send. You might see the same ad from 15 different senders (exact same ad).

Just because you compared the content doesn't mean it came from Scott Richter. How about posting some email headers?

Re:Oh, yeah, I'm sure it's him.

[jcr]

Then by all means, contact spamhaus and offer to testify or file an affadavit.

Richter is scum, and must be nailed in court. If this case is litigated properly with a countersuit, it could bankrupt him.

-jcr

Spamhaus sucks

[emptybody]

they are overzealous in their blocking.
They have repeatedly blocked the class B of my providers, provider.

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[timerider]

spamcop != spamhaus as far as i know...

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[moehoward]

Then economics and common sense indicate that your provider should get a new provider.

Or you should get a new provider if that option is available.

Isn't that how this whole thing is SUPPOSED to work? You are getting annoyed at the wrong people.

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[jafiwam]

Maybe your provider's provider sucks and you should get a new ISP?

Better yet, call them up every 15 minutes and cost them a bunch of money in tech support until they get rid of the spammers on their network.

Class B's don't get blocked unless the ISP has been unresponsive. Maybe they should treat complaints seriously and their addresses wouldn't get blocked... hmmm?

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[AKnightCowboy]

they are overzealous in their blocking. They have repeatedly blocked the class B of my providers, provider.

Then your provider's provider needs to re-evaluate their customers and the way their smtp architecture is setup. I would've felt sorry for you a few years ago, but recently we setup anti-spam filtering and found that 75% of our incoming mail was spam. That's astonishing to think of the resources we were wasting before to process that shit.

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you should get a new provider if that option is available.

Alright, I hear this a lot. I posted to NANAE once (incidentally, it was the wrong group) because we were wrongly blacklisted. They said "get a new ISP".

My uplink is cheap. I don't want (the boss)to spend twice as much for colo.

I don't want to spend a day and a half with no sleep in a cold-ass datacentre getting the network all set up after a mass move.

Let alone lifting those 4U cases.

Before you get the wrong idea, I use spamcop's DNSBL (and ORDB). I LIKE SpamCop. Current statistics are 94.5% blocked out of 18540 (and climbing *rapidly*) at around 4-5 connections per second, give or take.

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[91degrees]

Why should he get a new ISP?

Because people he wants to communicate with are being idiots and using a crappy blocking list, or using a crappy ISP themselves who are overzealous in their blocking?

This is why everyone hates the anti-spam zealots so much

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[42forty-two42]

Then switch to one that dosen't allow spammers upon their networks.

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[sqlrob]

So who's your provider's provider?

It's hard to agree with "overzealous" without knowing that.

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[91degrees]

They're blocking people who aren't spammers.

That's overzealous. Anyone who deliberately blocks legitimate email is a hypocrite.

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

"Anyone who deliberately blocks legitimate email is a hypocrite."

You are a idiot. They SAY they will block larger blocks of unresponsive ISPs. And they follow through on that. How is doing what you say you will hypocritical.

Remember, Spamhaus does not block the email. People subscribe to their service as they describe it and use it to block email on systems they control. If you tell me I have to accept email from folks on a machine I control, forget it.

If your providers provider is really so innocent, tell us their name. The flat fact is you are a lying jerk who KNOWS that your "providers provider" is guilty as hell.

You must be a snot nosed third grader with the IQ of an ant.

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[sqlrob]

Define legitimate.

"Listed in Spamhaus" can be considered "not legitimate"

Have another mechanism that works without consuming excessive amounts of network or hardware resources, especially given that spammers frequently move?

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[91degrees]

You are a idiot. They SAY they will block larger blocks of unresponsive ISPs. And they follow through on that. How is doing what you say you will hypocritical.

Because it reduces functionality of the internet. By design!

Remember, Spamhaus does not block the email. People subscribe to their service as they describe it and use it to block email on systems they control. If you tell me I have to accept email from folks on a machine I control, forget it.

Do you have paying customers? If so, and they did not explicitely ask you to block non-spam email, then you are abusing their trust.

If your providers provider is really so innocent, tell us their name. The flat fact is you are a lying jerk who KNOWS that your "providers provider" is guilty as hell.

The customer's customer of my provider's provider is none of my concern, and none of your concern. Your fight is with the spammer. If you drag me into it, then don't expect me to be sympathetic to your cause. I'm not going to block all of your provider's customers just to punish you because you use spamhaus.

You must be a snot nosed third grader with the IQ of an ant.

Insults are the last resort of the uneducated.

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[91degrees]

Define legitimate.

Any email that has been specifically requested by a customer, for example, an email responding to a specific request, or with login information for a website that the user has asked for.

"Listed in Spamhaus" can be considered "not legitimate"

Only by spamhaus and its lackeys.

Have another mechanism that works without consuming excessive amounts of network or hardware resources, especially given that spammers frequently move?

No. Just keep the list accurate. Only include IP addresses of actual spammers. If someone who does not spam is blocked, then the list is a bad list, and you need a better mechanism.

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[Isofarro]

"Listed in Spamhaus" can be considered "not legitimate"

Only by spamhaus and its lackeys.

Spamhaus' ROKSO is a collection of evidence and information about people who have been kicked of multiple ISPs for unsolicited email and other violations. The evidence is quite substantial. Do you not concur?

Just keep the list accurate. Only include IP addresses of actual spammers.

Your "solution" doesn't work in the real world. ISPs seem to have no hesitation in moving spammers to different IP addresses to evade these blocks. If you want to play whack-a-mole all day long - go right on ahead until it convinces you the futility of this approach.

Now since an ISP is really ignoring complaints and moving spammers around their networks to evade blocks, they can be considered aiding and abetting spammers. The logical course of action is to block all IP addresses of that ISP, since the ISP themselves are condoning spammers with these tactics.

At the end of the day ISPs must make a choice between hosting spammers or genuine customers. Surely is is better for customers not to have spammers roving around their networks, and the quicker ISPs terminate their services and protection of spammers the better it is for you and the internet in general?

It should not need to take an block of all IP addresses of an ISP to get them to do their jobs properly.

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[sqlrob]

No. Just keep the list accurate. Only include IP addresses of actual spammers. If someone who does not spam is blocked, then the list is a bad list, and you need a better mechanism

So you're saying spammers should get many free runs of spam from within ISPs that support them (say tens of thousands from this particular one, since it's a class B)? Why should they get that? Why should the ISP be allowed to profit from spam?

I noticed you still haven't answered my original question. What is the class B being affected?. Until you happen to answer that and I can validate the evidence on my own, I trust SpamHaus' claims over yours.

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[91degrees]

So you're saying spammers should get many free runs of spam from within ISPs that support them (say tens of thousands from this particular one, since it's a class B)? Why should they get that? They shouldn't. Why should someone change ISP because you have a poor quality spam blocking solution? Wouldn't it be easier for everyone involved to simply whitelist those who don't spam?

Why should the ISP be allowed to profit from spam?

Lots of other people profit from spam. For example, the people who sell computers to the spammers. Should they be blocked from supplying computers? Are you going to block them?

I noticed you still haven't answered my original question. What is the class B being affected?.

I don't know. It isn't my IP being blocked. Clearly though, Spamhaus lists entire class B blocks, otherwise you wouldn't need to look. Also, I find it hard to believe that every address in that block is assigned to a spammer.

Re:Spamhaus sucks

[91degrees]

It should not need to take an block of all IP addresses of an ISP to get them to do their jobs properly.

Is that the intention? You guys really need to make up your mind whether these lists are there to block spam or punish ISPs. It makes these arguments get very confusing.

In other news

[Tokerat]

Microsoft sues the US DOJ , Nigeria sues the Better Business Bureau, and the US sues the rest of the world, all for defamation of character.

Re:In other news

[Gothmolly]

Funny, until you mentioned the US. Had to get that little troll in there, eh?

Re:In other news

[hambonewilkins]

Yeesh, get a sense of humor, conservatives!

Re:In other news

[Tokerat]

Kinda not really. Agree with our moves lately or not, many outside our borders do not agree with what we are doing. Call them wrong, but it does not change their opinion. That was my only point in that statement.

If you wanna argue about IF we needed to do what we are doing, well that's a whole other thread ;-)

Re:This one makes me laugh and cry at the same tim

[netsharc]

Interesting notion with that re-election stuff.. a presidential candidate will probably be able to win if he promises to fight spam when he wins. The fight will have to be logical, of course, like the mandating of a fix to SMTP (and he'd have to have good foreign-relations skill to convince the rest of the world to fix SMTP).

Chutzpah

[dacarr]

The whole case reeks of Chutzpah. In order to sue the antispam community for defamation, merely suing Spamcop as a means is not going to be the answer. He has to sue people who don't want spam.

Now this is a little like Kroger suing the Safeway Corporation because Safeway doesn't sell Kroger branded groceries.

Weird comparison, I know, but think of it. If you go into whatever Safeway Corp run supermarket in your area, it is expected that you are going to buy (say) Safeway Select brand root beer, and not Kroger. To do otherwise is a conflict of interest, and besides, the shopper just might like Safeway's brand of root beer over Kroger's.

Likewise, if one (eg, me) is on Spamcop's system, it is generally assumed by their defined purpose in life that the user is, at the bare minimum, passively anti-spam, and therefore does not actually desire spam - so accordingly they will either delete or report it.

Hopefully I made this at least fairly translucent.

Re:This one makes me laugh and cry at the same tim

[LostCluster]

Richter's actually using a legal principle that the anti-SCO people are also using.

When somebody goes walking around spreading FUD against you, saying that you're breaking the law and are going to get sued... you can go to court and effectively file their lawsuit against you for them. You basically sue them seeking either the FUD-spreaders shutting up, or them actually filing the lawsuit and going forward with it.

Richter's claiming SpamCop's spreading FUD against him, the same way SCO is spreading FUD agaisnt Linux users... just because the majority opinion of somebody is low here at Slashdot doesn't take away their rights in court.

Ironic.. What if I want to sue SpamCop?

[i_want_you_to_throw_]

It's part of their FAQ. Hee hee

Guess someone took 'em up on it...

the boxes check themselves

[jo_ham]

Do you trust those boxes to stay unchecked?

Just witness the Yahoo deviousness - you uncheck the "send me lots of spam" boxes when you agree to sign up. Then they change the TOS (every month or so it seems) and those boxes magically check themselves again and you have to opt out all over again.

Re:the boxes check themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Or there's the fun case where you fill out a form, uncheck the "Spam me" boxes and submit. Then, because you made a mistake on the form (or a chosen username was already taken) they give the form back to you, with those offending boxes checked again.

bistards

Re:the boxes check themselves

[amuro98]

Do you actually trust the buttons at all?

I've had the unfortunate experience where I've done business with a company online (in this case, EBGames.com), unchecked all their "spam me" options, and specified all email be sent to me in plain text (for informing me about my order's status - not for marketing junk.)

A few months later, what do I find? A large HTML-laden email from said company that started out "We haven't heard from you in a few months, and wanted to let you know about our new offers!"

I checked my account on their website. All the "spam me" buttons were unchecked, and the plain-text option was still set.

I couldn't even opt-out of the message as it had no opt-out instructions!

So, instead, I printed out their message, printed out my account setting page, and wrote a short, terse, letter explaining why I would never, ever, shop with them again. They never replied, but never spammed me again.

That was about 3 years, and at least $1000 in purchases ago. Good riddance.

Re:the boxes check themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Did that with OfficeMax (or Staples) and was careful to set the check right every time until I finally found an unused username. They still spammed me. I decided the person sending the spam at OfficeMax gets paid for results and didn't care about lost sales. Yes, OfficeMax and Staples both ignored my check boxes and have both lost sales.

Come here Scott!

[Dracolytch]

Come on Scott! Bring the noise! They didn't defame you, your actions defamed yourself... But, hey, if you want to go that route, try me!

Scott Richter's company is responsible for millions of dollars of lost productivity. Scott Richter's work is unwanted in 99% of the places that it appears. Scott Richter's company is stealing valuable computer resources and is using them for his own profit.

Not only that, but I heard from a guy at work that Scott has to have a dead dog in his bedroom to get off.

Oh, yeah... And all you Daily Show fans out there know that Scott Richter's e-mail address is: scottrichter422@yahoo.com

~D

Re:Come here Scott!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but I heard from a guy at work that Scott has to have a dead dog in his bedroom to get off.

I have NI what spam list you got on.. I'm on the porn viagra one. Can we trade?

Re:Come here Scott!

[Anonymous Coward]

Where have I heard that joke before? Oh yeah, Penny Arcade.

Re:Come here Scott!

[Anonymous Coward]

And me... Im thinking that you fucked your mother in the out house

A lawsuit is the best way to go!

[Anonymous Coward]

You would get so much useful information by deposing current & former employees, subpaenaing internal documents, & gathering evidence.

While they may be legal under can-spam, I'm sure the evidence will come out that they weren't legal under the many state anti-spam laws that existed prior to Jan 1, 2004. Optinbig will get their asses kicked...

Updated email address

[douglips]

As of 12:49 PDT, his email address is
email: scottrichter423@yahoo.com

Oh wait, now it's
email: scottrichter424@yahoo.com

Seriously, this email address is a complete waste of time. Do you really think there are 421 other users of Yahoo email that are also named Scott Richter? The second that address gets more than ten spams per day I guarantee he'll abandon it.

Re:Updated email address

[IthnkImParanoid]

The 422 address was mentioned on the Daily Show (which did an awesome interview with him) weeks ago. They put his email address on the screen while the interviewer asked if he would mind if they displayed it, he said no, and it began flashing. It was great.

Anyway, I'm sure he no longer uses it.

Re:Updated email address

[inode_buddha]

"Seriously, this email address is a complete waste of time. Do you really think there are 421 other users of Yahoo email that are also named Scott Richter? The second that address gets more than ten spams per day I guarantee he'll abandon it."

Kinda says a lot doesn't it?

Re:Updated email address

[Greyfox]

How about registering the next 30,000 or so of them so he can't get them anymore?

Sure he can use some other user name on yahoo, but it'd be funny if someone made him do so...

X% reputation damage to 0% is still 0%

[Anonymous Coward]

"According to Richter, Spamcop's initiatives have damaged the reputation of his company."

I wasn't aware that a spam company's business relied on a positive reputation to any extent. That must be rather problematic.

Lost Cluster is a troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Your observation is correct. Lost Cluster is a troll. Here's a another observation to another of his posts.

Taking a look at how he's posting (a lot of posts frequently, to roll off the slightly older posts on his homepage), I think he's eliminating all the posts that are identifying him as an idiot.

Court Transcript

[mcwop]

Judge: Mr. Richter, before we begin I would like to ask you if OptInRealBig sent the following email to my 5 year old daughter titled - "Enlarge Your Penis in 5 Days"?

Richter: Gasp!

Re:Court Transcript

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that Richter means Judge in german.

Confuses me now, who's the judge?

Reputation?

[djan]

Sueing because SpamCop damaged his company's reputation?

That's like saying a whore's reputation was damaged because someone said she's a whore...

Answer to the problem

[LouCifer]

with people like this. Have them declared as vexatious litigants.

OptInBig and anonymized Spamcop complaints

[kindbud]

According to Richter ... "prior to sending solicited complaints by consumers to the Optin's originating ISP's, Spamcop alters the complaints it receives by removing the email address of the person or entity seeking to be taken off a mailing list thereby rendering the email anonymous."

I run an Abuse mailbox, and I have to agree with Richter on this point. That is why I created an ISP account at Spamcop.net for my networks and my sending domains, and specified that I do not wish to receive anonymized complaints. Spamcop tells the user submitting an unwanted email from us that we refuse anonymized complaints, and gives the user the chance to send the complaint with their email address in the clear.

Richter could do the same, and comply with the CAN-SPAM act just like me and my company does.

Re:OptInBig and anonymized Spamcop complaints

[stevel]

Except that people reporting spam through SpamCop are NOT "seeking to be taken off a mailing list". They are complaining about spam - spam for which it is highly likely that they never asked to receive in the first place.

What Richter wants to do is called "list-washing" - removal (from one list, anyway) of people who complain. But most spammers will gleefully add that address to all their other lists since it is confirmed "live".

I use Spamcop and choose not to "munge" my e-mail address. But I haven't yet seen Richter's domain show up as a reporting address - nor would I expect it to. It's the bandwidth provider which normally gets the complaint. Some will of course directly pass it on to the spammer.

Re:OptInBig and anonymized Spamcop complaints

[Reby]

What I want to see is a ban on opt out and require all spam lists to be OPT IN! You are exactly right in that opt out just verifies the address is valid and is prime real estate on a CD with 1 million other suckers for 34.95, or they just plug you into 1000 other spam lists and remove you from the one you opt out of. LAME! This asshat is lucky I don't live close to him or I'd get my pound of flesh. They cant arrest us all! lol

Re:OptInBig and anonymized Spamcop complaints

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as an opt-in spam list. If it's opt-in, it's not spam.

Re:OptInBig and anonymized Spamcop complaints

[tgibbs]

I run an Abuse mailbox, and I have to agree with Richter on this point. That is why I created an ISP account at Spamcop.net for my networks and my sending domains, and specified that I do not wish to receive anonymized complaints.

So? If you are serious about removing me from your list, send me email through SpamCop asking for my email address. If you are willing to take the 10 seconds required to email me, I'll send you the info. What I won't do is confirm my email address to a likely spammer who is not even willing to invest the minimal effort to respond to a SpamCop complaint.

Is there a Black Hole list of ISP's that do not accept SpamCop's anonymized complaints? It seems to me that refusal to accept such complaints is adequate evidence of intent to spam.

Re:OptInBig and anonymized Spamcop complaints

[kindbud]

So? If you are serious about removing me from your list, send me email through SpamCop asking for my email address.

Why should I go through the extra step? I don't respond to challenge-response requests either. I don't see the difference, really. If you want to communicate, don't obfuscate.

Re:OptInBig and anonymized Spamcop complaints

[tgibbs]

Why should I go through the extra step? Why should I go through the extra step?

I don't know? A sense of responsibility, maybe? Certainly, when I've heard from somebody who said that he was receiving unwanted email from my location, I've gone to considerable effort to determine whether it was true, and to communicate with the complainant in order to resolve the issue as best as possible. Wouldn't anybody (except a spammer) do the same?

SpamCop doesn't obfuscate the message ("I got spam and it looks like it might have come from you. Here's the evidence."). It merely provides a way of communicating with the complainant without revealing personal information that many people don't care to trust to strangers (especially those suspected of spamming)--namely his email address. When somebody takes the position that they are not interested in hearing about spam from their site unless I bribe them with my private email address, am I unreasonable in assuming that they are a spammer, and that they will put my email address to no good use?

Re:OptInBig and anonymized Spamcop complaints

[kindbud]

It merely provides a way of communicating with the complainant without revealing personal information that many people don't care to trust to strangers (especially those suspected of spamming)--namely his email address.

I know how Spamcop works, thank you. I use it myself. I used to reply through Spamcop, but have yet to receive a response from the Spamcop user. It's a waste of my time to deal with people who want to hide from me.

Besides, people already gave us their email address. We aren't strangers. We get their address when they buy something online from us, or explicitly sign up for our materials. We have a toll-free number and thousands of retail outlets. If people want to buy from us without giving an email address, they can call or walk up to a retail outlet. We even tell them so in the online terms of sale that they never read.

Re:OptInBig and anonymized Spamcop complaints

[tgibbs]

Besides, people already gave us their email address. We aren't strangers. We get their address when they buy something online from us, or explicitly sign up for our materials.

So given your distaste for anonymity, I'm sure that you won't mind revealing the name of the chain that you work for?

Re:OptInBig and anonymized Spamcop complaints

[kindbud]

Since I am posting on my behalf, and not theirs, yes, I would mind.

Re: I CAN BLOCK ... the law says so!

[Rik van Riel]

and judges have time and again confirmed that the private property rights of mail server owners mean that they have the right to decide which mail they do and do not want to accept.

A similar principle applies to the users of the Spamcop block list; if they don't want mail from a certain source, there is no obligation for them to accept it. For various technical reasons I prefer some other lists (SBL, CBL, DSBL) over the spamcop list, but the people who do like spamcop should be able to use it.

As for the "free speech" argument: I have no obligation to subsidise the spammers' advertising. If they want to advertise, let them put the ads on a web page, instead of using spam and making others pay the costs...

Based in Colorado

[Anonymous Coward]

I just realized this guy works near me.

Anyone have some realistic suggestions for annoying the hell out of them?

Pile garbage bags at the front door.
Cram aol cds through the mail slot.
Vaseline on the front door.

Re:Based in Colorado

[LouCifer]

Suggestions:

Bologna. A big pack. Take individual pieces out, lay flat on his car. I've read that the oils in the bologna will actually remove paint from a car. Write 'spammer' across his hood using the meat. Take pictures.

Forget vaseline. Go to your local hunting store and get skunk musk. Spray entire bottle into the fresh air vents.

Get his home address and put him on every mailing list you can find. Do the same with any email addresses you find for him (an oldie but a goodie)

Call your local Jehova's Witness and tell them you're interested in their cause. Tell them to come to your house (HIS house) at 6AM. Tell them you've got a twin brother that's mentally ill, and always claims he's you. Keep coming over until they get ahold of you.

Re:Based in Colorado

[Random Guru 42]

Get the biggest damn can of spam you can buy (or buy a crate of standard-size spam) and block the door to his house with it.

what?!?!?!

[bizpile]

" Seriously. Mentioning it on /. won't do anything."

No wonder my litigation is moving so slowly!

Umm, where would one sign up

[Mysticode]

Richter claims that he is strictly sending emails only to people who have signed up for his services on his website. Well I took a look around optinrealbig.com and I didn't see any sort of way to sign up for his mailing lists - not that I would want to. I guess clients can redirect users to a page on his site that isn't linked to from his site but this doesn't really fit with his claim from the article.

Next up

[Aexia]

Enron sues the United States Government for damages.

Claims they wouldn't have gone bankrupt if not for government interference in their accounting.

Is Scott Richter his real name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know where he lives/works/frequents? Why is he still alive?

Oh they've got better than an affidavit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Richter is the spammer that The Daily show interviewed, and published the email address of. Yes, he told the daily show his email address. Appearently spamming doesn't pay that well, otherwise he'd have cable and know better.

And Richter, not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He and his lawyer are going to need bulletproof vests and a police escort on the way to the courthouse. In fact he's so completely deluded and depressed that if you just left him in the room with a loaded handgun and said, "Look I know things didn't turn out how you wanted. I can see the decent guy you might have been. So, I left you a way out, you know what you want to do." He'd probably solve the problem himself.

Re:Oh they've got better than an affidavit.

[espo812]

Yes, he told the daily show his email address. Appearently spamming doesn't pay that well, otherwise he'd have cable and know better.

Apparently they didn't publish his real e-mail address, because a friend of mine saw that show, discovered the address wasn't valid, and registered it himself. He received four death threats that night, but I don't think he got more than a dozen or two e-mails total last I heard.

Re:Oh they've got better than an affidavit.

[Anonymous Coward]

unlikely, since i sent an email to that address, literally, within ten seconds of it appearing on the secreen. it didn't bounce.

Re:Oh they've got better than an affidavit.

[curious.corn]

his mail spool must be symlinked to /dev/null...

The Wrath of Spam

[SmackCrackandPot]

That's sound a great title for the next Star Trek movie. A convicted spammer gets sent to a penitentiary splant for spamming, and plots his revenge by using the subspace network to frame Reicher, who then has to prove his innocence by catching the spammer.

In other news...

[CAIMLAS]

... studies have found that the 9-11 destruction of the World Trade Towers has resulted in an overall negative sentiment towards Islamic extremists throughout the world, particularly in America.

Terrorists == terrorists.

Re:In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

So... sounds like a good thing to me.

I have problems thanks to SpamCop

[milgr]

I have no love of the plaintif, but I have some problems with SpamCop. They have been known to blacklist email providers incorrectly.

Why SpamCop blocking list is harmful

Spamhaus overzealous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I thought that Spamhaus was among the most reasonable. While I'd be the first to agree that any blacklist / white list program should have provisions to prevent collateral damage, if your ISP has no provisions for correcting what is generally considered to be abuse then I have little sympathy. I feel your pain, as I have had to switch ISPs because issues of collateral damage, but i'm willing to live it with.

I'll help

[koehn]

I've sent plenty of complaints through spamcop, and I have it configured to not strip my name. It's a checkbox you just uncheck. If SC needs someone to testify on their behalf (that they're not stripping things unbeknownst to their users), I'd step up. I'm sure some of my complaints have been to optinrealbig.

SpamCop didn't damage ORB.c's rep.

[Random Guru 42]

The actions of OptinRealBig.com have damaged it's reputation. People don't like spam. How does that line from Radiohead's "Just" go, again? Oh, yeah...

You do it to yourself, you do
And that's why it really hurts
You do it to yourself

Dear SpamCop, xxxsd0wefrsdfxdf09a asd

[GnoMoreGnuPuns]

We represent SpamCo. Incorporated and its wholly owned subsidiary SpamCo Systems, Inc. (collectively "SpamCo"). It has come to our client's attention that your policies have employed slander and libel to assist the destruction of the repute of SpamCo. Inc. You have two weeks to discontinue coverage of our wonderful new VIAGRA VIAGRE VIAGRA GET OUT OF DEBT with this 2 step plan while using nature's ALL-NATURAL impotence remedy CLOVEX. Unleash the power of your inner virility in 2 weeks!

says ironport about court date:

[rcamera]

"see you at the pahty, richter"

Re:says ironport about court date:

[hambonewilkins]

Mod this up if you can. I was wondering why that name was so familiar!

Say Hello To Scotty (links to pics)

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.scott-richter.com/scott-babies.jpg
htt p://www.scott-richter.com/scott-babies2.jpg

From the suit

[eaolson]

A copy of the suit can be found here

I love this part:

OptIn is in the business of sending email advertisements to consumers who ... indirectly subscribe by giving their express or implied consent through visitation to various websites.

Yup, you heard the man. Just visiting a website is enough to consent to receive spam. What these "various websites" are, or how a website determines a visitor's email address is left as an exercise for the reader.

By reading this post, you give your implied consent for me to hit you in the face with a cream pie.

Re:From the suit

[orkysoft]

He's also broadcasting NFL with implied oral consent!

Re:From the suit

[Maestro4k]

• Yup, you heard the man. Just visiting a website is enough to consent to receive spam. What these "various websites" are, or how a website determines a visitor's email address is left as an exercise for the reader.

I wonder if that would pass CAN-SPAM's muster, if not then he may have done the defense's job for them!

Re:From the suit

[silicon not in the v]

I think I'll refrain from clicking the link you posted to the domain [chickenboner.com]. I have read /. for a while.

Re:From the suit

[eaolson]

I think I'll refrain from clicking the link you posted to the domain [chickenboner.com]. I have read /. for a while.

In retrospect, I should have pointed that out. It's a perfectly legitimate site. Here's a definition

Chickenboner:
From Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)

chickenboner n.

[spamfighters] Derogatory term for a spammer. The image that goes with it is of an overweight redneck with bad teeth living in a trailer, hunched in semi-darkness over his computer and surrounded by rotting chicken bones in half-eaten KFC buckets and empty beer cans. See http://www.spamfaq.net/terminology.shtml#chickenbo ner for discussion.

Caselaw

[Xhad]

See Telemarketers vs. The Do Not Call Registry. Advertising commercial products in an invasive manner is not protected speech and shouldn't be.

Even if we interpret free speech to mean "say whatever you want", that doesn't mean I have to let you come into my house to say it.

Opt In

[FU_Fish]

Does anyone else find it odd that "optinrealbig.com" has no place on it to actually opt-in?

I would recommend a MAC-10 with silver bullets...

[dbone]

holy water and some wood stakes. You can never be too sure.

-d

well, they are perfect hand grenades

[dunkelfalke]

just secure an uzi and throw it in a window.

Assassination Politics

[Saeger]

I would suggest (from my cozy jail cell) that you assassinate the spammer by anonymously raising a bounty on his likewise-sociopathic head.

Sincerely,
Jim Bell

--

They all hate julian

[Stonent1]

I see a lot of spam that has hidden insults about Julian Haight. One was something like "Julian Haight sucks (insert male reproductive organ)"

Re:They all hate julian

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, Julian Haight is an arrogant individual. I run a very legitimate business that sends to a list of about 3000 recipients. Believe me, my content carries NOTHING re: sales/spam, etc.

One recipient, rather than opting out via our one-click opt-out process, sent a copy to the spamcop site, and without even validating ANYTHING, Julian's "perl script of a business" sent complaint e-mail copies to abuse@[insert-many-ISP-domains-here].

When I contacted him via e-mail he replied with some idiotic, immature, accusatory e-mail. When I repeatedly asked him if he received my response/rebuttal to his e-mail (which contained all of the opt-in information [including the recipients date/time stamp of opt-in, their IP, and everything else that corroborated the fact that they indeed signed up for my e-mail list]), he simply flamed my subscription process, did NOTHING to recind his "spam" claims, and raised all hell with my ISPs that I had to FIGHT my own ISPs to prove him wrong.

I mean, what type of "watchdog" site is he? He wrote a short Perl script that can do WHOIS lookups on ARIN and domain-registries, and blast out e-mails to all the IP-block/domain owners. And all of the praise he gets here.. honestly, it pisses me off.

And lastly, speaking to him on the phone was the icing on the cake. Again, immature, accusatory, and just a rude, non-listening idiot.

Inverted joe-job

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone needs to head over to yahoo to sign up for a new account. I recommend a user name like scottrichterXXXX@yahoo.com while replacing XXXX with a random number between 422 and 9999.

Oh yes...

[Anonymous Coward]

We can only hope that in prison he meets that lovely individual they refer to as 'the Giver'.

Why joke?

[Dimensio]

Scott Richter deserves to die. That is without question.

Personally, I saw put a slug into the back of his skull, and see if his "employees" (provided that he's not lying about that claim. Remember: spammers are liars) want to stick around and keep up the good work.

no, I'm not joking, I really want him dead

Re:Or...

[symbolic]

They can spread bad facts about you because they can bring supporting documents that stand behind those facts.


Or even when they don't, such as the case with people whose identity has been stolen. It has gotten to the point where it's accepted as fact, even when it isn't.

What fun!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone say "full discovery."

There is a difference...

[Dimensio]

SCO's claims are demonstratably false. SpamCop's claims are demonstratably true.

Re:There is a difference...

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO's claims are demonstratably false. SpamCop's claims are demonstratably true.

This may be the case. The law, however, is an ass, and must therefore start from the principle that all claims are equally plausible until lawyers have run up sufficiently large bills on both sides for a judge to be able to come to a random decision.

First thing we do...

Re:There is a difference...

[LostCluster]

SCO's claims are demonstratably false. SpamCop's claims are demonstratably true.

I wish those things were true. If so, then a lot of annoying lawsuits would be taken care of very quickly in both of these issues.

If somebody is capable of demonstrating that SCO's claims are false, please step forward and end the long national nightmare!

obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

Because a loser pays system would prevent a small company from ever filing suit against a big evil company. The costs of losing would be exponentially larger if they had to cover the evil corp's lawyers too....and being in the right hand having a solid case never guarantees victory.

Re:obviously

[k8er]

I keep hearing this, but it doesn't convince me. How is that worse than the current system where the small company has no chance of defending istelf? It's almost better to not be able to sue than to not be able to defend one's self. The other thing is, the small company shouldn't be suing over iffy claims anyway. Only sue when there is a real solid need and solid case. I think that this would be better than the current system, if still very flawed.

Re:obviously

[thogard]

Look at Australia as an example. Its more sue happy than california but its never the big compaines that get taken to court. There are virtully no class action suits even in cases where it would be an easy win. The large compaines can do whatever they like and taking them to court is nearly impossable.

Re:obviously

[dubl-u]

Because a loser pays system would prevent a small company from ever filing suit against a big evil company. The costs of losing would be exponentially larger if they had to cover the evil corp's lawyers too....and being in the right hand having a solid case never guarantees victory.

Then you make it so that you only have to pay them for legal fees up to the amount you incurred. That still wouldn't level the playing field completely, as the giant company could still outspend you. But it's better than the current system.

Re:obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

nearly impossable.

"impossible".

Re:obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

Its

It's

california

California

its

it's

compaines

companies

virtully

virtually

compaines

companies

I'd be surprised if an A-grade moron like this did NOT misspell "impossible"!

Re:obviously

[k8er]

If it protects bad businesses, then I am against it. I still don't understand why people would be afraid to sue the large companies if they are right. Sure the big companies are going to raise the stakes, but if you are right you are right. Perhaps the courts should be able to determine if a lawsuit is frivolous, and only in those cases should the defendant be awarded restitution. It still may not be perfect, but some cases might not be without merit even if they are lost. Let it be decided by the same folks who judged the case. How about this idea: The expenses are split. This seems unfair in a way, but then is it fair that one party can be right but the other party wins because they have more money to purchase legal firepower? This would certainly put the little guys on a level playing field. It would be a losing proposition for the big guys, but they would never be at a disatvantage, only brought down to the same level. The other side would always be forced to match funds. There would probably have to be some kind of spending cap agreed to at the outset. Of course this would require lawyers to give all inclusive, upfront pricing. I know that my half baked ideas aren't going to amount to anything, but there has to be a better way.

Re:obviously

[Ciggy]

And if I sue a giant company and do my own legal work, and lose, I could end up costing them lots of money whilst I only accrue little legal fees. How much would they get from me? Especially if the case is a frivolous one?

Jurors are barred from speaking about [their deliberations on] a case, so why not bar the parties involved from public speaking about the case, or related issues, (except in generalities?) on threat of contempt of court: with fines of "dismissal with prejudice and damages" against the plaintiff, and "loss of case [with no appeal?] and damages" against the defendant.

This would have allowed the Linux community to call SCOs "bluff": SCO claim their code is in Linux but are unwilling to reveal what it is so that it could be fixed. RedHat could then have sued SCO to tell them what was the illegal code so that it could be removed. Now SCO could not claim that their code was in Linux without specifying what it was without being in contempt of court and being judged as having no illegal code in Linux, and being forced to pay damages.

Re:obviously

[dubl-u]

And if I sue a giant company and do my own legal work, and lose, I could end up costing them lots of money whilst I only accrue little legal fees. How much would they get from me? Especially if the case is a frivolous one?

If your point is that my suggestion isn't perfect, I already said that, but thanks for helping clarify the details. If your point is that this is enough to make it workable, I'm dubious; I can think of several easy remedies for this, and I'd bet you can, too.

Re:obviously

[Ciggy]

I think I was just highlighting the problem with the suggestion.

In every reform of which I could think, there would be exceptions to the norm that a nasty party could use to effectively wreck a perfectly law abiding party.

If it wasn't for frivolous lawsuits, most reforms re-adressing the balance of cash work well. But then the problem comes in defining what is a frivolous case.

Would you say that the case of the woman spilling a burger chain's coffee on herself and then suing the burger chain because the cup, although it [probably] said "caution contents hot", but didn't say "do not try to open the lid whilst holding cup between thighs as spillage of hot coffee may occur and cause serious scalding", is probably a frivolous one (on the basis that the second warning is more than obvious based on the first one - perhaps someone should ask the USPTO for their opinion...)?

Of the case of a supermarket putting the warning "This product contains nuts" on a packet of Peanuts - would anyone who sued them for a nut allegy if they didn't put this warning on the packet really expect to win; I mean a packet of peanuts!

All I can do is quote someones sig (which I think is quite appropriate/funny):

The problem with the world is stupidity. Not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?

I'm sure people would be much more careful of their actions if they knew that there'd be little, or no, recourse to others for the results of them.

Is Ironport a black hat?

[Animats]

I dropped SpamCop after they were taken over by IronPort. IronPort sells spamming engines. "Supports up to 10,000 simultaneous connections". "Can deliver up to 1 million messages per hour". "Removes constraints on outbound email marketing".

Yeah, yeah, there are "legitimate uses" for this thing. Right. Sure.

Even worse, they have a "Bonded Sender program, under which spammers pay a fee to Ironport to bypass spam filters. They charge a fee of $20 for each complaint, but allow one free complaint per million spams. They're vague about what a "complaint" is, and admit they don't use "AOL complaints". They may be counting only complaints that reach abuse@bondedsender.com. Since they don't require that mail be marked as "approved by BondedSender", few people know how to complain. And they don't disclose their complaints, or who's in the "Bonded Sender" program.

They're trying hard to insure that all the major anti-spam systems are hardwired to let their spam through. They have patches for all the major spam detection programs. The patches bypass all other spam checking if the source IP address has the DNS record that says it's listed with BondedSender. Now you understand why they bought SpamCop.

A useful check for mail programs is to check the BondedSender whitelist, then run a conservative Bayesian spam filter on the content. If BondedSender says it's not spam, but the spam filter says it is, ship it off to the BondedSender abuse address. Definitely do this for honeypots. Any BondedSender mail that shows up at a honeypot should be reported on NANAE. That will help track how much, or how little, Ironport is really enforcing their rules.

Re:Is Ironport a black hat?

[kindbud]

Yeah, yeah, there are "legitimate uses" for this thing. Right. Sure.

Of course there are. If you have 5 million recipients on your "hot sale" mailing list, and you have to get them all out before the hot sale tomorrow, you need to send at quite a high rate. You may not believe that we have 5 million people who want to receive our notices of sales and other promos, but that isn't my problem what you believe or don't believe. We do have that many, and we are straining our home-grown qmail-based CRM system to its limits trying to get the mails out in time for our customers to take advantage of sales. The IronPort A30 (small version of the appliance, about 600,000/hour instead of a million) is what we're looking at. Two of them in a load-balanced setup could be enough to replace our 15 qmail servers.

Re:Is Ironport a black hat?

[Animats]

I can believe that this guy has a mailing list with 5 million E-mail addresses on it. That the recipients really, truly "want to receive" the mail, I would question. How was consent obtained? Implicitly, as part of some other transaction, or explicitly, with the explicit, verified consent of the recipient? One wonders.

Re:Is Ironport a black hat?

[Fudge.Org]

*bzzzzzt*

No. Take off your tin hat.

IronPort already had every right to use SpamCop's blacklist BEFORE they bought them. The investment by IronPort keeps the lights on at SpamCop. SpamCop is a valuable service for all involved.

You also need to check your facts on what they actually make. Delivery is only part of their business. They make gateway appliances as well. It's not like they just crank out spam boxes.

Also, why would someone buy a spam box when you could likely build tons for much much less?

Tell ya what... you should link (for everyone here) to the pile of these evil IronPort devices from a spammer raid done by some Att. General.

We'll be waiting for the shots of the WMUCE (weapons of mass UCE).

Re:Is Ironport a black hat?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course there are legitimate uses for a high volume email server.

Do you have any idea how many messages finance.yahoo or MSN's Money sends out every day when the stock market opens, at noon and at market close? The service would be completely useless if they couldn't get all of those messages sent out within a couple of minutes.

Or suppose I run an auction site, I can't very well have the outbid notices sitting an a mail queue for hours because it happens to be peak time of day.

Or suppose you are a site with automatic nightly search result emails. For example, monster has over 27 million automated searches. If they couldn't run over a million an hour, they couldn't send nightly messages. I'm not sure Monster does, but I know Dice does send its search results nightly.

Re:Is Ironport a black hat?

[kindbud]

No need to wonder. The buyer is told what their email address will be used for in the terms of sale, presented to them before purchase.

Re:Is Ironport a black hat?

[nbvb]

Absolutely.

Our company has 40m customers. Approx. 10% of those opt to receive their bills online. That's 4m messages per month we send, JUST so those customers know their bill is ready online.

Not to mention all the OTHER email, such as transactions from the online store, etc.... ... and on the "human" side of the house, we have 4 Ironport C60's (2 east coast, 2 west coast) setup as the in/out gateways..... they front-end MS exchange (no comments, please) and do a damned good job of it.

Couldn't be happier. The ironport boxes (A60 & C60's) let us shut down our entire Sendmail infrastructure (over 15 machines)....

awesome. And all legit.

Here's one, Scott Richter is such a criminal that

[Dimensio]

...if he had children, Scott Richter would whore them out to child pornography sites hosted on his network!

the solution

[Anonymous Coward]

There is only one solution to the spam problem. I'm not sure I'm allowed to say it, but I think we all know what I'm talking about.

Re:If we're playing with titles....

[symbolic]

Snotty Scotty was interviewed on the Daily Show. He claims to be a "high volume email deployer" and not a spammer.

Why not something even more prestigious-sounding, like Retail Information Distribution Specialist? Or, how about Strategic Revenue Generation Engineer? Nah..."weasel" just about covers it.

Re:Here's one, Scott Richter is such a criminal th

[Dracolytch]

Spam-kids... What fun!

"D/\ddy?

C a n *I* have a COOK1E?

Camels have said to Romeo that gourd massages are tasty and Eric referral to desk."

~D

Fax Back

[Mateito]

... and on the 8th day, God created the fax-back service.

Oh. You mean that's a voice line?

Oops.

Re:Is Ironport a black hat? MOD up parent please!

[wintermute42]

A very interesting post. I would be interested in reading other slashdotter's information and views on Ironport.

If Ironport is involved in supporting spammers, then other spammers have some reason to sue perhaps. After all, if they are using false pretenses (SpamCop is an anti-spam site) to hurt their competition this might be reason for a legal action. And the case would not necessarily be decided on issues involving spam but rather fraud and illegal competition. (Standard disclaimer: I'm Not A Lawyer and I don't play one on television).

I have to wonder how Ironport can justify "bulk email" support. There was a Wall Street Journal article about a clown who actually opted in for spam. But the number of people who do this is way too small to support any business model that I can think of. So Ironport claiming to support opt-in lists seems like a shallow way to justify supporting spammers.

Nor does it seem reasonable that they would support valid commercial email lists. Groups that someone already have a relationship with (for example, the IEEE) send email from their own addresses. They don't need Ironport. This also allows a group to handle their own email list removal.

Am I missing something here?

[Ra5pu7in]

From the article: The complaint alleges that "prior to sending solicited complaints by consumers to the Optin's originating ISP's, Spamcop alters the complaints it receives by removing the email address of the person or entity seeking to be taken off a mailing list thereby rendering the email anonymous." So what is he suing them for? Removing email addresses from the complaints so he can't verify they are in his databases? Or not providing the emails so he can remove the complainers who are most likely to get him in trouble? ============= Okay, just for a split second assume that this guy actually is trying to comply with the CAN-SPAM requirements. Does SpamCop verify whether or not a person originally opted in (and thus an "existing business relationship" is supposedly involved)? Do they verify whether any attempt was made to request removal of their email address? (Yes, I know most of us wouldn't touch those with a ten-foot pole because of the sleazier practices engaged in by spammers.) Does Spamcop make any attempt to request removal of addresses themselves and determine whether the spammer intentionally ignores such requests? Maybe, just maybe, there is some validity to his argument that his less-slimy practices are being vilified because of the slimier practices of others. But, you can't walk in the gutter without getting brown gunk all over your shoes, Mr. Richter. Find a higher ground or accept that you really aren't any better than the other sewer-dwellers around you.

Re: I CAN BLOCK ... the law says so!

[TykeClone]

As for the "free speech" argument: I have no obligation to subsidise the spammers' advertising. If they want to advertise, let them put the ads on a web page, instead of using spam and making others pay the costs...

Freedom of speech is not the same as "freedom to make you listen to me." I could stand on a soapbox in the town square and talk, but I can't force anyone to actually listen to me.

Vigilante Justice

[Anonymous Coward]

What we really need is some good 'ol vigilante justice.

An old fashined lynchin' with torches and everything, grossly violating every orifice with pink gelatinous meat product, and stringing him up from a light post.

Might help get the message across...

Its true.

[ZxCv]

And if you send him a proper unsubscribe request, he really will unsubscribe you.

From where, exactly, did you derive this bit of fiction? ...


Umm, actually, I have successfully unsubscribed 3 separate addresses from richter's lists, one old work address and two personal addresses.

Obviously there is plenty of sentiment out there about not unsubscribing, but I think more and more that the companies that are putting their legit contact info in those emails don't want to end up screwing themselves by turning around and mailing to or selling unsubscribed addresses. That's not to say there isn't plenty of spam out there with an unsubscribe link but no legit contact info, but those are the only unsubscribe links I'd be truly wary about. My experience has shown that following unsubscribe links in emails that also contain legit contact info has decreased the amount of spam I get considerably (at least 25%), so it's a guideline I would definitely recommend to others.

Re:Its true.

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, actually, I have successfully unsubscribed 3 separate addresses from richter's lists, one old work address and two personal addresses.

It's hard to tell what new spam you got from his friends. I'm to lazy to test it, but I bet you can take a clean account, unsubscribe from OptinBig and start getting spam.

BTW, why did you opt-in three times for his spam?

Gluttony style

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather see it done in the "Gluttony" style from the movie Seven. Chain this guy to a table and make him eat can after can after can of spam until his stomach bursts.

Let's ALL sue him. Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't we all file small claims against him? Charge 2 hours labor for putting sufficient stops in our mail server and client software to stop his unsolicited mail.

Anyone want to organize it?

Capital Punishment

[Anonymous Coward]

And again I demand the death penalty for known spammers. If yopu can convict them in a court of law, death is a merciful punishment for spammers.

I am serious.

Kill them, and kill them now.

Simple solution to spam

[danielrendall]

A humble suggestion:

Set up a fund to which people can donate money (anonymously if they like) and nominate their (least) favourite spammer.

A system automatically works out weightings for the various spammers out there and puts an appropriate price on their heads. Anybody who then eliminates the spammer in the traditional way (shotgun, car bomb, small thermonuclear explosion) can then claim the bounty.

I am hopeful that the risk of being remorselessly killed in a particularly painful way might act as something of a deterrent to even the most determined spammer, enabling the rest of us to get on with our lives and reclaim e-mail as a useful conversational tool. Some people may have reservations but it's probably no worse morally than the futures market on terrorism that was proposed recently, and much more beneficial to Joe Public.

In the 'deluxe' version of this scheme there'd be a website on which pictures of wasted spammers can be posted together with downloadable MP3s / OGGs of their dying screams and pleas for mercy and / or demands for their first amendment rights to be respected.

Sorry, I've been having a bad day...

From the article...

[the pickle]

"We are going to send a message," said Richter in an email interview with Tom's Hardware Guide. (emphasis mine -p)

Yeah, sure hope Tom's Hardware used a disposable e-mail address for that one. "We are going to send a message" is probably the understatement of the century.

p

Sadly not an answer

[panurge]

Vexatious litigants keep courts in business and contribute mightily to the revenue streams of lawyers. It is very hard indeed to have a litigant declared vexatious while he still has money (note this isn't a legal inclusive pronoun: it's usually a he).
This isn't sarcasm, there are lawyers in my family.

Damaging reputation...

[gmuslera]

That could be read in 2 ways:

• SpamCop says that they are a bad reputation company, then they should be suing themselves as the company that gived them that bad reputation on first place with its actions
• SpamCop says that they are good guys, we should accept mail from them, that they are nice people. That certainly will damage their reputation of the lowest scum on earth, and WE should sue spamcop for saying that

In any of those cases, their lawsuit have no meaning, or they are suing the wrong company or should not be they the ones that do the lawsuit.

Last but not least, i must admire their balls on using the legal system that could probably be searching a way to fuck them badly, is a nice thing to cut off and expose in a museum.

Ooh!

[Greyfox]

It must suck that everyone hates him! I have an idea! Lets all send him a few thousand live crickets (you can order them on the internet) to keep him company! I bet THEY wouldn't judge him just because he lays giant steaming turds in people's E-mail boxes every day! (Some of you may recall me making a similar suggestion for Darl...)

how to win a suit against spam filtering companies

[codepunk]

Send out a bunch of spam that is legit complete with
the adv in the subject line and that meets all requirements by the new can spam law. When your messages get blocked sue every single spam filtering
solution out of existance. Now to tell you the truth I cannot stand spammers but it is a hole in the law that one of them is going to exploit and win.

Rectum?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh. Richter. Check.

they are going to win

[codepunk]

Reading the suit I am convinced they will win the suit. If they are sending spam that meets federal regulations they can and will win this suit. Now of course spammers suck but if they are playing by the federal rules then end of story their rights are being violated by spamcop, spam assasin and every other filtering solution if it does not let the message pass. They are morally wrong but legally right.

Re:they are going to win

[k4rm4_p0l7c3]

and that, my friends is why CAN SPAM sucks. it sets the cut-off for legality of the spam as long as it provides legit contact info, and other details.

the spammers, like the big corporations in America have in fact, already won.

Re:they are going to win

[Voivod]

Where in CAN-SPAM do you see it giving "high volume e-mail deployers" the RIGHT to put e-mail in my Inbox? I have the right to filter my incoming e-mail, and I still have the right to pay Spamcop to assist me in making those decisions. My server, my property, my rules. How is this not clear to you?

Wish I had access to Slashdot access logs so I could see if all the "spammers have rights too d00ds!" idiots are coming from the same IP in CO or FL...

if that type scum can win ...

[dindi]

then there is something definitely wrong there ....
no enough, that they are filling all mailboxes with crap, they have the balls to sue anyone on that planet ....

I would ...
put them in a rusty barrel
with other spammer scam
and launch them into deep space ....

radical ?
you only have to hang a few of these and the rest would stop .....

you know like in the dark ages ... you stol with your right hand so they chop it off ...

--
and they make laws against teens showing their bellybutton and underwear !

More Scottie BS

[Steve B]

Richter claims that because the complaints fail to identify the original email sender, Optin cannot comply with the CAN-SPAM ACT, which requires the sender of an email to remove the address of any person who does not desire to receive any further email.

Of course he can comply with the law. All he has to do is stop spamming.

Spamcop is under no obligation to make it easy for him, just possible.

Re:Is Ironport a black hat? MOD up parent please!

[Animats]

Ironport might call it "legitimate e-mail marketing". But it's spam. Nobody buys Ironport products or services to send out their church newsletter. Unless you're a big-time bulker, you'd never be able to keep an Ironport A60 busy.

What's scary about Bonded Sender is that IronPort is putting a big hole in the anti-spam infrastructure. They have total control over this hole. They have no contractual relationship or legal obligation to mail recipients that says they can't use it any way they want to. They just say "trust us". They can change the rules and open the spam floodgates once they have enough people relying on Bonded Sender.

We've heard that before.

They have a TrustE logo, but that's meaningless. All that means is that you agree to conform to your own privacy policy. Which you can change at any time.

They might, for example, change the rules to "conform to the four pillars of responsible E-mail" promoted by the Direct Marketing Association. Those don't require double opt-in or a previous business relationship, so bulkers can trade mailing lists around. All they have to do is honor narrow opt-outs. (Opt out once for Viagra, once for mortgage refinancing, once for inkjet refills...)

Damaged reputation?

[frdmfghtr]

According to Richter, Spamcop's initiatives have damaged the reputation of his company.

No, you damaged the reputation of your company by going into business in the first place.

Richter's Domains and the Ukranian Connection

[Dynamoo]

One main hub of Richter's empire is CPAempire.com - compare this with SPAMempire.com. He has a subsiduary, Blue Rocket Media, which appears to operate waaay offshore in the Ukraine.

Blue Rocket Online Media
Rus Penkatar
Alekseeva Str 29
Kharkov, Petra 61009
+3.80577036200

For a "legitimate" outfit, he sure operates some dodgy sounding domains:

• Allchickswithdicks.com
• Bumfightsonline.com
• Cuterteen.com
• Dailypornbox.com
• Darknspicy.com
• Eatmypussyright.com
• Ebumfights.com
• Ejackolate.com
• Funamateur.com
• Funcheerleaders.com
• Funwithpee.com
• Hotterass.com
• Hugermelons.com
• Itoonsex.com
• Lesbianssizzle.com
• Moreropes.com
• Oralwonders.com
• Orgyfilms.com
• Outsidevoyeur.com
• Peeperdorm.com
• Pillsofpleasure.com
• Realbigerotica.com
• Realbigfetish.com
• Realbigsex.com
• Seducewomennow.com
• Sexierstories.com
• Sexyanalteens.com
• Sexylegssexyfeet.com
• Sexyyoungstuds.com
• Smallnsexy.com
• Youngerasian.com
• Youngervirgins.com

If you're interested in seeing Richter squirm, check out this thread at Abestweb where Richter and one of his sidekicks desperately try to convince affiliate marketers that OptInMyArse.com is a legit business operation. An amusing read.

Re:Richter's Domains and the Ukranian Connection

[shadowbearer]

If you're interested in seeing Richter squirm, check out this thread at Abestweb where Richter and one of his sidekicks desperately try to convince affiliate marketers that OptInMyArse.com is a legit business operation. An amusing read.

Especially when you note the registration date of "CpaEmpire1". Pretty obvious spin control there - and he gets slapped for it in the comments.

Thanks. I hadn't seen that link.

SB

Interesting Quote....

[koa]

"We are going to send a message," said Richter

I'm serious.. He actually said that! hah. ...Send a message, how about Millions ?

(ok, a little out of context.. but still funny :)... )

Plan

[phorm]

You know... death by cat is not a bad plan. You see, cats are by nature much more predatory and a good degree less loyal that other animals such as, say, dogs. If you get about 1-2 dozen cats and half starve them for awhile (so they're hungry, but not incapacitated). Later, off Mr. Righter a nice oil massage. Use tuna oil, and bind him to the chair. Lock in a room for about 24 hours and release the cats.

Trust me... it wouldn't be a nice way to go, but it would be appropriate for a dirty spammer.

Disclaimer: The situation above is entirely hypothetical. It is for personal amusement only, and should not be construed as advice to commit acts which may be of dubious legality

Re:Plan

[shadowbearer]

Better yet.... feed the spammer catnip for a week or so beforehand, until he's sweating catnip. Then release the cats...

Disclaimer: Illegal or not, hypothetical or not, it still wouldn't be an adequate punishment...and while I wouldn't dream of committing such an act myself....oh, fuck, who am I kidding?! The hell with domestic cats, smear the spammer with raw meat and release the mountain lions! Then videotape it and sell the tapes!

3.Profit!

SB

Re:Plan

[Anonymous Coward]

one problem, the cats would just lick it off him and fight each other for territory, so it would gross him out and tickle a lot, but i doubt it kill him unless you left him them in there for a few weeks. they might eat his rotting corpse after he dies from lack of water.

Opt-in

[phorm]

While his spam may not be opt-in (despite dubious claims to the contrary), spamcop most definately is. It's not as if the whole world of email is blocking Richter's crap - only those subscribing to spamcop.

Moreover, they are not broadcasting to the internet "this man is a dirty spammer!," but rather people are comparing emails from addresses associated with Richter against a spamcop database.

I'm hoping that they get their lawyer fees recouped and then some. If we're lucky, discovery will nail Richter for something illegal (compromised servers or something of that nature) and put him in a nice little concrete rectangle with a nice man named "Bubba"

Re:how to win a suit against spam filtering compan

[ChaosDiscord]

Send out a bunch of spam that is legit complete with the adv in the subject line and that meets all requirements by the new can spam law. When your messages get blocked sue every single spam filtering solution out of existance.

Out of curiousity, exactly what would you be suing them for? The CAN-SPAM Act doesn't have anything to say about filtering systems. The prior arguments in favor of filtering solutions (In short: the filtering solution isn't forcing you to use it) still stand up just fine.

lazy bastards

[butane_bob2003]

Spammers are just the sort of people who go about trying to sue everything they see, claiming damages for arbitrary amounts. They are the same kind of class of people who commit insurance fraud, lie on their income tax returns, punt babies, molest farm animals...

These folks are about as useful as giraffe tits.

How precisely do we define spam, though?

[nial-in-a-box]

Obviously, unsolicited advertisements are spam. However, if a user knowingly or unknowingly agrees to join a mailing list, including those that do not have reasonable privacy policies (i.e. they sell your info, if it's worth anything anymore anyway), is it really spam? They did bring it upon themself, after all. I argue that by operating a computer with Windows installed on it you are probably legally exempting yourself from any recourse at all against spam mailers in many cases. It's kind of a stretch, and I do not know enough about the law to say definitively, but I think it could be argued that the majority of Windows users have some clue about the inherent security and privacy problems (e.g. viruses, etc.) and because of that they are acknowledging that they have opened themselves up to many forms of solicititation. The main idea I'm thinking of here is popups and those offers that are obviously too good to be true: "Give us your information, and we'll use it only to get you great deals/gift certificates." That wording I just used could easily make someone think, at first glance, that their personal information is protected by a privacy policy, but the wording mentions no such protection. Using said information to "only get great deals" could easily mean selling that information to possibly give a little something back to the poor user.

To make a long story short, there are too many problems with any sort of legal attacks on either side of the spam war. The best way around it is to keep up our current technological efforts and hopefully eventually come up with a satisfactory alternative, or preferably enhancement, to our current email system. No, there is no need for taxes or email postage; it could never work anyway for so many reasons. Hopefully we will come up with something that does work, and I think we will soon. Until then, get a good spam filter or just restrict to your address book. It's annoying, but so are many other things in life, and we get by anyway.

Re:How precisely do we define spam, though?

[MikeBabcock]

That's like taking personal gun ownership to the next level; if I don't carry a weapon, its my fault if I get mugged.

I may be stupid not to be armed in some places (like Iraq), but that doesn't make it my fault. Its always the perp's fault. The perp might not have got the opportunity if it weren't for my lameness, but its the perp's fault.

Remember Alan Ralsky

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's time for Scott Richter to get the Ralsky treatment. Anyone know his address?

uh, WHAT company reputation?

[alizard]

His company would have a better reputation if it provided Thailand sex tours for serious pedo perverts.

Re:So,... they surely can have my e-mail address

[e_AltF4]

OptinRealBig.are.wankers@rnd.subdom.mailinator.com

If there's even some validity....

[Rick Zeman]

....to this tripe, a Spamcop user can disclose their email addresses if they so desire.

If they haven't, tough shit to OptInRealBig. That doesn't make SpamCop liable. No one is forcing users to submit spam to them, and no one is forcing ISPs to subscribe to their blacklist. As a matter of fact, everyone is exercising personal choice--except for the poor shlumps being spammed.

I hope they lose and get bankrupted by the lawyers' fees.

Tortuous?

[BillX]

The complaint filed alleges "Tortuous Interference with Contract,...

Um, I think the spammer means "tortious" (involving tort law), not "tortuous" (long and winding, IIRC). Don't lawyers proofread these things anymore? (Of course, without seeing the original filing, I can't tell whether the spammer's lawyer or the reporter is the doofus.)

rules of spam

[Brightest Light]

oh its bs alright.. have a look at the the rules of spam

"free speech" ? SPAM is no "free speech"

[e_AltF4]

"free speech"

"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech"

- only applies to political speech, not to commercial speech
(and NO, enhancment of body parts or \/|4G.R$ are not "political speech")
- only applies to the state preventing free speech
(and NO, this is my mail server and not the mail server of GWB)
- does not force anyone to listen
(and NO, you can't come into my living room to tell me about your internet pharmacy)

The Rules of Spam

Rule #0: Spam is theft.

Rule #1: Spammers lie.
Sharp's Corollary: Spammers attempt to re-define "spamming" as that which they do not do.

Rule #2: If a spammer seems to be telling the truth, see Rule #1.
Chrissman's Corollary: A spammer, when caught, blames his victims.

Rule #3: Spammers are stupid.
Krueger's Corollary: Spammer lies are really stupid.
Pickett's Commentary: Spammer lies are boring.
Russell's Corollary: Never underestimate the stupidity of spammers.

Re:Is Ironport a black hat? MOD up parent please!

[kindbud]

I would be interested in reading other slashdotter's information and views on Ironport.

The Ironport SMTP appliance is very well designed for what it is supposed to do. I am not a big fan of appliances, or proprietary platforms, especially for simple services like SMTP. But it has advanced features that make me overlook the inconvenience of having to support yet another platform. It has very advanced queue management, and uses a slow-start algorithm to ramp-up the send rate so as to maximize throughput without overwhelming any single recipient mail server. It uses a pool of IP addresses, and assigns them dynamically to outgoing mails by any of several criteria such as mailing campaign, sender domain, or even a custom X-header. This is great for large operations since a dirty list from one campaign won't cause another campaign to get shut down or throttled due to the other campaign's sloppy management. It has excellent reporting and queue management tools, so you can see what the heck is going on (this is my favorite feature, too many other enterprise-class solutions fail to be transparent enough for the admin who has to run it).

I have to wonder how Ironport can justify "bulk email" support.

It's their bread-and-butter, selling dedicated high-performance SMTP appliances designed for high volume CRM systems.

As if...

[Eggplant62]

this video didn't already prove that Richter is an asshat, he goes and files this lameoid suit against Ironport?

Scotty, why don't you hang a target around your neck and start waving a sign that says, "Next CAN-SPAM lawsuit can be filed against me!"

If anyone is interested

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey if anyone is interested in signing up for hundreds of 100% FREE UNCONFIRMING EMAIL LISTS go here:

http://toastedspam.com/freespamlist

cough*info@optinbig.com*cough

Re:This one makes me laugh and cry at the same tim

[shadowbearer]

To play Devil's Advocate; somewhere out there, there's evidence that links Richter to at least some of the spams. All they need is one example that was spread around, and his case is toast.

When it comes to SCO, the onus is on *them* to produce the evidence.

IANAL, etc...

SB

Re: I CAN BLOCK ... the law says so!

[crucini]

And the CANSPAM act implicitly confirms the right you speak of:

NO EFFECT ON POLICIES OF PROVIDERS OF INTERNET ACCESS SERVICE- Nothing in this Act shall be construed to have any effect on the lawfulness or unlawfulness, under any other provision of law, of the adoption, implementation, or enforcement by a provider of Internet access service of a policy of declining to transmit, route, relay, handle, or store certain types of electronic mail messages.

Getting your honeypot address published is ok

[billstewart]

It's really ok to have an address like that get published. If more spammers start sending it spam, that's more entries for your spam filter tables, more IP addresses and sender domains you can blacklist, more hashes to feed Razor with, etc. If it gets flooded too heavily, you may have to kill it off and replace it with another address. On the other hand, if it becomes sufficiently well-known among spammers that this address is a honeypot that they actually stop selling it to each other, you can also get another address, and meanwhile, maybe your spam load will go down a bit.

I mean, wasn't the address 'canned-spiced-meat-products@example.com' a bit obvious anyway? :-)

Using Discovery in lawsuits to nail plaintiff

[billstewart]

So the alleged spammer sues you for alleging that the spam he sends was actually spam, because you must have opted in to one of his customers. That means that the names, web sites, and contact information of all his customers are obviously relevant to the lawsuit, so you subpoena them as part of discovery process, and similarly, since the spammer alleges that your tortistically interfering with his contracts, those contracts that were allegedly interfered with are obviously part of the case. And the names of all his businesses that you're allegedly interfering with are germane, so you can discover them too. And the mechanisms that the spammer uses for delivery, such as the IP addresses he sends mail from, and the ISPs he contracts with that your alleged libel might be interfering with, they're part of the relevant facts also. Get them all, and publish them all. And then there's the list of ISPs who've rejected his email, allegedly because of your allegedly libelous interference, with the specific IP addresses and dates that he attempted to send messages to, and the messages that he was attempting to send. The mere fact that he'd be giving ISPs the details they need to sue him for spamming them and their customers shouldn't stop that from being part of the discovery, because after all, he's claiming that these messages weren't spam, so he shouldn't mind if anybody knows he sent them.

Oh, and then there's his list of email addresses that really have opted in, which you're alleging that he's spamming - they're certainly part of an affected class of users who might want to sue him later. That's a little tougher to use, because how are you going to contact them all? Send them bulk email? :-) But you could do something like putting up a web page with a "Check if I'm on the list" query.

Spammers are pariahs!

[Elpacoloco]

Just this morning, I got a spam inviting me to look at child pornography!

Perhaps I should inform the FBI of this?

Nah. probably a Joe Job anyways. :(

MOOSQ.COM is Richter

[billstewart]

whois moosq.com reveals that moosq.com belongs to OptInRealBig. I've gotten about 200 spams from them this week (if I'm not double-counting any in my logfiles.) Mostly you'll find it in the From: line of the spams, either as in a short address or else in a long name string that encodes your email address in it. You can ENHANCE YOUR (filter's) PERFORMANCE by including it. My logfile summaries don't show if that's part of the envelope header or not; you may just need to filter on it after the message arrives, but at least you don't need to read the mail yourself.

You're missing another converse

[billstewart]

Pathetic wacko sues company while representing himself, or using one of those cheapo ambulance-chaser lawyers who advertise on late night cable TV channels, because he feels his hair dryer shouldn't have exploded when simply plugged into the wall 10 feet away from the shower, or because he feels that emitting toxic carcinogens from burning plastic is not usual behaviour for a minor appliance. And he loses, because he doesn't have adequate legal representation to go against the company's $5million legal staff.

In a loser-always-pays system, if he sues them and fails, he loses big, so he can't risk suing them even when he's right, because he doesn't have the resources to be 99% sure of beating them, and he knows that they can generate near-infinite legal costs that he'll have to cover. This seriously chills lawsuits by little guys against big companies.

In today's system in the US, he can risk suing them, because if he does at least a halfway-adequate job of making his case, the judge probably won't award legal costs to the winner. On the other hand, if he does try a case that's obviously pretty bogus and frivolous, he'll probably have to pay their legal costs, unless his case is _so_ bogus that it gets thrown out very early in the process, long before getting to trial.

Guns. Lots of guns.

[billstewart]

Why settle for just one Uzi or one six-shooter? Bring enough pre-loaded weaponry to get the job done right.

On the other hand, Cory Doctorow's Spam Solution Form Letter unfortunately applies to you.

Your post advocates a
( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based (X) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.) ...
Specifically, your plan fails to account for ...
and the following philosophical objections may also apply: ....
(X) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
(X) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Old gaming quote

[Our Man In Redmond]

I would have believed it was an accident if you hadn't stopped four times to reload and twice to chug a beer.

Clitoriouses

[pipingguy]

I just watched Corddry's in depth interview with [spammer name withheld] and it is absolutely hilarious.

Haven't been keeping up on your folk sayings??

[Anonymous Coward]

"Turn about is fair play."

"What's good for the goose is good for the gander."

"What's goes around, comes around."

"What you sow, so shall you reap."

"An eye for an eye."

ect., ect., ect.

DNS blacklists are federally protected

[wshs]

17 UFC 230(1)(2)

"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessivly violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described."

Broken down for:

ISPs that filter:

"no provider .. shall be held liable of any action .. to restrict access to material that the provider .. considers .. otherwise objectionable"

DNS blacklists:

"any action taken to .. make available .. the technical means to restrict access to material described"

erm, USC not UFC.

[wshs]

erm, USC, not UFC.

Stop calling me!

[Scott Richter]

Scott Richter

Phone number: (303) 550-9828(Daily Camera)

Email: scottrichter422@yahoo.com

Thanks a lot.

Merely A Shift in Business Model

[Trolling4Dollars]

If you can't succeed by anoying the hell out of people with unsolicited bulk e-mail, then SUE EVERYONE!!! Scott, welcome to the ranks of Darl McBride. You two should be very cozy together once you get saddled up in the same prison.

Losers like Scott and Darl act like it's their "god given" right to profit with as little effort expended as possible. Well you know what? FUCK THEM! ;P

Scott "Bin Laden" Richter

[cpghost]

Scott Richter and other high profile spammers are conducting a sustained full-scale DDoS attack against the NSA's ability to monitor E-Mail traffic.

One of NSA's main sources of informations in the war against terror is traffic analysis. Terrorists are using strong cryptography nowadays, so it is difficult (even for the NSA) to decrypt. However, traffic analysis exposes pattern of communications that can be extremely useful in tracking down terrorist networks. If A sends a message to B, it would normally mean, that both parties have a common relationship which should be investigated.

With the constant flow of spam, traffic analysis is effectively thwarted. One can hide in the unending stream of spams, simulating an infected Windows PC drone. It is always possible to deny having sent a message: "Hey, how could I know that my PC was infected by that damn worm again?"

Spam is an excellent vehicle for steganography too. With all this random nonsense designed to circumvent spam filters, hiding an encrypted message there is a piece of cake.

Lobbying Ashcroft or Congress to outlaw spam is difficult. The DMA proved to be much stronger this time.

Write to your representative, and point out that CAN SPAM provides terrorists with an effective method to escape detection and surveilliance. Point out that CAN SPAM, as it is written today, harms the National Security in unintended ways.

With all this terror hysteria in Washington DC, you could even make an impression!

Banks are harvesting domain records, too!

[Max Threshold]

I registered a domain for Grover Cleveland Productions, my friend's movie studio. Now I'm pre-approved for credit cards in the name of Grover Cleveland. Idiots.

What BS

[Theatetus]

People sign up for mailing lists intentionally all the time. And many are stupid enough to forget that they did, or just change their mind about the list, and rather than unsubscribing they bitch to their ISP or to an anti-spam service. Everybody on our lists A) requested to receive that particular list and B) confirmed the request.

But I forgot that according to the slashdot dogma, any mailing addressed to more than 10 people is "spam".

Re:What BS

[JuggleGeek]

You seemed to have skipped right past the part where I said "without more information, it's hard to verify".

I didn't mention it, but I run two opt in lists myself, both requiring confirmation. I've never had a spam complaint about either of them. I have no question that there are lots of legitimate opt in lists - I'm on many myself - so you're claim that I believe "any list with more than 10 recipients is spam" is just bullshit that you made up.

And I still believe what I posted the first time. Legitimate mailing lists do not cause a lot of spamcop complaints. If Spamcop is receiving a lot of complaints about your list, then the people that you claim opted in and confirmed that they wanted to be on your list obviously neither remember doing so, nor do they want your mail. And if that many people on your list are unhappy about being on it, then chances are, your list isn't as clean as you pretend it is.

Re:What BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, go to OptinRealBig and try to opt in. You can't. Think about what that says here. This isn't people forgetting. Look at other comments under this article. There are people who can specifically list where an e-mail address was published and only used for that single purpose.

Proof by vigorous handwaving

[driehuis]

I don't know. It isn't my IP being blocked. [...] Also, I find it hard to believe that every address in that block is assigned to a spammer.

You'd be surprised at the address space some spammers command. But that is beside the point. Until you tell the world which class B was blocked, inappropriately in your view, your entire argument hinges on proof by vigorous handwaving.

As others have pointed out, by the time spamhaus.org expands a listing to /16 there are legitimate doubts about whether that ISP is a solid investment.

Again, without knowing which ISP and which netspace we're talking about, it's hard to say anything for sure, but it wouldn't be the first time a spam friendly ISP used their last remaining non-spamming customers as human shields.

Re:Proof by vigorous handwaving

[91degrees]

Because "Spam friendly ISPs" absoutely love SPAM, and the extra cost of bandwidth caused by it, and dealing with all the extra complaints. In fact, they love it so much that even though a minority of their customers are spammers, they're willing to inconvenience the majority just to let the loveley spam get through.

Come off it! It's a conspiracy theory based purely on speculation and paranoia. Unless you have actual evidence to suggest that, I'll put the anti-spam zealots with all the other nutcases.

Re:Proof by vigorous handwaving

[driehuis]

You _still_ have not provided any info about the ISP in question, so you're still ruffling your feathers without contributing to the discussion.

I don't know where you get the idea that I think any ISP loves spam. Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.

Re:Proof by vigorous handwaving

[91degrees]

Thta's because I don't know what ISP it is.

What provision doe s Spamhaus have for making exceptions to non-spamming IPs withing a blocked class B?

Re:Proof by vigorous handwaving

[driehuis]

What provision doe s Spamhaus have for making exceptions to non-spamming IPs withing a blocked class B?

What makes you think Spamhaus would list a class B when it could list just the class Cs or even the /32s that are controlled by the spammers?

Spamhaus.org is, in my experience, pretty conservative in their listing policies. They will list individual IPs to start with. Expansion occurs when the ISP starts to move the spammer around the IP space, at which point outside observers have no way to see which IP space is under control of the spammers. And the information available to anyone on www.spamhaus.org is pretty upfront about how the size of the listing was established.

But again, it barely makes sense to discuss this because we still don't know what IP range or ISP you're talking about.

Re:Proof by vigorous handwaving

[91degrees]

Indeed. This is not my complaint. My complaint is with people who tell the innocent victims that it's up to them to sort out the problem rather than the people who are blocking them.

While I disagree with their arguments, I accept that sometimes blocklist administrators feel it is neccesary to block an entire class B. Of course, when that happens, it will inevitably block some legitimate addresses.

I'm just curious as to what measures are taken to limit the damage when such a response is deemed neccesary?

Richter dropped the ball on new Clothing Line

[demaxxus]

RE: Scott Richter's new "Spam King" clothing line.

It's too bad he didn't fully think this one through before announcing it to the general public.

I'm the very proud owner of both SpamKingClothing.com & SKClothing.com.

Currently they both redirect to FTC.gov

Better job for them...

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys better joing SCO marketing or better yet
Microsoft :-)

Re:Here's one, Scott Richter is such a criminal th

[Anonymous Coward]

He has two new kids (see PEOPLE magazine, May 3rd issue), but they're so damn ugly there's little chance they'd make it in child-porn. ...that being said, there may be some weird east german fetish porn site that caters to the 3 or 4 pedos in the world who'd find his spawn attractive.

Re:Is Ironport a black hat? MOD DOWN parent please

[Anonymous Coward]

The poster Animats, also known as John Nagle, would make a far more convincing argument if he didn't do work for Ironport's competitors.