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OptInRealBig Wins Restraining Order On SpamCop
arikb writes "Some online newspapers are reporting that the infamous Scott Richter and his company OptInRealBig won a temporary restraining order against SpamCop. The TRO prevents SpamCop from sending complaints about OIRB to their provider or removing email addresses from the complaints it receives which regard OIRB. I think we will rue this day for years to come."
Update: 05/12 16:43 GMT by T : The Ultimate Fartkno writes "HillsCap, a fed-up SpamCop user, is now organizing a class-action lawsuit to be brought against Richter and Opt-In. At least 1,000 signatures are needed, so tell your friends!"
"I think we will rue this day for years to come."
I don't think so.
Scott Richter is still a lying scumbag, a convicted felon and a thief.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Video. Wonder how long that poor schmuck's server will last, but it's not on the Comedy Central page for the Daily Show that I can see.
SpamCop can't make the complainers' information anonymous.
Why would that matter? Who could the complainer recieve backlash from that would matter? Could they maybe get a frivilous lawsuit from that slime Scott Richter?
Ansi's and stupid tricks!
While SpamCop may be a good thing, somebody was bound to complain. Here is a concept though, everyone learns how to track down the spammers ISP and kick them off it.
Let me make sure I have this straight... who's got a gun to the mailserver administrator's head saying "You must use spamcop to filter your mail"? No one.. ok that's what I thought. So how exactly does OIRB even have a case here? Spamcop is running a service, which somtimes blocks OIRB, they are forcing everyone and their mother who runs a mail server to use them (spamcop)... so why did this even go through? It's not spamcop's fault.. it's the mailserver admin's fault the mail is being blocked. And, unless I'm wrong, mailservers are privately owned pieces of machinery and I have every right to say "Sorry, you can't come trampling on my equipment right now", to someone. So while OIRB might not like it, my mail server is private property.
Isn't this like hireing Diebold to secure your house, and then having someone (say Jehovah's Witnesses) complain and file a suit against Diebold because they can no longer come up to your house and just enter?
I know I know.. I'm stretching the example a bit... but JW can 'technically' come up to my house knock and I can talk to them if I wish. I can also turn them away.. it's MY house.. MY property. I install a third party system which does something or other to keep them away... how's this diebold's problem? or mine for that matter?
These companies will continue to use whatever legal tactics they can so long as the response rate to their spam makes it profitable to run their business.
While I'm all for the further development of spam filters and blocking spammers, our inboxes will not be free of it till people stop BUYING from their advertisements.
A radioactive cat has 18 half-lives.
Eveyone can thank the can spam act for this but he is still going to win his suits. As long as he is fully following the federal can spam act rules he is on strong legal grounds. Yes it may suck but according to the law he may be doing absolutely nothing wrong.
Got Code?
I couldn't help by mention this part about Scott, after he complete defends himself from being considered a 'spammer', yet the people who go against him are.....
Scott: "Well, these anti-spammers-"
DailyShow: "Don't you mean anti-high-volume-email-deployment?"
Scott: "What?!??....that just sounds stupid, they're anti-spammers"
We are approaching this wrongly in so many ways.
There are legal methods which will fail because there is already precedence with SPAM grocery mailers, etc. There are also smart lawyers working (for high dollars) for the spammers who can get cluelesss judges to support the SPAM purveyors.
There are firewall/spam blocker methods that will continue to fail as spammers learn the tricks to route around them. This is the old hacker/security expert game. Build a better lock/block and it will soon be cracked/by-passed. The cycle is repeated ad nauseum.
The only real method of fixing this is to charge for e-mail. Once the spammers have to pay then their rate of return (ROI) will decrease so that it is no longer a viable business model.
Yes, this means we will pay for e-mail. I hate the idea as much as you, but I cannot see a working solution in any other method.
The blame is not only with the spammer. What about the lawyers who lied to the court to get this ruling? Or the judge who issued it?
how about inexpensive VIAGRA?
1. Opt In Real Big!!!1
2. Receive Nigerian business proposition
3. Eagerly give out your bank account number
4. ???
5. Profit!! (for some negative value of profit)
How about inexpensive v14gr4??
These arguments Richter is bringing up have had their showing in courts before. Richter complains that spam cop is interferring with his business. Spam Cop is doing no such thing. Spam Cop is not forced upon anyone. Spam Cop has given out their negative opinion about something and the target is just trying to shut them up.
Suppose I create a website which rates hardware for PCs and I decide that such in such Video Card really fucking blows big chunks. This is akin to the manufacter trying to argue that I am interfering with his business because I'm telling everyone his product sucks - as long as I'm not being intentionaly libelous, I would think I'd be 1st amendment protected.
Remeber that lawsuit last year from that copany that magiccaly sprung in Flordia just to flie a suit and disappear? That blew over - Spamhaus is still around and this will too.
If religous zealots don't believe in Evolution, then why are they so worried about bird flu?
This is really bad news for all of us who hate Spam. Spamcops do a really great job too. I hope that this is just a temporary setback in the fight against Spam.
Free Firefox news reader.
What's Scott Richter's latest and most accurate phone # and e-mail? We need to post it here and mod the post up, so he'll be opting in REAL BIG.
Someone please post Scott Ricter's personal e-mail address!
It's public knowledge. It was on the Daily Show.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
I hate to say it, but I actually feel some sympathy for the spammer. I understand the Can Spam Act requires spammers to stop sending if recipients tell them to stop, but how am I to know that a given spammer is under U.S. jurisdiction; therefore, I will not tell the spammer to stop, lest I confirm that my email address is valid.
The problem is that any law that allows people to send spam legitimizes the activity.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
I agree with an exception:
I believe we SHOULD have to pay for email and even for content...
BUT if we participate or respond we are "rebated" - if we respond to the email or click on a link - we are rebated or given another penny.
On a site like this, if we receive high moderation we are given credit towards a subscription.
This would encourage quality interaction on websites such as this.
It would cost spammers with illegit offers/phishing scams lots of $$ and there discourage (but not stop all of) them
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Have you notice how close "I" and "U" are at qwerty keyboards?
Opt In Real Big claims to be an opt-in only company. However, they operate through third parties with no checks in place to ensure the third parties are using opt-in lists, paying those parties based on how many people click their links. Making it a <fingerquote> policy </fingerquote> gives them plausible deniability up until people start laying down evidence that they're full of shit.
From Val Kilmer's character, Chris Knight: "Rue the day? Who talks like that?"
Bark less. Wag more.
Yea, 9.8 megs of video data becomes your doom when it's linked off the second post on the first /. article after 9:00am EST.
/. effect, but this poor bastard could never have seen this coming.
Most times I don't care about the
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Inspector: "He vill rue zey day he vas born a Fraankenshtien!"
Townfolk: "What?"
Inspector: "I said 'he will rue the day he was born a Frankenstein!'"
Townfolk: "Ohhhh"
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Yahoo has improved its spam filter. I get maybe 5 a week in my inbox. I wonder if the court order also would force Yahoo to cease the filtering of spam that Yahoo does. As I see it, SpamCop is the same type of Anti Spam technology that Yahoo uses by reporting email from end users as spam then using algorithms to determine if the email is really spam (i.e. 100,000 users reporting a certain email header is spam is a good indication). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that yahoo uses SpamCop or at least someone is using the same intellectual property (oh no not more law suites).
Rue!
How soon we forget the lessons of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
If I were SpamCop I'd just keep on keeping on. Just because someone doesn't like what you're saying doesn't mean you don't have a right to saying. Whether or not to listen is the choice of the provider in question not Scotty, and not some random judge. Fun thing is Scotty doesn't believe in either of these things. He doesn't believe someone should be able to even impinge in the slightest on what he's got to say, that he should be held accountable for it in any way, or that people have a right to choose not to listen.
Australia
I bet they bribed the judge with a penis enlargement pill.
You can kill the ant, but you can't kill all of the ants
Just like the RIAA, opt in will have little success over elminiating all of the spam filters.
And unfortunately, this is likewise vice versa.
What I don't understand is- Caller ID is legal; It's not legal for telemarketers to call if you're on the no-call list. But in no way is it legal to have a 'caller-id' of the email clients installed?
It's a very rediculous control method, and I cant for the life of me understand. It's the equivelent of somone bossing me around on my own computer telling me I can't install a popup blocker;
Apparently the judge and jury love getting viagra emails....
The only way to eliminate SPAM is to make it unprofitable. Since the world is full of fools, we can't count on them to just not respond to SPAM so we need to reduce the numbers of SPAM messages sent by the spammers.
We need some sort of real-time, content-driven connection throttling on the mail servers of the world, so as to reduce the number of SPAM that can be sent in any given time. The inbound mail can be analysed on-the-fly and if the word pen1s or vi@gara is detected, throttle the connection so that mail takes 60 seconds to send.
Throttling will only affect mass mailings. Who cares if their legitimate mail about V.I.C.O.D.I.N is delayed by 60 seconds? And there will be no false-positive difficulties because all mail will eventually get delivered. But bulk-mailers will discover that they can send far fewer SPAM in a day, which drops their response rate and their profitability. Hopefully to the point where they can't sustain their business any more.
As many of you have said, it expires on May 20th. That's just a week away. If it gets extended then we may have a problem.
According to www.spamfilterreview.com;
12.4 BILLION...not million...BILLION emails per day in spam crosses wires. Thats 40% of total email sent over the entire internet. That is completely insaine.
I say let's legalize spam, this way the spammers dont have to hide their addresses. Then, when we find out who they are; we'll duct tape them to chairs and make them watch teletubbies for months on end with no sleep and no food.
It's not what you know; It's what you can find out.
Show your email publicly, and we'll see what we can do for you... :)
"We're not going after IronPort because of their blocking. We're going after IronPort for the harassment," [OIRB's Scott Richter] said. "We're going to go after many antispam groups."
I think they are going after because of their blocking, but their suit does not complain about the blocking. They are going after anonymous e-mail complaints and sending e-mail to the ISP. Your argument does not address the issue at hand.
IANAL, but why the hell does anyone have the right to mess with qhat I choose to do with the email I get? If I put a filter that automatically filters all messages from Microsoft.com, can they sue me for not allowing them to carry on with their business? And that said, if instead of putting that filter myself, if I choose an ISP that uses such a filter, why should they be charged with anything? It was my choice, as a consumer, in the first place...
I wonder if everyone in /. started sending random trash by email to Opt In employees, using up their bandwith and rendering their business mail useless, if they would be so tolerant... Anyone's got a list of those addresses, by the qay? ;)
> The only real method of fixing this is to charge for e-mail.
I disagree. Spammers will simply screw customers *harder* to get more money to cover the operating costs. They won't care if email costs money, but it will make them much more vicious. They will likely have to do massive targeting research to ensure they get the maximum effect from each little email. New email addys would likely receive less spam in a paid system.
There has existed a business model very similar to the spammers' model, for quite some time; junk snail mail. The costs of sending junk snail has no effect to the countless bouts of the crap clogging up mailboxes everywhere. The only difference is that when it costs money to send, you would likely root out all the lame idiots who spam for dollars, but have no infrastructure for doing so... they would disappear, or become soaked up by corporations bent on spamming. My point is, the paid email model will result in tighter groups of spammers earning money together in an organized way.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
It's like I put poison in my glove compartment, and when someone steals my car and drinks it they should sue the car manufacturer for making cars that can easily be broken into...
Hmm... that's premediated murder.
And example how examples don't work, I guess.
I think this is a really bad move from OIRB, in the long run.
If you're an ISP that's providing connectivity to a spammer, you will get on a number of centralized blacklists, like SpamCop's list. Once this starts to affect your business, you kick the spammers out, and get off these lists. That's how the lists are supposed to work.
However, if the centralized lists are prohibited from blocking you, people will start adding you on their own blacklists. Eventually, you will be on thousands of different lists that are updated manually and that you don't know about... and no matter how hard you kick out the spammers, you will remain on these lists practically forever, since there is no central authority that you can ask to remove you.
Erm, are you responding to slashdot via e-mail? I think that only e-mail should be paid for... I'm already paying for my internet access, and I don't want to pay for content especially when I've contributed it :)
Now that Iron-(plays boths sides of the fence)-Port owns Spamcop, I don't care what happens to them. It's just a shame I renewed my account there only a couple of months before they were bought.
Spamcop puts a list of IP ranges and abuse addresses on their front page, along with an annoncement that they are not allowed by court order to send complaints to these addresses about these ranges. They can also provide a cut and paste ability for people to send reports outside of SpamCop for these providers.
If Spamcop's been told to lay off for a week, what's to stop us individuals from all contacting them and their ISP seperately to fill the void?
I'll bet if enough people contacted both the judge, and their internet provider, they'll begin to see that it's not just a small group of malcontents harrassing a business. Instead it's a lot of pissed off people sick of them and their family's being bombarded with porn and male enhancement ads, so let's make it apparent who the judge is hurting by stupid ruling's such as this (Even if it is only for a week).
Charging for e-mail won't work. First thing that would happen would be that most everyone (spammer and non-spammer) would stop using e-mail. I know I would. Charging for e-mail is nothing more than an incentive to stop using e-mail.
The users would migrate to other internet alternatives that would replace e-mail such as nstant messaging systems altered to do what e-mail does, or other Internet techniques to allow the exchange of messages.
Then, you'd have to charge a tax on each message in IM. Then we'd be forced to switch over to some sort of message-board based system to exchange messages. Then the tax would come to that. Next, it would be Kazaa or p2p where we'd be exchanging text messages instead of music files. The spammers would follow to this, and then it would be taxed too.
Basically, e-mail is no different from anything else on the internet: packets of bytes sent to/from IP addresses. What makes e-mail so different that it can be taxed without taxing other packets of bytes being sent to/from IP addresses?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
FYI-
HillsCap (who I think is an admin at an ISP) has gone on the warpath against Scott Richter. See this thread in SpamCop's forums...
http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showt
He's saved up a few *million* emails from Scotty and he has contacts with some interestingly acronymed agencies, if you get my drift. If the right people get on board with this, we just might be able to raze Opt-In and sow the ground with salt after it's gone.
Right, but that does not automatically mean that SpamCop is doing anything wrong. The Can Spam act is essentially irrelevant here, because the issue isn't whether spamming is legal, but whether spamming was in breach of the contract with the spammer's ISP. The issue is that SpamCop is ratting out the spammer to his ISP for spamming, and that ISP pulls the spammer's plug. If the ISP has written into its contract with the spammer "no spamming" and he/she/it spams, then that is totally legal. The argument here that SpamCop is interfering with the spammer's business unjustly (which most of us think it isn't). The little razzle-dazzle about "we're complying with the can spam act!" whine by the spammer is irrelevant.
As an analogy: If we're neighbors in an apartment building that forbids pets, and I ratted you out to the landlord because you had a few cats, you won't be getting into trouble with thelandlord because owning cats is illegal... you'll be getting into trouble with the landlord because you've violated your lease.
What the spammer is trying to say here is that under the Can Spam Act, you cannot go directly to the ISP with complaints. You must complain to him first. IANAL, but that sounds like bullshit. If SpamCop was out of the picture and I complained to the ISP directly myself, would I get sued? I don't believe there's any way you could restrain my right of free speech to inform the ISP that his client is in breach of his contract. I also don;t think the ISP would be required to give up my identity to the spammer. As the article said, there isn't a legal requirement to be faced with your accusers in cases such as this.
Say get 10,000 people together and go to the courthouse and haze the judge. And when the hairy spamming scum shows up throw rocks.
I am usually not one for violence, and I do believe in free speach. But I also believe in the freedom not to have to listen to speach should one so choose.
And spammers are rude bastards that will not shut up. Spammers also think they have a right to your private mail box. Wrong, but we must stand up for it.
What is that judges email so we can sign him up for spam.... so he can see the problem first hand.
Saying "Scott Richter is still a lying scumbag, a convicted felon and a thief" is not slander, because it is true. However, "kill spammers" is a murder threat as you claim.
"How long before people start posting his address, phone number"
What is wrong with giving him calls on his personal phone at 2 AM, or knocking on his door 18 times a day to sell him fake penis pills? Scott Richter has indicated that he thinks that there is nothing wrong with such intrusions at any time.
I know someone suggested awhile back that e-mail users should have to execute a piece of complicated code for each e-mail they send (was this Billy Gates idea?). Anyway, why don't we allow people to send an e-mail for donating a small amount of time to a DC project? Just think, we could send free e-mail AND search for intelligent life at the same time!
How was it the radical fundementalists drastically reduced the number doctors willing to perform abortions again? It wasn't by talking with those considering the procedure.
I know I know. The ends don't justify the means. But seriously, in the case of people like Scott, I'm not recoiling in horror when I think about the means alone.
Maybe the Mafia would like to improve it's image, get a little public sympathy by taking on the occasional Scott Richter memorial improvement project.
Or hey, what about OJ. He's not busy. And yeah, a rage fueled double homicide, but there is no unspilling the milk. And doing the same to spammers could be considered a kind of work release where he pays back I little of the debt he owes but wasn't made to pay.
What about Mike Tyson. Sure he hasn't killed anyone. But I bet if you get him drunk enough and throw someone in a dress into his hotel room at 3am, they might wish they were dead when all's said and done.
Or do a catch and release program where they're kidnapped and dropped of in tribal Pakistan in a star-spangled jogging suit with "Haliburton" across the back, just above a Calvin-esque picture of Cheney peeing on the prophet Mohammed.
IF ORIB removed from its list everyone who did not ask to be on it (the REASONABLE thing to do), then the complainer's address would most likely be gone.
Well, he is saying that he believes there is a qualitative difference between spam and "high volume email deployment". If you read the Daily Show dialogue with that in mind, his response is not as foolish as it seems.
Since spamcop didn't respond in anyway to the motion for a TRO, it went something like this:
Spammer: these guys are interfering with my business.
Judge: Any response?
Judge: Well, I will have to trust you Mr. Spammer since the otherside never said anything.
then somebody blows it up with an RPG...
WHEEE!
Really, somebody oughtta put together a top ten list of people geeks love to hate. Guess who I nominate.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
From the last 7,000 messages my server's handled, a grep of the maillog turns up exactly zero occurrances of 'optinbig'.
So, are these guys really that big, or are they really playing by the [albeit stupid and ineffective] rules?
Besides, who honestly gets much Spam originating from US sources anymore...?
No, I was saying that as access becomes free (which it is) and as broadband lowers in cost (which it is) and as costs rise to produce content (which it is) then ISPs and content providers alike will need a revenue stream.
There will always be free versions of sites like Slashdot as there is now. But, we could choose to pay extra for less trolls, flamebaiters, consistently abusive negative moderators, etc etc. Then, in turn, if we received moderation (+) for our comments we are rebated a portion of our payment to slashdot.
This isn't necessarily paying for anything. Our ISPs could grant us 250 credits a month. We could use that for email and online content purchases. If we want more, we'd have to either buy credit or make purposeful efforts to get our "credit refunds"
For example: say a subscription to Slashdot is 25 credits - that comes from my 250. Currently, out MY last 24 comments I have received positive moderation on 14 of them - my Slashdot subscription has cost me 10 credits.
If you are sent email and you respond or interact with the email by clicking on a link and goinfg to a site - the sender is rebated. I believe solicitation emails should receive NO rebate. Having no rebate could be a tag that the email is a solicitation.
I also believe that soliciatation emails should have to pay if you DO respond. Therefore, someone could gain credits by responding to offers, but the consequences are obvious - you get an new spam lists.
This is much the same way MYPoints BonusMail works.
I hate spam, but I tolerate this email and respond to EVERY offer because I am granted points just for reading and responding to the emails. I have over 5000 points currently built up which is almost $40 at Toys R Us and $450 at Sharper Image or 4 free Pizzas etc etc
This gets complicated to understand and to convey.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Give me software which allows me to set my email receiving/reading tools to only receive/read email which I have solicited, all others get bounced back or thrown in the bitbucket. Call it a spam firewall or whatever.
Come to think of it, I did see an ad recently which was touting just such a product (I hope they make several fortunes with it too.)
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
Here's another link to the Daily Show clip.
One of the most valuable commodity to a spammer is known good email addresses. Why should we give him more.
The ISP should simply ignore the complaints, do a spot audit of his spamming, or just get rid of him because almost nobody wants spam anyway.
for a mass...er...spamming campaign. If anyone has their e-mail address and/or postal address, let's see how many daily e-mails and BIG HEAVY catalogues we can sign them up for.
putting it in writing isn't slander even if it's false. In fact, as a public figure now, Scott has quite the standard of proof to get to before it's even really libel. Look at what Larry Flint can get away with.
"We should kill all spammers" is an opinion. "You should kill all spammers" is an opinion. "You must kill all spammers" is an opinion if you can't reasonably believe that there will be consequenses for your failure to follow the instruction. "I will kill Scott Richter" is a threat, under some circumstances, and possibly illegal. "Scott Richter should die a horrible agonizing death from a combination of heroin withdrawl and hemmoragic fever, after which his remains would be incinerated with sluge from a sewage treatment plant, and his ashes used in the vitrification of nuclear waste" is a happy thought.
Calling him on his phone, esspecially reapetedly after one has been asked not to is likewise a minor infraction of the law, as it harrassing them by knocking on their door repeatedly when one has been asked not to. Giving him pills made with real penis however typically wouldn't be.
Looks like they took it down yet again. Too bad one of the best segments Corrdry has done.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
What are you indeed proposing?
A tarrif on raw data sent over the internet?
You can't possibly distinguish data sent over the internet in the form of an e-mail as opposed to some multi-player RPG or HTML. On the level that it passes from router to router from the original computer to its destination that is how it is treated (and should be too!) Indeed, firewalls and other cute things of that nature really end up perverting the internet by assuming (incorrectly) that only port 80 (typical HTTP port) is needed (or something similar).
A firewall is needed when computers on the other side of the firewall have poorly designed IP (internet protocol, not intellectual property) stacks and some very poorly implemented miscellaneous TCP services programs (like nettime, MOTD, or some other simple service) that has methods of attack through those programs. A clean well-designed IP stack with high-quality TCP applications do not need a firewall.
The solution is not charging $$$ for e-mail either. Who collects? How much per e-mail? Does the size of the e-mail matter? What about attachments? Is this above and beyond normal TCP/IP usage charges (in terms of normal bandwidth charges)? How do you stop spammers from "collecting" money from millions of people who "sent" e-mail to them (reverse spammers in this case... a variant not seen at the moment)? This last question is also about how spoofing can be used to undermine the toll collection system of any e-mail charges, which is something significant indeed.
You could certainly set up a totally new e-mail type protocol where you personally establish some sort of toll system, and let's also assume that every piece of e-mail that goes into a typical in-box will also pay you about 1/2 cent. Answer the above questions regarding this system if you think there is a viable solution here, but also let's assume that you will use E-gold, Paypal, or some other micropayment system here as well (maybe something you also come up with for this service). You had also better get a pretty good legal team together because you will also be the target of a whole bunch of lawsuits if it gains any popularity at all.
It simply won't work. What is needed more than trying to charge is to develop trust metrics between computers. Just making up an IP address here, but let's assume that 192.168.x.x has a bunch of e-mail servers that I trust. You can then assume that this is a good server. Let's assume that 10.54.x.x has a bunch of spammers. Don't trust anything coming from those servers.
BTW, this is essentially the approach that Spamhaus, SpamCop, and the IBHL and others are using to try and block spam.
The real trick here is that you also need to prevent spoofing. One nice thing about SpamCop is that the original author/developer of the site went through a whole bunch of work to try and find the actual owner of a given internet service that is sending you a given piece of e-mail based almost exclusively on IP address. The SpamCop site then tells you if it is an open relay, or a known spammer. This anti-spoofing is often hard to do and this is where the current e-mail protocol does indeed need to be strengthed, simply to identify clearly who sent the e-mail, and make sure that the computer sending the e-mail is who they claim they are.
As it is right now, I can claim to have the e-mail address president@whitehouse.gov and send you a message, and the current e-mail protocol won't be able to proof that I really am that person or not. There are ways (fairly easy as well) to not even get the IP address of my machine anywhere in any logs of any computer or in the e-mail header. Spammers take advantage of this simple fact, and e-mail servers should not accept e-mail if the IP addresses aren't correct.
This should also be illegal in itself. If you claim to have an IP address of 10.54.66.195 and that is not who you claim to be, it is false representation and should by itself be punishable under law independent of the conte
The SpamCop we are talking about here is not spamcop.com (which this /. article links to), it is spamcop.net.
Hmm, what idiot provides this guys bandwidth?
Following the Some online newspapers link from the story to Google, I note that top of the list is this Slashdot story itself. Deja vu or what?
From the optinrealbig.com web site:
Contact us via e-mail: info@optinbig.com
or phone: (303) 464-8164
OptInRealBig.com, LLC
1333 W 120th Ave Suite 101
Westminster, CO 80234
I think we should all give them a call or send them a friendly letter letting them know what we think of their "service".
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
E-mail addresses are personal property. Property he pays to have access to. If people want to give it to them, they can. If they don't want to, he can't force them. Neither can the judge.
Outlook parks spam for me in a junk mail folder, and I can't deal with each individual item.
However, I have recently started a personal mission: every "419" type scam that I receive, I specifically forward (and full SMTP headers) to
(a) "abuse@" all the domains mentioned in the headers and message;
(b) all recipients specifically mentioned.
It doesn't take more a minute or two a day (no more than 5 419'ers or lottery scams a day), but it makes it clear to the senders that someone is taking a proactive approach to stopping them.
I suggest other people do this as well. Obviously it's infeasible to do it to all spam mail: but do it with the scams.
I suspect that this is sorta Richter's point taken the opposite way:
"Why the hell does any third party have the right to throw out my 'advertisements'?"
This is a really big deal and will be painful for many if Richter wins. All I can say is that I'm VERY grateful for ASSP (assp.sourceforge.net) here. It's a WONDERFUL piece of anti-spam software and the students and faculty here couldn't do without it.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Is SpamCop telling the ISPs to shut him down. Or is it just telling them that he is using them? Surely, then the decision to shut him off is the ISP's?.
What if ISPs ask spamcop (or whomever) to provided infomation about spammers? Although, they should be able to police their own.
Really though, how come spam is still been sent? Do the marketeers really make their money back through sales of their high quality products?
How is this different from OIRB suing me when I delete one of their spams? SpamCop is selling a service that deletes it for me so I don't have to deal with it.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
A *real* restraining order takes a real court hearing. Let's see him get one of those.
I thought they were being kind.
He is a lying scumbag.
And there's nothing wrong with posting public information. Nothing at all. I don't recommend any threats or doing anything to physically harm the guy. But I think people have the right to exercise their free speech and let him know how they feel about him at pretty much any hour of the day.
Boo Hoo!
He also believes that his shit doesn't stink. Sharp's Corollary to Rule #1: Spammers attempt to re-define "spamming" as that which they do not do. The Rules.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
But the "Y" is next to U, and "O" is next to I.
O=='=++
How about if an all new protocol is defined, that has checks built in to handle spam? In any case everyone who wants to avoid spam are jumping thru a lot of hoops trying to fix and patch the existing systems we have in place, so they may find it easier to adopt this new protocol...
Yeah, I did a double-take on that one too, but apparently they were only told of the motion when OptIn filed May 4. The court reviewed the papers and issued its ruling on May 10 without a hearing. Three working days to get a response in.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Kent: You won't get away with this. You'll rue the day!
Chris Knight: Rue the day? Who talks like that?
http://media.hugi.is/hahradi/fyndnar/show-1.wmv
lol. that's funny. just visualise it. see? good. why haven't the mods noticed it.
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
Semantics go a long way in this type of discourse: From an abortion rights point of view, the "pro-life" side is referred to as "anti-choice" for a reason.
But, we are talking a spammer here. The English language and how to use it is not going to be a strong point for him.
One method for blocking spam would be to link known mail server relay IP addresses to blocked addresses at the router level especially at the link exchanges used by ISPs to route traffic to each other.
Ie stop the spam from ever reaching the rest of the net in the first place.
Might encourage ISP, Backbone providers et el to enforce the their own terms of conditions for once.
I'm no spam fan, but some of the spam blocking services out there are becoming overzealous. Ever heard the saying "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water"? It is better to get a few spam emails than to have an important email blocked.
Through a series of events that were no fault of my own, I was black listed in one of the spammer databases! I'm speaking specifically of SPEWS here, which in my opinion is the most reckless, least responsible one out there.
I went to their website to get my address cleared, and the faq basically says, "So sorry you're in our database. You're screwed, we'll never take you out."
I have countless emails returned to me every day from people who's email service checks SPEWS. I have to call each IT department to get whitelisted, which is a huge waste of my time.
My point here is that even though in this particular case the guy actually IS a spammer, there has to be some level of accountability for spam blocking services. If they go telling everyone you are a spammer and that no one should listen to you, they'd better be right, or they are committing a form of libel.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
The URL for SpamCop, as posted in the /. article, is incorrect. The correct URL is http://www.spamcop.net. I think we should all make an effort to donate something to the SpamCop Legal Defense Fund.
Free Firefox news reader.
But, we are talking a spammer here. The English language and how to use it is not going to be a strong point for him.
0f c0ur5e 1ts n07! 8uy V1agrA
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
The English language and how to use it is not going to be a strong point for him
ESP3C1A||Y WH3N U G3+ E-MaL3S W1DTH B4D SP33L1NG about p3n1-s p1l|z!
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
There are legal methods which will fail because there is already precedence with SPAM grocery mailers, etc
There are also legal methods to stop grocery mailers from being put in your mailbox. It's a white sticker with a red circle and an oblique bar on top of an illustration of a black folded flyer that means, quite explicitely, NO FLYERS.
You can also get a text version of NO FLYERS stickers as well.
If you still receive flyers in spite of having stuck a NO FLYERS sticker on your mailbox, I believe you have legal recourses against those businesses who still deliver flyers to your mailbox.
Does he have an email address? We should probably email him and inform him of the effect of his ruling.... every time that Scott sends us an email. I see a script in the works...
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The text of CAN SPAM can be found here. In particular, I draw your attention to this:
(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.
That just begs for the creation of a honeypot containing a list of e-mail addresses created solely for the purpose of trapping spammers that specifically contains a notice that cites this clause of CAN SPAM.
They could rent time on a set of thousands of hijacked home computers and have each send out one spam per minute.
And his/its phone number ( +(352) 371699) also doubles as a fax number, so if you've got any endless black sheets to fax, have fun!
The judge should have rejected this on the face of it.
Might as well issue a restraining order against a victom carrying mace to protect herself from a stalker.
Yes stalking is orders of magantude worse but restraining orders like this should not be permitted.
I have no doupt the judge didn't even understand the complaint. This has become the issue lately.
Judges who "don't get it" IE don't actually understand what is happening.
Impartal but not to the point of pure ignorence.
Search warents and restraining orders have been issued by judges who don't know what they are doing.
IANAL. I think you should be able to challange the lagitemacy of warents and orders (can you?) and if a judge has issued 3 such items that have proven fraudulent or inappropreate he shouldn't be permitted to issue anymore.
A search warent is bad enough. Remember Steve Jackson Games? Got a search warent over a card game and had everything taken. Never charged and got everything back after it long became obsolete.
In effect someone tried to shut down a game company becouse they didn't approve of a card game.
Now say if this were to happen to a small indupendent newspaper? Just cease the printing press (maybe just the computers printer) and the computers (maybe just 1 iMac).
Restraining orders are worse. Let's say Nintendo got a restraining order against Microsoft over the release of the X Box. Then Nintendo could force Microsoft to miss the critical Christmas shopping season.
Just use it to stall something when timming is critical.
Can't carry mace, Can't block spam, Can't defend yourself, Can't avoid harrasment.
Just get a restraining order from a judge who dosen't know better.
With computers being more and more part of socity maybe we should require judges take some sort of technology test just to see if they are at least know what is being requested when a spammer asks for a restraining order.
I don't actually exist.
I remember when Spamcop was purchased and the company that purchased them also makes the hardware sold to spammers. Its too much work to find it but I know it was in the news.
So the company was working both sides of the fence. Because of that, it sounds like the company is being sued by one of it own customers, IF anyone can confirm the spammer is a customer of Spamcop's parent company. This would almost sound like a conflict of interest in that your selling to the guy suing you.
So this really is not a surprise, as Spamcop's parent company likely knew that someday they would be in this legal position.
"Your having a bad day when the voices in your head put you on hold"
(Diclaimer: I am talking about US law in particular, though most Western nations have similar laws with a few differences in detail.)
A generic statement of that sort is clearly a mere statement of opinion (i.e. "spammers should be killed").
A more specific statement (e.g. "Scott Richter should be killed") might or might not be a murder threat, depending on the context. For instance, the statement in the previous statement is not a threat (it is obviously a statement framed as a hypothetical example). To take another example, a rhetorical statement such as "Scott Richter should have the Stars and Stripes branded on one cheek, the Star of David branded on the other cheek, and then be airdropped into the Northwest Provinces of Pakistan" is clearly just that -- rhetoric.
However, if someone yelled such a statememt to a mob assembled outside Scott Richter's house, it probably would be a legally actionable threat (since a reasonable person would perceive a likelihood that the mob might actually act on the statement).
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Well, maybe we should find out the judge and spam them into re-thinking their judgement...
If anyone has any info (I just emailed a bunch of addresses I found looking for more specific contact info) please share. All I could find was a physical address...not even a phone or email.
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
You apparently haven't even read the SPEWS FAQ.
You weren't listed, your ISP was listed because they support spammers. Since you give your ISP money, you indirectly support spammers as well.
If you really cared, go to a different ISP.
Too many people like you are just complacent.
You mean, from the anti-life point of view, right?
I reiterate from the previous story. If OptInRealBig is a legitimate opt-in e-mail marketing service, then why don't they have a place anywhere on their website to opt-in?
So would it be possible to get a TRO against this SPAM company?
If they send you SPAM, they go to jail???
You cannot legislate the internet. Like it or not, the internet is a global communications network. Go ahead, make spamming illegal in your piddly little country. It will make no difference. There are dozens of other countries that spammers can operate from.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Also send 419 and stock scams to the FTC's anti-scam team: uce@ftc.gov.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
We, as a community, should put more efforts in the education of our politicians. They are the only people who can create and accept legislation which in the end will force judges to stop listening to a spammers whining.
Until we succeed in that, our technical battle is quite hopeless. That hurts yes, but I'm sure most people will agree with me. A few years ago, a blacklist was very useful. Today you end up being sued by the same people who force you to buy bigger mailservers. Sad.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Your ISP apparently doesn't so its part to stop illicit bulk UCE. That's why the entire block of public IP's have been blacklisted. At my place of business we ran into the same situation.
The best advice isn't to call each and every receiving party's IT department to get whitelisted. Nor is the best advice to moan about how some blacklists "suck and that's that." The best advice is to change to an ISP that doesn't support spammers. That is taking an active role in sending a message to the ISP's that allow this sort of thing to happen.
You *are* a convicted felon, dear Snotty.
You've also made a career out of lying to your customers. You tell them your lists are opt-in only, targeted and all that. Yet your lists are full of harvested addresses, role accounts, spamtraps, and other junk.
I would love to discuss all this with you, but I doubt you have anything else to say to me than "bullshit, you anti-commerce net nazi fuck".
The day the parasites and sociopaths like you dissappear from the face of the earth is a good day.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
According to Richter, more than 100 million emails are sent every day from his servers which are all located the US.
And every one of those people opted in. Surrrrrrrrre. Most of my spam comes to an email address that was used only on usenet in the mid '90's. I'm sure I opted in with that.
Not.
This is quite amusing:
http://www.optinbig.com/aup.htm
There are other blackholes, not only Spamcop - their results can be combined together. The spammers can't sue every one of them, nor they have access to all the jurisdiction. The global nature of the Net, that serves their emailthrowing activities so well, can act against them too. We can also set up a specific blackhole in a non-US jurisdiction that would list only the litigious ones (which makes it very specific, highly reliable and suitable as a supplement for the "legal" blackholes, who then can avoid entering legal fights with no adverse impact for their customers).
It's the equivelent of somone bossing me around on my own computer telling me I can't install a popup blocker.
Ignore him and install the blocker. Then, depending on your mood and penalties for disobedience, either keep quiet about it, or show him the finger.
No, the system works like this: you ask the complaintant (who SpamCop easily allows you to contact) what his email address is so you can remove it from the list. You do so, and SpamCop stops blacklisting you.
Except, in reality, you are probably a spammer (therefore by definition a criminal) so you just ignore complaints anyway.
I have an archive of over 10,000 spams that I personally have recieved despite never having signed up for any. I turn away around 400 daily using SpamAssassin Bayes and various blacklists. My address was harvested from InterNIC (along with all the other domain admins) by spammers without anyone's permission.
SpamCop provides a service that people like myself can CHOOSE to take advantage of. You can easily find an ISP who does not use it. SpamCop has absolutely NO ability to "stop all bulk emailing" as you claim (god, I wish they did, though!).
If you want to take away people's right to choose whether to use SpamCop or not, you are just another amoral spam whore. If you don't think SpamCop has a right to publish lists however they choose, well, you're tempting Godwin's law.
"in addition, you had to have opted in directly to have received it to begin with"
Did you RTFPost?
Did you read the paragraph you copy-and-pasted?
Specifically, did you read the part that says, "...you had to have opted in directly to have received it to begin with..."
If he's telling the truth, recipients have to opt in. If it ain't unsolicited, it ain't spam.
Sheesh, how about a moderation for (-1 Stupid)?
Until May 20, Spamcop just refuses ALL mail from the source as a "recognized spammer" - or just for "legal reasons".
This sig no verb.
When I sign up for a legit email list, usually the following things occur:
- A short (less than 1K) non-HTML email with a random string is sent to my email box to confirm I am opt'ing in
- If someone else signed up my email address by accident then as long as I don't confirm, no other action is needed
- Opt out can be done *directly* from *ANY* email program without having to open a web browser
- Before signing up the mailing list usually has a clearly stated policy regarding HTML emails
- Before signing up the mailing list usually has a clearly stated policy regarding attachments
I frequently find that "legit email marketing" like you claim to be form do *NOT* do all of the above. I find that someone else has "opt-in" my email address and "confirmation" means that they click on an "I agree" or "I confirm" web button rather than returning an email with a random string. I find that the emails assume I'm using Outlook and require using a web browser (with cookies *enabled*) to opt out. I find that by not opting-out it is assumed I have "opt-in" for HTML email and it is assumed I have "opt-in" for attachments.
So, does your company:
- Confirm all "opt-in" via *EMAIL* before any commerical email statements are ever sent?
- Do you recieve a random confirm string *EMAIL* before sending any commerical email statements?
- Provide an opt-out method via *EMAIL*? Or does it require a web browser? Does opt-ing out require the web browser to have cookie support turned on?
- Do you get a clear acknowledgement that the user wants email in HTML format before sending such formated email? Do you assume acknowledge if there is no stated objection?
- Do you get a clear acknowledgement that the user want email with attachments?
There is a reason why your email is being marked as SPAM and it is the same reason why you won't answer each and every of my simple yes/no questions with a simple yes or no--that reason is because you define "Opt-in" in such a broad way that no legit mailing list server administrator would ever accept.
http://www.comedycentral.com/includes/smilros.jhtm l?vidclip=dailyshow/corddry/corddry_8121_300.rm
SPEWS (and you, and all others who support this kind of blacklisting) would do well to realize that this advice is not always practical.
I'm thinking specifically of geographical areas that have only one monopoly broadband provider, who happens to be insufficiently zealous against spam. Are you seriously suggesting that people who live in such areas uproot their jobs, their families, and move to another town, to get another ISP, just to send a message to the ISPs?
The depressing part is that from reading the SPEWS FAQ their answer is clearly "yes".
What's more, since there is no way to get off the SPEWS database, there is also no incentive at all for rogue ISPs to improve their policies. SPEWS needs to realize that vigilantly removing reformers is just as important as vigilantly adding infringers. So far it is completely obvious that they are much more interested in adding people than removing people.
I'm not pro-spam here (nobody is). I'm not telling SPEWS to chill out because I want more spam. I'm telling SPEWS to chill out because their extreme radical position is not in their own self interest. Every mail server administrator I know (including myself) avoids SPEWS like the plague because their database is so heedless of false positives as to be useless.
"Now why in the Multiverse would you even need those if you were running confirmed opt-IN to begin with?"
Because people change their minds.
Including clear opt-out info with every message means that the recipient doesn't have to go to your site and grovel through all the T&C pages to find out how to get off the list... all they have to do is follow the instructions.
I have it on good authority that this TRO has been dissolved as of this morning. Dovuments from Pacer should be available shortly.
--Og
The FTC address uce@ftc.gov is for general unsolicited commercial email. Send stock and 419 mails to the US Securities and Exchange Commission at security@sec.gov. You may not always get a response, but I am confident that emails to these addresses, if they include the proper information, do not go ignored.
The big argument that OptIn is using (and apparently with success) is that they are never being given the email addresses of those people who wish to opt out. SpamCop has existed since long before laws like CAN-SPAM, and its methods were those needed at the time. Now we need to make sure the laws that are being put in place have enough teeth to make a difference.
SpamCop has the data on the largest and worst of the spammers. It has data on the thousands of email addresses that have reported these spammers. Voluntarily sharing this with federal investigators would be a great beginning. Based on CAN-SPAM, there will need to be evidence that spammers are not removing email addresses. SpamCop can be the intermediary who stores a copy of every request to be removed and ever subsequent email with tracking back to the originator. By working with the feds, SpamCop could wipe out several of the hard-core spammers.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
I may be in the minority, but personally I doubt I'll rue this day at all.
Spamcop used to send ISPs enough information that you could figure out which customer was spamming.
Now they're just vauge assertions that someone somewhere on your system sent email to somebody at sometime that they thought was spam.
30,000 customers and one of them is sending spam.
Gee - who'd a thunk?
If this TRO gets spamcop to rethink their position on annonymous reporting, I won't rue it at all.
-- this is not a
Most judges and lawmakers have interests outside of their jobs or in the future that depend on how competent they seem at their current position.
.
Make an example of the judge or lawmaker, not the spammer. The spammer doesn't care what happens; he or she will find another business model at the end of the day. But the judge/lawmaker on the other hand; his livelihood depends on how well he is interpreting the law and public sentiment!
This is the individual that will interpret the law and set a ruling. Why not make a mockery of him? There is nothing that says you can't. Make him or her seem incompetent at their job. Void of any sympathy towards the public.
This does one thing that is very important at a time when we have so many technological advances. It curbs judges who are ignorant about technology to think twice before making any decisions that would go against public opinion or public welfare(and that's all we want; judges and lawmakers to think twice).
Judges and Politicians alike play the dumb card very well. They pretend not to understand when they very well do. The only way to curb this practice is to have the public; scorn, ridicule, and jeopardize their public image at the hint of them playing dumb. We do have good outlets for this; thedailyshow, jimmy kimmel live, late night with jay leno, david letterman, websites such as theonion, etc . .
For example;
Take out an ad in a publication; feature a Judge/Politician standing, next to a kid looking at his inbox with a propped penis or transvestite with the judge showing two thumbs up. On the bottom Vote for Me! Brought to you by MAPS (moms against porn and spam).
Imagine that you sold furniture, and I went to all of your wood suppliers and told them that you were operating illegally and they should stop providing you with wood,...
No, that's not it at all. It's more like if you built torture racks for Iraqui despots, and I went to all your wood suppliers and simply told them the truth about what you were doing, because they _all_ have strict policies prohibiting the use of their wood to build instruments of torture for export to terrorist nations.
What if you were a mugger and, after a couple of tries at just giving you my wallet in the hope you will go away, I get sick of you and track you down and give your address to the police. They find my two stolen wallets in your posession and arrest you and convict you of felony assault. Now, as a convicted felon, it will be _much_ tougher (or at least much more expen$ive) for you to procure the guns and ammo you need to pursue your "career".
Could you then sue _me_? For defamation of your reputation? Interfering with your career?
This is what SpamCop is doing to Richter (among others). They've gotten zero relief from direct complaints (do NOT believe that they haven't tried _that_), and they're going to their suppliers and persuading them into enforcing their existing AUP policies prohibiting spammer scum. Of course the spammers hate this.
What if you had a pawnshop and I bought some stuff from you and then quickly found out that it was stolen. What if I went back to you about it and was flatly told "all sales are final". What if I then ran an ad for you publicizing you as a good "fence"? You'd see an initial surge of business, but this would include narcs, and you would soon be out of business.
Could you then sue _me_ for interfering with your "business"? I think you would be on shaky ground if I could bring stolen property into court and testify that I had bought it at yer pawnshop.
We _all_ have spam from Snotty Scotty, _all_ of it claiming we 'opted-in'. He can rot in hell.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
We need a law that says all spam is illegal. No exact language. Just a jury's common sense as to whether or not a given email campaign is spam. Punishment by 1 year per million emails. And to hell with the laws of foreign countries. We've got that laser that can shoot down missiles. Put it on a satellite and we can make crispy critters out of any spammer who sends more than a life sentence's worth.
How dare these feces-for-brains!
They constantly bomb our email with unwanted junk, postage due, and then claim that we wanted it because we talked to some friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of theirs.
If you ask me, selling "permission" should be a crime.
I'm tempted to ask my congressman to authorize the use of nuclear weapons against spammers....but he's probably also on the take.
"Having read and considered Defendant's opposition only for the purpose of determining whether or not to maintain the TRO, the Court finds that the legal issues raised are more complicated than they originally appeared and that the Court has a number of questions regarding the facts. Because of this, the Court finds that the balance of hardships and the interests of justice favor dissolution of the TRO and expediting the hearing on the preliminary injunction."
And to quote the simpsons: "HA! HA!"
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
The TRO prevents SpamCop from sending complaints about OIRB to their provider or removing email addresses from the complaints it receives which regard OIRB.
I don't see how these two restrictions affect anything at all: their provider already knows who they are and what they're doing --- more complaints won't hurt anything, and removing the email addresses from the complaints doesn't hurt anything because if they really did get spam from OIRB, then OIRB already has their email address. They do have the right to know who's complaining about them...
Once upon a time, my wife and I started a bulletin board for people with a specific problem. Lots of people had been discussing this problem on another board, but huge TOS limitations and draconian, inconsistent enforcement of same made it an undesirable place to talk.
/dev/null 'em.) Thanks, fellas.
Within a few days of our board going online, the other board's "administrators" contacted us. It seems that OTHER people were telling each other on THEIR board about OUR board, and they wanted it to stop. They told us to shut our board down or they'd report us to our ISP as spammers. Extortion, essentially.*
Now here's the thing: when the other board contacted us (via the yahoo address my wife had used when setting up an account on the old board) I replied with a newly created email account on my domain. The only email I ever sent from that address, in fact the only time I ever used that address EVER, was during the email exchange between myself and the other board's folks.
The end result? Well, we didn't give in, so they complained to our ISP. As "proof" of our spamming, they submitted a huge pile of URLs linked to forums (most old and no longer actively administrated) filled with recent posts containing ONLY the email address I used with them, and links to other identical forum posts. You guessed it -- they took my email address and posted all of these forum links THEMSELVES to make it look like we did it. Even now, I can find tons of these posts on google -- they never seem to go away.
Oh, and my mail server gets hundreds of emails A DAY to that address, all of which is spam (I finally set the server to
So yeah, I could see why the SpamCop folks hide the address, and even though I don't use their service, I think they're terrific for taking that approach.
*Note: we basically called our ISP, sent them the extortion letters, and were told "we'll look into it and let you know." They were supportive and professional, and did in fact investigate it just in case we WERE spamming -- which was the right thing to do -- eventually returning a verdict of "you did nothing wrong, their complain is not legitimate, and you did not violate our TOS". Best. ISP. Ever.
Really, I've never heard of this before. It sounds great. Do you have any more info?
Remember Steve Jackson Games? Got a search warent over a card game and had everything taken. Never charged and got everything back after it long became obsolete. In effect someone tried to shut down a game company becouse they didn't approve of a card game.
... no.
Actually
The explanation of what led up to that whole situation was described in The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling. The details of it from Steve Jackson Games' side can be found on Steve Jackson Games' website. It had to do with a game writer and BBS user who was accused of a connection (as in guilt by association) with a guy who had copied a telco administrative document from an unsecured system run by BellSouth and showed it off to other crackers as a trophy. That particular document was all over the country at that point -- except anywhere near SJG's offices or computers.
The "Illuminati" being referred to was Steve's BBS, not the card game. Incidentally, it grew into an ISP, Illuminati Online, which the last I knew was being run by Steve's brother. They hosted my very first domain name, long ago. I've moved on to bigger things, but I'll always have a soft spot for my old home at io.com.
I'd try porn and "great deals". Search around, follow all the links, enter contests. Get "free passwords" by email and stuff.
Register at places that don't seem reputable.
Anywhere scummy and nasty should be a source of spam.
The TRO has already been dissolved.
From dissolution of ex parte TRO:
On May 10, 2004 the Court issued a temporary restraining order (the "TRO") against defendant
Ironport Systems, Inc. dba SPAMCOP.NET, Inc. ("Defendant") on behalf of OPTINREALBIG.COM,
LLC ("Plaintiff"). Defendant has objected to the TRO and sufficiently explained why its objection came
after the issuance of the Court's order. It was not through gamesmanship on the part of Defendant, but
rather issues of timing. The Court's order and Defendant's opposition crossed each other in the e-filing
system.
Having read and considered Defendant's opposition only for the purpose of determining whether or
not to maintain the TRO, the Court finds that the legal issues raised are more complicated than they
originally appeared and that the Court has a number of questions regarding the facts. Because of this, the
Court finds that the balance of hardships and the interests of justice favor dissolution of the TRO and
expediting the hearing on the preliminary injunction. This is to give both parties a full and fair opportunity to
be heard on the issues, to give the Court sufficient time to deliberate on these issues, and to issue a
judgment on the merits expeditiously so that the prevailing party shall obtain the relief necessary to prevent
irreparable harm.
United States District Court
For the Northern District of California
The Court wishes to clarify that the TRO was not a determination of the merits of this case. The
Supreme Court "has repeatedly held that the basis for injunctive relief in the federal courts has always been
irreparable injury and the inadequacy of legal remedies." Weinberger v. Romeo-Barcelo , 456 U.S. 305,
312 (1982). The limited record usually available on such motions renders a final decision on the merits
inappropriate. Brown v. Chote, 411 U.S. 452, 456 (1973); see also, Paragould Music Co. v. City of
Paragould , 738 F.2d 973, 975 (8th Cir.1984); Laurenzo v. Mississippi High School Activities Ass'n, 708
F.2d 1038, 1043 (5th Cir.1983) (student who challenged a rule which made him ineligible to play baseball
not a prevailing party because finding on the merits was not required for the issuance of an injunction
pending appeal); Bly v. McLeod, 605 F.2d 134, 137 (4th Cir.1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 928, 100
S.Ct. 1315 (1980) (TRO allowed plaintiffs to vote on absentee ballots but was in no way a determination
on the merits); cf Nitz v. Otte, 87 F.3d 1321 (9th Cir. 1996) (unpublished) (noting that the issuance of a
TRO did not constitute a proceeding of substance on the merit).
In contrast, a federal proceeding may be deemed to have passed beyond the " embryonic stage" if
the federal court has conducted extensive hearings on a motion for a preliminary injunction. Adultworld
Bookstore v. City of Fresno, 758 F.2d 1348, 1350-51 (9th Cir.1985).
The Court is aware, however, that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(b) provides that a TRO may
issue ex parte to preserve the status quo. Having reviewed Defendant's opposition and considered the
facts brought forward by it, the Court questions whether the terms of the TRO actually preserved the status
quo or altered it by requiring Defendant to take proactive steps to limit the recipients of the complaints and
to list the names of those complaining. Because in such situations, the Court must be "extremely cautious,"
Lockheed Missile & Space Co. v. Hughes Aircraft Co., 887 F.Supp. 1320, 1323 (N.D.Cal. 1995), the
Court dissolves the TRO and expedites the hearing on the preliminary injunction.
For the foregoing reasons,
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED THAT the Temporary Restraining Order of May 10, 2004 is
DISSOLVED. Plaintiff shall serve and file a motion for preliminary injunction no later than May 12, 2004.
Defendant shall serve its reply no later than May 13, 2004. Plaintiff shall serve and file a reply no later than
May 14, 2004. The parties shall appear before the Court on
Become an evil genius by eating gifted children!
Substitute "breaking the law" in the parent post with: "behaving like a scumbag without the slightest shred of ethics or responsibility", and his point still stands.
You know what you and your compatriots are doing is wrong, wether it's actually illegal or not. You just don't care.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
hmmm...
So SpamCop can't block them or complain about them?
How about this:
Can OptInRealBig stop every individual from blocking them on their own? Can they even stop all SlashDot readers? Can the tech-savvy readers of SlashDot spread the word and help put companies like this out of business?
Use your power. Configure your email client yourself to block their IP addresses. It is just as much a part of the right of free speech that you can choose not to listen to their commercial speech.
Message to spammers:
...
We are losing our ignorance. Don't underestimate us.
The IP address for optinbig.com is 69.6.21.239
A whois search for that IP address shows the following information:
Another whois search for optinbig.com reveals the following information:
Does anybody know Ted Kaczinsky's current whereabouts?
The Court has Dissolved the Temporary Restraining Order.
Press Release: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040512/sfw083_1.html (mod this up!)
Make 'em pay! http://Payola.org #include "stddisclaimer
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Works fine here.
Brilliant segment, too.
That has NOTHING to do with the injunction against SpamCop.
> Go ahead, make spamming illegal in your piddly
/etc/postfix/access-agis file /8 and /16 blocks of countries
/16 blocks or on the way to the /8 list:
.CN:-) not acting
> little country. It will make no difference.
> There are dozens of other countries that
> spammers can operate from.
Doooh, sorry - wrong answer, try again.
If i look into my
i can see a lot of
and providers that do not care for SPAM.
Active:
4/8 GENUITY
12/8 ATT
61/8, 210/8, 211/8, 218/8, 219/8 CHINA, KOREA etc.
Multiple
202, 203, 220, 221, 222
Whitelisting the few servers i want mail from is
far more effective than the other way round.
A "piddly little country" (like
on spam might make the way to more and more blacklists
of mail admins tired of filtering out those nice
"nl4rg Y0Ur m.e.m.b.e.r" spams.
(I realize that in this particular case there are other claims, including harassment, and that credit reporting companies are scum for other reasons, but the analogy just came to me and seemed particularlly relavent.)
Search 2010 Gen Con events
and who supplies them?
Savicom.com aka Mindsharedesign.com aka PostmasterGeneral.com
These sleeze bags supply the db and server tech to more than half of us spamers.
Television stations broadcast their signal from a tower. This signal
blankets a large area. I purchased a TV set so I could watch the programs
that are available to me.
I soon discovered that 30% of my time watching these programs was spent
viewing advertisements. After a while, I found the advertising so annoying
it was no longer worth watching the programs.
I found myself watching less and less TV. It sits now on a card
board box with a homemade anntenna coming out of the place where coax should
go in for cable.
I called an ISP and paid for a dialup account. They also said I have an
email address. I followed their directions and soon had everything setup.
I opened outlook express and my ISP sent me a nice welcome email. They had
directions explaing how to send an email back. It seems very nice.
A few days later, I open outlook express, I notice I have some new email.
After reading them, I realized they were some sort of advertising. I laid in
bed wondering how I recieved them that night.
It is now a year since I first got online. I recieve on average 20-40 junk
emails every few days/week. In that time, I only used my email account with
my family. I find the junk email so annoying I stopped using it.
I have not checked my email in months. I found other ways to communicate
with my family. So far instant messaging is working out well. We all know when
the others are online in the evening or at work. I found it quite refreshing
that amazon.com now sends my confirmations to me via AIM.
My point is this: Email is broken. Blacklists will not work. I, the user
want to be in control. I refuse to fight "spam". I will not join the crusade.
As soon as email became 30% junk, I stopped relying on it.
Now email is like TV to me. I know it exists and most of the time I dont
feel the need to use it. Port 25 be damned.
It is time to move on and discover something new.
linky
n demand/7/1703/9950/v001/comedystor.download.akamai .com/9951/dailyshow/corddry/corddry_8121_300.rm
And that's basically a link to:
rtsp://a1703.v9950f.c9950.g.vr.akamaistream.net/o
... and how much snail junk mail do you get each day? 400? You must have a big mailbox...
stev
hmm im still getting unable to establish link to server errors on just that video - strange.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
Most people aren't arguing that lists like SPEWS "don't work". But arguing against them for other reasons doesn't make us "pro-spam". Just because a solution works, doesn't necessarily mean it is a good solution.
Basically the problem here is that there are two groups in this argument (and never the twain shall meet): Those that feel that a little collateral damage (or a lot) is perfectly acceptable, and Those that don't. I am in the latter group. Those in the former group generally don't seem to be those that have to clean up the resulting mess.
http://www.petitiononline.com/gt78mt5e/petition.ht ml
Now tell your friends.
Can you give me a hint?
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
the temporary restraining order (TRO) against SpamCop.net [...] has been dissolved
.
How would you like some che4P V!@gr4?
(Incidentally, I meant "you" in the same generic sense that you used it in the previous post; I have no idea if you are a spammer.)
But your problems, as you describe them, are not caused by SpamCop. They are caused by the spammers who have created an environment where SpamCop is necessary.
Given the current legal, commercial, and technical environment, blacklists are inevitable, because it is impossible to manage the spamload without them.
I built my first sendmail cluster for $25 using discarded "junk" PCs. If I count my time and labor, still less than $800. It supported 400 users simultaneously with POP3 and SMTP without any problems.
So, sending lots of legitimate email might cost money, because of the overhead you've mentioned; but spamming is dirt cheap. A single sale can pay for many millions of messages!
Make the big ISPs like Comcast and Cox legally liable for the spams and virii their systems send and the problem would disappear practically overnight.
Yes, since Scott Richter's attorney is Steve Richter, his father - it's genetic.
Hello Daddy!
Registrant:
Goodman & Richter, LLP (GOODMAN-RICHTER-DOM)
501 W. Broadway, Suite 1335
San Diego, CA 92101
US
Domain Name: GOODMAN-RICHTER.COM
Administrative Contact:
Manager, Administrator (AXMTBVPBCI) Administrator@GOODMAN-RICHTER.COM
501 W. Broadway, Suite 1335
San Diego, CA 92101
US
619-233-3535 fax: 123 123 1234
Technical Contact:
Manager, Administrator (IMMDTHJESI) Administrator@GOODMAN-RICHTER.COM
501 W. Broadway, Suite 1335
San Diego, CA 92101
US
6192333535 fax: 123 123 1234
Record expires on 09-Jan-2006.
Record created on 09-Jan-1999.
Database last updated on 14-May-2004 05:24:42 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.4SERVERS.COM 168.143.168.1
NS2.4SERVERS.COM 168.143.171.129
None of this matters.
...
And we need to be authorized to use deadly force, too.
By the by, I have years of military service, so I think this would be a great business.
Spam: it's what's for dinner
> --- All Of The Above --- >