NYT on Spam Cops

yet another coward writes "The New York Times reports on new measures against spam. (Sperm sample required, sorry ladies) Microsoft has increased efforts to track and prosecute spammers. Hotmail receives 2 billion (2 * 10^9) spam messages per day. In a twist of weirdness, the Direct Marketing Association is funding investigators who cooperate with the FBI on spam investigations. Spamhaus also gets a mention."

Comments

Registration site

[JosKarith]

Can someone post the OP's text please?

Re:Registration site

[swordboy]

No Need - plenty of other sources out there.

Re:Registration site

[arturogatti]

If you don't wish to register you might consider visiting here also.

Article text. *NO KARMA WHORING*

[Anonymous Coward]

May 31, 2004
When Software Fails to Stop Spam, It's Time to Bring In the Detectives
By SAUL HANSELL

EDMOND, Wash. - Sterling McBride spends a lot of time waiting for spammers to make a mistake. They usually do.

When he hunted down escaped prisoners for the United States Marshals Service, Mr. McBride learned the value of lying low until fugitives trip up, leaving small clues on their whereabouts. Now, as an investigator for Microsoft, Mr. McBride watches carefully for tidbits of data that link some of the two billion pieces of junk e-mail that Microsoft's Hotmail service receives each day with the people who send them.

Once he finds an electronic key to the spammer's identity - a real name, address or phone number - Mr. McBride uses all the tools of a regular detective: trailing suspects, subpoenaing their bank records and looking for disgruntled former associates to become informers. But first he must lift the cloak of anonymity provided by the Internet.

"The guys who do this are pretty tenacious," Mr. McBride said. "There are networks that are very well organized. But we have really started to figure out how they operate."

Spammers have been sending more junk e-mail than ever, despite a new federal antispam law that took effect Jan. 1. So far, few have been brought into court because it is hard to find them and link them to electronic offers of pills and pornography.

So the vanguard of the fight against spam has turned from software engineers who try to identify and block spam from e-mail in-boxes to investigators in private industry, like Mr. McBride, and an increasing number of prosecutors and law enforcement agents who are learning how to combine traditional detective work with cyber-sleuthing.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is increasing its effort to investigate spammers, largely in response to the new law. In an unusual arrangement, the Direct Marketing Association has paid $500,000 to hire 15 investigators who work alongside agents from the F.B.I. and other government agencies in a program known as Project Slam-Spam.

Using information provided by Internet providers along with their own decoy computers and e-mail accounts, these investigators have built a database of more than 100 spammers. Increasingly they are actually purchasing pills and responding to offers of get-rich-quick schemes to track down the spammers.

"Initially you start to work backwards from the e-mail and find that to be a very frustrating route," said Daniel Larkin, chief of the F.B.I.'s Internet Crime Complaint Center, the unit that is coordinating Project Slam Spam. "That doesn't lead to a live body. We have collectively realized you have to go the other way and follow the money trail."

The project has built cases against 50 spammers, which it has started to refer to federal and state prosecutors. It hopes to orchestrate a coordinated sweep of spam prosecutions and civil cases later this year to highlight the seriousness of its antispam efforts, Mr. Larkin said.

Even before the new law took effect, there was an increase in both civil and criminal actions against spammers. Last week, Howard Carmack, who sent 825 million junk e-mail messages from his home in Buffalo, was sentenced to at least three and a half years in prison, in a case brought in 2003 by New York State for violations of identity theft and business records laws.

The big Internet service providers, especially America Online, a unit of Time Warner, and EarthLink, have been steadily suing spammers for the last few years, using trespass and computer crime laws.

Microsoft is a relative latecomer to the tactic. Until recently, it hoped to rely mainly on software to identify and discard spam. But once it decided to take spammers to court, it moved after them with a vengeance, building what is probably the biggest operation in the world devoted to investigating and suing spammers.

Microsoft's two-year-old "digital integrity" unit - which also fights online fraud, ide

Only 2 billion spams a day?

[messiuh]

Jeeze, my Optonline single account gets about that per day.

Come to think of it, I suppose if I got that many free samples of Viagra, I could start my own Pharmaceuticual company.

Re:Only 2 billion spams a day?

[Anonymous Coward]

You could give out your own free samples and sell some online.

Re:Only 2 billion spams a day?

[jhurani]

Hell, my news aggregator receives more spam than that every day. I must have never opted for Slashdot. I hate CmdTaco, timothy, and michael.

Now I've seen everything....

[Anonymous Coward]

Spammers that are too sleazy for the DMA? That's like discovering a whole new dimension of slime.

Too easy to send

[RucasRiot]

The problem with spam is that it's too easy to send. With even a 56k modem you can fire off MANY messages in a matter of minutes. I think a good solution would be on the ISP end of things, and have them throttle connections to port 25 on remote machines. There will always be plenty of open relays, as idiots who just want to allow access to their mail server as quickly as possible will usually just allow relaying from everybody. The spam "hash sites" are great, but the problem with them is not enough people actively submit spam for them to be as effective as possible (not to mention there are numerous, non-centralized ones)

Hopefully, some day people will realize bulk mail isn't effective, but for now, since it is so cheap and easy to send, nothing is going to stop it anytime soon.

Re:Too easy to send

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully, some day people will realize bulk mail isn't effective...

It must be effective enough, or nobody would do it.

Re:Too easy to send

[mikael]

I think a good solution would be on the ISP end of things, and have them throttle connections to port 25 on remote machines.

The problem is, you have to consider the worst case scenario where the spammer is an offshore ISP renting T1 lines from a major backbone provider. Only when you have a solution for this example, can you block spam. Otherwise, the spammers will just adapt to whatever loopholes are available.

Re:Too easy to send

[Dr. Evil]

It must be effective enough, or nobody would do it.

I don't think that's necesarily true. It could be like T.V. advertising. It does little more than irritate people, but companies spend big bucks to put it out there.

Re:Too easy to send

[Jim_Maryland]

Even though TV advertising could be seen as annoying most people, it would still need to be profitable, otherwise companies wouldn't do it. Generally companies don't like to "throw" money away.

People generating SPAM must be making enough money to offset the time/resources involved, otherwise what is their incentive for sending SPAM? I can't imagine that spammers are the charitable type.

Re:Too easy to send

[Not_Wiggins]

Well, actually you don't need a fast connection.

As a matter of fact, it would be undesirable for these slime to leave that much of a trail back to themselves (ie, the IP they've connected to the internet would be included in mail they originated from themselves).

No, instead a lot of them look for open relay mailservers. For the uninitiated, an open relay is a mail server that will accept mail from anybody to anybody.

Then the spammer sends *one* mail to the relay with 10,000 bcc addresses. The victim relay then has the task of sending out the 10,000 messages while the spammer looks for another open relay to send more spam through.

This is where it is even scarier that spammers are "hooking up" with virus writers. Sure, it used to be the virus would just send copies of itself to your friends and family. But, now they're getting sophisticated enough to become open relays for spamming or even *hosting the website* that the spam points to (!).

You're right... it *is* far to easy, but much easier than you even thought. >8(

Re:Too easy to send

[Anonymous Coward]

"Interesting"? More like "Redundant". RR here hasn't contributed anything even remotely new to the discussion.

Re:Too easy to send

[FictionPimp]

I still can't understand it. I could see a well written advertisement sent to me via email as effective advertisment, but half of the spam i get is unreadable. Here are some examples:

Genfric Vihgra
Gkneric Celas
Link removed
off Link removed

Here is another

Unlike so many gypsies who have made their false asteroid to us.He called her Kieth (or was it Kieth?).When tabloid defined by is blotched, anomaly from boogie particle accelerator near.defined by bride flies into a rage, and over bubble ruminates; however, about omphalos recognize.. fermentation moat temperate cabana manville vaporous

Thats all it said, with a link. Not even a webbug, what the hell was the point of that?

Re:Too easy to send

[Dr. Evil]

I figure it is either as I said, the people generating the SPAM might be making plenty of money, from the gullible people who hire them to send out the SPAM... or...

It could be something like this:

spamco: Hey, you know, you're pretty sharp. Do you want to come to a business meeting I'm holding with a few of my partners?
victim: Smart, me? haha. What is this, Amway?
spamco: No!, we all know better than that, this isn't network marketing or Amway or anything.
victim: What is it then?
spamco: We dupe people into buying a business where they dupe people into sending SPAM.
victim: That's crazy.
spamco: It works, I made 12 figures last year!
victim: Really? Wow.
spamco: All you need is a computer and you can do it from home.
victim: This sounds too good to be true.
spamco: I knew you were smart, but this is legit.
victim: So I sell people this CD full of addresses which they use to SPAM people?
spamco: yeah, the best part is that they don't really need to SPAM anyone, it doesn't even work, but they don't need to know that, they just need to find people who _think_ it works to buy into the system.

What I'm rather surprised about regarding SPAM is that so little of it even seems legitimate. Why don't we see SPAM for stuff like the guy who is trying to sell custom alcohol stils? William Shatner's greatest hits CD's? Coffee bean clubs? Magazine subscriptions? It's weird.

Anyways above are two models which would not require SPAM to work for SPAMmers to make money.

Re:Too easy to send

[Jim_Maryland]

True that some SPAM has no obvious targeted marketing, but maybe it is the type that has a "web beacon" (verifying address list) or maybe they are just trying complicate the anti-spam software out there.

Maybe the badly formed spam is from a new person in the spam business?

I think if I were the first spammer to be sentenced that I would be looking to get a book deal, but of course the advertisement for the book would be done through spam methods.

Re:Too easy to send

[Jim_Maryland]

I hadn't really thought of spam as a MLM scheme but I guess it could work that way.

My guess on the legitimate products is that most legitimate companies are probably looking to not drive their customers away. Imagine if a company like Time Life (seller of various collectables, compilations, books, etc...) switched from the TV adds to spam. Would anyone continue to purchase from them? They already use (in my opinion) fairly annoying commercials so why not use spam? I can't imagine a company that uses traditional marketing would really resort to spam given it's negative image. Spam likely supports less than legitimate companies and companies that don't have a reputation to maintain. Legitimate companies also tend to provide valid "remove" instructions so the true spam should be seen as non-legitimate.

Re:Too easy to send

[leeward]

The spam may be coming from an offshore ISP, but in the vast majority of the cases, the spammer is an American, living in America. And they will largely remain here; most spammers will not want to move to China just so they can continue spamming. So, obviously, the answer to your statement is to go after the spammer, not the spam.

The problem with going after the spammer is linking the spammer to the spam, in a way that will hold up in court. That requires someone with tenacity and deep pockets. As much as I complain about MS, they are in the perfect position to truely do something effective about spam.

Re:Too easy to send

[aztracker1]

Actually, more and more virii/worms being spread via email (windows), is creating open-relays for spammers to user... (and this would be the case windows, or linux...) if there were bonzai buddy for linux and mac, and either were as common place as windows, you're damned right people would still install the thing. Same goes for stuff inside email.

Re:Too easy to send

[iamcf13]

This is where it is even scarier that spammers are "hooking up" with virus writers. Sure, it used to be the virus would just send copies of itself to your friends and family. But, now they're getting sophisticated enough to become open relays for spamming or even *hosting the website* that the spam points to (!).

Just like the 'Virhaus' I personally IP banned via my program CF13 after it filtered out several virus-infected attachments eminating from this particular IP. This could well be a classic case of Net abuse and ISP apathy:

The ISP is not rfc-compliant, the IP in question who belongs to said ISP spewed nothing but malware. Since my PC didn't get pwned by these losers, they used that compromised IP to Joe Job me as a mudslinging tactic. This incident is proof that CF13 is causing spammers grief with its effective spam filtering heuristics that make it virtually impossible for spammers to trick you to read their crap. Here, such messages are archived in a 'spam' file along with the occasional 'false positive' deemed spam due to improper blacklisting, whitelisting, or sender ignorance of CF13's stringent email policy. For the naysayers, pure whitelisting with only known senders is the best way to avoid a false positive but there are still problems possible with this methodology.

Spammers are wasting their time emailing me. If I get mailbombed, I'll just use the 'spamblaster' version of CF13 with proper whitelists and delete most of the junk at the server level after just analyzing the email headers. There is a sense of accomplishment whenever I notify the proper parties after I recive a fraudulent or virus infected email from someone....

Regards

Bryan Taylor
Author/user of CF13(TM) POP3 Email Client For Windows
Stops spam, fraud, AND ALL MALWARE!
http://www.cf13.com/

where have we heard this before?

[berkleyidiot]

In a twist of weirdness, the Direct Marketing Association is funding investigators who cooperate with the FBI on spam investigations.

sounds like phillip morris funding anti-smoking campaigns.

Re:where have we heard this before?

[jfengel]

It actually makes some sense. The DMA wants to be able to send you "legitimate" spam, marketing legal products. They hate being drowned out by Nigerian scam artists and people peddling bogus pills and illegal stock tips, not to mention porn ads sent to four year olds. They think it gives spam a bad name.

Phillip Morris, on the other hand, is unwillingly paying off the results of a lawsuit.

Personally, I'm perfectly happy to make spam safe, legal, and filterable. You send it, my server rejects it without my ever seeing it. The easier it is to filter, the better it is for me. If it comes from the DMA, and clearly so marked, I'm happy with that, and if the thieves' guild wants to punish unlicensed thieves, I'm thrilled.

Re:where have we heard this before?

[gcaseye6677]

In this case, it is being done for different reasons. Some DMA members operate semi-legit email lists. They may annoy people, but at least they are not using some of the most harmful tactics, such as relaying messages through other people's servers and forging headers. Anti spam efforts make it very difficult to operate any kind of mailing lists, as we have discussed on Slashdot before. If the DMA can cut down on the worst offenders and eliminate some of the 'competing spam', their members' marketing campaigns will be a lot more effective. I'm not saying I am a fan of the DMA or anything, but I can understand why it makes sense for them to do this.

Re:where have we heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really

OK first the disclaimer - my wife works for a LARGE direct marketer in traditional mail - I have NO idea about the email part of the DMA

I know that MOST if not ALL of the DMA members are pretty good about allowing opt out (aka they will do it) on their MAIL (again, I know nothing about email - I know my wife's company tried it, got complaints (including from MANY employees) and stopped)

Many of the members feel that any email marketing should be opt-in

So, I'm not all that surprised. Usually the businesses that JOIN the DMA are legit, and don't want to be lumped with porn sites and phony pills - it just makes them look bad

Re:where have we heard this before?

[Pedrito]

In addition to what jfengel said, the DMA is doing what it can to look like a legitimate organization. SPAM has seriously hurt the reputation of the DMA and all its members. If they don't start working to look like a legitimate organization, they're not going to have a chance lobbying congress. It's probably too little too late but they're definitely seeing the writing on the wall.

And a small correction, I don't believe the DMA actually sends SPAM. It's their members that send it...

Re:where have we heard this before?

[jfengel]

You are correct. The DMA does not itself send spam; it's an organization of people who do.

The DMA itself actually predates spam; it started in 1917. Its members are also responsible for junk mail and telemarketing. Any sort of "direct marketing", as opposed to broadcast advertising.

In other words, their purpose is to be irritating, but not so irritating that they get what they do made illegal.

They've always been considered a legitimate, if somewhat unpleasant, business.

Three cheers...

[ideatrack]

for Mr McBride.

Now that's a /. first.

Re:Three cheers...

[kunudo]

So, is he Darlas evil twin or something?

Re:Three cheers...

[WormholeFiend]

Dont you think it's pretty strange that, out of the "more than 100 people around the world" employed by Microsoft to trace spammers, this article focuses on the one investigator with a name that resonates quite loudly in the IT community?

In any case, yes, three cheers for Sterling (can we call him "Sterl"?) McBride

Re:Three cheers...

[betelgeuse-4]

'can we call him "Sterl"?' No, because somebody might get confused and start thinking that SCO is run by Mr. Darling McBride. Which would be a very bad thing.

Re:Three cheers...

[pjt33]

Melchett: God, it's a spankingly beautiful world and tonight's my night. I know what I'll say to her. 'Darling...'
Darling: Yes sir?
Melchett: What?
Darling: Um, I don't know, sir.
Melchett: Well don't butt in! (exhales) 'I want to make you happy, darling'.
Darling: Well, that's very kind of you sir.
Melchett: Will you kindly stop interrupting? If you don't listen, how can you tell me what you think? (continues) 'I want to make you happy, darling. I want to build a nest for your ten tiny toes. I want to cover every inch of your gorgeous body in pepper and sneeze all over you.'
Darling: I really think I must protest!
Melchett: What is the matter with you, Darling?
Darling: Well, it's all so sudden! I mean the nest bit's fine, but the pepper business is definitely out!
Melchett: How dare you tell me how I may or may not treat my beloved Georgina?

Blackadder Goes Forth, ep. 3 (Major Star)

Re:Three cheers...

[GPLDAN]

If Darl goes to prison, maybe he will be somebody's darling.

Re:Three cheers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my darling,
Oh my darling,
Oh my darling,
Darl McBride.

Lawsuits lost:
You're gone forever.
None too sorry,
Darl McBride.

Becoming A Real Crime

[blueZhift]

Stories like this seem to indicate that spam is becoming more of a "real, get sent to jail" kind of crime with cops and detectives tracking done spammers. Naturally one hopes that violent criminals won't be neglected by this new focus on spammers. Nevertheless, the prospect of real jail time and big fines may deter some from entering the spam market.

Of course, one effect of rounding up the stupid ones will be leaving behind to true spam geniuses. Going after those guys and girls should be real entertaining. Heck, maybe there's a reality based tv show in there somewhere. So you heard it from me first! Anyone got Fox's phone number?

Re:Becoming A Real Crime

[garcia]

It seems more like something that is easily able to be dramatized. People are familiar with the annoyances of spam and the media recognizes this.

It is nothing but a good story. I am sure that they are making this out to be a lot more sensational than it really is.

Laws were passed to make spam illegal. They have been passed to make plenty of other things illegal. Law enforcement has to track down people all the time to prosecute them for breaking the law.

I don't see how this is any more important.

Re:Becoming A Real Crime

[red floyd]

Laws were passed to make spam illegal.

I thought they were passed so that spammers CAN-SPAM you!

Re:Becoming A Real Crime

[mdfst13]

"Naturally one hopes that violent criminals won't be neglected by this new focus on spammers."

I think that is pretty fair to say that prosecuting the 200 spammers has no reason to take significant resources away from prosecuting the hundreds of thousands of violent crimes per year. The scope of the two problems is not close. It's also worth noting that short of sacrificing civil liberty (curfews, video cameras on every street corner, mandatory fingerprinting and DNA profiling, etc.), there is not much more we can do to prosecute violent crime. There is quite a bit that can be done to reduce spam.

From Article: MaxxLength penis enlargement pills

[CreamOfWheat]

It is a real postal box that was associated with the Camania site. It turned out to be at a Mail Boxes Etc. in Kirkland, Wash., only a few minutes from Microsoft's headquarters. Microsoft then hired outside investigators to stake out and follow whoever picked up the mail. It turned out to be Jason Cazes, who Mr. McBride said sells "MaxxLength" penis enlargement pills. HOW is this a faulty product? It just promises for you to reach your maximum lenght, whether that be 3, 6 or 9 etc.

Re: (Sperm sample required, sorry ladies)

[karlandtanya]

What makes you a lady can't acquire sperm samples on demand and in larger quantity than any given gentleman can produce on his own?

He used to be a *what?*

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

> When he hunted down escaped prisoners for the United States Marshals Service

"I didn't send that spam!"

"I don't care!"

Damned one-armed spammers...

Re:He used to be a *what?*

[Anonymous Coward]

tell me.... just what is a "Fartkno"?

Re:He used to be a *what?*

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Mods: prepare the "-1 offtopics"

I'd been reading /. and posting AC for a few years, but I'd never bothered to register for some reason. One day I'm reading a -1 flame war between two guys that had just gotten hysterical, and one of them says something along the lines of "Yeah? Well I'm going to go register as 'The Ultimate Fartknocker' and do nothing but mod you down for the rest of your life!" I was on a Beavis & Butthead kick at the time and thought that was *hysterical*, so I did it. What I didn't notice until it was too late, though, was when I backed up to correct some reg info my name got truncated in the "enter your name here" box, leaving me four letters short of comedy gold. And *that's* why I have this stupid handle. Aren't you sorry you asked?

Sperm Sample???

[Sinus0idal]

Oh dear, worse than spam is hundreds of thousands of Slashdotter sperm samples winging their way to NYT...

Re:Sperm Sample???

[Anonymous Coward]

To collect Slashdotter's sperm samples all you'd have to do is collect the tissues laying around their "Lord of The Rings limited edition" DVD box sets.

Re:Sperm Sample???

[Pragmatix]

"sperm samples winging their way to NYT"

Good Lord! What kind of sperm do you freaks have? My sperm SWIM thank you very much.

Re:FP

[Victor_Os]

Err, how is this OT? The post is spam, the article is about spam - see the connection?

non sperm required NYT link

[xiopher]

google link here

confuzzled

[bestguruever]

oh man, Mr. McBride and Microsoft in the same story and its actually a good thing? My head hurts.

Re:confuzzled

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Two lawsuit happy McBrides makes an interesting lesson in morality. You can use your talents for good, or for evil. And, you can still do good even if you work for an evil overlord.

..they are actually purchasing pills..

[burgburgburg]

Increasingly they are actually purchasing pills and responding to offers of get-rich-quick schemes to track down the spammers.

Of course, they'd probably stop investigating if any of the products actually worked. Then they'd stay at home in their mansions and satisfy their wives and their wives friends and neighbor ladies and ...I'm walking away from the computer now.

So...

[Throat constant]

If they ever find out who 'Napoleon Talley' is, could someone please tell him that I'm willing to take him out for dinner (before he gets prosecuted)? His spam e-mails changed my life!

Buy them out?

[Darth Cider]

With so much money being spent on law enforcement, prison accommodations, all of that, would it cost less just to pay spammers to quit? Not to incentivize spamming, but to take the big players out of the game very rapidly. Doubtful it would work in the long run, but it's a thought.

Re:Buy them out?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see. You want the government to actually pay these people, with little guarantee that they won't continue? Almost no way to stop them, and they earn tons of money for being annoying. Extortion^2.

we need...

[millahtime]

we need a department of anti-spam for the us government. They would bring in real experts on the internet and work with ISPs to track down and take care of spammers. And by experts I mean real nerds. /.ers, mail experts and not run by M$ or Yahoo or any of the other big namers.

Re:we need...

[cheekyboy]

Just tell em that the spams with random characters are really secret encrypted messages by terrorists ,and that will quickly get the spammers a 12 year holiday at Camp Xray.

Futureproofing Spamhaus

[alanxyzzy]

In related news, Spamhaus has announced a Funding model based on charging large corporate networks a yearly fee for our Data Feed rsync/ixfr service.

The public DNSBL service will remain free.

Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement

[USAPatriot]

Regardless of whether this was posted for karma or to benefit other users here, it is still copyright infringement.

This notice on their site makes clear what uses of their materials is acceptable. Reposting verbatim to other sites is definitely not.

Moderators should not be encouraging this type of behavior by making them "insightful". Slashdot should respect other peoples copyrights, don't forget how evil violating the GPL is.

And for those who dislike registrations,

[dot-magnon]

the Google-friendly link is here: Article!

Place to start

[hords]

Microsoft has increased efforts to track and prosecute spammers.

Stop letting people use your redirect service to spam. You too Yahoo, you hear me?!!!

http://g.msn.com/0US!s5.31472_315529/HP.1001?http: //POS_SPAM.com

http://rd.yahoo.com/barrage/card/ovum/*http:/POS_S PAM2.com

How about we start prosecuting services that allow people to spam through them, huh?

Remember Everyone...

[nearlygod]

When submitting a story from the NYT, the summary with the wittiest "registration required" comment will be the one that is selected. Who cares if you can offer up any extra insight. Keep this in mind next time you find something /. worthy. Comedy rules, dammit.

NYT Jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

Sperm sample required, sorry ladies

This is kind of off topic, but does anyone else feel that the New York Times, "registration required," jokes are getting a little out of hand. I mean, the first time someone said, "soul sucking registration," it was pretty funny, but now it's just getting lame. I think it's gone the way of the step 1 step 2 step 3 profit jokes.

No offence intended to whoever posted the article. I'm sure they were just joking around, but a lot of people read /., and that looks a bit unprofessional for the front page.

Re:NYT Jokes

[skaffen42]

No offence intended to whoever posted the article. I'm sure they were just joking around, but a lot of people read /., and that looks a bit unprofessional for the front page.

I'll brush of yet another /. regular: Dude, you must be new here if you are complaining about /. being unprofessional.

Re:NYT Jokes

[jcuervo]

I'm sure they were just joking around, but a lot of people read /., and that looks a bit unprofessional for the front page.

No offense, but I don't really think anyone cares how "professional" Slashdot is. Don't think it matters, either.

Were you trying to be funny?

Re:NYT Jokes

[bestguruever]

1) plug in hair dryer
2) depress trigger
3) wave hair dryer back and forth ~4 inches from blanket
4) ????
5) personality

Re:NYT Jokes

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, excuse me, but...

Who the fuck said slashdot was professional?

Re:NYT Jokes

[Saeger]

Unlike the 1-2-3-profit meme, the "reg req'd" meme has longer legs because "information wants to be free/open".

Here are few ways that dirty pinko commie subversives can bypass the NYTimes registration:

1. The old Majcher Login Generator
2. BugMeNot
3. By appending "?partner=GOOGLE" (w/o quotes) to the NYTimes URL, like this: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/31/technology/31spa m.html?partner=ANYTHINGHERE

--

Re:NYT Jokes

[yet another coward]

For the record, I submitted the article. I did not submit the registration required joke with it. Since Taco posted the story, he probably added it.

Re: (Sperm sample required, sorry ladies)

[lukewarmfusion]

I think the real issue is the poster's assumption that there are females here on Slashdot.

not surprised

[An0maly]

i think it's great that the direct marketing association is assisting in these efforts. i believe not all spam is bad or malicious. but there are a lot of groups/people who give spam a bad wrap. much like the hacker culture. most of us don't commit crimes but are hackers in its truest meaning.

Re:not surprised

[stratjakt]

Not all direct marketing is spam, of course they want to get rid of the idiots who hurt their industry.

Circuit City emails me flyers all the time, because I've bought stuff online from them. That's direct marketing - but it's not spam. I also reasonably believe that if I opted out, they'd stop sending it.

Re:not surprised

[DreamerFi]

Did they ask you permission to do that when you bought stuff from them? No? Then it is spam.

(and no, 'permission' buried deep in some privacy statement, or a check-box somewhere deep in a form, does NOT count)

-John

RICO, RICO, RICO

[swb]

It's time for some RICO investigations! Let's throw some people from ISPs and banks into the mix as well -- spamming and scamming really is a racket, and these people need to do some hard jail time. Dragging in people from the "legitimate" business world will go a long way towards making spam hard to do and keep spammers from the support systems they need to do business.

The banking angle is especially important! If these scammers can't do credit cards, they will be hard pressed to run their businesses. While I'm sure there are people dumb enough to send cash, most people can't be bothered to do that much work.

Re:RICO, RICO, RICO

[emtboy9]

That's a brilliant idea. And while we are at it, lets charge the people who work for minimum wage in the factories that make said pills as well. After all, if you can charge the isp (who most likely is in no way responsible for the spam other than having end users with compromized boxen) why not them as well.

Lets take it one step further and prosecute mom and pop and grandma with the compromised boxen for facilitating spam! Oh, and lets prosecute IRCops because IRC is an evil spammer and hacker wonderland, so we all KNOW that they must be somewhat responsible!!

Oh, and while we are prosecuting the banks, lets put a freeze on the nations economy as well! If those damned users cant pay for this crap, then spam will certainly end!!!

This is almost as good as the other post about hiring a special spam chasing branch of the government.

Re:RICO, RICO, RICO

[swb]

After all, if you can charge the isp (who most likely is in no way responsible for the spam other than having end users with compromized boxen) why not them as well.

The crux of my comment (which I apparently didn't make clear) was that spammers get a lot of cooperation from the legitimate business world. If the legitimate business world that supplies them is aware of what the spammer is doing, they *are* part of the conspiracy and a member of an ad-hoc criminal enterprise.

"I didn't know" is only good for so far, until somebody turns (and somebody always turns, even in the Mafia) and squeals about the ISP who gets extra money to mask the spammers efforts, the credit card processor/bank burying customer complaints and refusing to issue chargebacks in exchange for $$$$.

It's a nice techno-fantasy to believe that all spam is spread by 0wned hosts from rogues running off of DSL living in their parent's basement. But it's naive to think that these spammers aren't living in the real world, using real-world resources to run their crooked enterprises, and that these real-world resources are totally ignorant.

Re: (Sperm sample required, sorry ladies)

[MrRuslan]

But would it be worth it for a lady togo trogh all that trouble to obtaid said qty of sperm just to read NYtimes.com?

Jason, is that you?

[burgburgburg]

Jason, it's very unlikely that any person on /. is going to be on your jury. Most of us aren't even allowed near the court house except to answer those damn Orders of Protection from Seven of Nine and Subcommander T'Pol. Which are SO UNFAIR!

I'm walking away from the computer now.

Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Make mass spam, and purchases from illicit spammers, a crime punishable by death.
A few hundred of these sub-humans swinging from lampposts should soon sort out the problem.

Illegal and tricky Spam

[phorm]

I got an interesting one yesterday. It came into my hotmail account, which is set to "only allow users from my contact list." The address, which wasn't in my list, was listed as from microsoft.com. It was a bit hard to read due to heavy obfuscation (to avoid filters), but it seemed to be advertising underage pr0nography.

I'm assuming that it didn't come from an actual MS address... but one must wonder since if hotmail is simply allowing any email claiming to be from @microsoft.com that's pretty dumb. Not sure how to view headers in hotmail either, and I don't really feel like forwarding something so file to my home account to check them.

MS's online contact thing isn't working either, so I can't ask them. Anyone have any ideas?

(normally I wouldn't bother, but the fact that this spam is particularly vile and somehow manages to bypass a whitelist makes it a special case for stomping)

Re:Illegal and tricky Spam

[Noryungi]

Why don't you just forward this to the FBI? I am sure their kiddie porn Dept would be interested.

Finding the relevant @fbi.gov address is left as an exercise for the reader...

Re:Illegal and tricky Spam

[jred]

I got so much spam from "microsoft.com" that I ended up blocking their emails. I wondered why someone would pick microsoft.com to spoof, but if they get past the hotmail whitelist/filters, it makes sense.

I'm just assuming MS & Hotmail let all microsoft.com emails through. It's not particularly evil, and seems like MS...

Re:Illegal and tricky Spam

[mtenhagen]

Easy: subscribe-kiddieporn@fbi.gov

Re:Illegal and tricky Spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you just forward this to the FBI? I am sure their kiddie porn Dept would be interested.

Right...

Are you frigging nutz? Odds are you'd suddenly become a "person of intrest" in the next KP case.

Given the current state of affairs in various branches of the government, 'tis a very good time to stay below the radar.

Re:Illegal and tricky Spam

[mdfst13]

I would forward the email (with full headers; method given in another response to your post) to abuse@microsoft.com, abuse@hotmail.com, and uce@ftc.gov

Don't know that it accomplishes anything, but it always makes me feel better :) I've gotten a response from abuse@microsoft.com previously.

Tuesday on Cops!

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

Bad boys, Bad boys . . . Allright here we go

knock, knock, SEARCH WARRANT!

Boom...cop breaks down the door

cop: Freeze Spammer Scum!

spammer: I didn't do anything

cop: allright put your hands on the Monitor and spread 'em

Spammer: looking jittery

Cop: Put down the the mouse, put it down NOW!

Spammer: makes a run for it

Cops: run him down in half a second (you don't think spammers are fit do you?

later in interrogation - Detective: Arey you gonna talk Spammer?

Spammer: Never

Detective: Bring in the logic probe

Maybe I'm missing something here, but...

[the_rajah]

why can't the companies that are paying for spam be targetted for prosecution/persecution? They can't easily hide since they have to engage in commerce, AKA money changing hands, to do their business, thus requiring valid contact information. Just follow the money.

"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain

Re:Maybe I'm missing something here, but...

[jcuervo]

why can't the companies that are paying for spam be targetted for prosecution/persecution?

Joe jobs.

Re:Maybe I'm missing something here, but...

[deblau]

Start a small business, struggle in obscurity for a few years, then read about "fast! cheap!" email marketing online. After you've done this, I want to hear the rest of this argument.

Re: (Sperm sample required, sorry ladies)

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

> What makes you a lady can't acquire sperm samples

On the contrary, that's *exactly* what it's for.

Re: (Sperm sample required, sorry ladies)

[phiala]

But would it be worth it for a lady to go through all that trouble to obtain said qty of sperm just to read NYtimes.com?

Trouble? If it's trouble, you're asking the wrong guy... Excuse, maybe... :)

"MaxxLength"

[jasoncart]

Microsoft then hired outside investigators to stake out and follow whoever picked up the mail. It turned out to be Jason Cazes, who Mr. McBride said sells "MaxxLength" penis enlargement pills

I wonder how they spotted him!

Re:"MaxxLength"

[Lurker McLurker]

So you can get arrested for being well-endowed? I'm in trouble, then.

I've never been arrested

Re:"MaxxLength"

[red floyd]

So that's why there's so many buffer overruns in Windows. They don't check their MaxxLength!
</HUMOR>

Humor tags added in compliance with the ADA for the humor impaired.

Long run? Won't even work in the SHORT run

[Xhad]

Yes, let's pay people to spam. Then a bunch of businesses and individuals who wouldn't even touch spam before now see a business opportunity.

The Abrams Report 5/31

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't normally watch the Abrams Report on MSNBC but last night as I was surfing through I caught the tail end of the program where he reads viewers emails. His comments last night were regarding the flood of emails he was receiving from suddenly wealthy people in Africa, all needing his help to retrieve their new found wealth. The complete transcript of the show can be found here. Scroll to the end to read his comments.

Obviously these are the wonderful Nigerian, and now apparently Democratic Republic of Congo, email scams but his point was that these were frauds and to never respond to these emails.

My question has always been not why aren't we going after these people (well, not these people because they are in a foreign country) because the products they are pushing are fake but rather why aren't we going after them for using a false identity?

Just a thought.

Re:The Abrams Report 5/31

[glorf]

why aren't we going after them for using a false identity?

Posted by someone claiming to be named "Anonymous Coward".

But anyway, most laws against claiming to be someone else are more specific. You can't impersonate a police officer, or you can't practice law without a license. I have never heard of any place where it is illegal to give someone a false name (except to a government official). Besides, if they can actually track the guy down, why go for that instead of fraud which would almost certainly have a higher penalty?

And BTW, 419ers are getting more sophisticated. I got one the other day that used my last name. It claimed that someone with that name died and his lawyer could not find any next of kin. So if I came forward and pretend to be kin we could split the money. More plausible at least than some guy in Africa picking you at random from millions of Internet users.

Sperm sample?

[Jailbrekr]

- You do not need to give a sperm
sample
- You do not need to give your newborn child, nor your second or third.
- There is no signing away your soul to

They require a simple registration. It involves the creation of a username, password, and throwaway email address. This is not an invasion of privacy, nor is it some grandiose conspiracy. GET OVER IT, TINFOIL MODERATORS!

Cripes.....

Re:Sperm sample?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it isn't an invasion of privacy, why are you giving them a throwaway email address?

Re:Sperm sample?

[Anonymous Coward]

what, you haven't figured it out yet... That's funny. Sometimes things are hidden in msgs... it's called steganography. :-P

Re:Sperm sample?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you mention yourself that all it requires is a username/password, and a throw away address, then why do they care if you register? I mean if everyone gave them Bitemeyoudirectmarketingcunt@fuckyouUSA.com would they really continue to ask???? Could there be another reason? I wonder....

Re:Sperm sample?

[Anonymous Coward]

- You do not need to give a sperm sample
- You do not need to give your newborn child, nor your second or third.
- There is no signing away your soul to

Really? Wow, I'm sure glad you came along to inform us of this. Yep, the moderators who called you "insightful" clearly weren't smoking crack today. The statements you're talking about were obviously meant as literal statements of fact. What else could they have been? "Jokes"? What is this "jokes" of which you speak? We know not this word.

Re:Sperm sample?

[shepd]

>This is not an invasion of privacy, nor is it some grandiose conspiracy.

No, it's just a big fat boring waste of my time and absolutely illegal just a couple of hundred miles north (where I am), because it is, in fact, an invasion of privacy (ask the canadian privacy commissioner if you don't believe me).

Personally, I don't read any NYT stuff because I have more important things to do, like actually ENJOYING wasting my time on slashdot posting comments like this. I'd also tell someone handing out free physical newspapers to screw off if they handed me a multipage form to fill out to get one.

You'd be surprised at what a slippery slope this information requirements can be. That's the whole reason we got this legislation in Canada. We got tired of telling the teenager at radioshack where we live so we can buy a pack of batteries. We got tired of handing over our Driver's Licence or SIN just to buy a satellite system (no, not subscribe, just to walk out the door of a store with one). People are too busy for that.

Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Regardless of whether this was posted for karma or to benefit other users here, it is still copyright infringement.

Cool - then just do it this way then.

Made from This Page.

The DMA hates spammers (true)

[Random BedHead Ed]

In a twist of weirdness, the Direct Marketing Association is funding investigators who cooperate with the FBI on spam investigations.

Not much of a twist at all, despite many of the above comments. Just grok this: the DMA hates spammers. No, really. I know someone who works for a company that's part of the DMA, and spam is her biggest headache. While we all hate commercial e-mail in general, the DMA is made up of companies who want to play by the rules. True, they want to have a hand in writing the rules as well, but the rules are pretty good ones. No faking your source IP addresses or From: fields. Always have an Unsubscribe feature that actually works. And so forth.

Spammers make the DMA's life a living hell. It's impossible to have a conversation with most people about legitimate commercial e-mail because illegitmate spam is such a pain (I just deleted 20 spams, vs. three real messages in my Lycos mail). With an annoyance like spam, no one even wants to hear the DMA's side of the story. So the DMA's members get blocked from sending e-mail by many sysadmins (like me).

If all commercial mail conformed to the rules that the DMA advocates, no one would complain to ISPs about commercial mail because the power to prevent it would be in the hands of the recipient. Just click Unsubscribe and you're free and clear. Until spammers go away, that's impossible because no one trusts Unsubscribe links. It shouldn't surprise us that the DMA will do anything they can to prevent spam.

Re:The DMA hates spammers (true)

[Steve B]

While we all hate commercial e-mail in general, the DMA is made up of companies who want to play by the rules. True, they want to have a hand in writing the rules as well, but the rules are pretty good ones.

Not unless and until they accept that the rules must be based on opt-in, not opt-out. Unfortunately, it has become clear that the only way there is any chance of getting them to accept this is to make it clear that an unsolicited opt-out advertisement from a "legitimate" business will be considered equivalent to the sleaziest "p3n!s pill" spewing.

Re:The DMA hates spammers (true)

[Anonymous Coward]

"the power to prevent it would be in the hands of the recipient"

No, if the DMA sends me unsolicited email they ARE spammers regardless if they give me the power to opt out or not and in this case, DMA members should and will end up on blocklists as far as I'm concerrned.

Re:The DMA hates spammers (true)

[Scutter]

Just click Unsubscribe and you're free and clear.

I don't even want "legitimate" spam. Why should I have to unsubscribe from dozens or hundreds or thousands of marketing mailing lists that I never suscribed to in the first place? The DMA should be advocating opt-in rather than opt-out. I have no sympathy for their headaches.

I recently had a long conversation with the guy who runs the spamvertisements for a certain motel chain that sounds like FlooperBait. He said "We process thousands of unsubscribe requests per week!" For some reason, that little tidbit failed to clue him in that he's doing something wrong.

Re:The DMA hates spammers (true)

[magefile]

But then it'll be possible to block, for example, *@doubleclick.com. Or block anything with "ADV:" in the subject. Or IP addresses. Or ... you get the idea.

People didn't like the name "CAN-SPAM", but all in all I think it's good. Once it's legal, you can regulate it.

Re:The DMA hates spammers (true)

[StormyMonday]

The problem with "legitimate" spam is that there would be 'way too much of it. Let's say that there are 100,000 "legitimate" spam senders, each of whom sends me one spam per year. That's almost 300/day -- worse than I have now. 100,000 is very definately a lowball estimate, and one per year is simply silly.

The "unsubscribe" business is a con -- you will have to unsubscribe to every company and mailing list provider that might want you to buy something. I'll also bet that most of them will be set up as obfuscated web pages that will actually subscribe you to extra lists (unsubscribe to List A, be automatically subscribed to Lists B through Z unless you find the Magic Button).

Let's face it. There is *no* *such* *thing* as "legitamate" spam -- if we want to keep e-mail as a useful means of communication.

Re:The DMA hates spammers (true)

[homer_ca]

"the DMA is made up of companies who want to play by the rules. True, they want to have a hand in writing the rules as well, but the rules are pretty good ones. No faking your source IP addresses or From: fields. Always have an Unsubscribe feature that actually works."

The problem is that email addresses eventually leak out from the more legit DMA members to shadier and shadier spammers, whether it's through "affiliates", bankruptcy sales, or corrupt employees. See the story of Nadine for an excellent example of how this happens.

Re:The DMA hates spammers (true)

[keraneuology]

So long as the marketing target bears the costs not only should the lists be opt-in but they should be excluded from any sales. Selling a physical mailing address is one thing, selling a cellphone #, an SMS ID or an email address is something entirely different. Along a tangential line, anybody who responds to a lead generated by unsolicited email should be required to honor any promises made in that email. This means that I should be able to get a $200,000 loan at $350/month - the spam specifically said "you have been approved" at those rates. By the same token, any loan officer to responds to my response to an email that reads "your lo.an app.lication has been denied" should either provide, in writing, the reason for the decline or lose their license for participating in fraud. I'll take 5 of those $200,000 loans, please - a $1,000,000 mortgage for just $1,750/month isn't such a bad deal. And the loan officer will think twice about purchasing spam-source leads again in the future.

Re:The DMA hates spammers (true)

[JuggleGeek]

Just grok this: the DMA hates spammers. No, really. I know someone who works for a company that's part of the DMA, and spam is her biggest headache. While we all hate commercial e-mail in general, the DMA is made up of companies who want to play by the rules. True, they want to have a hand in writing the rules as well, but the rules are pretty good ones.

The DMA wrote the Can-Spam law, which doesn't outlaw spam. That is because they want to send spam. They sued the US government over the recently enacted Do Not Call list, because they want to telemarket to people that don't want to hear it.

Yes, the DMA would love to chase all of the small time spammers away so that they can spam to their hearts content without the problems that they have in todays email environment - but anyone who thinks they are "good guys" or that they are "on our side" is totally, completely, whacked out crazy.

If all commercial mail conformed to the rules that the DMA advocates, no one would complain to ISPs about commercial mail because the power to prevent it would be in the hands of the recipient. Just click Unsubscribe and you're free and clear.

How many legitimate businesses are there in the US alone? Under the rules the DMA wants, every one of those gets to spam you until you beg them to stop. If 10% of the legitimate businesses in the US send 1 email per year, you'll spend hours every day jumping through their "opt out" hoops. Fuck that. I shouldn't have to tell them "I have no interest in doing business with you, which is why I have never contacted you."

It shouldn't surprise us that the DMA will do anything they can to prevent spam.

They won't tell their users "Do not send spam". They won't lobby for laws to make spamming illegal, and actively fight any that are proposed. They want to do anything they can to prevent spam by people outside the DMA, while preserving what they see as their "right" to send spam.

Hotmail receives 2 billion spam emails/day

[BadMrMojo]

... and Hotmail users _send_ how many of those?

Choke it off at the source.

Re:Hotmail receives 2 billion spam emails/day

[Ra5pu7in]

Hotmail users are seldom the source of spam. Rather, @hotmail.com is one of the more common spoofed addresses. Microsoft would have done something sooner if that much volume was pouring through their "free" accounts.

Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement

[PktLoss]

See now this I would mod up. NYT gets the ad revenue from their article (which /.'ers obviously feel is worth reading), and no copyright infringement has taken place.

Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement

[LiquidCoooled]

How come I can read the exact same article by simply going in via another entrance.

The common google affiliated link to all NYT stories is a gaping hole in their DNA sample taking policy.

I do however agree about posting the whole article, but news is news, and it should not change depending upon where you read it.

Same subject - if a story is submitted to slash, and it includes a link to an NYT story obtained from google - a perfectly valid news linking service, would Slashdot editors remove the google portion of the link and try to force us to signup?

Answer:

[Anonymous Coward]

Grow thicker skin.

Unlike BBC who are just a shill for the BSA

[horza]

Compare that to this pathetic article by the BBC. This supposed "hi-tech James Bond" who calls himself "Mr X" believes that by popping into #warez on IRC where he can download pirate software gives him: "The result for me is just to have a clean internet. There is so much filth out there and it is satisfying when it goes down," he said.. Er pirate copies of Nero are "filth"? Oh, and he is actually just a day-jobber for the Business Software Alliance. Sterling McBride is busy busting crooks that are making everyone's life a misery, as opposed to punishing kids for swapping software. No doubt in my mind which is spending his time in the more worthy fashion.

Phillip.

Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement

[Pendersempai]

Slashdot and its moderators are not responsible for enforcing federal copyright statutes.

Follow the money, find the spammer

[Chatmag]

At some point, the spam wants money, mainly by a credit card. Why not set up a credit card account only to be used to purchase whatever product the spam is touting, and follow the trail to the account collecting the funds.
Its done for drug busts, so I know the Feds have cash, at least, they have a lot of mine. Put it to use!

Re:Follow the money, find the spammer

[Chatmag]

Sorry about the "Bold" type, I"ll be more careful next time.

My suspicion

[yet another coward]

The DMA might see spam as competition and a detriment to already bad public relations. People complain about the junk mail and telemarketing calls. Spam is the spreading of those techniques into a new medium. Spammers probably do not belong to the DMA, though, and if spam is successful, it might steal DMA members' business. The cost structure of traditional direct marketing must be quite different from spamming. Telephone marketing requires employees. Direct mailing has a cost per piece of mail. Spamming seems to have a relatively low incremental cost for sending additional spam since bandwidth is usually sold on a time rate basis rather than by usage.

Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement

[monkeyman_67156]

And we all know how much geeks care about copyright infringement. Off to download more music...

OpenBSD + spamd

[Santana]

Actually spamd on OpenBSDdoes a great job stopping spam

I used to get around 300 messages daily, all of them spam. Now I only get 1 or 2 every two days.

Re:OpenBSD + spamd

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this combo rocks - spammer gets the boot right at the packet filter.

FreeBSD has ways to do this too, not quite as clean. Check SPEWS.ORG's "packet filter" page, they had some info.

Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement

[garcia]

You really shouldn't assume that someone is downloading illegal stuff just because they are posting anonymously.

Spam Laws in effect now

[clw7500nc]

why dont they come down harder read here They are alredy here , the laws that is we as a people do not stand by our own laws The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act requires unsolicited commercial e-mail messages to be labeled (though not by a standard method) and to include opt-out instructions and the sender's physical address. It prohibits the use of deceptive subject lines and false headers in such messages. The FTC is authorized (but not required) to establish a "do-not-email" registry. State laws that require labels on unsolicited commercial e-mail or prohibit such messages entirely are pre-empted, although provisions merely addressing falsity and deception would remain in place. The CAN-SPAM Act takes effect on January 1, 2004. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 was introduced by Senators Conrad R. Burns (R-MT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April 2003, with minor changes from the previous year's version, S. 630 (2002). Two other bills (S. 1231 and S. 1293) were subsequently merged into it. The final version was approved by the Senate in November 2003 and by the House of Representatives in December 2003, and was signed into law by President Bush on December 16, 2003. http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/summ108.html

how about just shooting them?

[Anonymous Coward]

The .gov should just start a spammer hunting season... one day is enough. problem solved.

1000's of spams

[KaiBeezy]

OK, this is tangential to the topic, but... My spam has increased by almost 10x just in the last couple of weeks. Now, well over 1000 a day! Many are the same message over and over and over. The only thing I did recently was upgrade to the new version of SpamKiller... coincidence? Anyone else seeing this?

Re:1000's of spams

[scubacuda]

Have you been reporting it to, say, abuse@ISP.com?

Sometimes they target people who report it.

Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

You really shouldn't assume that someone is downloading illegal stuff just because they are posting anonymously.

My assumption was because the poster didn't want the cookie, but surfs Slashdot for which I count 2 cookies for on my machine (4 from NYT) - not because they they posted anonymously. And because they backed it up with that lame civil disobedience rant.

Civil disobedience usually has something to do with a government, not a company.

Microsoft wants to dominate spam market

[funkytwig]

Of course Microsoft wants to fight spam, or more accuratly spam where the spam 'provider' has not paid Microsoft. Now MS has set up there white list system where spammers (sorry, advertisers) pay MS for sending spam (sorry, adverts) they want anyone who sends unsolicited email to pay them - that way they dominate the spam (cant get the hang of this, sorry advertising) market. By fighting non-MS spam they are simply increasing there dominence on the world in yet another way.

I'll help the FBI out with catching them.

[khasim]

#1. Buy the pills (in the article, they're already saying that they do that) and pay with a CHECK.

#2. Find the bank that accepted the check.

#3. Call the local field office and have them meet with the bank manager.

#4. Local agent picks up the name, address and social security number of the person who has the account that deposited that check.

#5. Profit?

Re:I'll help the FBI out with catching them.

[Inda]

#5. Find out that the name and address doesn't exist as the account has been made with false ID.

Your #5 only works if they are stupid. oh wait...

Re:I'll help the FBI out with catching them.

[br0ck]

#6. In retribution, identity stolen by Russian mafia spammers who you just gave your name, address, email, signature, account number, banking institution, and check appearance/layout.

#7. Credit cards created in your name and used destroying credit rating

#8. Bank account emptied when they use information on your check along with the routing number at your bank to open a paypal account

#9. House burned down

Re:I'll help the FBI out with catching them.

[scrytch]

#1. Buy the pills (in the article, they're already saying that they do that) and pay with a CHECK.

#2. Find the bank that accepted the check.

#3. Call the local field office

, leave a voicemail, spammer cashes your check, you get herbal pills full of lawn clippings, never hear from either again. You're an in-duh-vidual. You really think the FBI gives a shit?

Re:I'll help the FBI out with catching them.

[deblau]

You have to look at the other side of the equation. What happens when someone starts a small business selling widgets, and wants cheap advertising? They outsource their marketing, i.e. go to a spammer. That's a no-brainer for any small business owner, especially with the low rates that some of these guys are charging. Now you want to arrest the guy selling the widgets, and not the guy dumping email in your inbox? What's wrong with this picture?

Re:I'll help the FBI out with catching them.

[Cobralisk]

Now you want to arrest the guy selling the widgets, and not the guy dumping email in your inbox? What's wrong with this picture?

Nothing. The guy selling the widgets is funding the crime. You want to arrest the guy who pays to have his wife killed, and not the actual killer? Well, its better to get both, but one's better than nothing.

Re:I'll help the FBI out with catching them.

[Phroggy]

Nothing. The guy selling the widgets is funding the crime. You want to arrest the guy who pays to have his wife killed, and not the actual killer? Well, its better to get both, but one's better than nothing.

Rule #1: Spammers lie.

The spammer told the widget maker that he runs a perfectly legitimate, above-board opt-in mailing list, and although every message has a working unsubscribe link, most of his clientele have been so pleased with his service so far that they have no desire to unsubscribe, and some of them even refer their friends. As described, this is perfectly legal, and it should be. Such mailing lists do exist, although most aren't specifically for advertising.

Rule #1: Spammers lie.

Are you still sure the widget maker is at fault?

Re:I'll help the FBI out with catching them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sign up the widget seller for all the snail mail junk mail you can. They'll soon see how annoying it is.

Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

Civil disobedience usually has something to do with a government, not a company.

They seem to be one in the same these days.

Probably will see some of that

[Sycraft-fu]

As a side effect of SPAM prosecution. The cops bust a spammer, and then tack on additonal charges because the shit he's selling is bogus. In exchange for a reduced sentence, they get the spammer to roll on the company he's spamming for.

However I suspect in many cases the spammer is spamming for themselves. These people have shown they have almost no morals, fraud wouldn't supprise me in the slightest.

Um, someone's surfing instead of working

[medication]

"Microsoft's two-year-old "digital integrity" unit - which also fights online fraud, identity theft and spyware" - Fight spyware??? Yeah, right so if this unit is actually doing work to combat the potentially much more serious problem of spyware why have we seen 0 in the way of releases? Something more than a mision statement that is.
bah... firefox and/or spybot s&d

NYT Every Day?!

[doodaddy]

Maybe I'm missing some explicit connection between the NYT and Slashdot, but doesn't it seem odd that these "registration required" stories at the NYT have come up almost every day for a long time now?

Since most of Slashdot feels that information should be free, I'm surprised other newspapers and sources haven't been sought out for these stories with more of a non-techie point of view. Surely there are other papers with (good) articles on spam!

The DMA is evil and cannot be trusted

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please, the DMA thinks that it is possible for unsolicted bulk commercial email to not be spam. They are diabolically insane.

The DMA doesn't want to get rid of spam. They just want you to start thinking that there is such a thing as "legitimate" or "legal" spam.

Excuse me, no. All unsolicted bulk commercial email is spam.

Unsubscribe links? Yeah right. So all I have to do is give you some data about me (for free) and you'll stop bugging me (for a few seconds)? What data, you ask? Oh, just that the email address you are sending the mail to is valid, that I'm not interested in whatever product you're pushing, how often I read my emails, what time of day I read my emails, what time of day I'm at home vs at work, whether I can read my home email from the office or vice versa, whether I'm using a Mac or PC, what browser I'm using, etc. etc. Just clicking a link tells direct marketers A LOT about me, and about my system. That is all valuable data that they WILL compile into a database and then sell to other marketers!

The DMA is one of the most evil, sneaky, lying organizations that has ever existed. Nothing they say should EVER be taken at face value. They have secret reasons behind EVERYTHING they do.

My ISP blocks ALL port 25 traffic.

[evdp]

Unless it bouces through thier SMTP server.

This baffled me for hours when my deb sever stopped sending my mail. I got NO notification of the change in policy. I assume this was a huge boon for thier tech. support people, I noticed a new entry in thier tech. support FAQ, but I'm assuming a lot of people didn't.

But what I wonder is, what good is this? Thier SMTP doesn't require any authentication, but I assume that a IP is captured and could be used to trace back to my DSL router...

But what I'm afraid of is, that they are actually doing this to monitor the content of my (and the other customers) email.

Anyone elses ISP doing something like this? Anyone in the sysadmin field know of legit reasons for something like this? Does this help stop spammers (My ISP's public explination.)?

Re:My ISP blocks ALL port 25 traffic.

[jonfelder]

Filtering port 25 keeps users from using their own machines to send spam, or from spammers using the machines that have been infected with some worm to send spam.

The SMTP server doesn't need to require authentication because your ISP (should) only allow relaying from IP addresses administered by your ISP. It would be nice if they offered it though, but it's not necessary from their point of view.

All of your Internet traffic goes through your ISP. This means they can monitor ALL your traffic, not just mail...if you're concerned that your ISP is reading your mail, encrypt it before you send it. Even if your ISP supported authentication, since they control the server they could still monitor your email.

That goes for any of your other traffic too...if you don't want them to view it, encrypt it.

Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement

[garcia]

Join the Constitution Party in its work to restore our government to its Constitutional limits and our law to its Biblical foundation.

No thanks. I'd rather not continue to allow for the "Chosen One" attitude that both GWB and our beloved RWR felt the need to indulge in.

Re: (Sperm sample required, sorry ladies)

[rcamans]

I think the real issue is you think there are MEN on /.
Real men get dates, get married, have kids, maybe even have a life.
There are a few of us MEN, who read /. in spare moments at work, for a good laugh.

2 Billion a day?

[nurb432]

That puts my 600+ a day into perspective i guess...

Re:2 Billion a day?

[KaiBeezy]

I went from a couple hundred spams a day to more than 1000 just over the last 2 weeks or so. Are you experiencing the same thing? Have you heard anything about this? I keep trying to get /. to post my observation as a narticle, but I guess I haven't tried on a slow enough news day yet.

Any suggestions on the latest and greatest spam filtering for a regular user?

Can the FBI be that dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Initially you start to work backwards from the e-mail and find that to be a very frustrating route," said Daniel Larkin, chief of the F.B.I.'s Internet Crime Complaint Center, the unit that is coordinating Project Slam Spam. "That doesn't lead to a live body. We have collectively realized you have to go the other way and follow the money trail."

The guy in charge of the FBI's "Internet Crime Complaint Center" didn't know that already? He's not new there. He's been in that job for at least three years. And everybody who works white collar crime knows to follow the money.

Is this where the FBI dumps their deadwood now? It used to be that if you screwed up in the FBI, they transferred you to the FBI office in Butte, Montana. But that's been closed to save money.

google link no sperm required

[silconous]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/31/technology/31spa m.html

Scary thought

[Rick Zeman]

By filing lawsuits known as "John Doe" suits, in which the identity of the defendant is not known, Internet providers are able to subpoena records from banks and others to determine the identity of spammers.

Someone tell me how this is different than what the RIAA has been trying to do with the ISPs getting John Doe warrants to find out who's behind the P2P violations?

Re:Scary thought

[Steve B]

Someone tell me how this is different than what the RIAA has been trying to do with the ISPs getting John Doe warrants to find out who's behind the P2P violations?

Because the RIAA fights tooth and nail against being held to antiquated legal concepts like having to prove that somebody is a violator before having his anonymity breached, as opposed to the illegal spam investigators who are willing to work within the rule of law set forth by the Constitution.

Re:Scary thought

[Rick Zeman]

Because the RIAA fights tooth and nail against being held to antiquated legal concepts like having to prove that somebody is a violator before having his anonymity breached, as opposed to the illegal spam investigators who are willing to work within the rule of law set forth by the Constitution.

Huh? Where did you pull that distinction from?

You either have "x shared this music from this IP address at this time: Who was it?"
or
"x sent this spam from this IP address at this time. Who was it?"

I don't see any difference any at all.

Re:Scary thought

[Steve B]

I have clearly explained the difference. There is a basic difference between someone who has been dragged kicking and screaming into following the basic principles of Anglo-American law (the RIAA) and someone who is willing to work within that system (the anti-spammers). It's like the difference between a kid who cleans his room with Mom pulling him by the ear every step of the way and a kid who cleans his room without being asked -- the actions are identical, but only the latter deserves the slightest bit of respect.

Re:Scary thought

[Rick Zeman]

It's like the difference between a kid who cleans his room with Mom pulling him by the ear every step of the way and a kid who cleans his room without being asked -- the actions are identical, but only the latter deserves the slightest bit of respect.

Okay, so we're both saying that it's functionally no different between the two. To me, the fact that one is grudging is rather immaterial: John Doe warrants are John Doe warrants.
So, unless one is a hypocrite, one can't oppose what the RIAA is doing and approve of what the anti-spammers are doing...since they're both operating within the legal framework. I suppose the converse is also true of supporting what the RIAA is doing and opposing the anti-spammers, but I don't think we'd find too many people taking that position whose name doesn't end with Ralsky. :-)
(Good analogy, btw.)

ya gotta lovva the marketing onomatopoeia

[sentientbeing]

Project Slam-Spam?
Does this mean project CAN-SPAM has be canned by the slam spam plan?

i cant beleive its been panned. man. i was its biggest fan.

Obligatory

[jonfelder]

Your post advocates a

(*) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante ( ) lack of an

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.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(*) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(*) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(*) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
(*) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(*) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
(*) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(*) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
(*) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(*) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) No-lists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
(*) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(*) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!

The problem with spam

[SkeptAck]

Well, I guess there are a lot of problems with spam. My problem with spam is that I receive hundreds of spams a day. Our company uses a very nice spam filter, and almost of these things get labeled as spam, buried in an attachment, and a local filter moves them to a 'probably spam' folder. But since there are hundreds of them per day, and in order to read them I have to open the attached email, I don't read any of them, I just delete them. So, my email used to be 100%, but the spam's gotten so bad that now its only about 99%. Small chance there, but if you send me an email, I might not get it. Meanwhile, I have to make it less convenient for everyone, everywhere to send me email. I used to have my email address (a different one, it was overwhelmed with spam long ago) right on my web page. That thing got so many spams that I had to quit using it. So now I have a gmail address on my web page, but not a convenient 'click here to email me' sort of thing. Rather just a description of what my email address might sound like, and if you can figure it out, launch your email client, type in the solution to this little puzzle, *then* you can email me, and... then I might get it, because if it doesn't make it past gmails spam filters I'll never see it. I've found myself relying on web-board forum postings and the like for that sort of non-spammed email communications. The best way to reach me now is to post on a forum I visit with "HEY YOU, READ THIS!" as the title. Crazy. To the point though, is email, as a concept, just fundamentally flawed? I've thought about putting a convenient clickable email address on my webpage that requires an occassionally changing subject-title 'password' in order to actually be delivered. i.e. The first time you send me an email, you have to put [password] in the subject. If you don't, then I won't ever see the email. Once I receive the email, then I'll add you to a contact list which allows you to email me without the password. Then if I ever get spam with the password for the subject, then I'll change the password. If you are in my contact list and I get spam from you, then I'll delete you from it. But that still wouldn't work, would it? I mean, I'd still get whatever viruses-spawned emails spoof your email address or use contact lists for distribution... And I'd never be able to use the email address for things like registering accounts with online newspapers. I'm making the assumption that most spammers get their email lists from those guys, no matter what they say. If they're sharing my email address with anyone, they're sharing it with everyone. Anyway, this battle with spam seems like a lost cause. I'm thinking the problem is with email. Like, we need something else.

Re:The problem with spam

[SkeptAck]

Why in the heck aren't there any line breaks in the above? Yeesh.

Obligatory

[jonfelder]

Your post advocates a

( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based (*) vigilante ( ) lack of an

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.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(*) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(*) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(*) Extreme profitability of spam
(*) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(*) Technically illiterate politicians
(*) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(*) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) No-lists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
(*) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(*) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!

Correction

[Anonymous Coward]

#5. Shoot to kill.

Unlikely.

[ThousandStars]

#4. Local agent picks up the name, address and social security number of the person who has the account that deposited that check.

It's more likely that, as a previous poster mentioned, you'll find that information forged. But even more likely than that, you'll find a bank in the same countries that allow Internet gambling sites to operate -- meaning the bank will be outside of United States jurisdiction.

Perhaps a few spammers will be found using the method you describe, but the money is big enough that the spammers will evolve.

Re: (Sperm sample required, sorry ladies)

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh-huh. Guys like you just fuel misandry, you know.

~ some female on Slashdot

Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because someone says something is not acceptable doesn't mean it really isn't.

Every firestorm on Slashdot over copyright infringement comes down to the fact that some people don't think it's wrong and would rather follow their own moral code than the one the law prescribes. Others think the law is inviolate and breaking the law for any reason is wrong. With such a core difference in beliefs (a rift that stretches far beyond this website), copyright infringement, lawsuits over it, and the arguments associated with them both are going to continue for a long time. And so will reg-free links.

Re: (Sperm sample required, sorry ladies)

[Brandybuck]

Any female who can collect large amounts of sperm on demand should not be called a "lady".

Re: (Sperm sample required, sorry ladies)

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Riiiiiiight.

I take a simple grammatical error and turn it into a comment that's not only nicely witty but pretty biologically accurate, and that's a reason for an AC to hate all men? Tell you what dearie, unless *your* vagina can read a book or start a car or do something *far* outside the scope of what's in my comment, then I suggest you trot back to your "womyns studies under the phallocracy" and leave the net to those of us whose knees don't jerk quite so severely every time we go online. Mmmkay?

first known occurrence

[Anonymous Coward]

was not the soul-sucing one, but this.

What's so weird, my friend?

[ipl me asap]

I don't really know which I loathe more, the twits that spam or the twits that call any marketing message spam.

What's so weird about tha DMA trying to clean up email marketing? The DMA's probably the most unsung hero of the whole spam mess. I know it's probably too conservative of an idea for the typical slashdotter, but it's corprate responsibility.

The DMA is for anti-spam laws, educates marketers who might just have set up their mailers on ethics of email marketing, etc. The LAST thing they want you to do is feel inconveinenced by a marketing message.

It's the spammers that are threatening legitimate email marketing to the extent that laws are being passed and Joe Public's view of the matter is being crafted by jack asses. They want the spammers gone so that email marketing can lose the stigma it has aquired and actually be useful to consumer and distributor.

There's nothing weird about it unless you of course are one of those said twits.

Re:What's so weird, my friend?

[Steve B]

They want the spammers gone so that email marketing can lose the stigma it has aquired and actually be useful to consumer and distributor.

If they want to shed the stigma of e-mail marketing, they must embrace opt-in. End of discussion.

where do you send the cheque?

[WormholeFiend]

Most of the spam I receive doesnt include a snail-mail address, just a credit-card form...

So where would you send a cheque?

If there was an actual mailing address, I'm sure a lot more spammers would get caught and/or beat up.

Email is not fundamentally flawed.

[Beardo the Bearded]

The problem lies not with email, but in the people who are misusing it. (i.e spammers). It's as though you were using stolen stamps to pay for a mass conventional mail solicitaion. It really just comes down to economics.

Email does cost money to send. I pay my ISP $40 / month so I can get email and internet access. My primary email address has cost me almost $150 000 in lost wages and tuition. ( It came with my degree. ) However, if I steal the money to pay for that, it wouldn't really cost me anything. When someone uses a virus to create zombie computers to send out email through unsecured relays and open ports, they are not out any money. I'm sure that XP home is responsible for a large portion of spam, especially when you add a broadband connection where the ISP does not require passwords onto their outgoing mail. (Not to mention open port 25 everywhere!) My dad had a zombie computer (XP home) but still refused to turn it off at night or install a better OS. (I recently put on Win2000 pro and bought him a hardware firewall.) Of course, *nix is no more secure than XP; there just aren't enough people using it to justify the ROI for writing a virus. Trust me, no matter how secure you think something is, there's a work-around. There's always a work-around.

Anyway, there are no solutions to spam. I'm sure there are at least 2 of those form "Why your solution won't work" forms in this thread. (I feel that a technical solution exists - analog trace the source to the master computers and permanently disable the machine. Imagine if every spammer on earth turned on their machine to find it dead, displaying only "spammers don't get computers" on the monitor. But I digress.)

It costs money to fight spam. Lots of money. Now that huge players like AOL and Microsoft realize how much money it's costing them, they're going to start throwing their weight around. As much as you may hate to admit it, the folks there (at least on the development side) are bright people and the companies have more money than spammers. I know who I'm betting on.

As I said, it's all economics. All that one has to do is make it more expensive to send spam than you can make from sending it. With jail terms just starting, we'll see a decrease - eventually. Further, the spammers are going to pick the wrong guy to write the virus. We'll find him. He'll talk. Some spammer will go to jail.

Re:Article text. *NO KARMA WHORING*

[Tackhead]

Quoth the NYT:

> Spammers have been sending more junk e-mail than ever, despite a new federal antispam law that took effect Jan. 1.

"despite"? Try "thanks to".

> In the last 15 months, Microsoft has filed 53 civil cases against spammers. Ten have resulted in court orders banning the defendant from further spamming, either because of a settlement or because the defendant did not show up in court. One case was dismissed. The rest are working their way through the Washington State courts.

But the new federal (You)CAN-SPAM law supercedes WA state law. So yes, there are 53 civil cases pending in WA state courts.

And because of You-CAN-SPAM, not one of those cases matters worth shit.

Have you had your break today....

[katchins]

At this rate (2 Billion per day @ Hotmail), SPAM will overtake McDonald's in "count of persons served."

I'll take mine with ketchup, no mustard...

Hotmail headers

[Anonymous Coward]

* If you have an MSN Hotmail account, click Options in the upper-right corner of any page. Click Mail on the left side, and then click Mail display settings. Next to Message headers, click Full, and then click OK.

Incrementalism

[robogun]

At first you required just an email. Then an email, name and password. Now you want us to enter our complete demographic statistical profile before being granted permission to view your story. All this besides the ads. Your marketers have gotten out of control over there. What happened to wanting just to influence public ^H^H^H^H tell all the news that is fit to print?

Beyond that, as other newspapers copy you of habit, soon every last online newspaper will require registration. I mean really now, how many separate newspaper accounts do I need to keep track of? For now, this can be avoided at many of the smaller sites that try to get you on the second visit by turning off cookies. But at this point if I see registration required, I no longer bother.

Re:Incrementalism

[JuggleGeek]

But at this point if I see registration required, I no longer bother. So says Slashdot user robogun (466062), who has obviously regsitered here.

I think it's funny that so many /. users scream and yell "Ohh, they require registration they are EVIL, all while posting under their registered /. accounts.

The NYTimes doesn't have horrible policies. I've been registered with them for years, using a tagged address. No spam has ever come to that address, so I know they aren't selling them off. I get the NYTimes "Todays Headlines" emails every day, can read the articles at NYTimes without jumping through hooops, and see no downside. And if you don't want to register, it's quite easy to read the articles without registering. They are hardly the evil empire that /. users like to make them out to be.

Re:Incrementalism

[robogun]

Do not attempt to distract from the fact that you are wrong by accusing me of hypocrisy. First of all, I never said registration was EVIL. It is a matter of convenience on my end. I could give a shit what you do with my false registration information. It is, quite simply, that I do not like having to jump through all those hoops to look at an article.

As to the matter of my foolishly registering with Slashdot, firstly it is interactive and registration there, far from merely marketers collecting information, is smart simply for the fact that abuse in the interactive system is easier when users are anonymous. Slashdot is protecting their system and I can comply with that and support that.

Secondly, Slashdot is unique. But there are 10,000 places where the same, exact online news is available beside the New York Times website -- many of which do not yet require registration. Third, Slashdot does not ask for nearly the quantity of information requested by the New York Times website.

I think it's fantastic that you registered with a real address at the New York Times, and so far have not received marketing from them. I only wish every site that requested registration similarly resist the temptation to use or sell the data so collected. But I have had too many such sites sell me down the river to trust just anyone. I guess that makes me fairly unique.

Re:Incrementalism

[JuggleGeek]

Do not attempt to distract from the fact that you are wrong by accusing me of hypocrisy. Do not attempt to distract from the fact that you are wrong by accusing me of hypocrisy.

How am I wrong? Am I wrong that you are posting under a registered account? No. Am I wrong that many Slashdot users claim that registering for the NYTimes is Evil? No.

Despite the lead-ins that Slashdot uses, you do *not* have to give up your soul, your firstborn, or any kind of sperm/DNA sample in order to sign up with the NYTimes. They ask for an email address, just like Slashdot. And they don't abuse it, just like Slashdot.

You say that Slashdot is protecting their system - true. The NYTimes is, also. If they ignored advertising, as you seem to think they should, they wouldn't be in business, as the advertising is what pays for all the reporting. Don't want to register? Fine - there are several easy ways around that. And, as you say, similar articles can be found other places online, so you can read them there.

There are still no justifications for complaining that a service like the NYTimes asks people to sign up. And when you whine about sites that require registration using a registered account at Slashdot, you do look like a hypocrite.

Re:Incrementalism

[robogun]

As I said before (I guess you need to hear things twice to understand them) it is a matter of convenience. It is a matter of convenience.

Picture this:
Someone posts an interesting article on Slashdot. The summary is mouth-watering. Preconceived opinions are already forming in my head ready to post to the world verbatim. I click the link to read the article.

But lo! Instead of the article is a multi-page registration form. I can waste time filling it out. I can deduce the alternative, registration free URL. But in either case, it is blocking the free flow of ideas. It sucks. Even more, it is from the New York Times. It says right here my information will be kept private. Can they be trusted? I am not so sure. They are biased. They have issues with trust. They have been caught, on multiple occasions, in downright fabricating their stories.

If my being selective with whom I register with is hypocrisy to you, then apparently there is such a gulf of difference in ideas between us, that we will not be able to conclude this flamewar satisfactorally.

Re:Incrementalism

[JuggleGeek]

If this is your idea of a flamewar, then you must be new to the net. Regardless, people like you will keep whining that the NYTimes asks people to register. I'll keep pointing out that the NYTimes doesn't sell off your information, and that the complainers are willing to register on slashdot.

Re:Incrementalism

[robogun]

Regardless, people like you will keep whining that the NYTimes asks people to register. I'll keep pointing out that the NYTimes doesn't sell off your information

Knock yourself out - Promoting the New York Times seems to be the main purpose of your presence here

Re:Article text. Mod Down; Copyright Infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

or this....

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/31/technology/31s pa m.html?ex=1401336000&en=2bd63df2ba09047a&ei=5007&p artner=SoGgYfIsH

ethical email.com - new site to help stop spam

[mrcorpse]

I just signed up at a site called ethicalemail.com, and they seem to have an idea on how to help eliminate lots of spam. The site is www.ethicalemail.com, I heard about them from an indiana business "paper" online (http://www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp ?id=11088) I figured it didn't cost me anything so I'm giving it a try - I'm way sick of spam...

Re:ethical email.com - new site to help stop spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, it's just another idiotic "global opt-out" - heck, this one's even worse, they'll give(?) your email address to any spammer who asks for it.

Stay away - FAR away!

Re:Article text. *NO KARMA WHORING*

[jnicholson]

But the new federal (You)CAN-SPAM law supercedes WA state law.

I have this memory of someone telling me that the state laws were allowed to be more restrictive than CANSPAM - or am I getting that conflated with ISPs still being allowed to define mail as 'unwanted' even if it did comply with CANSPAM?

Suggestion

[nurb432]

Yes mine has increased too..

I use a whitelist + spam assassin.. then do a quick scan of the 200 or so a day that get thru...

I'm sure i miss things but i refuse to spend much time on it..

intimidated by SpamAssassin...

[KaiBeezy]

One look at the Windows instructions (http://wiki.apache.org/spamassassin/InstallingOnW indows) kind of had my head spinning. Any suggestions for something a bit more user-friendly? Someone recommended SpamBayes.

It's the false negatives (good mail blocked as spam) that's killing me. I have to look through the entire blocked folder - over 1000 a day. At that point, why even bother with the spam filter? :(

Trying to get your loser karma back up, bitch?

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep whoring you faggot RNC (= big government) slashslut.

Artists Against 419

[mec]

It's that time of month again!

Artists Against 419

Artists Against 419 is a flash mob that meets once a month to download artistic images from 419 scam sites. The more people they get, the faster the 419 sites go down!

I trust the DMA to stop spam...

[DigitalSpyder]

in the way that I trust a rabid dog.

the SCO/Microsoft connection

[Anonymous Coward]

Sterling McBride?

Is this the SCO/Microsoft connection?
What, is he Darl's brother or something?

Re:Double Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are people willing to create a user account for Slashdot, but not willing to do so for NY Times? That's a little hypocritical, don't you think?

Slashdot users TRUST Slashdot. Slashdot users don't TRUST NYTimes.com.