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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."
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.
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.
for Mr McBride.
/. first.
Now that's a
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?
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
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?
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
> 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...
Oh dear, worse than spam is hundreds of thousands of Slashdotter sperm samples winging their way to NYT...
oh man, Mr. McBride and Microsoft in the same story and its actually a good thing? My head hurts.
if you think this is bad, you should have seen my last sig
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.
The public DNSBL service will remain free.
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.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
Microsoft has increased efforts to track and prosecute spammers.
: //POS_SPAM.com
S PAM2.com
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
http://rd.yahoo.com/barrage/card/ovum/*http:/POS_
How about we start prosecuting services that allow people to spam through them, huh?
Sperm sample required, sorry ladies
/., and that looks a bit unprofessional for the front page.
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
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.
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)
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
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
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.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
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.
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.
#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?