Slashdot Mirror
Dozens Charged in Spam Crackdown
JohnnyGTO writes "Federal and state law enforcement agencies have quietly arrested or charged dozens of people with crimes related to junk e-mail, identity theft and other online scams in recent weeks, according to several people involved in the actions."
Shouldn't it be a lot larger number? I mean, I'm glad that they are trying to stop this stuff, but please. Make a big impact showing how much we hate spammers, and maybe, just maybe, it will scare a bunch and lower our spam in our inboxes.
Boxing Equipment Reviews
But Mr. Linford of Spamhaus said he thought that the current wave of prosecutions had the potential to at least temporarily diminish the flood of spam.
Does ANYONE think that this will reduce spam in the near future? I'm still getting flooded, and I'll bet anything that my spam filters won't get any kind of a breather just because of a few arrests.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Why am I still getting massive amounts of spam in my yahoo, angelfire, and comcast accounts today? I guess they have some more work to do (I haven't even noticed a decrease).
[FromTheMorning]
Isn't part of the punishment for the crime supposed to be that it serves as a deterrent for other's who'd do the same thing?
... is lost, if you keep it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?"
To quote Dr. Strangelove:
"Of course, the whole point
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
How many of them had the FBI break down their doors and seize their computers? Or was it more like "Mr Spammer, after you've called your attorney, we'd like you to come down to the station for a few hours..."
I mean, it's not like they're hackers....
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Does this mean that Ashcroft is now our friend or is this the wrong week?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Patience! We have to convict them first. Arrested != proven guilty.
:-}
After the proof, go for it. Don't bother with helmets when you drag them to the moon; the enclosure would restrict their freedom of speech.
Ya think it might be an election-year in the USA???!
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
According to the article, the DMA is funding this "crackdown". They are trying to make it easier for DMA members to get their spam noticed. The DMA got the you CAN Spam law written they way that they wanted it written, now they are using it to kill the competition. This is just one more example of an industry cartel using laws that they bought and paid for to kill anybody who is not a member of the cartel.
Spammers get a lot of blame for all this, and they should - they're evil. But don't forget two important parties in all of this - the advertisers and the fools that actually READ their spam.
Any company willing to spam others needs to have its practices reexamined. How can the justice department go after spammers and not even blink at the advertising firms that PAY to have it all done? It's like putting the hitman in jail and ignoring the mobster that hired him.
And let's not forget that sending out mass emails has to be worth it to companies, otherwise one would think they wouldn't do it. There's a reason that you keep getting reminders to have your penis enlarged, and it's not because they found your email address on slashdot. People are buying this crap, and these morons need to be stopped now.
I'd call for more education on the subject ("How not to click on that popup" or "How to ignore or filter your spam email"), but due to the fact that it is much more gratifying and probably cheaper overall to just throw the emailers into jail, as well as the fact that I'm a nobody, my calls would proabably go unheeded.
Does spam really pay? Is it really worth gathering millions of e-mail addresses and destroying a good feature like e-mail just to make a few bucks? Im glad those arrests were made. If thats one less spam Ill recieve, Im glad.
So if an individual supposedly causes huge coporations a financial loss, they are labeled a pirate, all sorts of crazy legislation is passed and projection room jockeys are deputized the world over. But, if an individual causes an overt nuissance to every e-mail user the world over, flooding e-mail boxed, creating zhombie spam boxes via trojans and costing people the time and energy to sift for a real message, they...do what?
Too bad we cannot get the RIAA/MPAA/anyotherlargerichcorporation angry at them. The US government might actually do something REAL.
Anyone know which specific spammers are being charged?
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
"It has also deployed online decoys to catch spammers and has purchased products advertised in spam messages so that the financial records can be traced to the ultimate source of the message."
Why didn't I think of that! Practically speaking the advertised product has to come from within the States. They can move the spam servers to Russia if they want but the actual revenue generating stuff is still where the feds can get at it. Bloody brilliant! Shut down the money part and the spam stops. Or am I being too optimistic?
Yeah, the spam issue aside, when did law enforcement start getting funded by non-governmental, private organizations? Does this mean they are less likely to investigate and prosecute spam sent by DMA members?
Just as branding your enemy a communist during the 1950s was a sure fire way of ensuring their downfall, the so-called War on Terror has sparked a modern day witch hunt for "terrorist links".
As the United States Department of Justice attempts to extradite an Australian indicted as head of an international email spamming ring, the battle against spam has been spurred by unsubstantiated claims it funds terrorism.
The Department of Justice made the claims before a United States congressional hearing earlier this month but could not provide evidence.
Organised criminal syndicates profit from spam, according to Jack G. Michael, a deputy assistant attorney general in the criminal division at the Department of Justice. He was addressing the US House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts, the Direct Marketing Association oversight hearing, titled "International Email Spam Links to Organised Crime and Terrorism".
Making the link to terrorism Malcolm said, "Organised crime syndicates are frequently engaged in many types of criminal enterprises, including supporting terrorist activities".
Malcolm could not cite an actual case where spam was linked to terrorism, but said, "it would surprise me greatly if the number were not large".
The Direct Marketing Association head James Valentine continued the terrorism theme in his written submission to the hearing.
"September 11 changed the way Americans look at the world. It also changed the way American law enforcement looks at spamming crimes," wrote Valentine - borrowing from a November 2002 article in the Customs Service newsletter US Customs Today.
The Department of Justice's war on spam was boosted recently by the indictment of 40-year-old Ray Hugh Griffin, of South Wales, as co-leader of the worldwide spamming group SpendToSave.
The extradition of Griffin - known by the online alias "SanNiBel" - will be sought "in the coming weeks," according to US Attorney Peter J McCarthy.
Griffin's indictment is the latest action arising from "Operation Mountaineer" - a joint US Customs and Department of Justice investigation which has seen 20 people convicted.
Operation Mountaineer has seen spammers put behind bars for several years. Similar penalties should apply to college students sending unsolicited messages using chat applications such as Gaim and MSN, Congressman John Carter - a Texas Republican - told the congressional hearing.
"I think it'd be a good idea to go out and actually bust a couple of these college kids," said Carter.
"If you want to see college kids duck and run, you let them read the papers and somebody's got a 33-month sentence in the federal penitentiary for sending unsolicited emails."
An election year.
That's gotta fit into your schema somewhere
Please bear in mind, this is not a victory of honest folk over spammers, but a victory of spammers who are members of the DMA over their competitors. The DMA got a law passed which allows them to keep spamming but can be used to make business harder for non-DMA members. That's good business and I think the DMA have done _very_ well for a lobby with no initial political clout or connections.
Just don't interpret this as some new ideological initiative. It's simply an investment by the DMA which favors the DMA and hurts their competitors
.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
They're just trying to create a gap between evil nasty spam which they do not do, and their wholesome friendly nu'n'improoved targeted direct marketing. *Sniff-sniff* Still smells the same.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Spam is spam, whatever the source, but how much of that crap in your inbox (or stopped by your filter) is from a "legitimate" source? I for one would be immensely happy if the only spam I received was legitimate advertising as opposed to the phishing and fraud which makes up the vast majority of spam -- probably in the neighborhood of 99.9%.
I say more power to the DMA. They are annoying, but they are not the problem. If they are willing to spend their money helping combat the spammers that are the problem, we should be cheering for them, not just bitching and whining. They've got the incentive to combat spam -- do you really think local and federal law enforcement is going to worry about it unless the majority of the work is done for them? They've got dope-smokers and speeding drivers to bust.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
they don't encourage spamming but their (semi scam) business model causes normal people to spam, and then invent all kinds of crazy reasoning how their spam isn't spam. that line of theirs encourages things like comment spamming on blogs and so on.
i don't mind if someone wants to advertise that they're gullible in their sig tho... the whole point is that they want you to get your friends to buy expensive services or products, and actually they want you to fail after you've gained 2-3 friends who've done it. the point is that you could just ask each of your friends for 40-50$ or screw 'em over in arranged poker game(but nobody really gets 5 of his friends to do the stuff so you need to find willing people online).
funny how people defend the program how it works _BEFORE_ they get their ipods too.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
It's not a pyramid scheme as much as it's a "sell stuff to your friends without getting paid much" scheme.
Perhaps you should take the quiz they have here:
http://www.pyramidschemealert.org/
Next thing you know, someone will be telling us that those penis enhancement pills are legit, too, just because they advertise on TV...
What does that one commercial say?
"We said it on TV, so it must be true!"
I seem to remember a few very... interesting... statements televised by the Iraqi Information Minister, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton & Richard Nixon, too, and that's off the top of my head.
If these peoples' faces were plastered and vilified in the media then the'd hopefully become social outcasts and (hoping too much maybe) hopfully lynched.
Either that or they'd make a lot of money off it.
For celebreties, any exposure is good for sales, even bad exposure for doing things like shoplifting.
And if your own spam folder looks like mine, I'm pretty sure it is filled Penis Enlargement,V1agra and diet products spam - In American english. The simple fact that so many spammers think everyone needs diet products and larger penises makes me certain that they can only come from a single country...