AOL Files First Spim Lawsuit

Iphtashu Fitz writes "CNet News is reporting that 4 major internet providers - AOL, Earthlink, Microsoft, and Yahoo, have filed another bunch of lawsuits against spammers. What makes this round interesting is that AOL has filed the first ever lawsuit against against spam that targets Instant Messenger clients, or spim. So far spim has only affected relatively small numbers of users but the problem is growing, which is why AOL is targeting it now."

Comments

Spim?

[neonfrog]

Is that Italian Spam?

Re:Spim?

[Mike Rubits]

Spam + IM (instant messanging) = SPIM.

Re:Spim?

[Nuclear Elephant]

I guess it's a good thing it's instant messaging and not Electronic Relay Messaging

I never had a problem with spim

[riceboy50]

It's kind of a cool MIPS emulator, but maybe AOL just couldn't figure out how to work it. :-)

Hmmm?

[Emperor Tiberius]

Is Spim the low fat version of Spam?

Must...overcome...AOL...prejudice...

[YetAnotherName]

When *@aol.com first started appearing on newsgroups I thought AOL would just be a minor nuisance, like a hangnail. Then I got *@aol.com in my email box like there was no tomorrow, and nuisance turned into genuine pain in the neck, like a cancer.

But slowly and surely, AOL has done much to both transform themselves and the user populace into better Internet citizens ... and I can't help but think that they've affected the genre tenor of the Internet as a whole in the process.

So now that they're taking a pre-emptive strike against spim, I have to applaud.

Re:Must...overcome...AOL...prejudice...

[tgeller]

AOL has a long history of suits against spammers. See this list of litigation they've filed.

Pity they often place themselves on the wrong side of legislative battles, though. They were a driving force behind the CAN-SPAM Act, which guarantees the right to send unsolicited, commercial, bulk email.

Re:Must...overcome...AOL...prejudice...

[Kenja]

"But slowly and surely, AOL has done much to both transform themselves and the user populace into better Internet citizens"

True, but they are still the trailer park of the internet.

Glad to see they're acting now

[Mike Rubits]

All I have to say is THANK GOD. ICQ was destroyed by spam for many people, and AIM is heading down that path.

buyer problem

[Coneasfast]

the real problem lies in the fact that spammers have an incentive to send spam. if nobody would buy penis enlargement pills, accept online mortgages, and order medicine online, we wouldn't have this problem.

one way to combat this problem is look from the other end, we should educate the public and discourage people from doing any business with online sellers. consumers should be suspicious when such emails appear. i personally think this would help reduce spam

Re:buyer problem

[gl4ss]

**if nobody would buy penis enlargement pills, accept online mortgages, and order medicine online, we wouldn't have this problem.**

not really, that's false.

all you need is an ILLUSION, a THOUGHT, someone just needs to _believe_ that it would work, then we're going to have the problem.

so.. someone starts to spam, for whatever reason, like there's no tomorrow.. if he makes money or no doesn't matter for some other scumbags to believe that "hey, he must be doing money, otherwise why would he have done this? I GOTTA GET ON THIS BOAT!" and the circle is sure to continue. like the biggest chain letter of all time.

I'd be very surprised if spamming worked for other than like 1 % of the spammers. like mlm, 99% are just going to end up loosing money.

Minty Pythin's Flying Circis

[Bloater]

Spim, Spim, Spim, Spim, ...

In One Day...

[Duncan3]

This is AOL's stats, so far today - and it's only 3PM here on the west coast.

SPAM Blocked Today:
846,170,968

This month:
33,661,697,872

Instant Messages
Sent Today:
1,151,202,297

Members Online Now:
2,410,612

You can watch the numbers on http://www.corp.aol.com/

Spim?

[ackthpt]

Who do I talk to about these stupid names? It should be imSpam

imSpam, spam i am
i'd like to sell you
c1al1s and a s3x cam

spim?

[dotgod]

why do we have to make up nicknames for everything? can't we just call it instant messenger spam? jeez.

Sue Themselves?

[Ranger]

AOL will not sue themselves. After all AIM is loaded with their own unwanted advertising and popups.

How To

[RichM]

This'll probably get me modded down, but I was once asked to create a spim Perl script for somebody (for money) and here's the source:

#!usr/bin/perl
if ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'GET')
{
@pairs = split(/&/, $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'});
}
elsif ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'POST')
{
read (STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
@pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);
if ($ENV{'QUERY_STRING'})
{
@getpairs = split(/&/, $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'});
push(@pairs,@getpairs);
}
}
else
{
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "Use the POST or GET methods."; }
foreach $pair (@pairs) { ($key, $value) = split (/=/, $pair);
$key =~ tr/+/ /; $key =~ tr/+/ /;
$key =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;
$value =~ tr/+/ /; $value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C",
hex($1))/eg ;
$value =~ s///g; if ($formdata{$key}) { $formdata{$key} .= ", $value";
}
else { $formdata{$key} = $value; } } 1;
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "Sent message from $formdata{'sendername'}, to
$formdata{'recipient'}!";
use lib '.';
use Net::AIM;
$aim = new Net::AIM;
$conn = $aim->newconn (Screenname => $formdata{'sendername'},
Password => $formdata{'password'});
foreach my $i (0..4) {
$aim->do_one_loop || last;
sleep 1;
}
$aim->send_im ( $formdata{'recipient'},$formdata{'message'});
sle ep 1;
print "";

It takes the following variables:
$sendername, $password (for AOL login), $recipient and $message by either POST or GET.
I kinda regret doing it now but it paid the rent at the time...