Microsoft Sues Spammers

mclearn writes "Microsoft has filed seven more lawsuits against spammers, this time targeting those who violate the 'brown-paper wrapper' provision of the CAN-SPAM law, which sets rules for sexually oriented e-mail solicitations. Apparently these are a small part of over 120 spam-related cases Microsoft is currently litigating. With Microsoft's deep pockets, can they effectively send a resounding message to spammers?"

Comments

Re:BOOOO Microsoft!

[Quinto]

The "freedom of speech" that the ACLU is protecting in the case of the KKK protest is drastically different than the "speech" of spammers.

Suppose a KKK rally group walked in your front door and "demonstrated" in your living room. Freedom of speech certainly doesn't protect the action of trespassing.

The root of the difference is that the KKK demonstration is held in a public place. You can go home to get away from it. Spammers send spam to your email account. Your particular email address/server/ISP, etc are all privately "owned" things, similar to your house. Freedom of speech and demonstration of the masses do not trump the right to privacy (or the property rights) of the individual.

Re:I guess lawyers work cheaper than programmers

[bigberk]

It would be interesting to know how much spam is a direct result of owned windoze boxes

This would be easy to test. If your mail server runs OpenBSD or Linux, use passive OS fingerprinting, also ported to netfilter, to scrutinize mail coming from windows boxes. Then see how much legit mail you receive from Windows hosts.

Re:How Microsoft can end Spam

[foobsr]

Evil cyborg Bill takes off a shoe and starts banging it on the podium, "I WILL BURY YOU!"

Just to give some historical context for those who might eventually not remember.

In 1959 Cold War tensions eased a little. The new Soviet leader, Nikita Khruschchev, visited Dwight Eisenhower at his holiday home near Washington. The meeting was very friendly. But the next year, relations got worse again. An American military plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. Eisenhower admitted that such planes had been spying on the Soviets for four years. In a speech at the United Nations, Khruschchev got so angry that he took off his shoe and beat it on a table.
loc .cit.

CC.

Re:Makes Me Wonder

[MysteriousPreacher]

Good point. Personally I tend to filter out email from certain domains like;

hotmail
yahoo
consultant.com
mail.com

This is purely because they seem to be the most common email addresses for spammers and scammers.