Slashdot Mirror
Spammer Bankrupted by Anti-Spammer Suits
www.sorehands.com writes "The well known spammer Scott ("Snotty Scotty") Richter has filed for bankruptcy protection. In a Denver Post article Richter claims to have less than $10 million in assets but more than $50 million in debts including the $49 million that Microsoft is seeking. Microsoft is not the only lawsuit that Richter is defending, as a law suit filed by anti-spammer Dan Balsam and being handled by anti-spam attorney Timothy Walton is still pending. Hopefully, Microsoft will have the automatic stay from the bankruptcy court dissolved so that they can stop Richter from spamming and gather more evidence."
If he had just stopped after he gained a couple million and spam wasn't as big of a deal, he could have retired and lived in peace for the rest of his life. Yet he got greedy and kept trying to make more money even as people kept getting more fed up with spam. Excessive greed has takes down even the best of criminals.
--
Want a free iPod?
Or try a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof
Censoring and controlling one kind of speach is (technologically and politically) not that different from blocking other types of content.
This country had a long long tradition of anonymous speach (check out how Ben Franklin and other founding fathers got support for their ideas). Cracking down on spammers is just a politically correct way of cracking down on anonymous speach at large.
C'mon guys. Spam is not a problem if you don't give your email addresses to spammers - and better, have a few email addresses to use when you don't trust someone.
The REAL solution to spam that would protect privacy rights would be if the ISPs allowed everyone to have as many throwayay email addresses that they wanted (john.slashdot@example.com). But none of the big companies actually care about protecting privacy.
I find it hard to reconsile the responses to
Senator Clinton Slams GTA and the responses to this story.
Maybe all censorship is not bad.
First they censored the spammers, but I was not a spammer so I did not stand up.
Then they censored GTA, but I didn't not play GTA, so I did not stand up.
Now they come to censor me, but there is no one left to hear my crys.
Uh, who doesn't have a fucking idea of what he's talking about? Please elaborate on how being a private company has anything to do with constitutional obligations?
The REAL solution to spam is to first have fuzzy-thinkers like yourself actually understand where this shit is coming from, the strain that it puts on networks and on network admins before it ever hits your fucking mailbox.
It doesn't put any strain on network admins. I have my own mailserver running on a public IP. When "ron.slashdot@[mydomain].com" got spam, I started using "ron.slashdot2@[mydomain].com" -- and I informed everyone I cared about who had used that address about my "real" address (firstname_lastname@mydomain.com). I have been a heavy email user since the 80s; and have many gigabytes of email archived - but never once had a major problem with emails that I didn't submit to a spammer.
Please elaborate on how being a private company has anything to do with constitutional obligations?
If the supreme court rules that ads are expressions of speech, then the government cannot make laws forbidding people from sending ads, because it would infringe on their right to express themselves in the form of ads.
Even in that case, a company could just shitcan all the spam, since they're not the US Government and can ignore the first amendment all they want.
It doesn't put any strain on network admins.
Oh wow, Mr. "I run a webserver with one active email address", clearly you're an expert in all things email, since obviously an ISP server hosting thousands of email addresses would NEVER have to deal with more spam than you.
Even with the (what, 20? 30?) disabled email addresses bouncing spam back, your pathetic little server is nothing compared to what the likes of what AOL or hotmail (or even smaller ISPs with a few thousand customers) have to deal with.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I think its amusing how Slashdotters bellyache about how getting sued by the RIAA/MPAA and getting large fines is unconscionable and how the punishment is excessive, but when it comes to spammers they're calling for the death penalty and lose all sense of proportion.