Slashdot Mirror
Gates' Resolve in Bringing Spammers to Justice
An anonymous reader writes "It didn't seem to me like any single company had the stomach to keep after the scum that are ruining the Net for the rest of us. Unless that company is Microsoft. Since the beginning of 2003, Microsoft has filed 96 lawsuits against spammers, and 119 lawsuits against phishers. By any measure, 215 lawsuits constitutes a legal juggernaut. "
How exactly would you suggest that they improve their software to prevent spam and phishing?
Sometimes a little stick can be a good thing...
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Reducing Spam makes people use MS computers (and Exchange) more (as opposed to the alternatives).
:)
- Investing in spam filter technology reduces spam.
- Sueing spammers also reduces spam.
The optimal strategy will be to persue both strategies till they yield the same rate of spam reduction.
And that rate should be determined by whatever they think they earn on spam reduction.
My bet is that someone at MS has done the math.
And it keeps their lawyers sharp, who knows how and when that will come in handy
Can Slashdot ever accept the fact that Microsoft can do some good? I'd be willing to bet that 30% of the comments on this article will be "OMG MICRO$OFT IS GOOD?!". Accept the fact that they really can do good things and shut with the Microsoft bashing.
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Why don't we rewind time and tell Microsoft "don't sue spammers/phishers because we just want to see how much spam we'd get" and then compare? The point is that you can't qualitatively determine how successful Microsoft is. If there's one company that has the capital to chase spammers/phishers and one that's in their best interest, it's Microsoft. They're doing more about it than you are so stop being a moron.
Don't run Windows under an administrative context and that wouldn't happen. It'd be the same thing as letting your kids go browsing for a couple hours under root and when you come back you find you have dancing bonzai buddies all over your desktop and some mysterious new daemon called "Keyword search helper"-- and if Linux ever achieves a large desktop share, don't think that those type of programs won't be created.
Where are the supposed "good guys"?
I realize the OSS community is doing things with their software to try and defeat spammers and phishers, but let's face it, legal action is the only real course of action to stop these guys (or at least whittle down their numbers).
Phishers and spammers will always find ways around filters, no matter what intelligence is brought to bear with new algorithms. New mail protocols would help, but we are hopelessly mired in a standard that will take a miracle to topple at this point (perhaps some new multi-media e-mail standard?). People won't buy into an e-mail system other than SMTP/POP unless it brings something significant to the table, and is as simple and easy to use.
The OSS community has for-profit companies out there... why aren't they flexing their muscle to help stop these scammers? Microsoft is at least doing something... and it demonstrates exactly what a big corporation like that can do when that lkind of capital is directed at doing something worthwhile.
I think in the fervor to attack the supposed "evil monolith" people here tag as "Micro$oft", they forget exactly how much Gates, his company, and his employees donate to good causes around the world.
no argument its a good start , however it would be nice if they would
.. .couples this with some basic computer security knowlidge(dont open LOVEYOU.jpg.VIRUS.WORM) and i assure you it would reduce spam far more in one year than 10 years of legal action
1: make sure active X is patched to make it far more secure.(killing it would be nice , but wont hapen for a while due to a hell of alot of websites using controlls)
2: make sure each user knows that they should not be running as an admin all the time and allow them an easy way to become and admin for installs etc
3: a large list of phising techniques and how they spoof browsers is easily avaliable and could be use to create a few fixes (all browser makers should do this).
In my mind the only way to stop spam properly is education , people need to learn to not accept it and not to buy from it
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
They're damned if they do, and damned if they don't.
/. where no Microsoft action (good or bad) goes unpunished.
If they sued them, people would yell David and Goliath. If they let them go, people say they're not helping the community.
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That's like saying burglary is caused by unlocked doors.
Spam is caused by spammers. The fools who buy the products provide the needed motivation, but ultimately, spam is caused by the guy writing and sending the mail.