MS Gets $7 Million From Spammer

pin_gween writes "Reuters UK reports that Microsoft has settled its spam suit against Scott Richter for $7 million. From the article: 'Microsoft and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer had sued Richter in late 2003, asserting that he had sent, or helped other spammers send, billions of e-mail messages to consumers touting everything from herbal products to loan consolidation schemes.'"

Comments

Spam Translation - Read the little font

[bigwavejas]

"Nevertheless, Richter said that he and his company had changed their e-mailing practices and pledged not to send spam to anyone who has not asked to be sent commercial e-mail."

Richter knows nobody in their right mind would agree to receiving the loads of $hit he shovels. What he effectively saying is, "I'm going to hide in teeny-tiny font, at the bottom of some website, when you click "Accept" for your order (whatever that may be) you're also agreeing to receive my spam."

In his case he's a product of what he solicits - Garbage.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Frymaster]

Richter knows nobody in their right mind would agree to receiving the loads of $hit he shovels

and yet, miraculously, there are people out there who buy that stuff... if there weren't there wouldn't be any spam.

if we're really going to stop junk email, these are the people we should be working on educating. think what damage could be done to the spammers' pocket book if every new copy of outlook showed a little message every time a suspected spam was opened that said "warning: unsolicited commercial email may be fraudulant".

if ms is serious about shutting down spam, they should spend less on lawyers and more on educating their end users.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[ebyrob]

But stop and think about the economics a bit...

Richter has sent "billions" of spams. Say, that's 2,000,000,000 to be conservative. If he's merely been fined $7,000,000 that works out to less than 1/2 a cent per spam sent.

If he can make one $50 sale per 100 emails, then he's still in the green. Just how teachable do you think the dumbest 1% of people are? (And actually... judgements like this will probably kill spam, because it probably takes more like 1,000 emails to make that one sale given filtering and noise ratios...)

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[KingVance]

Okay...I admit...

I didnt RTFA. But why exactly is MS the one getting money from this deal when this other company is spamming other people?

Is MS going to share the money with all of us that had our inbox pocked by this crap?

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Anonymous Coward]

Clark Kent: I've never seen garbage eat garbage before.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[schon]

there are people out there who buy that stuff...

Maybe, although that is far from proven - all we have is the word of the spammers themselves, and you must remember rule #1 (spammers lie.)

if there weren't there wouldn't be any spam.

Bullshit. If this were true, then there would never have been spam to begin with, because the *very first* spammers got exactly zero orders. Nobody bought anything, and yet spammers still spammed - why? because they could.

It doesn't matter if nobody buys anything - as long as sociopaths believe someone *might* buy their crap, they will continue to do it, and new ones will pop up as the old ones run out of money.

What they see is lots of spam from other companies, and (just like others who lack critical thinking skills) believe that "someone must be buying", and start spamming.

if we're really going to stop junk email, these are the people we should be working on educating.

How are we going to do that when *YOU* buy into the self-perpetuating "someone must be buying" myth? Since *YOU* believe it, spammers will believe it, and they will keep spamming.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[w98]

MS sued him for sending spam to their users (hotmail, I suppose), and they won.

Share it? Sure, send this article to a thousand of your friends, and for each one that forward it on to other friends, MS will pay you $1. ;o)

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Pete]

Ten percent???? Where on earth did you get that figure? From all I've heard you're at least two, possibly three, orders of magnitude out. And of course it varies hugely depending on what kind of fradulent product is being "marketed".

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[penix1]

To add spice to your already excellent post...

There is a study floating around (can't recall where) that found that spammers aren't making money off the products they "offer". They are making their money by selling email addresses to other spammers. Email address harvesting is where the true spammer makes his bread...

Still, how this translates into Microsoft getting the loot is beyond me.

B.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Cylix]

Unfortunately, I do know some idiot that does read his spam and buys things from it.

I asked why on earth would you even dare read it. You are contributing to the problem by making it profitable.

His unfounded response was that he gets good deals sometimes. (Which is total BS upon inspection... any research on the product shows it can be had for the same or lesser cost)

Spam buyers are the same people who get sucked into paypal, nigerian investment and every other scam on the market.

Having said that, I've seen the guy taken for everything but nigerian scammers and he rarely asks for my advice until after the fact.

A fool and his money...

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[venril]

...and yet, miraculously, there are people out there who buy that stuff... if there weren't there wouldn't be any spam...

Exactly. I'm amazed the merchants for whom these bastards advertise have not been pursued for conspiracy or under RICO, since the spammers engage in illegal behaviour all the time. And their clients know it. Send a few of them away, and the revenue will dry up in no time. -me

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[seanscottrogers]

I've heard that reasoning a few times here on slashdot, but I have to disagree with the statement that if people didn't buy spammed products there wouldn't be any spam. Sending out mass amounts of email is extremely cheap, and a lot of new spammers join in every day.

While the volume would certainly be less if spam didn't make money, there will always be someone willing to spend 50 or 100 bucks to give it a try, just like there are always people signing up for the latest get-rich-quick schemes advertised on TV.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that spammers' main source of income was selling their email lists to other would-be spammers.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[KingVance]

Well well...

Hell sounds like it just worked out for the better for them. Make a crap spam filter and you get to take people to court.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[keraneuology]

if we're really going to stop junk email, these are the people we should be working on educating

No, if we really wanted to stop spam then we need to do two things:

1. Force specific performance on the part of the end beneficiary of the spam. When I get a spam offering a guaranteed mortg4ge of $350,000 at %3.5 and $600/month regardless of credit then any mortgage broker who responds to my click here action should be absolutely forced to give me a mortgage on those terms. Let him take it up with the spammer for making promises he couldn't keep.

2. Bar credit card companies from forcing payment for items advertised through spam.

The appropriate target is not the spammers - when a house is filled with roaches you blame the people who left the pizza rotting under the couch. Go after the people who are advertising and discourage them from paying people to spam from them. They often have lots of money and are easy to locate - Kraft (did you ever get an ad for Gevalia coffee?), Publishers Clearinghouse, General Motors... one guy sued Sears for spamming and won.

With the exception of the proof-of-concept and spam-to-spy mailings spam has a purpose defined by the people writing the checks. Make it more trouble and expense for those people and they will no longer write checks to the spammers.

By doing that and blocking all inbound email from RIPE, APNIC and Brazil and the spam issue is almost completely eliminated (to my satisfaction on my servers and my inbox at least - YMMV).

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Txiasaeia]

So if all spammers are making money by selling email addresses but they're making no money off of selling products, then who the heck is making money here? Where's 3. Profit!!!

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[mogwai7]

Sounds like a pyramid scheme to me.

"...who the heck is making money here?"

The people at the top of the pyramid of course!

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[SCVirus]

Tell me where this guy got his multi-millions to settle with then, good sir.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[SeventyBang]

Microsoft as an ISP is taking the money.

U-CAN-SPAM permits AGs and ISPs to sue spammers for money. One of the things which sucks is most ISPs (in the way we think of ISPs) aren't going after them and AGs as well as the FTC serve in bulk mode: get billionz-n-billionz of examples, then ponder going after them.

It's the fault of the DMA, who essentially wrote U-CAN-SPAM. Take a gander at some of these from Jerry Cerasale, of the DMA, on June 16, 2004:

Washington Post...We agree that the consumer should have choice, that they can say 'no' to receiving further e-mail. (IOW, they demand the right for everyone to get one bite at the apple).

ZDNet.com, October 21, 2002..."We're finding that we need to give the consumers the choice to try and allow them to control their inbox, to try and say no, I don't want this, while leaving the medium open for commerce," Cerasale said.

But, Cerasale said, a federal requirement that consumers "opt in" instead of "opt out" of bulk e-mail is unacceptable. "We think the opt-in creates a true noneconomic model," Cerasale said. "We don't believe you get a viable economic model in opt-in."

Interpretation: any law which prevents businesses from making money via email is wrong. And anything which permits inbox owners to avoid getting business-oriented unless they give permission is wrong.

IOW, email serves one purpose and one purpose only: for businesses to make money. Anything impeding that is wrong and anything else is personal consumption and secondary.

But in a contradiction, here's what the DMA has to say about spyware legislation on May 25, 2005:

"The DMA strongly believes that consumers should be in control of their computers..."

Now, DMA, which is it? Do we have control or don't we?

This last quote is the newest. Does it mean they've changed their collective minds? I doubt it I don't think they realized they contradicted themselves. If confronted, they'd backpedal and perform some serious tap dancing in the process.

If you want to collect the loot yourself, set up a server, sell services to your neighbors, and you're in business as an ISP. When the spam rolls in, pay a visit to your local court and file the paperwork.

BTW, I'll say here what I said on SPAM-L: even though Richter was taken off of the ROKSO list, Richter has tasted the taste of money regardless of how it was obtained and he's sitting on millions of email addresses. He's not shutting down how he does business, despite anything he says. And he still stands to make a lot of money harvesting email addresses and selling them to others. There is nothing in U-CAN-SPAM which prohibits the harvesting and sale of email addresses, only the use of harvesting email addresses as the targets of unsolicited email.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you start sending him email from an account he won't recognize.

Every time he buys some piece of crap you take him out for beer with money he sent you... and you get free beer.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[DrugCheese]

So these people spend money and make money because no one buys anything?? They do this all for fun?

I'd imagine the very first wave of spam was the most profitable. No Spam Blockers, uneducated people recieving offers in their emails ..

So if we all believe they will stop they will?

Why is this rated insightful?

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[marcosdumay]

As I see, we have 2 kinds of spam. One is sent by spammers with no other activity, hopping that 1 or 2 persons answer it. The other one is sent by companies' maketing departartments to make people know their products.

The first kind (people that only spam), it is a risky investment. If somebody answers, they earn money, if not, they lose. They probably keep trying because of the "mine of gold" factor: A few people get a lot of money, very few people lose a lot and most lose a small bit. Since people tend to only look the suscessfull cases, they see a lucrative scenario.

The second kind is simpler. Since marketing return is very hard to measure, companies don't measure it. So, doesn't matter if spam is effective or not, people who belive it is will spam.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see anything to back up your claim.

The first spam emails no body bought into because they saw through the ruse. Now that a lot of the population is on the internet, there's a lot more people who will buy into the ruse spam presents.

Spam was tried initially as a (failed) money making venture, not "because they could." Hackers and script kiddies do stuff just because they can (it interests them to know how stuff works, or the interest in controlling machines that aren't theirs). Spammers have always been in the market for profit. It's just that the market wasn't that profitable at first.

Eventually people who were less savy made it to the internet and the market appeared. Then people started spamming for profit. There is almost always someone trying something before the market exists.

Do I have numbers to back it up? no, but neither do you. Your theory seems to say "they do it because they can." People don't do unethical things just becuase they can, they do them for profit. Spammers aren't stupid, they're just unethical. Companies that hire spammers aren't stupid, they're just unethical. And for them, the return on investment is high.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely annecdotal, but I was in a post graduate class with a small business owner who was what most would define as a spammer.

While he had all the techies in the class trying to figure out which car in the parking lot was his, by the end of the semester more than one of the business-minded folks were pulling him aside for conversations, getting his card or number, etc.

The post above is simply opinion, and in my opinion, very flimsy logic. Most based on prejudice. You may not believe in Darwin, but in business natural selection is fact. They are still around for some reason.

I really wish I would have listened to the guy more but it was all "profit ratio" this and "market region" that. Blah-blah. I am guessing I had the same look on my face as my wife does when I start going "mega byte" this and "techo-hoozit" that.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[stlhawkeye]

Maybe, although that is far from proven - all we have is the word of the spammers themselves, and you must remember rule #1 (spammers lie.)

Yeah, you're right that it has nothing to do with sales, but you're wrong that's it just because "they can." They do it because "they make money." Spam pays off even if nobody buys anything so long as they click-through to a web site. This model is becoming outdated rapidly, and is being replaced by phishing and fraud.

Bullshit. If this were true, then there would never have been spam to begin with, because the *very first* spammers got exactly zero orders.

They weren't selling anything at first. They were just advertising. Advertising is a subconscious phenomenon that works on most people, regardless of how hard they consciously work to resist its impact. Even seeing commercials that you hate because of their simplistic stupidity can often generate sales. Most people don't remember the company that a given commercial is for, but they did hear the name and subconsciously associate it with a memorable event. People are constantly walking out of grocery stores and shopping malls, badmouthing the "stupid" commercials for products that they just purchased. Advertising is attention, the sales don't have to be direct to be counted.

Nobody bought anything, and yet spammers still spammed - why? because they could.

They kept doing it because they were making money, they didn't give a shit if anybody bought anything or not, as long as they made money. Spammers are usually intermediaries for somebody else's business. The spammer doesn't care if that business makes money as long as they pay the spammer to distribute advertising.

It doesn't matter if nobody buys anything - as long as sociopaths believe someone *might* buy their crap, they will continue to do it, and new ones will pop up as the old ones run out of money.

Again, I don't believe this is entirely accurate. It doesn't matter if anybody buys anything, but spammers spam because they make money doing it. They are paid by somebody else to spam on their behalf, they generate some traffic, they scrape email addresses and resell them to other spammers, they phish for information for identity theft or resell to identity thieves, they try to defraud the ignorant.

What they see is lots of spam from other companies, and (just like others who lack critical thinking skills) believe that "someone must be buying", and start spamming.>

No, they see that spammers are making money and getting wealthy with little risk so they do it.

How are we going to do that when *YOU* buy into the self-perpetuating "someone must be buying" myth? Since *YOU* believe it, spammers will believe it, and they will keep spamming.

Wrong again. Spammers will keep spamming as long as they make money off of it. When it's not profitable, it'll end. That profit is not necessarily tied to sales. Big telecom companies are often complicit in spam dissemination, there's too much money to be made off of leasing transatlantic bandwidth to strategic clients.

Spam has to stop paying before it'll end. The question is where do you deal it, on the demand-side, or the supply-side? The demand is not from end users who want spam, it's from businesses who want to send it.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[budgenator]

I once got a spam from the illinios bureau of tourism, so I complained to the Illinios Attorney General, who sent me a nice informative packet about the Illinios anti-spam law, how to file complaints ect. So by now I starting to get pissed ( an "Oh gee we're sorry, we'll look into it" would have worked), and I call then, theatening to sue the state under federal law, They assured me that the marketing company they used is reputable, and I must have opted in at some time because the marketing company wouldn't defraud the State of Illinois!

These guys that send spam are con artists, and just about ever con works by getting the mark to think they are going to out-smart the con-artists or are some how special, they're getting sometime too good to be true because they are special.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Dare nMc]

> "The DMA strongly believes that consumers should be in control of their computers..."

I am guessing they mean that the ISP's should not filter spam/block spyware ports,etc that the Consumer should be alowed to choose their own spam blockers,etc (and hope they don't figure it out themselves.)

so far I do prefer running my own Junk mail filter in mozilla Thunderbird, but do think ISP's haveing junk mail... blocking on by default is best.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[troon]

all we have is the word of the spammers themselves, and you must remember rule #1 (spammers lie.)

If spammers are 100% habitual liars, it's easy to get around that:

"If I were to ask you if people really buy that stuff, would you answer 'Yes.'?"

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Anonymous Coward]

If he's merely been fined $7,000,000 that works out to less than 1/2 a cent per spam sent.

If he can make one $50 sale per 100 emails, then he's still in the green.

That would be half a DOLLAR per spam. All he needs to sell is 50 CENTS per 100 e-mails. You're off by a factor of 100!

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[kolobcreek]

For get the small font. Where is my share of the loot? Bill already has enough money. I want my share. Infact I think I have around 15 hotmail accounts that means I should 15x my share of the bounty. Right???

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Gentlewhisper]

But, Cerasale said, a federal requirement that consumers "opt in" instead of "opt out" of bulk e-mail is unacceptable. "We think the opt-in creates a true noneconomic model," Cerasale said. "We don't believe you get a viable economic model in opt-in."

Spread this list around guys :) Let's help make it a wee bit more economical for them!

asanchez@the-dma.org, bgreco@the-dma.org, bwientze@the-dma.org, bwientzen@the-dma.org, cdalzell@the-dma.org, chirsch@the-dma.org, chrisgallagher@the-dma.org, conference@the-dma.org, consumer@the-dma.org, consumeraffairs@the-dma.org, councils@the-dma.org, customerservice@the-dma.org, dma@the-dma.org, dmef@the-dma.org, escanlon@the-dma.org, general@the-dma.org, govaffairs@the-dma.org, Governme@the-dma.org, gdunlap@the-dma.org, Internat@the-dma.org, lsemaya@the-dma.org, jcerasale@the-dma.org, jcrowe@the-dma.org, lrc@the-dma.org, members@the-dma.org, membership@the-dma.org, mmicali@the-dma.org, ppeach@the-dma.org, pdt@the-dma.org, pr@the-dma.org, Presiden@the-dma.org, president@the-dma.org, privacy@the-dma.org, registration@the-dma.org, rlafaso@the-dma.org, webcast@the-dma.org, webmaster@the-dma.org

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[NewIntellectual]

I think most people are missing the point here. It is naive to think that it's the *spammers* who are themselves selling the products. In most cases that is probably untrue. *They provide an advertising service* to the snake-oil salesmen who hire them to send their ads as spam. The spammers themselves, then, don't have to directly care what the response ratio of the spam is, as long as they get paid by the snake-oil salesmen.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Max_Abernethy]

About 3/4 of the spam I get is stuff with malicious attachments. Without commercial spam, I'd still be getting plenty.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[glwtta]

Bullshit. If this were true, then there would never have been spam to begin with, because the *very first* spammers got exactly zero orders. Nobody bought anything, and yet spammers still spammed - why? because they could.

That's not only wrong, it's pretty stupid.

The first spammers made a killing on green card lottery applications brought in by their spam.

Nobody is going to expend this amount of time and money (and it does cost quite a bit of money) just because "they can". Spammers make money off of their "trade", whether it's from people buying the crap they sell, or from other means (eg selling anti-spam software), doesn't really matter.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Anonymous Coward]

If he can make one $50 sale per 100 emails, then he's still in the green. Just how teachable do you think the dumbest 1% of people are? (And actually... judgements like this will probably kill spam, because it probably takes more like 1,000 emails to make that one sale given filtering and noise ratios...)

Any spammer would kill for a 1/100 ratio. Its nowhere near that good in reality.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[patio11]

The trouble is, the marginal cost per email is still zero. Filtering solves spam for YOU personally (I deal with approximately one a week in English that makes it through SpamAssassin and Thunderbird's bayesian filters, and about one a day in Japanese because their filtering tech rolls over and dies on East Asian languages), but even if only one of a million mails results in a sale that doesn't matter. It most especially doesn't matter because the legitimate players in the industry have long since stopped spamming and whats left are the scam artists and affiliate pyramid schemes who just rent out bot networks to do their dirty work.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Anonymous Coward]

if there weren't there wouldn't be any spam.

Bullshit. If this were true, then there would never have been spam to begin with, because the *very first* spammers got exactly zero orders. Nobody bought anything, and yet spammers still spammed - why? because they could.

So where is the $7Mil coming from? Out of his ass? Spammers make money, plain and simple. They don't buy mansions and nice cars on credibility.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[StarkRG]

if ms is serious about shutting down spam, they should spend less on lawyers and more on educating their end users.

Ahh, but then they'd never sell windows...

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[SeventyBang]

Now I just have to figure out which member of the DMA modded me as flamebait.

The only conjecture I made was my prediction of Richter's future method of making money. And this afternoon, I found news sources stating his intended means supports what I said above: harvesting email addresses and selling them to other spammers.

Unfortunately, spammers have this tendency to say, "You are receiving this message because you opted-in|indicated you are interested in|etc." as though that's supposed to convince you [that]you forgot about doing it. Some even provide an IP address you supposedly were using at the time this happened.

The only way opting-in works is if it's COI (confirmed opt-in). This is when you send email, a response is sent to you, and you either respond with a confirmation or click on a link and make a confirmation.

To spammers, confirmed opt-in means you confirmed your interest by sending email; i.e. you've confirmed your interest by sending email. They call double opt-in what I just described as COI (confirmed opt-in).

Even if opt-in is allowable as a method of collecting addresses, they should retain a copy of the message you submitted, including untouched headers. With nothing less, it's harvested information. And because that can be forged, opt-in isn't good enough. With COI, they should save the initial email message you send and the confirming response. They then have two examples (including headers) showing who and where your responses came from.

Now if that's flamebait, ask yourself this: Q: "What's the difference between a blue-eyed spammer and a brown-eyed spammer?" A: The blue-eyed spammer is a quart low. The flamebait modder is a blue-eyed spammer.

Bite me, spammer. Have the stones to show your face.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Ucklak]

I have no idea why I got marked as troll because the intent is definitely not as a troll.

10% is the figure that has been floating around as to why spam increases. You're not getting spam because some script kiddie compromised an email server.
You get spam because:
-your email has been sold
-your email has been harvested
-your email was once hosted on a public Exchange server (2000 and below)

Marketers (the bad guys) sell your email in bulk to whoever wants to buy them just like the old mailing address label days. (Remember the chain letters that you used to get about moving your address up one notch and send to 20 people and send $5 to the previous person and that person sends you a mailing list?)
In today's infomercial soup, 'You too can be a successful internet marketer without leaving the comfort of your home. Earn thousands while your websites do the work that we set up for you.'

And all that is is just reselling the same damn old email list from years ago to people for $29.99, $49.99 or other.

I know the 2% because I'm in that type of marketing; print and internet. I do email blasts too but mine are legit (not V1agraa or C 1 a l 1 s) and we get a healthier return rate up to %40. I don't count ours but the normal return on mass market Email blasts is a health 10%.
That's the healthy HTML formatted cheap software or Viagra ones that actually lead you to a site with a shopping cart. That's 10%.

$10,000 is the cost of a normal print mailer to be sent in bulk mail. Ever see those 20% off at Bed, Bath, and Beyond? 2-3% return

$6,000 is a figure told to me personally by a spammer. $7,000 by another.
They wanted to rent rackspace with us and they'd pay $6,000 which is what they were paying in California. They would furnish their own server. I said no way.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[gromitcode]

spam email has never had a 10% success rate, it doesn't even have a 1% success rate. spam sits in the .1 to .01% success rate.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[dvaldenaire]

>>If he can make one $50 sale per 100 emails, then he's still in the green.

not really "in the green" - you mean, he can pay the fine. But sending 2G spams is not as free as you may think. Somehow you got to pay for this.

Anyway, ads and spam are alike. It's extremely difficult to determine if the are efficient. Guess who is happy from that ?

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Isofarro]

Yeah, you're right that it has nothing to do with sales, but you're wrong that's it just because "they can." They do it because "they make money."

As I understand it, spammers make their money by charging business a fee for sending out spam on their behalf. That way, the spammer gets a prenegotiated upfront fee, and not a fee based on sales resulting from the spam.

I guess the problem is that businesses are falling for the myth that because spam is prevalent there must be sales in it - so they co-opt a spammer's services. How many businesses are repeat buyers of spam services?

According to the article, a joint statement included a statement from Richter that he is not a spammer. So why settle for $7 million? Is that a desperate move on Richter's part, or a result of a calculation that court costs would far outweight the paltry $7 million?

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Anonymous Coward]

If your ideas were adopted, I could put some people out of business pretty easily by spamming in their name. Maybe I could take payments from their competitors?

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[mxs]

While your thoughts may be in the right direction, they are still wrong, at least from anecdotal evidence (that's worth nothing, but neither are theories without any support from facts or statistics; and even those are of questionable value).

Case in point : About a year ago, I had the lovely distinction of being on the receiving end of a joe-job (i.e. a LOT of spam apparently originating from my own eMail address -- fraudulently, of course). As such I had the privilege of seeing how exactly that spam run unfolded.

I went to the site advertized in the mail and poked around a bit. Low and behold, the directory indexes were turned on, and there was no index.html ... Also, there was a cute little file called "database.db". When I first looked at it, it was virtually empty (there was a test string in there).
I reported the site to the webhoster it used and the various upstreams listed in whois. Nothing was done, unfortunately. Spam-bounces kept rolling in, procmail had quite a bit to do to weed out the automatic responses. I also got lots of threats. Heck, one of those idiots even called me.

Either way, a few days later I rechecked the site. It was still up, the directory was still readable. Only this time, the database.db was substantially bigger. The site sold some herbs or pills or whatever it was they sold and solicited email, address, and credit card details. All those were present, in plaintext, in the database.db file. Thing is, in just three days, that site seems to have accumulated several hundred orders of $50+ each, as witnessed by the personal details and credit card numbers present in that file.

I sent that file to mastercard and visa; Never heard back from them. (If I can find that file, so can countless others) The site was gone the week after (i.e. the next time I checked), but my guess would be that this particular spamrun was rather successful. $10000+ is a lot of dough.

So ... Unless things have drastically changed (and I won't assert they haven't), spam does make money. And it won't really stop either -- there are new users on the internet every single day, and lots of them. They have not yet been burned, they have not yet been educated, heck they may not yet have much spam in their inbox. Combine that with insecurity about the size of their and the "anonymity" of the internet, and you have a goldmill. That is, if you beat out all the competition in the spam-market, which, I would assume, is a cut-throat business.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[Anonymous Coward]

"$6,000 is a figure told to me personally by a spammer. $7,000 by another.
They wanted to rent rackspace with us and they'd pay $6,000 which is what they were paying in California. They would furnish their own server. I said no way."

Who said they have to host in the US?

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[CrashRoX]

I would actually think Bed, Bath, and Beyond's return rate would be slightly higher. Considering any bulk mailer they are sending is probablly to an existing database of customers. Granted the random coupons in the circular may be more along the line of a 2%-3% return rate. But targeted mailers usually are higher then "unsolicited" marketing. Plus everyone could use a new set of silk sheets.

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[LifesABeach]

Lets look at the facts.

A bad guy sues a bad guy. The winner is a bad guy. The losing bad guy pays the legal costs. Nowhere are the good guys. The bad guys that profited from the other bad guys are not litigated against.

What's really confusing is that the good guys think that by sticking a RFID chip up my rear will cause me to not be a bad guy? Or better yet, if I don't stick a RFID chip up my rear, then I'm a bad guy!

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[ebyrob]

Good point, I should quit mixing up dollars and cents next time. Guess it's one $50 sale per 10,000 spams (that are prosecutable). yikes!

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[ebyrob]

I certainly wouldn't have marked either of your posts as troll, but I'm a little unclear on some of your numbers.

I'd posited two numbers, one based on the cost of litigation for this case and a guess at $50 as a common spam price-point. As I understand it, one of those would have been a 1% success rate, and the other would have been a .1% success rate. I don't see where you're getting 10% from anything I said in my post. (Of course, it was pointed out by an AC I was mixing up dollars and sense so the first number should have been .01% instead of 1%, making spam appear much more lucrative even given the lawsuits.)

Also I don't wholly agree with:
You're not getting spam because some script kiddie compromised an email server

Compromised hosts makes filtering a lot more difficult, and I use filtering therefore I get *more* spam in my inbox due to those compromised hosts...

Re:Spam Translation - Read the little font

[slazzy]

I wish that all email clients would block URLS from being displayed in emails when the sender is unknown (not in the users address book). Creating an extra step for the end user to "Display potential virus/malware from unknown website" would probably cut down on spammers income by 90% and with lawsuits like this might make spamming unprofitable.

I wish they would stop settling

[Anonymous Coward]

and send some people to jail AND take their money
simply taking their money isn't good enough as they can afford it so it becomes a cost of doing business

untill they slam them in jail nothing will change

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[stinerman]

I don't think that being a spammer should get you locked up, but I do agree that the penalty should be stiffer. As you said, if the penalty is just a cost of doing business, then the penalty needs to be increased. IMO, the penalty should be about double whatever you made off of spamming. The penalty is then doubled for each subsequent offense.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think that being a spammer should get you locked up...

You're right, they should be hung....

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[cashman73]

Having to give Micro$oft even more money ought to be punishment enough,... ;-)

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[pete6677]

That wouldn't necessarily work, because people would just spam under a corporate name and then bankrupt the company when caught. Even if the penalty applied to them personally, it would be hard to collect and bankruptcy would probably get rid of it. For serious cases of spamming, especially if the spam is fraudulent or sent via stolen internet access, jail time must be a possibility.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[Anonymous Coward]

What about community service?

I would like to see more alternatives to jail; I feel like physical restraint is only appropriate for violent crimes. Not only should the debt to society for a crime be punishment but also some effort of good will---violent criminals get locked up so they can't threaten physical harm. Tax evasion cannot be helped at all by imprisonment, for example.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[Taevin]

You can be hung like a horse too, for only $99.95! Click here and order today...

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[Elwood P Dowd]

Settling has nothing to do with jail time. This was a civil suit. You can't go to jail due to any decision in civil court. You go to jail for a crime. Clearly the laws are not in place to jail someone for spamming in New York.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[truthsearch]

Send people to jail for sending email? C'mon...

Make the cost of doing business the entire business. Sue the company out of existance and, if their company is set up in such a way that allows it, sue the spammer into bancruptcy.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[DanielNS84]

That AC totally set himself up for that one...

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[Maestro4k]

I don't think that being a spammer should get you locked up Why not? We give people jail time for hacking, for stealing (even petty shoplifting) and spammers use hacked machines, stealing their bandwidth and resources. Even if they didn't do it themselves they _KNOW_ that the access they're buying isn't legit (if you're legit why do you need to buy dial-up lines & servers from some far away foreign country to send your spam for example.)

I'm certainly not saying they should get as much jail time as a murderer but they _are_ criminals and they should be treated as such. They're not just petty criminals either, think about how much of your own personal time has been spent cleaning up after spammers (and those that support spamming) and you'll see the dollar amount adds up fast. There's plenty to indicate that organized crime is now involved in spamming and phishing (more the latter) as well. This isn't a petty crime anymore and small-time punishments aren't appropriate.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[ArsonSmith]

fines need to be switched from a dollar ammount to a percentage amount. Instead of a fine get an income tax rais.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have a problem with someone going to prison for fraud or cracking into someone's system. That's different from someone going to prison for spamming. You generally shouldn't go to prison for speeding, but if you're speeding away from a bank you just robbed...

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[fmaxwell]

Send people to jail for sending email? C'mon...

No, send them to jail for stealing bandwidth and storage. Send the to jail for harassing people by repeatedly sending the same f***ing ads for Viagra, Cialis, penis enlargement, debt consolidation, etc. Send them to jail for interfering with peoples' businesses. Send them to jail for sending ads for penis enlargement to seven year old girls. And send them to jail for a long time.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[ebyrob]

I would like to see more alternatives to jail; I feel like physical restraint is only appropriate for violent crimes.

That's fine, after we find good alternatives to jail for fraud, theft and shoplifting we can talk about doing the same for spammers. Until then, lock the bastards up.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[ScentCone]

Send people to jail for sending email? C'mon...

A central part of the suit was the fact that the spam was actually fraudulant. False claims, phony unsubscribe mechanisms, etc. You do that sort of crap a few billion times, that's exhibiting enough contempt for civil society that jail seems perfectly reasonable.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[hackstraw]

As you said, if the penalty is just a cost of doing business, then the penalty needs to be increased. IMO, the penalty should be about double whatever you made off of spamming. The penalty is then doubled for each subsequent offense.

Basic math and courtroom logic keeps fines at or below the amount of cash on hand.

Being that the settlement had nothing to do with any agreements to Mr. Richter's future behavior, the judgment was only for compensation for "damages", if his fines were 100% greater than his bank account, what do you think he is going to do to make up the fines?

Hint -- odds are more careful spam that can avoid future lawsuits.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[HUADPE]

The problem with trying to take all cases to trial is that you can, and often do, lose the trial. Technology trials are long, costly (you have to hire expert witnesses to inform non-slashdot using jurors) and can result in a not guilty verdict. The advantage of getting a settlement is that it is over, and cannot be appealed. Oh, and this case could never have reslted in jail time because it was a lawsuit, not a criminal prosecution.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[man_of_mr_e]

Spammers aren't "stealing" anything any more than, say, lounging around in a park all day is stealing. They're using a publicly provided service with no effective barriers or restrictions on it's use. There are no posted signs that say "keep off the grass" or realistic ways to prevent anyone from doing so. Even worse, the majority of the internet community is against mechanisms that WOULD put barriers up.

Frankly, if you want to live on the frontier, you're gonna have to put up with lawlessness and barbarians.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, are we talking about spammers or Microsoft?

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[SeventyBang]

Why?

If you were out of work, out of money, and looking at defaulting on bills...and spam looked as a way out (aside from working at McDonald's or Wendy's, which is honorable work), which would deter you more: 1) paying a substantial fine out of the cache of money you receive; 2) going to prison for 1-2 years, bunking with a guy who insists upon calling you "Betty the Bitch" and when you hear him read a letter from his mom, you find out she is complaining about all of the spam she gets when she tries to send email to his grandmother. What will you tell him you're locked up for?

Now, Betty the Bitch: which of those two things are a stronger deterrent for you to become a spammer?

p.s. Ponder how much money (remember, time is money as are resources) are wasted cleaning up this stuff in the workplace? How much money or physical assets would someone have to steal (from that business) to be put behind bars? If you wasted as much time in toto at work as a spammer costs your business, how long would you remain employed?

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[jcr]

I don't think that being a spammer should get you locked up

Spammers are thieves. The fact that they commit their theft in extremely small increments, from millions of victims doesn't change the nature of their crime.

The purpose of imprisonment (or any punishment, for that matter) is to deter a repeat offense. If a spammer can just pay a fine and continue in business, then the penalty is pointless.

-jcr

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[jcr]

Hear, hear!

I propose death by papercuts for spamming, but I don't think the legislature is ready to do it.

-jcr

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[fmaxwell]

They're using a publicly provided service with no effective barriers or restrictions on it's use.

No, the "public" isn't providing my mail server. The public didn't pay for the server, the software, the bandwidth, or the storage. I have effective (though not 100% effective) barriers to spam and I have posted the restrictions against sending spam to my domain. I also have less than 100% effective defense against other forms of trespass, but it doesn't mean that I should just put up with trespassers.

There are no posted signs that say "keep off the grass" or realistic ways to prevent anyone from doing so.

My domain is anti-spam.org. If that's not enough, my home page includes the following notice:

anti-spam.org specifically prohibits the transmission of spam (unsolicited bulk e-mail) to our network and considers spam e-mail a form of computer trespass. Spam constitutes a theft of our limited bandwidth and storage and interferes with our use of our Internet connection.

How much more obvious can I make it?

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[man_of_mr_e]

You seriously don't understand the term "public" do you? You are connected to a public network, and you are willingly accepting connections from public SMTP servers. This is no different than a shop keeper running a "public" store in which people are indisicriminatly allowed to shop.

Posting something to a web site on a domain is like saying "Well, I posted my "No Trespassing signs in my bedroom, what do you mean you didn't see it"? It's a different mechanism, in a different place.

But all that is really beside the point. You willingly let anyone connect to your server. In fact, that's its very purpose. If you invite the world to your doorstep, but don't want some people there, you best have a way to stop them.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, there's no more white collar corporate crime any more. It all ended when Ken Lay went to jail. Just like that.

We need to start cutting off fucking toes and shit. No joke. That will get the job done. These fuckers need to lose and ear or a finger or hand. Forget jail. They can go free. But less a leg or eye.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[fmaxwell]

You seriously don't understand the term "public" do you?

Obviously, I understand it a lot better than you do. My mail server is not a "publicly provided service." Ever heard of "trespass to chattels"?

You are connected to a public network

Your driveway is connected to a public network of streets. Does that mean that the public has full use of your driveway?

and you are willingly accepting connections from public SMTP servers.

Some, yes. But I don't willingly accept connections from those wishing to deliver spam. I may not be able to detect and block them with 100% accuracy, but it doesn't mean that I choose to let them connect.

This is no different than a shop keeper running a "public" store in which people are indisicriminatly allowed to shop.

By your argument, the shopkeeper "willingly" let in shoplifters. That he could not tell they were shoplifters apparently should not matter because his door wasn't a magic door that could decide who should enter and who should be kept out. So, therefore, he allowed them to steal from him.

Posting something to a web site on a domain is like saying "Well, I posted my "No Trespassing signs in my bedroom, what do you mean you didn't see it"? It's a different mechanism, in a different place.

Wrong. It is an accepted means by which domains convey policy information, including information about their e-mail policy. Unlike your example, the policy for my domain is prominently posted for all, not hidden away out of public view. Your argument is like saying that a "no soliciting" sign didn't count because it was on a shop window rather than the door.

But all that is really beside the point. You willingly let anyone connect to your server.

No, I willingly let connect only those servers which are attempting to deliver something other than spam. The others connect to my server against my will. If I DDoS your web server, are you saying that it's okay because it "willingly" accepted the connections?

If you invite the world to your doorstep, but don't want some people there, you best have a way to stop them.

You mistake a sidewalk as an open invitation to the world. More reasonable people do not.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[drsquare]

Some, yes. But I don't willingly accept connections from those wishing to deliver spam. I may not be able to detect and block them with 100% accuracy, but it doesn't mean that I choose to let them connect.

To use the wireless connection, people with wireless connections don't willingly accept connections from those wishing to wardrive. They may not be able to detect and block them with 100% accuracy, but it doesn't mean that they choose to let them connect.

It seems that people here choose their reasoning based on their preferences: Slashdotters like hacking wireless networks, but don't like spam. Whatever happened to principles?

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[CRC'99]

No, the "public" isn't providing my mail server.

Correct. You put it online making it available to the public for people to send you messages.

I have effective (though not 100% effective) barriers to spam and I have posted the restrictions against sending spam to my domain.

So you have solved your problem of spam? Great! If you're complaing about the extra overhead, maybe you shouldn't have put up a mail server in the first place. The saying 'if you cant put up with the heat, get out of the kitchen' comes to mind here.

My domain is anti-spam.org. If that's not enough, my home page includes the following notice *snip*

That's all well and good, but did you put it in a locked filing cabinet, in a disused lavatory, in the basement? - oh, and include the 'beware of the lepard' sign as well - because both have equal chance of being read.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, you just don't get it. Besides this talk about driveways and such is like comparing apples and oranges.

I get a lot of [real paper] ads and leaflets in my mailbox.
The only legal (or otherwise accepted policy) here NOT to receive those ads is to put a sticker or whatever directly on the mailbox, so that the person attempting to deliver the ads will notice it and understand the message just when attempting to toss in the papers.

Nobody wouldn't expect putting a billboard next to my mailbox boasting all kinds of announcements of how I feel about things, to work. Also, if my name was Bill Noadsplease and I was living on Noadstreet, I wouldn't expect the ad flood stop. That's just ridiculous.

I think you mistake your mailbox for your driveway. Completely different concept, different laws.

Spamming is just too easy and cheap and the laws and e-mail standard are not prepared to tackle the issue. IMHO, that's the problem in a nut shell.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[loraksus]

Hanged, not hung. English is awesome for how it sticks to rules.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[nihaopaul]

you need to put that in the TXT record for anti-spam.org

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[stinerman]

if his fines were 100% greater than his bank account, what do you think he is going to do to make up the fines?

Put a lien on his property until he pays it all off (the spam profits had to go somewhere) and charge the standard APR for defaulted accounts as he pays it off.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[fmaxwell]

To use the wireless connection, people with wireless connections don't willingly accept connections from those wishing to wardrive. They may not be able to detect and block them with 100% accuracy, but it doesn't mean that they choose to let them connect.

Yes, they do willingly accept them. With WPA, restriction by MAC address, SSID broadcast disable, and other easy methods, they can reject unknown connections. If you want your friends only to use your WiFi, you can give them the passphrase and SSID. That's like giving them your e-mail address.

It seems that people here choose their reasoning based on their preferences: Slashdotters like hacking wireless networks, but don't like spam. Whatever happened to principles?

If you put an open box of donuts on a conference room table at work, then you don't have a right to complain when people eat them -- even if some of the people are ones who you don't like. That's what an open WiFi connection is like. Put those same donuts in a bag in your desk drawer, then you have very good reason to complain if someone rifles through your desk to get them. That's what hacking a secured WiFi connection is like.

But a mail server is more like an inbox on your desk. The fact that nothing can physically prevent someone from dumping an ashtray into your inbox doesn't mean that you welcome it. That's what spam is like. It's taking advantage of the fact that there's no way to completely guard the input to a mail server while still having it be useful.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[fmaxwell]

Man, you just don't get it.

Apparently I do given how many times I've been modded up in this thread.

I get a lot of [real paper] ads and leaflets in my mailbox.

And unlike spam, you don't bear most of the cost for delivery.

The only legal (or otherwise accepted policy) here NOT to receive those ads is to put a sticker or whatever directly on the mailbox, so that the person attempting to deliver the ads will notice it and understand the message just when attempting to toss in the papers.

You obviously don't live in the U.S. In the U.S., it is illegal for anyone other than a postal carrier to put anything into a mailbox.

I think you mistake your mailbox for your driveway. Completely different concept, different laws.

No, I do not. The post to which I was responding claimed that connecting your mail server to a public network was a defacto invitation for the public to use it. I countered that a driveway is also connected to a public network (of streets) and there's no implied invitation for the world to use it. As to the laws, mail servers are protected by trespass to chattels laws and driveways are protected by property trespassing laws.

Nobody wouldn't expect putting a billboard next to my mailbox boasting all kinds of announcements of how I feel about things, to work. Also, if my name was Bill Noadsplease and I was living on Noadstreet, I wouldn't expect the ad flood stop. That's just ridiculous.

You remind me of the children who close their eyes and swing their fists saying 'if I can't see you, it's not my fault if I hit you'. Web servers are where notices about privacy policies, e-mail policies, contact information, etc. is stored.

Are you a spammer? You sure sound like one. You don't want notices posted on web pages to be binding. You don't want notices sent out by mail servers to be binding. You don't want a clear and obvious sign like a domain name of anti-spam.org to be binding on the spammers. Just where, if anywhere, should such notices be placed?

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[fmaxwell]

Correct. You put it online making it available to the public for people to send you messages.

No, I put it online so that parties I explicitly invited to contact me could do so.

So you have solved your problem of spam?

No, I have greatly reduced it.

That's all well and good, but did you put it in a locked filing cabinet, in a disused lavatory, in the basement? - oh, and include the 'beware of the lepard' sign as well - because both have equal chance of being read.

The notice is prominently placed on the homepage in large letters. I did my due diligence and posted it in the most logical and traditional place. You remind me of someone who says "I was looking at my feet, so your no-trespassing sign at eye-level doesn't apply to me."

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[drsquare]

That's ridiculous reasoning. Why don't you just admit that you're chosing your arguments because you like unauthorised wireless usage and don't like spam? I find it very unlikey that the slashdotters' opinions are so conveniently the only ones which can be justified logically, as if Slashdot was the haven for intelligence and reason.

As for the inbox/table analogy, a wireless server is as much in your computer as a mail server. I wasn't talking about secured wireless networks but default settings. If you're default mail setting is to accept all mail from everyone, you're no better than someone with a wireless connection set to receive everyone.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[fmaxwell]

That's ridiculous reasoning. Why don't you just admit that you're chosing your arguments because you like unauthorised wireless usage and don't like spam? I find it very unlikey that the slashdotters' opinions are so conveniently the only ones which can be justified logically, as if Slashdot was the haven for intelligence and reason.

Logically debate your points or bow out, but don't resort to ad-hominem attacks and insults. I've got better things to do with my time than engage in that.

I don't "like unauthorised wireless usage." I think that broad WiFi coverage benefits society and I don't want people scared to use an open WiFi connection that I, a business, or another individual chooses to make available. Since WiFi is so easily secured against casual usage, it's easy to close down WiFi if you don't want to share. Thus I believe that the assumption should be that an open WiFi connection is defacto authorization for law-abiding usage (e.g., no using it to send death threats, trade kiddie porn, fileshare copyrighted material, etc.).

If it was equally easy for a e-mail user to refuse all spam at connection time, then you would have an analogous situation. But you don't. There are no magic settings that an e-mail user, or even e-mail administrator, can set in order to block all spam without interfering with non-spam e-mail.

As for the inbox/table analogy, a wireless server is as much in your computer as a mail server.

Huh? Most wireless access points are hardware-based routers that aren't "in" the owner's computer.

I wasn't talking about secured wireless networks but default settings.

I'm talking about what people have easy control of. With a WiFi router you have the ability to easily secure it with a few clicks of a mouse.

If you're default mail setting is to accept all mail from everyone, you're no better than someone with a wireless connection set to receive everyone.

My mail server refuses mail from Argentina, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Turkey. It refuses email from dynamic IP addresses (dul.dnsbl.sorbs.net). It rejects mail from spammers and exploited systems listed on sbl-xbl.spamhaus.org. It refuses e-mail from wanadoo-fr because of the barrage of viruses, spam, and the unresponsive abuse department there. It refuses mail purporting to be from multiple domains used by spammers. It rejects mail from servers with no PTR (reverse DNS record). It refuses e-mail when an SPF record indicates that the sending system is not authorized to send on behalf of the purported sender's domain. It refuses e-mail when the sender address is on a non-existent domain. You want to lecture me some more on locking down mail servers? I've blocked just about everything that I can without interfering with the receipt of non-spam e-mail.

That some scumball spammer still occasionally gets a message through after 50-some rejected attempts doesn't mean that he should go unpunished for it.

Re:I wish they would stop settling

[Anonymous Coward]

HHahah, you discovered his near-100% antispam system, a public disclaimer and now a TXT record :D

7 million

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you think 7 million is an excesive ammount to be paid jsut for spam?

Re:7 million

[sTalking_Goat]

How much did he make a year at the peak of his spamming. I'm guessing it's a lot more than 7 million.

Re:7 million

[bryan8m]

I can understand how it might be excessive for the average person to pay but he's probably bringing in much more than that from spamming and he's also probably costed businesses much much more than that from clogging networks and such.

Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, where's my cut?

Re:Hrm

[eobanb]

1) write insecure OS
2) spammers create botnets from your OS
3) sue spammers
4) profit!!!

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are your lawyers?

Re:Hrm

[pilgrim23]

Indeed; It seems to me that prior to any Microsoft operating system based machines, or Microsoft product running machines being widely used on the internet, the rate of spam was small. So, it would seem: Windows boxes join the internet, Spam increases beyond all understanding, Microsoft makes 7 million.... They get the loot, we STILL get the spam. What are they doing right and I am doing wrong?

Re:Hrm

[timtwobuck]

ah the elusive third step has finally been unmasked!

Re:Hrm

[CKnight]

Oh, you sued him as well? In that case you are more than entitled to your cut.

If however, it was Microsoft that took the spammer to court (which I'm pretty sure it was), with their own money(which I'm pretty sure it was), then why the heck do you think you're entitled to anything? Because you've been spammed?

Microsft has something for all their customers who have been spammed; some advice: Be careful who you give your god damn email address.

Re:Hrm

[jellomizer]

it is from the 1/4 cent saved on every copy of longhorn err um vista that you would have paid for

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir are an arse-hat. MS sued the spammer on the premise that their customers suffered because of the actions of the spammer. Microsoft should not be able to benefit from their own mistakes causing problems for their clients. Is MS going to use this money to write better code and better documentation, so that machines are more secure? Though this still won't change the fact that Windows boxes are so easily zombied.

Re:Hrm

[snafued]

Microsoft is compiling a list, send this story to 10 people you know, ask them to do the same. When Microsoft receives enough emails, they'll pay each person on the list a cut of the bucks....

Re:Hrm

[Taevin]

What are they doing right and I am doing wrong?

Running Windows?

Re:Hrm

[jimicus]

Sitting in a bank account somewhere in Nigeria. Send me your bank account details and I'll have it wired across.

Re:Hrm

[nacturation]

Indeed; It seems to me that prior to any Microsoft operating system based machines, or Microsoft product running machines being widely used on the internet, the rate of spam was small. So, it would seem: Windows boxes join the internet, Spam increases beyond all understanding, Microsoft makes 7 million....

One more time... correlation does not imply causation. If every person on a Windows box today were running a secure Linux distribution, the spammers wouldn't care -- they would still see that as being "X million users" they could send email to. The only thing using bots gives them is a better ability to avoid IP-based spam filters, that's it. Besides, the bulk of the high-volume bulk mailers (whether fully legitimate or not) send their email from unix-based systems... eg: running PowerMTA which works on Linux/Solaris in addition to Windows.

Re:Hrm

[nizo]

Just post your email address and I can send you the informative unsolicited email I just got: "Join the ru$h to $ue $pammer$! All the information you will need to collect million$!!! Only $9.95 for our handy how-to information packet!!!! Order your$ today!!!!!!"

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I think the lawsuit was from an MSN/Hotmail standpoint. So MS was suing for their direct losses in bandwidth, infrastructure, etc. Granted you could argue that a portion of their losses are a result of zombied Windows machines, but as pointed out elsewhere there are many emails being sourced from *nix based machines as well. You can't really think that a court of law would allow a major corporation to sue on behalf of their customers. The injured parties are the ones responsible for bringing suit. When people group together to bring suit that's a class. I don't think that MS is in the business of law, and they never asked me to join a class even though I have a Hotmail account so I'm guessing they're trying to recoup the costs I mentioned.

Re:Hrm

[gstoddart]

I think it went more like ...

1) write insecure OS
2) profit
3) write new version of insecure OS
4) profit
5) make yet another version of insecure OS
6) profit
7) make yet another version of insecure OS
8) profit
9) spammers create botnets from your OS
10) profit
11) sue spammers
12) profit!!!

Re:Hrm

[jjr1]

It's too bad he didn't have as high quality representation as Microsoft or he could have just given them 7 million worth of loan consolidation advice and green tea.

Re:Hrm

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't as silly as it sounds. MS are effectively just cashing in on the spam market in a legal way - by extorting a certain percentage of the profits. It's also going to be more profitable for them to keep doing this and making spam-friendly platforms.

Basically: Why should they work to lock out a source of (almost free) profit?

I wonder how spam-friendly Vista and its sequels will be.

Let's See... $7million divvied by...

[Stanistani]

Waiting for my share of the money...
Waiting...
Waiting...

Ah, Dang.

Missing information

[crimethinker]

How much money did this slimeball make at the spamming? If ( profit > penalty ), then more like him will step up to take his place. I personally like the "Russian Solution." (Yes, I'm aware that the beating death was unrelated to spamming, but it's still fun to pretend it was because of one too many spams.)

-paul

Re:Missing information

[avdp]

This is a single civil that's being settled. Anybody else can file their own civil suit againsts him (including every single ISP in the world, like Microsoft did), not to mantion he could get sued criminally by the US government and/or any of the 50 states. He's far from the off the hook on his past behavior. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few days there is news of a new lawsuit against him. Think death of a thousand papercut here.

Re:Missing information

[SeventyBang]

Not anybody. Reread U-CAN-SPAM. It focuses upon AGs and ISPs. Some states have started trying to rework their laws.

To make it start hurting spammers, two things need to be done: 1) have the states permit individuals go after the spammers; 2) a long arm provision, forcing the opposition to come to your home turf to deal with the suit. You might win by summary judgement or by default (the spammers rarely show up).

The problem becomes acquiring your bounty. That's where the collection agency comes into play. You didn't have the money before, so getting less isn't going to hurt you. Collection agencies are legal pit bulls. Once the prospect of collecting on a legal judgement is on their plate, look out. The spammers stand the risk of going through the process of declaring bankruptcy and reorganizing, finding the hits on their credit rating, or paying up.

Re:Missing information

[avdp]

Sure anybody can file suit, this is the US of A. I didn't say however you will win. Arguably forcing him to defend himself (even if it's one brief to ask for a dismissal) will cost him something. Death of a thousand papercut I guess. Not that I advocate meritless suits.

The wrong example

[phpm0nkey]

As entrepreneurs go, Richter is scummy and opportunistic, but spammers come a lot worse. Richter at least made an attempt to operate openly and within a feasible interpretation of the law, instead of setting up shop in China and exploiting zombie networks distribute his spam.

From a legal standpoint, this is a nice victory for Microsoft. I hope they achieve their deterrent effect by making the financial incentives to spam more dubious. I'm afraid, though, that they will only succeed in driving hardcore spammers deeper underground, with Richter serving as an example of the dangers of treating your spam operation like a legitimate business.

Re:The wrong example

[gorbachev]

" As entrepreneurs go, Richter is scummy and opportunistic, but spammers come a lot worse"

No, they don't.

Richter has done it all. He's done every dirty trick in the business, including spamming for a fake 9/11 charity and pocketing the money for himself.

Spamming using open proxies and zombies: check
Bulletproof hosting in China: check

About the only thing he has NOT done is hijacking unused netblocks to get anonymous Internet routing.

He may NOW be all "legit" and shit, but the money running his current spam empire has all come from various illegal activities.

The only thing different with him and your garden variety chickenboner is that he is somewhat successful in scamming businesses to buy spamming services from him. He gets repeat business, most spammers don't.

Re:The wrong example

[hackstraw]

Richter at least made an attempt to operate openly and within a feasible interpretation of the law, instead of setting up shop in China and exploiting zombie networks distribute his spam.

Laws and law enforcement are much different in the US vs China and other well known spam countries. On my systemwide spam filter, I about 50% of the spam that gets caught gets hit with a spam rule that checks for urls that are based on servers in China and Korea. I believe its either the best or one of the best rules I get, aside from basic ones like HTML email messages and bayes scores and whatever.

Back to our lovely friend Scott Richter.

So, being the well behaved spammer that he is, he barely complies with US laws, and instead of immediately going to jail or prison for not complying, get gets slapped with a $7 million dollar lawsuit against him.

I don't know or care which Mr. Richter prefers, but I would rather him be in prison, but being that he appears to have at least complied to the letter of the law, a $7 mil judgment is OK.

Re:The wrong example

[avdp]

This is a civil lawsuit (not sure what Spitzer's exact involvement was in this, other than PR). You don't go to jail when you loose a civil lawsuit. The worste that could have happen to Richter is to have to pay more money.

Settling this case does not prevent him for getting sued criminally by either the federal government, or any of the 50 states (except maybe New York at this point). That is if he broke any criminal law, which I think he has (and so says the article).

Re:The wrong example

[Anonymous Coward]

What I don't understand is why isn't he in prison? Hasn't he committed millions of dollars worth of fraud? Where is the enforcement?

Re:The wrong example

[Anonymous Coward]

>As entrepreneurs go, Richter is scummy and opportunistic, but spammers come a lot worse. Richter at least made an attempt to operate openly and within a feasible interpretation of the law ...

damn liberal apologist! wont somebody please think of the children?! and so on...

Re:The wrong example

[jcr]

He's done every dirty trick in the business, including spamming for a fake 9/11 charity and pocketing the money for himself.

Holy crap! Why isn't he doing time for that?

-jcr

Re:The wrong example

[Anonymous Coward]

"Spamming using open proxies and zombies: check
Bulletproof hosting in China: check

About the only thing he has NOT done is hijacking unused netblocks to get anonymous Internet routing."

Actually he did do this. [used to be forced to work for a company that dealt with SR until I quit over ethical dispute]

Re:The wrong example

[tanner_andrews]

I hope they achieve their deterrent effect by making the financial incentives to spam more dubious. I'm afraid, though, that they will only succeed in driving hardcore spammers deeper underground,

I'd be happy to drive them all to Red China. It is relatively easy to find netblocks that belong to Red China, and I just block them by reflex whenever a new one shows up.

A worse outcome would be for these people to not be driven to Red China/Brazil/Russia, but instead to be scattered in 172849 different little spam-havens (ev1/uunet/whatever) that are hard to find and detect, and which keep moving around.

Why Microsoft?

[SlayerofGods]

Shouldn't 'we' as the true victims get some of that?

Re:Why Microsoft?

[Otter]

Why Microsoft?

Because they sued him and you didn't.

Re:Why Microsoft?

[SlayerofGods]

But he was also sued by the New York Attorney General.
I always thought the government was 'for the people'
My bad

Re:Why Microsoft?

[Otter]

1) Do you live in New York? If not, their government isn't for you.

2) The story here is based on Microsoft's press release, describing their end of the settlement. Elliot Spitzer is busy right now, lessee, fining a radio station for a promotion in which participants, usually young women, took turns violently slapping each other.

Re:Why Microsoft?

[ArsonSmith]

Government

it use to be:
by the people, for the people.

change that to:
Buy the people, for itself.

Re:Why Microsoft?

[hackstraw]

Shouldn't 'we' as the true victims get some of that?

If he has any money left, feel free to sue him too.

Microsoft has one of the busiest mail servers in the world (hotmail), and they probably have more evidence, data, and problems, legal funds and motivation than you have with Mr. Richter.

You might want to start up a class action lawsuit with other victims like yourself. It gets more lawyers interested, gets courts more interested, and gets bigger monetary penalties against the defendant. You and others may get $13 or so upon winning the suit, and the lawyers should be equally as happy or more.

Go for it!

Re:Why Microsoft?

[jiushao]

This is a good thing for everyone since it sets more precedent. Now people with less large and competent lawyer teams than Microsoft (read: everyone) has a better chance to sue and win.

Confused

[niskel]

Everyone gets spammed and somehow Microsoft gets $7M. How does that work?

Re:Confused

[scovetta]

Microsoft probably spent $20M in order to sue the guy. I'm sure that Bill is happy they won, but not because their profit this year will be $7M more.

Re:Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

Who should get the money then? You perhaps?
How much did you pay the lawyers?

Re:Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

I sure hope not. It settled ;). He probably spent 1 million or less. Especially considering his company has to have lawyers on hire anyway; might as well give them something to do.

Re:Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

It works like lawyers aren't free. If they were free, MS probably wouldn't have been able to bankrupt him in the first place.

Re:Confused

[nacturation]

Everyone gets spammed and somehow Microsoft gets $7M. How does that work?

Microsoft sued Richter for the spam that Microsoft received and had to deal with -- ie: through MSN, Hotmail, etc. If you, running your own ISP, also received spam from Richter then you are free to sue as well. Setup and issue a call for donating to your legal prosecution fund and let us know how it goes.

Re:Confused

[rm999]

If this story was about gmail:

"This is great. Damn spammers!" /just sayin'

Re:Confused

[stud9920]

That's why in Europe, legal fees get paid back by the losing party.

Sad thing is

[Sycraft-fu]

If he was willing to settle for $7 million that means that he's made at least that much, and probably significantly more, spamming :P:P

Why...

[johndierks]

Why exactly does Microsoft deserve the $7 million?

Re:Why...

[jsveiga]

For taking $7 millions away from a spammer.

If you take 10 bucks from a spammer, you only deserve 10 bucks.

Mistaken Identity

[Kloog]

s/Michael/Scott/ I know I was confused for a bit when I first read the summary.

M$ & money...

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article: "The goal remains for us to separate spammers from their money"

Shouldn't that be "everyone" and not "spammers"?

YES!

[3CRanch]

YES! This made my Microsoft stock go up by $0.000001! WooHoo!

What to do with the money...

[Tiberius_Fel]

From TFA:
Microsoft will reinvest all of the money, after legal expenses, including $5 million that will go to increase Internet enforcement efforts and expand technical and investigative support to help law enforcers to address computer-related crimes.

I presume this is marketingspeak for "prosecuting more spammers to get more money just like this." :P

(For the humour-impaired: I am not anti-MS, this is a joke.)

Re:What to do with the money...

[fritz1968]

I presume this is marketingspeak for "prosecuting more spammers to get more money just like this."

Interesting... Sounds a lot like SCO. The only difference is that MS actually won in court first.

He had $7M to pay the fine?

[ip_freely_2000]

Man oh man, I need to become a spammer. A good day for me is when I have 7 bucks, much less 7 million.

Crime pays, it seems.

Re:He had $7M to pay the fine?

[Anonymous Coward]

It does.

Back in '96, spamming was quite the thing to do.

I made $2mil over the course of 3 years by spamming. Was it wrong? Sure, but I still made my $, haha.

Needless to say, I don't really have to work another day of my life.

So yeah, crime does pay.

What makes M$ so special

[Will2k_is_here]

Why should Microsoft get all that money? Didn't he cause problems for many others as well?

Re:What makes M$ so special

[googly eyes]

They aren't special - every /.er knows that - but if you too owned an ISP (think hotmail and MSN) you could sue him to.

Besides they are just putting on a show for the government and the users to try and look like they are good guys. After all, they helped create the problem in the first place with bug ladden OS's.

Notable exception!

[bani]

Note that the settlement doesn't prevent richter from spamming.

From TFA:
Nevertheless, Richter said that he and his company had changed their e-mailing practices and pledged not to send spam to anyone who has not asked to be sent commercial e-mail.

So supposedly, from now on he will only be mailing to users who have "opted in". Hmm.. sounds familiar.

Re:Notable exception!

[Curate]

So supposedly, from now on he will only be mailing to users who have "opted in". Hmm.. sounds familiar.

Familiar to what? Your analogy and/or joke is not at all obvious, at least to me.

Re:Notable exception!

[Maestro4k]

Familiar to what? To what every spammer under the sun already tries to claim -- that you opted into their mailing list so they're not spamming you (even though the account receiving the spam has never been used anywhere or even listed anywhere). Richter himself made these claims, ended up settling for a rather hefty amount here, and is making them again. No bets on whether he keeps them this time or not.

Re:Notable exception!

[jimicus]

Nevertheless, Richter said that he and his company had changed their e-mailing practices and pledged not to send spam to anyone who has not asked to be sent commercial e-mail.

Well, in that case, it seems the most sensible course of action is:

To: Scott Richter <scott.richter@optinbig.com>
From: jimicus <postmaster@whitepost.org.uk>
Subject: Please stop spamming me!
 
Dear Scott,
 
Please accept this as an instruction to cease sending any form of unsolicited mail to [any address at the domain .... | the following email address ..... ]
 
This instruction overrides any requests to receive email from you, past, present and future.
 
Regards,

I'm sure if only 5% of slashdot readers do this there should be a noticeable effect.

Re:Notable exception!

[Mike Peel]

"I'm sure if only 5% of slashdot readers do this there should be a noticeable effect."

For one thing, it'd probably overload his mail servers with the sheer amount of emails he'd receive; Slashdotted through e-mail.

Re:Notable exception!

[jcr]

I'm sure if only 5% of slashdot readers do this there should be a noticeable effect.

Yeah, 5% of slashdotters would get their addresses harvested again.

-jcr

To consumers..

[tgrimley]

asserting that he had sent, or helped other spammers send, billions of e-mail messages to consumers

At first I was wondering why Microsoft gets the money, and whether they would keep it. What's the basis for this suit? It's not a class action, is it? Shouldn't the money be going to those consumers that were affected by it?

Granted the article mentions
Smith said that Microsoft will reinvest all of the money, after legal expenses, including $5 million that will go to increase Internet enforcement efforts and expand technical and investigative support to help law enforcers to address computer-related crimes.

But what does that really mean?

quote: separate spammers from their money

[MarkEst1973]

"The goal remains for us to separate spammers from their money," Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith told Reuters

He then added, "We do this by certifying all zombie machines through the Microsoft Genuine Advantage program. Only licensed copies of Windows will be used to send spam."

Re:quote: separate spammers from their money

[BaudKarma]

I thought Microsofts goal was to seperate pretty much everyone from their money, spammers or not.

they're not getting $7 million

[rich42]

the article says "agreed to pay $7 million to Microsoft" not "gets $7 million" there's a big difference.

Microsoft's odds of actually seeing the money are about as likely as a spammer "unsubscribing" you.

Re:they're not getting $7 million

[offshores]

He probably has millions in offshores bank accounts and foreign assets. This is nothing to him. In comparison this is how form accounting scandals used to be handled before they duped the wrong people and now they's going to big boy pri$on.

Re:they're not getting $7 million

[SheeEttin]

Last time I checked, it was illegal to not unsubscribe someone. (Of course, they can always sell your address to their partners)

Re:they're not getting $7 million

[bhiestand]

Actually I was able to get a spammer to unsubscribe me. A spammer had purchased a list of emails from another spammer who told him that it was an opt-in list. This spammer was then setting up an operation to resell the list! I found my email address on a sample list on his website, that was bragging to the potential customers about how large the list was and that they could just give away a few hundred as a sample. So I emailed him, made sure to explain possible legal ramifications of his actions as well as that I had not opted in to his list, and he replied letting me know I was removed. He later shut the site down. He also forwarded my email to the spammer who sold him the list asking him to remove my name. Although that may not have worked, and I might still be on that list, he did at least remove me from the list which was visible on his website.

HotMail

[anandpur]

HotMail is cash cow now.

Is email a technology that can be saved?

[bgfay]

I wonder if email is going the way of usenet. I used to use usenet all the time but gave up when spam destroyed its usefulness for me. Every member of my family has switched to Google Mail because our ISP mail accounts, even with the different services' spam protections and Thunderbird's filtering capabilities suffer from too much spam. It seems as though these lawsuits, which make for a great public relations thing (even I'm proud of MS for doing this), aren't going to make any real diffence.

How does Google filter spam so well or is it just that the service is new?

I still like the idea of publishing spammers home addresses and then sending credit card applications, catalogs and all the rest to their homes. If we could get each of them to receive a couple bushels of junk mail every day at their homes, maybe that would help. I'm against the idea of handing pornography to their children as they play on the playground, but it does seem poetically just.

What can be done to save email or as Google already done it?

Re:Is email a technology that can be saved?

[RetroGeek]

I still like the idea of publishing spammers home addresses and then sending credit card applications, catalogs and all the rest to their homes.

So you like penalizing non-involved third parties?

You realize that the company sending these catalogs has a reasonable expectation that the adressee will actually use their catalog, since they supposedly requested it in the first place.

It costs money to send stuff through snale-mail.

Re:Is email a technology that can be saved?

[WBurton]

I'm not sure about anyone else, but I currently route email from my alias to both my Hotmail and Gmail account (I wanted to test how well both of them filter spam), and my Gmail account does a far worse job of filtering spam than Hotmail. I get approximately 30 spam per day in my Gmail inbox, but none in my Hotmail inbox.

Just my $.02

Re:Is email a technology that can be saved?

[pauljlucas]

You realize that the company sending these catalogs has a reasonable expectation that the adressee will actually use their catalog, since they supposedly requested it in the first place.

1. I receive catalogs I never requested. (FYI, for those living in the USA, filing a USPS Prohibitory Order usually stops them.)
2. Even if I did request them, I can thumb through them, perhaps order something, then, instead of simply throwing them the trash, can forward them to a known spammer.

Re:Is email a technology that can be saved?

[greenhybrid]

What would be REALLY funny is to forward all of the spammed addresses to the spammer, so they keep getting their own stuff. As far as GMail, Google's got bazillions of pages of other peoples' data stored in their servers. I'll bet they can weed out spam as easily as your personal information.

Re:Is email a technology that can be saved?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think if a spammer sends the same message to a thousand gmail users and if enough of those users flag the message as spam, Google would automatically flag the message in every gmail users mailbox as spam.

Re:Is email a technology that can be saved?

[John Hurliman]

Google filters spam so well by filtering out everything that might possibly remember spam. On my Gmail account (my secondary e-mail account), I've had many e-mails from companies thrown in the spam folder or commercial opt-in mailings junked. Basically anything to do with free ipods, casinos, or investing advice gets tossed even if I really wanted all that e-mail. The bayesian filter in Thunderbird is extremely accurate, after a bit of training has never gotten a false positive, and misses very few junk mails.

Re:Is email a technology that can be saved?

[RetroGeek]

I receive catalogs I never requested

Which is different from going to a company's Web page and signing someone else up.

Re:Is email a technology that can be saved?

[cosminn]

Most of the times the spammer uses a fake address. So you have to scenarios:

1. Spam from a non-existant address -> you send the spam back to him -> you get a bounce email (so that's 2 more emails/spam message)
2. Spam from existant address but not his. How would you feel if you start getting all these "spam bounces" because some moron used your address?

Spammers money used for implememnting MS DRM...

[eamacnaghten]

" Smith said that Microsoft will reinvest all of the money, after legal expenses, including $5 million that will go to increase Internet enforcement efforts and expand technical and investigative support to help law enforcers to address computer-related crimes."

Ah great! Spammers money being diverted to enforcing M$ proprietary email controls and DRM!

I guess everyone is getting the worst of ALL worlds.

This article was better

[smooth wombat]

The one I submitted had a bit more information including the three pieces of the settlement that would take place.

A critical piece this article left out was that Richters operations would be monitored for three years. While only three years in length the oversight will (hopefully) insure he doesn't try some other route to clog the net with crap.

Where is my cut? Why no conviction?

[javaxman]

Why does Microsoft get the dough? Why is he not convicted? Why did it have to be Microsoft going after this guy, rather than the government or some class action lawyers?

Do you see my point here? Microsoft has effectively found a(nother) way to make money off of spam - to sue spammers... although I'm very happy for anyone to make sending spam look like a poor business to get into, it's somehow hard for me to see this as anything other than Microsoft getting a cut of the take. Where's my share, I get spam all the time...

Re:Where is my cut? Why no conviction?

[Rasta Prefect]

Why does Microsoft get the dough? Why is he not convicted? Why did it have to be Microsoft going after this guy, rather than the government or some class action lawyers?

Microsoft went after him for civil damages because they had to deal with his bullshit by way of Hotmail.com. If you want a some blood from Snotty Scotty, sue him for what he did to your mail server.

Re:Where is my cut? Why no conviction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because M$ has lots and lot$$ of $$$$$$ after all, putting the $ in Micro$oft must be a good indication of this.

Makes me kind of wonder their intentions - IE: develop buggy software, spammers exploit M$'s bugs, make more money suing the spammers - makes sense to me, when considering the amazing amount of greed involved.

Re:Where is my cut? Why no conviction?

[javaxman]

Microsoft went after him for civil damages because they had to deal with his bullshit by way of Hotmail.com. If you want a some blood from Snotty Scotty, sue him for what he did to your mail server.

I think you may have missed my point that this is clearly about making a profit for Microsoft, not about fighting spammers. If it was about fighting spammers, they'd be happy for the guy to go bankrupt, they'd seek a conviction, and they'd send a clear message to spammers that Microsoft can't just be bought off.

The message here is that Microsoft gets a cut of the action, not that Microsoft will put you out of business if you're a spammer. There's a big difference. I understand the business aspects, and I'm all to happy to see a spammer get any sort of hurt they have coming to them, but I'm not about to pat Microsoft on the back for settling out of court with this guy, thus allowing him to claim he did no wrong and keep his shady business with nothing more than a promise to 'fly right' and a payoff to Microsoft.

Re:Where is my cut? Why no conviction?

[HUADPE]

Microsoft cannot bring a criminal case to trial. The only people who can bring a case are the Attorneys General of the US, and wherever he was commiting the crime (in this case all 50 states). Microsoft brought a civil suit because Microsoft's mail servers were affected by his actions. Anyone who was affected by his actions is free to sue him for the damages he caused. Only the government can bring charges resulting in jail time however. If you have proof that he damaged you, hire a lawyer and sue his ass.

Re:Where is my cut? Why no conviction?

[Frenchman113]

Like we've said over and over and over and over and over and over......and over again, MSFT is not profiting off this. They're ending up spending a lot more money sueing Mr. Spamalizer than they make.

Good or bad?

[LoudMusic]

Initial reaction is "YEAH! Stick it to'em!" Then when I think about it, this man isn't really phased by such a lawsuit. Sure it pretty much shuts down his spamming career, but that won't stop him from finding another even more assinine method of making money which he needs now more than ever to pay off the lawsuit.

You can sue people all you want but it won't change them. I suggest breaking his fucking knees. Pain speaks.

you can't trust this guy

[schematix]

I worked for this guy a couple years ago (and one of his associates more recently, see below) in his Westminster, CO offices. He is probably one of those most untrustworthy people you could ever meet. He'll backstab you when its convenient for him and will be on your side when its also convenient for him. I hope him and his fellow spam partner Bill Waggoner both burn in hell.... the pieces of shit.

Re:you can't trust this guy

[jav1231]

So did you get any stock while at Microsoft?
Oh...uh...

Re:you can't trust this guy

[Anonymous Coward]

so can we have his and his partner's email and snail mail addresses so we can spam them?

Re:you can't trust this guy

[schematix]

i'd like to give this information but its very easy to find online. spamhaus is a good source and there are several others.

URGENT ATTENTION REQUIRED

[topgeek]

I too could get $7 million from a spammer, and all I would have to do would be to travel to Nigeria to meet the son of the late former Treasurer who was brutally murdered in a coup.

Re:URGENT ATTENTION REQUIRED

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, I was brutally murdered in a Nigerian coup you insensitive clod! :-)

Still Cheaper than US mail

[Anonymous Coward]

So $7 million divided by, let's say, 2 million = 0.0035 dollars per piece of sh^H^Hmail.

I doubt he'll be losing any sleep...

Color me confused.

[j-tull]

I'm all for spammers getting what's coming to them and such, but why is Microsoft suing spammers? Now IANAL, but this seems like the sort of thing that would be better served by a class action suit of some sort. After all, what are the people who were actually inconvenienced getting out of this suit? More money for Microsoft?!?!? How is that helping?

Re:Color me confused.

[pe1chl]

They claim it costs them money to handle SPAM email in their MSN Hotmail service.
But when you try to make them act responsible w.r.t. spamming via their MSN members, they suddenly claim MSN is an independent company they are not responsible for...

(I cannot believe that Microsoft operates a company, MSN, that provides nearly bulletproof domain name registration an mail services for 419 scammers, and nobody at Microsoft or MSN wants to handle abuse for it. They have their abusedesk outsourced to India and the clerks there have no idea what you are talking about when you tell them the abuse@hotmail.com robot is refusing all complaints about MSN Personal Address accounts, and continue to insist that you should send the mail with full headers to that address. Which will bounce it because it is "not hotmail, not our problem")

The more things change...

[Tackhead]

> Richter said that he and his company had changed their e-mailing practices and pledged not to send spam to anyone who has not asked to be sent commercial e-mail.

...the more they stay the same.

10,000 Quatloos says that Richter pays for his judgement with the proceeds from his new company - YouOptedInReallyBigger.info - that sends spam only to people who opted in, because every ASCII string with at least one "@" character, from a@a, to my email address, to the Message-IDs of every USENET post made since the Epoch, has opted in according to one spammer or another.

Let's review.

(Rule #0: Spam is theft.)
Rule #1: Spammers lie.
Rule #2: If you think a spammer is telling the truth, see Rule #1.

Let's hope that Microsoft isn't ignorant of Rules #1 and #2, and can take advantage of Rules #3 and #4...

Rule #3: Spammers are stupid.
Rule #4: The natural course of a spamming business is to go bankrupt.

...and the new bankruptcy law to put Richter and into debt peonage for the rest of his miserable life.

Quick math

[BlackCobra43]

Let's assume he "only" sent spam to 200,000 people. Thse people took 5 seconds of worktime to delete it. Ballpark an estimate 15$ hourly wage and you've got 4,000$ of lost productivity here. Now realize that,according to the article, it's likely to be closer to 2,000,000,000 than to 200,000. Possibly even more.

Re:Quick math

[Anonymous Coward]

And that kids is how you lie with numbers. That's like the RIAA saying that their losing hundreds of millions of dollars to pirates on the assumption that everyone who pirates would have otherwise bought the song legally.

Just because it takes 5 seconds to delete spam, you're assuming it's done on work time and if it is, then it's likely there's more productivity lost the employee even checking their mail at work. Not to mention that you can't measure productivity strictly as a function of time.

Not to mention that you're claimed productivity loss of $4 M is still less than the $7 M payed out by the spammer.

Obviously I'm not defending the jackass, but it annoys the hell out of me when people on slashdot hypocritically apply the same tactics that are disregarded and criticized (validly) when they're applied to software and music piracy (and yes, piracy is a perfectly valid term since language must evolve to meet the changing society). There's absolutely nothing insightful or interesting about your post.

Re:Quick math

[Xenopax]

I love math like this, I wonder what the lost productivity is for using the bathroom.

Re:Quick math

[pclminion]

Let's assume he "only" sent spam to 200,000 people. Thse people took 5 seconds of worktime to delete it. Ballpark an estimate 15$ hourly wage and you've got 4,000$ of lost productivity here. Now realize that,according to the article, it's likely to be closer to 2,000,000,000 than to 200,000. Possibly even more.

If that's your argument, then explain why the money should go to Microsoft instead of the people who's time was wasted.

Re:Quick math

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because it takes 5 seconds to delete spam, you're assuming it's done on work time and if it is

Why, if it isn't then thats time and a half!

Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week!

Circular bullshit....

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

So supposedly, from now on he will only be mailing to users who have "opted in".

A lot of the time these people buy lists from other SPAMers who "tell" tehm that the list they are buying is "opt-in". When the hammer comes down they tell the authorities "The guy I bought it from said they where all opt-in, how was I to know"? It's all circular bullshit.

Mike Richter

[Rethcir]

I guess he blew through his hockey pension a little too fast and decided to take up spamming..

(PS, I'm not related to either of those guys, nor the scientist guy, but share the last name)

Re:Mike Richter

[Rethcir]

It's really Scott Richter, but the idiot Slashdot guy who posted it initially had it say "Michael" Richter before quickly modifying the post..

At least they're consistent...

[demonbug]

"The goal remains for us to separate spammers from their money," Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith told Reuters..."

Funny, I think that's their goal for me, too.

Wait, am I supposed to be bashing Microsoft, or the spammers? I hate these confusing topics...

Re:At least they're consistent...

[Spy der Mann]

Wait, am I supposed to be bashing Microsoft, or the spammers? I hate these confusing topics...

Simple. "No honor among thieves".
Or in the microsoft-friendly version:
Bash both of them. Spammers for doing what they do, and Microsoft for not doing enough to stop them.

YRO?

[bano]

Microsoft sueing someone who did wrong is YRO because????

Because you're a different victim

[jfengel]

In this case the victim is Microsoft because they run Hotmail, which received (and had to wade through) beaucoup spam from this asshole. If you had a Hotmail account, I suppose you could be entitled to some of this, but since you paid zilch for it in the first place you get zilch out of this.

If you run your own mail server, you may be entitled to sue the guy yourself. Good luck on that.

The CAN-SPAM law specfically restricts these sorts of lawsuits to ISPs, but I'm not certain of the details. Either way it's probably best to let a large corporation conduct this sort of lawsuit, because it'll cost you a fortune to sue the guy for the relatively small sums you'll get. It's unfortunately to have your right to sue removed, but in this case it's probably not worth your effort anyway.

Re:Because you're a different victim

[Iriel]

Frankly, I think the fine for spamming should include the data-transfer fees for the mail servers as well. Besides, Microsoft may get 7mil and we get nothing, but in theory, our reward is less crap to send to our junk box. They get money for wasted resources and we get a few extra minutes to actually 'read' email. At least in theory.

Besides, with jokers like this, who else but Microsoft has the technical background and resources to fry spammers? Hate Microsoft all you want, but they can fight for us too.

Re:Because you're a different victim

[maxpublic]

The CAN-SPAM law specfically restricts these sorts of lawsuits to ISPs, but I'm not certain of the details.

It actually gives a special status to the lawsuit brought by an ISP against a spammer, allowing the suit to be covered under CAN-SPAM rather than local law.

It's unfortunately to have your right to sue removed

The U.S. government can't selectively remove your right to sue while allowing others to retain that right. It's unconstitutional. And in any event it isn't what CAN-SPAM does.

Max

What does MS do with the money

[jurt1235]

Except pay for some lawyers? Are they putting it in a fund for people who got hurt by this spam? (Bill to Melissa: The spampot is the small one next to our Melissa & Bill Gates support the world fund, dear)

Re:What does MS do with the money

[Anonymous Coward]

If you'd bothered to RTFA instead of blindly attacking MS, you'd know.

Microsoft sees spam as a profit centre

[pogson]

Ingenious, isn't it? Set up facilities world wide to make life easy for spammers and tax them. It is legal but it makes Microsoft's customers pay for their own abuse. Microsoft=masochism

Re:Microsoft sees spam as a profit centre

[Barlo_Mung_42]

"Microsoft sees spam as a profit centre"
Riiight. I'm sure it cost Microsoft more than 7M in lawyer fees to sue him.

Re:Microsoft sees spam as a profit centre

[adamwood]

No it doesn't.

If you take a look at the medium terms risks facing Microsoft, one with significant impact is spam making the Internet unusable and thus slowing the growth in home computing, desktop software, and associated server software sales.

Microsoft should have a huge interest in stopping spam. They also have Hotmail and lots of cash, plus probably a few lawyers. They need to be seen to be willing to take losses to stop spam.

Re:Microsoft sees spam as a profit centre

[drsquare]

Of course, Microsoft invented SMTP and the whole unsecure, unverified, unaccountable e-mail system. Everything's Microsoft's fault, even things they didn't invent.

Personally I think leaving an e-mail server unsecured is like leaving a wireless server unsecured. There are two ways of looking at this:

1. You're inviting everyone to use it for any purpose it allows, so don't complain when you find people using it in ways you don't like. You should have configured it differently.

2. You're not inviting people to use it, they're abusing the insecurity inherent in the system.

In this case, spam falls under 2. But then maybe so does wardriving. You either pick 1 for everything, or 2 for everything. You can't pick 1 for wireless and 2 for spam, because it suits you. That's inconsistent and hypocritical.

Re:Microsoft sees spam as a profit centre

[Barlo_Mung_42]

What does crow taste like?
Does it taste like chicken? I've heard it tastes like chicken.

Because THEY sued

[BlackCobra43]

and won. Plus, they're going to invest it in combatting spam.

What are you complaining about, again?

Microsoft's right?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does MS have the right to even sue a spammer? I hate spam as much as the next guy, but how is MS affected? Sure, the people who actually recieve the spam might have a right to sue, but what intrest in this does MS have?

Because they were the ISP.

[www.sorehands.com]

Microsoft sued because they were the ISP. They did not sue because they received the spam. The I-CAN-SPAM act (passed by the scum in Washington) prevented individuals for suing spammers.

Individuals with states that have the laws that prohibit deceptive spam can sue spammers that use deceptive spam (check your state's laws).

If you want money, you can sue the spammers yourself if the law permits.

I have a solution for SPAM

[Bif Powell]

We just have to somehow tie spam to music piracy, that will send the RIAA after them and then we'll see some real justice meeted out.

Re:I have a solution for SPAM

[Frenchman113]

MOD PARENT FUNNY

Where's your cut?

[dynam0k2]

Where's your cut? Did you sue Richter? That's why you don't get a cut. Microsoft isn't a charity. Apparently Microsoft's case against Richter was a valid one, or they wouldn't have been awarded 7M.

Re:Where's your cut?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when does awarded = settled. The case wasn't decided by a jury/judge.

Re:Where's your cut?

[Anakron]

They weren't "awarded" anything. The case was settled out of court. It doesn't change a thing (Except that Richter is a few million poorer)

He should have read the chain email more carefully

[FuckTheModerators]

It actually said: "For every person you forward this mail to, Bill Gates gets a dollar."

Bloodhound Gang says

[el cisne]

We don't need to water, let the motherf*cker burn, Burn motherf*cker, burn.

Re:Bloodhound Gang says

[el cisne]

Offtopic ????!!!!! Where do you get Offtopic ?? I suggested they let the spammer burn, using a somewhat well known, in some parts, lyric quote. Shoot, I was hoping for +1 Funny, but Offtopic?? sigh.........

Re:Bloodhound Gang says

[Anonymous Coward]

I nver heard the lyric, therefore your attempt at humor was utterly lost on me. If you're trying to be funny, try harder.

Being fined is too light

[Anonymous Coward]

a sentence for some of these guys. The heavy spammers should get jail time in addition to any fines.

Consider this: if a spammer goes to jail, and has his ass (involuntarily) worked over into a brown foamy lather by a guy who is 6'4", 220 lbs, and has no teeth - is the spammer getting spammed? Does the punishment fit the crime? Indeed.

Wake me when the check clears

[mabu]

My guess is that Microsoft will never see a penny of that money. The guy was in the process of declaring bankrupty. I seriously doubt he has $7M to pay off Microsoft in the first place. This is probably some sort of insider PR deal to make Microsoft look like they're helping the consumer, but ultimately the ruling doesn't stop the guy from spamming or hold him accountable for any of the illegal and unethical activity his company likely engaged in.

Re:Wake me when the check clears

[ptbarnett]

My guess is that Microsoft will never see a penny of that money. The guy was in the process of declaring bankrupty.

RTFA.

Additionally, as part of the settlement, Richter agreed to drop bankruptcy proceedings filed in March in the U.S. bankruptcy court in Denver, according to a joint statement by Microsoft and Richter. The settlement is conditioned on dismissal of the bankruptcy cases.

Re:Wake me when the check clears

[fdiskne1]

Actually, according to this article, "The settlement is conditioned on dismissal of the bankruptcy cases."

Re:Wake me when the check clears

[mabu]

Yea..yea..yea... I RTFA..

Just because Richter agreed to not declare bankruptcy doesn't mean that he'll ever pay Microsoft.

The fact that he was in the process of declaring bankruptcy indicates he probably doesn't have the funds in the first place.

Bankruptcy is just one way to avoid paying creditors. There are many others.

Re:Wake me when the check clears

[mabu]

Hey, do you guys know what spammers do?

They specialize in moving around and hiding their resources so that they can't be easily tracked. If Richter can do it with e-mail, he can do it with any money he has. Whether he declares bankruptcy or not, I don't expect Microsoft to see $7M. I don't think Richter ever had $7M in the first place. Spammers don't make that kind of money. If they did, there would be a lot more of them than they are, and the stuff they would be promoting would be more substantive than home mortgage affilliate schemes and penis enlargement pills.

Spammers are no different than Rappers or Late-night, get-rich-quick spokespeople. They create the illusion of wealth in order to lend credibility to their efforts. Unfortunately, when you watch those videos of spammers on boats and driving Lambos, they're rented, just like the fancy beach house all those make-fast-money people use as the setting for their infomercial. It's all a big crock.

I'm not saying these people don't make money, but it's nowhere near as much as they'd lead you to believe. Their whole modus operandi is about deception so they're sure as hell going to misrepresent their net worth as well.

This is a huge boon to that loser Richter, to even think that he was willing to "settle" paying someone $7M. He comes off like he has the money. There's no way in hell he does IMO.

They should...

[Shads]

... charge spammers $1.00 for each spam they send payable to receipient.

Last tally i'd be getting >2200.00 / day USD. I'd be happy to even click "Mark folder read" for that price.

Re:They should...

[Anonymous Coward]

payable to receipient

In the form of a check completed and stamped by hand.

Re:They should...

[Anonymous Coward]

They should charge spammers $1.00 (...) Last tally i'd be getting >2200.00 / day USD

<pedantic>
USD? Because you used different units when you said how much you wanted to charge them??
</pedantic>

Re:They should...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it.

Ob

[katarac]

What are you going to do with the 7 million, sir?

Oh, just throw it on the pile, I suppose.

Haven't you heard?

[BlackCobra43]

Microsoft is the most prominant defender of people's online rights towhahaHAHAHAHAHAAHAH Sorry, couldn't keep a straight face.

Who gets the money

[originalhack]

The CAN-SPAM legislation gave ISPs (including Hotmail) the right to go after spammers. The damages are intended to deter spammers and to give the ISPs an incentive to take out the spammers without spending taxpayer money to do it.

In this case, it looks like this is exactly what happened. As much as I personally dislike Microsoft, the system is working as planned on this one. The fact that they are reinvesting the proceeds into more enforcement efforts is encouraging.

As for the rest of us.... whoever runs your mailserver has the right to go after him as well so long as they gather sufficient evidence.

he got off easy...

[night_flyer]

WAY to easy....

http://mosnews.com/news/2005/07/25/spammerdead.sht ml

I don't believe it...

[Thumper_SVX]

I just thought to myself "Yay, Microsoft"

I need to go lie down... I think I'm sickening for something...

Re:I don't believe it...

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF does "sickening for something" mean?

Re:I don't believe it...

[Thumper_SVX]

Hmm... apparently, my dear you are not British. Figure it out, it's not that hard. Last I checked this was a multinational as well as multicultural web site; I refuse to change my mode of speech to "Uhmerikuhn" on this board because I speak a little differently from the masses.

Mod Parent Up!

[soft_guy]

I wish I had mod points today. You are completely right that this can cut both ways!

I can see it now

[Alcimedes]

I'm sending you this letter because recently Microsoft won a lawsuit against an e-mail spammer that netted a 7 million dollar payout. Since you have received some of this spam, Microsoft would like to send you your portion of the settlement.

Please contact me for your share of 7 million dollars!

Re:I can see it now

[soloes]

yah and while that is going on, all of the pharmeceutical compainies are going to decide to give their medicines to the poor who are sick.
Oh yah and politicians are going to actually do something good for the country.
Dreaming is good... waking up sucks

Re:I can see it now

[Anonymous Coward]

"Pay to the order of...Mrs. Terri Carlin...one dollar and NINE CENTS!"

Re:I can see it now

[Alcimedes]

how does not getting a joke get rated +1 insightful?

maybe +1 clueless, or +1 right over your head.....

*sigh*

Re:I can see it now

[Anonymous Coward]

The "big drug companies" already give away their drugs. All you have to do is ask, and if you qualify, the drugs you need are free. They've been doing it for years now. Why don't you know about it?

You're more on point about the politicians. All they care about is getting re-elected and they'll do or say anything to accomplish that goal.

Now wake up!

In reality...

[Aeron65432]

does anyone think M$ will get their money from this guy?

My bet is that this guy is broke/will be broke from many other companies/people/governments suing him and will certainly never have the money to pay. So though this may look huge, I'm not sure it will actually happen.

Re:In reality...

[dacarr]

They'll certainly see it if they can levy his bank accounts and/or assets, and make his life a living hell.

Rule #1

[www.sorehands.com]

Rule 1: Spammer lie.

Think of spammers as Harcourt Fenton Mudd.

Not a fan of the borg, but still...

[MikeTwo]

Occassionally they get some things right.

I'm glad MS sued the hell out of this guy, and I hope they sue the hell out of others too. There's a mutual enemy here - because MS knows that if spam gets out of control, people will have even more of a negative reaction to online advertising than they do already. Negative reaction = no ad money.

In the end, I'd rather see google's contextual ads, or even MS's pretty ugly banner ads for legitimate companies, than John Doe's ads for enlarging various sexual members, reducing my mortgage, getting a fake diploma, or finding some local hooches to sleep with.

Oh noes!

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought "we" beleived that jail should only be for violent criminals.

Some virus writer, who cost millions of dollars in time and money gets a slap on the wrist and Slashdotters are outraged that he hasn't been hired by Symantec.

Some spammer, who cost millions of dollars in time and money gets fined millions of dollars and Slashdotters are outraged that he hasn't been thrown in jail.

Hmmm. What if a super-leet hacker wrote a virus that distributed itself through spam? That would be quite a conundrum for your average Slashdotter.

Rich paying richer...

[jez9999]

Even the rich are getting shafted by Microsoft these days!

new business strategy

[Anonymous Coward]

Spammers:
1. spam
2. get sued
3. spam more to pay off lawsuit monies
4. repeat
5. ...
6. PROFIT!!!

MS:
1. Sue spammers
2. Use lawsuit monies to sue more spammers
3. ...
4. PROFIT!!!

Everyone's a winner.

Microsoft gets money...Spammer hurt

[Approaching.sanity]

I'm so conflicted.

Small victory

[Profcrab]

Considering that Microsoft does provide a mail service that is frequently abused by and and bombarded by spammers, I believe they had a very valid claim and I wonder if their losses incurred by spam come close to the $7 million that they are being awarded. It is unfortunate, however, that this will not deter someone else from following the same business model. They will just work through China.

RAWR FIGHT THE MACHINE

[BlackCobra43]

Get real and post under an actual name, twit.
As for your "argument", it's shit. Nowhere did I say the spammer caused 4 million in damages. YOU extrapolated this from my hypothesis which is a framework under which you can (attempt to)EVALUATE or ESTIMATE the ACTUAL damages caused.

Next time READ before you flame.

Re:RAWR FIGHT THE MACHINE

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a flawed argument anyways. Your framework seems to account people having to delete spam from personal email accounts as wasted productivity. That's simply wrong for the stated reasons above. Also, an estimate is supposed to be an educated guess, meaning there has to be some supporting evidence. Otherwise, it's a guess.

And I hope you realize that ad hominem attacks do not increase the validity of your argument.

As for why I post as AC, it's because I was never interested in signing up for slashdot. I've been reading it for a few years and posting the last little while, but I don't see the benefit in registering.

Pays

[Valiss]

How does that work?

He who pays the lawyers, gets the cash. Problem is, most of us can not afford the time or money to hire an army of lawyers. M$ can.

Turn about is fair play

[wowbagger]

So, if I configure my mail server to send, as a part of the EHLO sequence, a message to the effect of:

EHLO foo by completing this transaction you agree to pay one thousand dollars United States currency for every commercial email transacted, payable within thirty days of transmission

Would that not be just as valid as most spammers .1 point microfont "by clicking on accept you agree to let us spam the shit out of you"?

Don't be so quick with your math

[2names]

Not to mention that you're claimed productivity loss of $4 M is still less than the $7 M payed out by the spammer.

It's $40,000,000, not four million.

Jon Stewarts "The Daily Show"...

[rwyoder]

...did an interview with Richter for a story called "High Volume Email Deployer". You really have to see this to appreciate what a moron Richter is. Not only was he stupid enough to agree to be interviewed by them, he was too stupid to realize they were making a fool of him.

Re:Jon Stewarts "The Daily Show"...

[AnonymousNoMore]

yes, and iirc they flashed his private email address on the screen during the segment. comedy central has a lot of those segments available on their web page

Re:Jon Stewarts "The Daily Show"...

[Larry Lightbulb]

We often wonder about those interview segments on the Daily Show - don't they realise what the show is about and what's going to happen to them?

Re:Jon Stewarts "The Daily Show"...

[hayh]

Obligatory karma whoring...

clicky

Re:Jon Stewarts "The Daily Show"...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing he never heard of it, but some people like to be on TV

Re:Jon Stewarts "The Daily Show"...

[cosminn]

My favorite quote from the clip:

"Users want to get lots of email, they just don't realize it"

Re:Jon Stewarts "The Daily Show"...

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Yeah, but it's not his real email address. He made it up on the spot.

Re:Jon Stewarts "The Daily Show"...

[oliderid]

Richter is everything but an idiot...Let me remind you that he has made millions out of SPAM.

Any advertisement is good. You know his name, you know where to go if you want "bulk emailing".

I guess the only thing is lacking of are self esteem and respect for others.

The problem

[Dark Paladin]

[sarcasm]Remember how when MS was suppose to pay California schools they did it in software?

Yeah. Turns out, this is how this guy is going to pay his bill.

The Good News: MS Campus is about to get all the verbal Viagra and "male enhancement" products they'd ever want!

The Bad News: MS Campus is going to have bigger dicks then ever before....

[/sarcasm]

Re:The problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The Bad News: MS Campus is going to have bigger dicks then ever before....

Well, let's not rewrite history... There's a reason they're called MICROSOFT and not BIGHARD.

Microsoft's right to sue.

[zolon]

It is really fairly simple.

Microsoft runs at least three different email systems.

1. Corp. Email

2. Hotmail

3. MSN

So just because they create Windows, wich is known for spam zombies, you will see from a service provider view point, they are just as harmed by this as any other Email Service.

I for one, and glad that this happened, for it could open doors for other ISPs and Email Services to stand up and sue spammers.

Yes, yes, it is the end user who has to suffer. Those spams use resources and cost your ISP money also. If the ISPs start cracking down on this, then it may actually end with a solution that will at least let us all actually use our email.

Just my two cents.

Microsoft Money Problems

[jgallagher]

M$ doesn't need money! Besides I don't want how they are going to use 7 Million.

They do it much better...

[X86Daddy]

... in Russia.

Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[fmaxwell]

I don't think that being a spammer should get you locked up

Why not? Why should spammers be able to steal and not face jail time? What is the cost for the stolen bandwidth? What is the cost of the stolen storage? What are the administrative costs spent dealing with the theft of bandwidth and storage by spammers?

If an ISP has to buy five more mail servers, an OC3 line, and add four more drives to his RAID system to store the spam, why shouldn't those who caused the ISP to bear that cost face jail time?

Every time an employee receives spam, it takes them some period of time to recognize it as spam and delete it -- usually more if it's forwarded to a Blackberry or other mobile device. Why should employers have to bear these costs for disruptive spam and have the spammer not face jail time?

Are we just trying to keep jails empty so that the radical right can have cells to lock up college kids caught with pot at rock concerts? Where the hell are our priorities?

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[TommyBlack]

Well if we're talking costs, we should be comparing the cost of spam to the cost of keeping someone in jail... I don't have the numbers, but I can guarantee sending someone to jail at least doesn't get you back any money.

It's much better to make this a civil matter, and maybe find some people willing to start bringing up class-action suits.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[fmaxwell]

Well if we're talking costs, we should be comparing the cost of spam to the cost of keeping someone in jail...

That's like saying that we should be comparing the cost of child neglect to the cost of keeping someone in jail. It's a non-sequitor. The purpose of jail is to punish, rehabilitate, and dissuade others from committing the crime -- not to be a profit-making venture.

I don't have the numbers, but I can guarantee sending someone to jail at least doesn't get you back any money.

If someone robs a convenience store, putting them in jail doesn't get back any of the stolen money. Would you recommend that we stop jailing people who rob convenience stores?

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[TommyBlack]

It's not a non-sequitor at all. Your post was about the costs associated with receiving spam, and I was pointing out that jailing spammers would increase that overall cost. If you can't come up with a better line of reasoning than - there are costs, therefore jail - then I can't see approaching this problem from anything other than a case of trying to minimize costs.

There are huge differences between this and the convenience store example. The person who robs a convenience store presumably did it with the threat of violence, and therefore he is a threat to society (thus, a criminal offense). On the other hand, spammers just waste other people's time and money, and thus handling this in the civil courts makes more sense.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[Richard_at_work]

Im going to use an arguement here that often is used on slashdot in defence of abusing open wifi points. The email server is accepting the connection, its accepting the email, its accepting the contents, at no point does it say 'no', so how can it be called theft? Thats analogous to a wifi point accepting the connection and issuing you an IP address on request, which is the arguement people use on this forum in defence of using open wifi points.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[budgenator]

but I can guarantee sending someone to jail at least doesn't get you back any money.
You'd be amazed

1. Court costs
2. restitution
3. payment to the local Victim's Right's fund
4. they really can charge you for room and board while your in prison
5. reimburse the state for your medicaid while in the joint.
6. payments for your parole officer's time

I'll admit it doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[fmaxwell]

It's not a non-sequitor at all. Your post was about the costs associated with receiving spam, and I was pointing out that jailing spammers would increase that overall cost.

No, showing that they were taking something which had a cost was proving that it was theft. And we all accept that people should be jailed for theft -- even though it does not recoup any costs. As I said before, the purpose of jail is to punish, rehabilitate, and dissuade others from committing the crime -- not to be a profit-making venture.

If you can't come up with a better line of reasoning than - there are costs, therefore jail - then I can't see approaching this problem from anything other than a case of trying to minimize costs.

That you are incapable of understanding that jailing people for activity X usually greatly reduces activity X, and its associated cost to society, is not a reflection on me.

There are huge differences between this and the convenience store example. The person who robs a convenience store presumably did it with the threat of violence, and therefore he is a threat to society (thus, a criminal offense). On the other hand, spammers just waste other people's time and money, and thus handling this in the civil courts makes more sense.

If you feel the need to focus on the violence aspect of robbery, then I retract that analogy.

Should burglers be jailed?
Should pickpockets be jailed?
Should vandals be jailed?
Should art thieves be jailed?
Should con artists be jailed?
Should identity thieves be jailed?

All of those criminals just effect a monetary and time cost on the victims -- like spammers do.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[Not_Wiggins]

Why should spammers be able to steal and not face jail time?

Because there appears to be harsher punishments via vigilante justice or organized crime lashback.

Maybe prison would be safer for them. Then again... I would imagine a lot of spammers to be pale and soft; could make for some fresh chum in the showers. 8P

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[fmaxwell]

Im going to use an arguement here that often is used on slashdot in defence of abusing open wifi points. The email server is accepting the connection, its accepting the email, its accepting the contents, at no point does it say 'no', so how can it be called theft?

I've seen 8 or more attempts in rapid-fire succession from different IP addresses all trying to deliver the same piece of spam after mail server refused the mail each time with a message stating that spam/UCE is not permitted at my domain. How many times must it say 'no'? How many days in a row must it tell any given spammer that we don't want their spam?

If someone knocks on your door dressed as a furnace repair man, how can it be called assault and battery if they come in and club you? That's the problem with spam. It pretends to be something that it is not in order to sneak its way into your mail server. It misidentifies the sender. It uses misspellings in the subject and body to evade filters meant to stop it. It often has misleading subject lines to make it appear to be a message from a friend or a company that you do business with.

Thats analogous to a wifi point accepting the connection and issuing you an IP address on request, which is the arguement people use on this forum in defence of using open wifi points.

I have used that very argument. But there's the key difference: There are simple, documented means to reject unwanted WiFi connections. There is no check-box on mail servers saying "do not accept spam." With WiFi, many people and organizations choose to make it freely available, so it's not unreasonable to assume that an open WiFi connection is intended for public use. Given the almost universal hatred of spam, it would be absurd to believe that it was welcome at any mail server that accepted it.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[Anonymous Coward]

And music should always be free for downloading!

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[drsquare]

Why not? Why should spammers be able to steal and not face jail time? What is the cost for the stolen bandwidth? What is the cost of the stolen storage? What are the administrative costs spent dealing with the theft of bandwidth and storage by spammers?

In that case, should there be jail-time for unauthorised use of wireless connections? That's stealing bandwidth as well.

Oh, but the Slashbots reply "if you leave a wireless connection unsecured you're inviting people to use it". Yes, but if you have an e-mail client with no white-list or spam-filter you're inviting unsolicited e-mail. I wonder how the slashbots will get out of that one... probably by modding me down to hide their embarassment and to maintain the RDF.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[CRC'99]

I reject your reality, and substitute it with my own.

Spam is a fact of life. It won't go away, it won't decrease. This is one of those wonderful "won't somebody please think of the children!" that people scorn so much on slashdot.

If your ISP has to buy more mail servers, the maybe they didn't do their maths correctly in the first place. Maybe they're not enforcing local policies clearly enough. Maybe they should have just thought of it all back when they designed their setup. It's easy to blame spammers, but reality shows that people just didn't think.

Stolen bandwidth? Stolen storage? Where was it taken? To say that it's stolen implies that somebody has been deprived of something. Sure, they may have less free space, but the capacity is still there - so nothing has been stolen. If you're running out of bandwidth/storage, then maybe you should have planned your business better and taken into account these things instead of counting on a bare minimum to survive.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[CRC'99]

Dude, you're on a roll today.

I've seen 8 or more attempts in rapid-fire succession from different IP addresses all trying to deliver the same piece of spam after mail server refused the mail each time with a message stating that spam/UCE is not permitted at my domain. How many times must it say 'no'? How many days in a row must it tell any given spammer that we don't want their spam?

You can tell a drone bot that as many times as you like. It's not going to care.

If someone knocks on your door dressed as a furnace repair man, how can it be called assault and battery if they come in and club you?

Ummm. You get clubbed. I have yet to find spam with weapons that will cause harm to a person. Someone physically assulting you is a crime. Comparing this to spam is silly.

That's the problem with spam. It pretends to be something that it is not in order to sneak its way into your mail server. It misidentifies the sender. It uses misspellings in the subject and body to evade filters meant to stop it. It often has misleading subject lines to make it appear to be a message from a friend or a company that you do business with.

Last time I checked, spam was email. It's not pretending to be anything. It's email. It's not like it's a web server pretending to be email. You are getting email - the content of that email doesn't make it any different. As for filter shortcomings, maybe you should change your filters if it's not working for you.

I have used that very argument. But there's the key difference: There are simple, documented means to reject unwanted WiFi connections. There is no check-box on mail servers saying "do not accept spam." With WiFi, many people and organizations choose to make it freely available, so it's not unreasonable to assume that an open WiFi connection is intended for public use. Given the almost universal hatred of spam, it would be absurd to believe that it was welcome at any mail server that accepted it.

These two are again *soooo* far different than to draw parallels. Yes, you can lock down a WiFi access point, and you can also lock down a mail server. Lack of knowledge in either case is a problem here, not the lack of option.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[Wavicle]

I reject your reality, and substitute it with my own.

Your reality is surreal.

Spam is a fact of life. It won't go away, it won't decrease.

And this makes it right how? If we are a victim of crime, the criminal should not be punished because crime is a fact of life and the fact we were victimized shows that we inadequately prepared ourselves... is this what you're saying?

To say that it's stolen implies that somebody has been deprived of something. Sure, they may have less free space, but the capacity is still there - so nothing has been stolen.

So they have less space... but they haven't been deprived of that space?

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[CRC'99]

Your reality is surreal.

Opinion is everything.

And this makes it right how? If we are a victim of crime, the criminal should not be punished because crime is a fact of life and the fact we were victimized shows that we inadequately prepared ourselves... is this what you're saying?

Petty crimes are often unpunished. Would you rather people go to jail for littering? Spam is a side effect of having email. It's effects can be minimised with proper planning and implementations. Obviously, someone sending you email is not a clear cut crime, and it's treated as such.

So they have less space... but they haven't been deprived of that space?

The capacity is still there. Same capacity. It's not like they have 'stolen' 5Gb of my drive and the 120Gb drive suddenly becoems a 115Gb drive. Does this mean I should sue people for putting papers in my mailbox?

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[loraksus]

I don't think that being a spammer should get you locked up
Why not?

I'd rather they be given a nice and juicy sentence doing community service, 10,000 hours or something.
I'd prefer that over them going to prison and doing telemarketing or booking airline flights.
Give them sharp pointy sticks and send them to pick up garbage or something...

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[nihaopaul]

intresting enough, why is microshaft taking the money when it was the end user who got spammed. now if only microshaft was to put that money into the community where the actual 'spammies' can get something from being spammed in the first place. i say microshaft should just put a $1m reward on the head of spammers and let any typical american with a gun go after them. spammer hunting season is open.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[fmaxwell]

Opinion is everything.

And I'll side with the other poster's opionion on this one.

Petty crimes are often unpunished. Would you rather people go to jail for littering? Spam is a side effect of having email.

Sending spam to millions of people is not a "petty" crime. It's the theft of huge amounts of bandwidth and disk space. It costs ISPs and users large amounts of time and money. If the average spam victim spends five seconds per spam, then lock the spammer up for 5 seconds per spam that he sent.

You seem to think that stealing small amounts from millions of people is somehow "petty" and a lesser crime than stealing a large amount from one or two people. It's not.

The capacity is still there. Same capacity. It's not like they have 'stolen' 5Gb of my drive and the 120Gb drive suddenly becoems a 115Gb drive.

Absurd. You have 5GB less storage space available. If you have 120GB of data to store on that drive, it won't fit now.

Does this mean I should sue people for putting papers in my mailbox?

No. You should report them to the U.S. Postal Service Inspection Service. It is illegal for anyone other than a mail carrier to put paper in your mailbox. Those doing it can be fined and/or jailed.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[fmaxwell]

intresting enough, why is microshaft taking the money when it was the end user who got spammed.

1. Because it went through Microsoft's servers.
2. Because Microsoft incurred the cost of the legal fees associated with the lawsuit.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[fmaxwell]

Oh, but the Slashbots reply "if you leave a wireless connection unsecured you're inviting people to use it".

Right. Because there are easy, check-box methods which let you choose whether to leave his WiFi connection open for all to use or to lock it down. It's a simple choice when you set it up. There is no checkbox on a mail server which lets you choose to reject all spam while accepting e-mail from friends, colleagues, clients, etc. to whom you have given your e-mail address.

Yes, but if you have an e-mail client with no white-list or spam-filter you're inviting unsolicited e-mail.

I have "spam filters" (actually, server-side DNS-based blacklists). I check for a valid PTR. I check for valid sender domain. I check the SPF records. I have many spam filters as well as public notices that I don't accept spam at my domain.That a spammer can occasionally sneak by the filters does not mean that the spam is welcome.

White-lists? Now you're just being foolish. Normal people can identify every e-mail address, domain, or IP address from which they will ever want to receive mail ahead of time. If you circulate your resume, you don't know the e-mail address of the person(s) who might contact you. If you put your e-mail address on your business card, you won't know the e-mail address of every person you hand it to -- and if you ask them so that they can be put on your white-list, you'll be viewed as a loony. And what happens if they change e-mail addresses?

I wonder how the slashbots will get out of that one... probably by modding me down to hide their embarassment and to maintain the RDF.

Don't pat yourself on the back. Your analogy was not particularly clever or relevent.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[fmaxwell]

You can tell a drone bot that as many times as you like. It's not going to care.

And that's what makes the spamming a willful crime. The spammer chooses to have his spam-blasting software ignore message refusals. And every day I see multiple attempts to deliver spam to addresses in my domain which are not now, and, in many cases, never have been, live.

Ummm. You get clubbed. I have yet to find spam with weapons that will cause harm to a person. Someone physically assulting you is a crime. Comparing this to spam is silly.

That one causes physical harm and the other causes economic harm (and mental anguish), does not change the fact that both are crimes. I don't know what it is about Slashdotters that makes them think that an analogy between two crimes means is equivalent to saying that the two crimes are equally "bad." When someone says "it's no use crying over spilled milk", it doesn't mean that spilling milk is literally as bad as whatever is upsetting you. Yeesh!

You are getting email - the content of that email doesn't make it any different. As for filter shortcomings, maybe you should change your filters if it's not working for you.

The content is the entire point! It's the point with spam. It's the point with phishing. And the point with personal e-mail. The protocol is just a means of delivering the message.

As to content filters, I don't use them. They are for "spam ostriches" -- the people who hide spam from themselves and then pretend it doesn't exist because they didn't see it. If someone it trying to steal my bandwidth and storage, I want to know about it. I don't want my e-mail client or server automatically deleting the messages after the bandwidth was already stolen.

Yes, you can lock down a WiFi access point, and you can also lock down a mail server. Lack of knowledge in either case is a problem here, not the lack of option.

I own the domain anti-spam.org. I consult with a company that produces mail server software and with another company that makes anti-spam appliances and software. I reject over 99% of the spam that is sent to my domain. I assure you that I know more than you do about anti-spam measures which can be employed on mail servers.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[drsquare]

Because there are easy, check-box methods which let you choose whether to leave his WiFi connection open for all to use or to lock it down. It's a simple choice when you set it up. There is no checkbox on a mail server which lets you choose to reject all spam while accepting e-mail from friends, colleagues, clients, etc. to whom you have given your e-mail address.

Because there are easy, check-box method white-lists which let you choose whether to leave your mail system open to everyone or whether to lock it down. It's a simple choice when you set it up. There is no checkbox on a wireless server which lets you choose to reject all wardrivers and hackers whilst accepting connections from friends, colleagues, clients etc. to whom you have given your wireless address.

See, I can pick 'facts' to suit my argument as well.

Re:Why shouldn't they be locked up?

[fmaxwell]

Because there are easy, check-box method white-lists which let you choose whether to leave your mail system open to everyone or whether to lock it down.

White-lists are not a viable means for securing a mail server. Normal people don't know in advance who might e-mail them in reference to their resume, an ad that they placed, a business card that they handed out, etc. They also don't have a way of knowing that ex-colleagues, bosses, clients, or friends have changed ISPs or e-mail addresses. An e-mail server that uses whitelists is useless while WiFi that uses encryption is not. Totally different animals.

You can choose to secure your web server by rejecting connections that aren't on a whitelist of IP addresses. Does this mean that not using an IP address whitelist on your web server is an invitation to those who would DDoS your web server?

There is no checkbox on a wireless server which lets you choose to reject all wardrivers and hackers whilst accepting connections from friends, colleagues, clients etc. to whom you have given your wireless address.

Sure there is. Encrypt it, don't broadcast the SSID, and give the encryption key and SSID to your friends, colleagues, clients, etc.: "If you're in the area, my WiFi is open to you. It's WPA key in ASCII is 'H0t rock5' and the SSID is '3vector#7'" It's just like giving out an e-mail address.

Re: what about my right to sue?

[v3xt0r]

For mental exhaustion of deleting 78901238120138923 septic tank and viagra spams per day.

What about those emails that are titled 'you need to increase the size of your wang to make your wife happy', what about the mental stress this has put on myself and my relationship.

lol

Eh

[jbdodson]

Who gets the 7 million from Microsoft using illegal tactics to attain marketshare whereby destroying competition? Whats that? Oh right, the politicians who let it happen.

Very nice!

[MirrororriM]

1. Create OS
2. React slowly when mass mailing worms affect said OS
3. Sue spammer because your OS was widely used as a spam host via worms
4. ???
5. Profit!!!

The real kicker

[BlackCobra43]

Imagine how much is "lost" (a loose term ,really) to Slashdot !!!!!

spam from MS

[wardk]

my mail server rejects mail from microsoft.com a few times a month trying to use me as a relay.

I roughly estimate it's costing me billions in lost revenue and mental anguish.

maybe I have recourse?

Re:spam from MS

[Seor Jojoba]

You're not actually getting e-mail from Microsoft, unless you're an MSDN susbscriber or something like that. You're just seeing spoofed mail headers from somebody else that would like you to doubleclick on their attachment or forward the message to 10 other people.

But you probably knew that.

Uh? Why did they settle???

[renoX]

It is not as if Microsoft needs the money!
It is really too bad that Microsoft did a settlement, they should have gone all the way..

What about the consumer?

[icemann476]

What about for those of us, who unfortunately pay Microsoft for an account, will we see any of this money? The spam landed in OUR inbox, threatened US with spyware, & adware, even jeopardizing the safety of OUR identities, but will WE see $1 of that settlement? Doubtful!

Hey Bill...

[Nonillion]

Please send my portion in the form of a $.000002 check to my new address please, thanks..

Global War on Spam

[Doc Ruby]

"Microsoft will reinvest all of the money, after legal expenses"

How come Bill gets the money, after the spammer damaged all of us? How about all the damage Bill is enabling, with his unsafe OS, his virus-infested HotMail, and other apps? His useless ActiveX code-signing, his competition with safer Java by unsafe MS tech, his "drop everything, security is our first priority" PR stunt a couple of years ago? All that useless nonsense, and MS is still the essential global architecture that all that malware depends upon.

Of course MS has saturated its markets. It needs people to upgrade anyway, so it feeds on malware and spam - spammers run Windows, buy Office, and malware developers are consumers of Visual Studio and all kinds of other MS products. The latest conflicted interests now call for us to throw away entire PCs, rather than defend or disinfect them from malware infestations. Gates is the evil genius who gets all the money from breeding these online terrorists, and the money from occasional successful counterterrorism operations. But never so much that he stops the terrorists keeping him in business.

Total frickin BS if you ask me

[gosand]

From a legal standpoint, this is a nice victory for Microsoft. I hope they achieve their deterrent effect by making the financial incentives to spam more dubious.

1. This was not a legal victory at all, it was a settlement. From TFA:

Richter, who was not immediately available for comment, said in the joint statement with Microsoft that he denied Microsoft's allegations.

Microsoft knows that game very well. Settling out of court really doesn't do anything legally.

And how financially painful was it for Richter to pay that $7 mil? If he made 20, then that isn't much of a deterrant at all. Microsoft knows this game very well also.

All in all, I think the whole thing reeks. Especially since $7 mil is couch-cusion money to them. They basically bought themselves a PR story with the lawsuit (look at Microsoft, they are anti-spam!). All this story tells me is that spamming pays if he can afford to pay $7 mil and still be in business, and that those who have the means to sue will benefit from everyone else's pain.

Re:Total frickin BS if you ask me

[Sydney Weidman]

I agree that it reeks. Microsoft gets their legal fees paid plus some extra dough for massive free advertising. I wouldn't mind it if the money went into some kind of public trust. But the fact that MS just gets an extra 7Mil means that they are beneficiaries of spam business. That's really more of an encouragement than a deterrent. Now any joe who can make 20 million will get slapped with a lawsuit by MS, MS will get their cut, and the spammer can retire. Great business model. Everybody wins except the people whose mailboxes are choked with Viagra flyers.

Re:Total frickin BS if you ask me

[shanen]

The only thing this settlement shows is Microsoft's total lack of any ethical concern beyond money. It's just a "business" expense for the spammer, and some extra pocket change for Microsoft. What I wanted to see was the spammer wearing a barrel on his way to prison. That's the kind of example the spammers need, and Microsoft has the legal resources to make that happen. But they settled for a few bucks. Money is the only thing that concerns Microsoft.

The Subject: is an extreme understatement.

Maybe, maybe not

[bluGill]

There is an order to who gets paid when companies go bankrupt. Court ordered fines are high on the list (IIRC only the lawyers are higher). You can (should) look up the exact order yourself, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft get paid everything, and the banks who loaned this guy money get screwed. Come to think of it, I hope the banks/investors get screwed, might teach them a lessions.

Okay, so the banks and investors won't learn. I'd see rather see Microsoft with the money than someone dumb enough to lend money to a spammer.

No coupons?

[TheConfusedOne]

Yeesh, MS rips off states and they get to send out software coupons. MS gets bothered by a spammer and they get cash?

They should be inundated with $5 off herbal viagra supplement coupons.

7 million

[slapout]

If he can afford to pay them $7,000,000 then imagine how much more money he must still have!

Microsoft gets the money?

[Sierpinski]

Did I miss something? I RTFA twice, but I still fail to see why Microsoft gets the $7M. Were they the ones receiving the bulk of the spam? Did it occur at their offices? Other than becoming a "poster child" against spamming, what role did Microsoft actually play in this whole thing? Can Microsoft sue the person who keeps calling my house asking what my current mortgage rate is, even after I repeatedly tell him to take my number off his lists? If so, I'd like to point their attention to that and maybe get a small percentage (finder's fee?) for my own "troubles".

Re:Microsoft gets the money?

[edraven]

MS runs Hotmail. The spam hits their servers and their network, so it cost them bandwidth and disk space.

Microsoft Should Be Commended

[TrueWest175]

It's not a perfect solution, but it is a step in the right direction. $7M is not a lot of money for MS, but it is for the spammer. Given the costs of pursuing this in court, MS probably netted about what they spend on free drinks in a day. This isn't their business and I'm sure they don't want to be spending resources on tracking down spammers. But, a $7M lawsuit is going to give pause to anyone sending unsolicited bulk mail...so, it works and hurray for them.

Ok, mod me as Flamebait...

And of course...

[Karem Lore]

In other news (in an alternate universe near here)

Microsoft will donate nearly £7 million pounds for aiding the development of spamassasin.

Back to reality news

Microsoft will sink £7 million pounds into integrating spam software into its OS offering so tightly that it is impossible to remove (disable via a worm may be possible) thereby closing the doors to all other spammers except Claria...Or is that Claira...or maybe Clearer?

I hope they get it in coupons

[Nom du Keyboard]

Microsoft has settled its spam suit against Scott Richter for $7 million.

I hope MS gets it in coupons and educational discounts for its own products!

Re:I hope they get it in coupons

[edraven]

Or discounts on penis-enlargement pills.

Re:I hope they get it in coupons

[Frenchman113]

What makes you think MS even cares about the $7 million?

Re:Hrm - Where's my cut?

[Gaucho Bueno]

Dear mister Hrm:

May I briefly introduce myself to you.

I am hajia Mariam Abacha, the wife of the late Nigerian Head of State, General Sani Abacha who died on the 8th of June,1998. Before his death, he had been awarded with Micro$oft a sum of 7 million dollairs US. If you could please email your bank account details...

(Okay, kidding, kidding!)

For real fun with spammers/scammers visit http://www.419eater.com/

Excellent interview with Scott Richter

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Here's an excellent interview with Scott Richter from The Daily Show: Scott Richter Interview (9.9MB, Windows Media)

Re:Excellent interview with Scott Richter

[kongjie]

Thanks...I've GOT to start watching The Daily Show again--LMFAO.

Hey!

[ebbyfish]

I submitted this story first. How come I was rejected! Man I must suck!

Service is new

[lilmouse]

I have two Yahoo accounts - one for personal use, and one for work use. The one for work use is (maybe) a year old, while the other has been around since '98. Care to guess which gets more spam? By a factor of 50? That's right - a factor of 50.

Same filters, but one's been out there longer. Same thing'll happen to Google.

--LWM

Yes but, one detail...

[Anonymous Coward]

....he's still not bulletproof...

Do as the Russians Do ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the Russians have the right idea...

Russia's Biggest Spammer Brutally Murdered in Apartment

http://mosnews.com/news/2005/07/25/spammerdead.sht ml

"Vardan Kushnir, notorious for sending spam to each and every citizen of Russia who appeared to have an e-mail, was found dead in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, Interfax reported Monday. He died after suffering repeated blows to the head.

Kushnir, 35, headed the English learning centers the Center for American English, the New York English Centre and the Centre for Spoken English, all known to have aggressive Internet advertising policies in which millions of e-mails were sent every day.

In the past angry Internet users have targeted the American English centre by publishing the Center's telephone numbers anywhere on the Web to provoke telephone calls. The Center's telephone was advertised as a contact number for cheap sex services, or bargain real estate sales.

Another attack involved hundreds of people making phone calls to the American English Center and sending it numerous e-mails back, but Vardan Kushnir remained sure of his right to spam, saying it was what e-mails were for.

Under Russian law, spamming is not considered illegal, although lawmakers are working on legal projects that could protect Russian Internet users like they do in Europe and the U.S."

Spam Education

[Kelson]

I stumbled across this site a few months ago: Spam. Don't Buy It. It's an educational campaign to convince people not to buy stuff from spammers. There's a nice diagram of the spam business cycle, illustrating how few customers the spammer really needs to make a profit.

Re:Spam Education

[toonworld]

That's gotta be the lamest diagram I have ever seen. You should know that spammers actually do get paid BEFORE someone even buys a product.

I know about advertising and its effects since I studied it back in college. It's all about numbers and statistics.

If a spammer sends out an e-mail with a hyperlink and someone clicks it out of curiosity, that person just helped the spammer. The webmaster will see a hit on his site and can even see from which advertising company it came from (in this case, our spammer).

So more hits are generated. Therefor the company decides it's worth it to keep paying spammers. It's about letting people know that a company/website exists. It's about coverage.

You don't have to buy a product to help a spammer. All it takes is one click! And let's face it, a lot of people just can't help clicking on that add to see what lies beyond.

Curiosity killed the cat...

Or, what really matters

[Sycraft-fu]

Is if businesses think people will buy things from spam. Many spammers aren't in teh business of selling things to people, they sell spam services to businesses. So the spammer makes money even if the business makes none.

Re:Maybe, maybe not

[mabu]

At least if he declared bankruptcy, the court would regulate the payment and dissolution of assets. But the terms of the settlement dictate he will dismiss his filing, so that makes it even less likely Microsoft will get paid IMO.

Are you sure. Are you a lawyer?

[Anonymous Coward]

And do you know what "promotion" means?

Well that explains his lack of posts

[zippthorne]

Care to comment on this, spammer?

WHERE THE MONEY GOES

[Anonymous Coward]

Just, curious, why is microsoft collecting money by sueing spammers. It seems that if the spammer was going to get sued or prosecuted it would be by the State the spammer lived in. Why is it that microsoft deserves 7 million for all the span I get.

I have 10 college degrees

[Anonymous Coward]

I have 10 college degrees and more "equipment" down below than all you put together, so I am more than qualified to refute your assertion. Some people buy a lot of stuff from spammers.

(unless my m3ds are kicking in and its the \/|0XX talking)

check is in the mail

[daevt]

I'm sure those consumers who were burried under all that spam will be getting their cut of that settlement any day now.

Great news...

[Jugalator]

Can they now start thinking about hiring a developer to start designing a bayesian filter for their Outlook programs? :-p

Re:Are you sure. Are you a lawyer?

[Elwood P Dowd]

No and no and Google isn't helping much.

Care to fill me in?

That was fantastic

[grouse]

You have made my day, sir. Thank you!

Whatttttt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you spam if you had $7 million?

Make money from your home

[coastin]

Bill Gates has recently come across and extra $7 million. He wants to prove the Internet works, especially e-mail. He is offering to pay people to use their e-mail. All you have to do to get your share is forward this e-mail to every e-mail address you can find, friends, family, strangers or any e-mail addresses you buy on CD. Then on August 31 send it to bill at billgates@hotmail.com and wait for your share of the $$$$ to arrive in your inbox.

dnsbl

[oko ko]

DNSBL really stops spam! I used it on my server and it cut 95% or more crap. Best installed on the mail server itself it also can be user on client side, for example see http://www.spampal.org/

Jail Time?

[budgenator]

So what happens when dirty rotten evil spammer gets locked in the big-slam and starts teaching "spam, 409 scams and internet riches for everybody, 101" to distract tyrone from putting his size 13 round peg in spammer's size 4 square hole?

A message for Mr. Gates from the American Public

[PhatboySlim]

You go girl!

Could you rethink your position?

[Rev.LoveJoy]

Sir,

Are you so blinded by your disliked of MSFT that you cannot compliment them when they do something good?

It was Microsoft's hotmail service which was forced to spend money to deal with the onslaught of Richter's spam.

It was Microsoft who put up the front money to investigate and file suit against Richter's company. Keep in mind that circa 2003, taking a spammer to court was not exactly a lucrative enterprise (I do not have hard facts on this, but I doubt it is overly profitable today, either).

It was Microsoft who followed through with their threat to make spamming unprofitable. I think you are swinging a bit wild with that axe you have to grind.

Cheers,
-- RLJ

What exactly did they accomplish?

[gosand]

It was Microsoft who followed through with their threat to make spamming unprofitable. I think you are swinging a bit wild with that axe you have to grind.

You don't know that it is not profitable for the spammer. As you said, they have been in court for 2 years. What do you think they have been doing since then? Making money. If spamming wasn't profitable, the spammers wouldn't exist. They are only in it for the money. Richter is still in business, even after *SETTLING* for $7 mil. It wasn't a court judgement against spammers.

So what did Microsoft accomplish?

Re:What exactly did they accomplish?

[Rev.LoveJoy]

You have a point. I should have used the phrase "less profitable" and not the absolute "unprofitable." It would have been far more accurate.

That being said, I still think the parent to my first post is way off base: that MS should use their private funds to sue a spammer for the public good otherwise MS are the beneficiaries of SPAM is silly in the extreme.

Cheers,
-- RLJ

Re:What exactly did they accomplish?

[gglaze]

So what did Microsoft accomplish?

For starters, they recuperated part of the cost incurred when they had to spend their own time to deal with this issue, in terms of development and support effort on Hotmail. I doubt they recuperated all of their losses there - maybe not more than a token amount really.

Isn't that what you would do if you ran a free public e-mail service that was getting slammed by someone overloading it with spam illegally?

The CIA

[MacFury]

A top ranking CIA official was on the Ali G show. The CIA guy didn't even know Ali G was a total fake. Kinda freaks me out that these people are in charge.

Dear Microsoft...

[gkwok]

Your lawsuit advocates a

( ) technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(x) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(x) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
(x) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!

Digital sig?

[Quadraginta]

OK, this one befuddles me, so I throw it out hoping a geekier geek will know the answer:

Why hasn't there been a significant move towards digital signatures a la PGP signatures on e-mail? With legit sigs registered with and guaranteed by their firms (work mail) or ISPs (personal), so everyone can find a spammer when he spams and....uh...do something firm but completely legal and moderate to them...nothing at all like staking them on an anthill or trying out setting #10 on The Machine, really.

Anyway, doesn't it seem easier for people to get used to the idea that senders should validate themselves up front, rather than leaving it up to receivers to sift out valid senders -- and with no better route than trying to analyze natural language, for God's sake, a major AI/expert-system challenge itself.

What am I missing??

Re:Digital sig?

[cosminn]

What am I missing??

People are ignorant and lazy...as much as I would like to have every email signed, that's not going to happen...:-/

It took me about one hour to set up my keys, certs and get everything working properly, and I think I'm well above the average computer user...

The worst of the worst

[Anonymous Coward]

Robert Soloway, Eddy Marin, Alan Ralsky, Robert Martino, Ronnie Scelson, Alex Zhardanovsky, Bill Waggoner.. the worst of the worst, these scum need to be finished off once and for all. Civil actions aren't enough for most of these; they won't retire until they are in jail.

Jails too good for him

[bashibazouk]

Fines too good for him, jails too good for him, Hangings too good for him, burnings too good for him, he should be cut up into little tiny pieces and buried alive!

OK Let me get this streight

[eadint]

Microsoft, the company that is indirectly responcible for 99% of the in the world ( zombi servers, shoddy security, poor defalt security, ect ect). because of their horrible OS the world is beset by spam to begin with, and they spawn a multimillion dolar industry, anispyware, antispam ect. sues a spammer, and wins. this is like putting a loaded gun in a crack neghborhood with a note saying here are the directions to my house, i have a pound of crack six naked virginal daughters, i am unarmed and dont know the number to the police department, then after a crack addict showes up to rob you, you sue said crack addict, for all of their money. this is essentially what MS has done.

Re:OK Let me get this streight

[/dev/trash]

No where in that little diatribe of yours did you say "please come harm me."

+++
Cache In, Trash Out!

Where on Earth? Pretty close

[ShimmyShimmy]

Actually, this is not a completely unreasonable number. According an article from Netscape.com a few weeks ago, it says that 10% of people have bought something from a spam email. So, there's at least some basis, even if it's misinterpreted.
Of course, even the dumbest of the dumb get thousands of spams and probably only make one or two orders for a total of maybe $100 total.

According to Paul Graham in Hackers and Painters (IIRC), there is about either a 0.1% to 0.01% success rate per spam.
Generally, the cost of a spam (for bandwidth usage, the inconvenience of finding a hackable server, etc), runs about 0.1 to 0.01 cents per email.
Unfortunately (well, fortuneately for them), barring getting caught, this still makes sending spam a very profitable process.

Don't forget

[Kadmium]

touting everything from herbal products to loan consolidation schemes

And don't forget the clitorius stimulation cream

The $7 mil settlement is being reinvested.

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article

Smith said that Microsoft will reinvest all of the money, after legal expenses, including $5 million that will go to increase Internet enforcement efforts and expand technical and investigative support to help law enforcers to address computer-related crimes.

I GOT IT!!!

[HomerNet]

I just figured out what step two is!!!

1. Create crappy software, then force everyone to use it with bad business practices that eventually drive everyone to alternative platforms.
2. ...
3. Profit!

Step two is; "Sue spammers!"

It's all so clear now!

Isn't this a step to achieve monopoly?

[Anonymous Coward]

M$ acquired a spam company, M$ sues other spammers.
Isn't this a way of gaining monopoly over spam?

mike richter?

[metricmusic]

isn't this the guy who use to spam the cd burning NGs?

Spammers Assests!

[jimmyjim]

I read that microsoft is donating a million dollars to a New York city Charity and using the rest of the settlement to fight spam. Also heard AOL settled with a spammer and is giving away a Hummer and other goodies seized/taken from the spammer. My opinoin is that this will be a small and short lived victory on the war against spam for spam operatoins are just moving offshore and setting up shop.

Wood Chipper

[billstewart]

Oh, wait, isn't this the poll?

This isn't a criminal prosecution, in which the government would be trying to prove that the accused did something criminal (Eliott Spitzer was also doing that, but this is a different case.) This is a lawsuit, in which Microsoft was trying to prove that Scotty did harm to Microsoft, and should be required to compensate Microsoft for that harm. The issue of "Settling" here is whether the parties involves go to the time and expense of finishing a trial, where the amount of money that gets paid is much less predictable and therefore riskier to both sides, as opposed to deciding on a specific amount of money that's less than the defendant might have had to pay if he'd lost badly but more than he'd have to pay if he won or didn't lose too badly. Also, for this case, Scotty was trying to get off the hook by filing bankruptcy to avoid the judgement, and this gets around that problem.

Rule 2 makes this less likely, but it's still easy

[billstewart]

Rule 1: Spammers always lie. Rule 2: Spammers are stupid.

Rule 2 means that spammers usually aren't competent, but if one of them is, he'll set up a corporation to isolate his activities from the spamming, so if anybody bothers to go to the effort to prosecute for spamming, it's the corporation that gets busted and not the individual, and it's the corporation's assets that are exposed to the court, not the actual spammer's. Of course, the corporation will make sure to spend its money paying employees or buying services from people or whatever, so the only assets are a $100 corporate charter, some petty cash, and maybe a couple of cheap PCs in a colo center (but they'd probably be leased also, so if the spammer's corporation gets busted, they just stop paying their PC rent.)

It's hard enough to prosecute anybody for spamming, and it's a lot more work to pierce the corporate veil and bust the individuals responsible for it - they'll do that for a multi-billion-dollar Enron or Worldcom scam, but a bottom-feeding spammer in a mobile home park isn't worth the effort, and a medium-sized million-dollar spammer can go to a bit more work and use a $1000 off-shore tax-haven corporation instead of a $100 Delaware corporation.

I *have* tracked down at least one spammer to a mailbox at the address of "The Company Corporation" in Delaware - they're the canonical $100 Delaware Corporation provider, so it was real obvious that there'd be no use chasing them further.

won't work

[hawk]

Unfortunately, M'Bungu's widow and son keep sharing 20% of the fortune they're removing from the country, and these spam-buyers are always flush with cash!

:)

hawk

until . . .

[hawk]

if memory serves, both were disbarred for other reasons.

hawk

parts of usenet survived

[hawk]

In some newsgroups, there were enough people that consistantly filed abuse reports about spam, trolls, and other abuse (usually to screeches of "netcop!"), and are still useful today.

For the most part, though, the "Imminent death of the usenet" did indeed happen.

hawk