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Judge In e360 Vs. Comcast Rules e360 a Spammer

Brielle Bruns writes "Yesterday, Judge James B. Zagel dismissed claims against Comcast by e360. In the decision, the judge says: 'Plaintiff e360Insight, LLC is a marketer. It refers to itself as an Internet marketing company. Some, perhaps even a majority of people in this country, would call it a spammer.' This clears the path for Comcast's counter-suit." e360 is the spammer that got a default judgement against Spamhaus, as we have discussed on numerous occasions.

156 comments

  1. CvE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Plaintiff e360Insight, LLC is a marketer. It refers to itself as an Internet marketing company. Some, perhaps even a majority of people in this country, would call it a spammer.' This clears the path for Comcast's counter-suit.

    Comcast vs. e360Insight: Whoever loses, we win.

    1. Re:CvE by Shadowland · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > Comcast vs. e360Insight: Whoever loses, we win.

      Or is that:
      Comcast vs. e360Insight: Whoever wins, we lose.

      I guess it depends on if you are a "glass half full" or "glass half empty" kind of person. :^)

    2. Re:CvE by billcopc · · Score: 1

      Whoever wins, we lose.

      --
      -Billco, Fnarg.com
    3. Re:CvE by misleb · · Score: 3, Funny

      At least Comcast offers services that people actually WANT. You may not like some of their policies, but they are what I would call a "positive" business. That is, as opposed to a negative business like e360 that acts more as a parasite offering "services" that consumers don't really want and quite often hate. They leech off the system.

      I say, "Go Comcast!"

      --
      "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
    4. Re:CvE by Teflon_Jeff · · Score: 1

      At least Comcast offers services that people actually WANT. You may not like some of their policies, but they are what I would call a "positive" business. That is, as opposed to a negative business like e360 that acts more as a parasite offering "services" that consumers don't really want and quite often hate. They leech off the system.

      I say, "Go Comcast!" I'll put that on the list of things I never thought I'd read/hear. But I have to agree, Comcast is the slightly lesser of these two evils.
      --
      "Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
    5. Re:CvE by spacefiddle · · Score: 1

      Mod parent up, i sadly conclude. Y'know, i think in this judgement i saw one thing that's convinced me of the need for net neutrality more than anything else:

      (C) Comcast is a private enterprise and has no obligation to honor the free speech rights of e360.

      "...or anyone else, nyah nyeah."

      I guess i've gotten caught up in the various arguments on the issue, but that one stark line makes it quite clear.
    6. Re:CvE by DeanOh · · Score: 1

      or...according to a certain Washington DC resident:
      "half-glass empty guy or half-glass full guy"
      http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/03/20080328-3.html

  2. What's the distinguishing characteristic? by imstanny · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I get snail mail advertisements all the time; to me they are spam. What's the difference between unsoliticed snail-mail marketing and unsolicited email 'spam'?

    1. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by DragonPup · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The snail mail sender pays for the entire cost of the message(paper, printing, delivery, etc). The spammer shares his cost with the recipient's ISP.

      --
      "Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
    2. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The difference is one usually is made of felled trees, processed with additional fossil fuel energy,
      printed with toxic inks, and loaded onto diesel spewing trucks to be delivered to your doorstep.

      The other one is virtual. The energy it costs to deliver it to you is negligible, as is the required
      energy to properly dispose of it. (hit delete)

      Oh yeah, also if you have a decent spam filter you will RARELY get unsolicited emails.

      There is NO DECENT FILTER for snail spam.

    3. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Reece400 · · Score: 1

      It costs nothing to anyone but the sender in snail mail, where as with email it costs all parties for the bandwidth. Similar to fax spam which cost the end user the paper & ink..

    4. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by fuocoZERO · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure on this beacuse I haven't seen any documentation, but I was told by a company that does large mailings for other companies (like junk mail) that there are laws going into place that make sending mail to "Current Resident" (and the like) illegal and punishable by fine.

    5. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by toleraen · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Snail mail sender didn't pay their share of my paper shredder though.

    6. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Reece400 · · Score: 1

      Well, recycling anything addressed to 'current resident' or without an address at all, gets rid of a good chunk..

    7. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by sqlrob · · Score: 1

      There is NO DECENT FILTER for snail spam.

      yes, there is. Form 1500.

    8. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by toleraen · · Score: 1

      I'd be glad to get the kind of spam Form 1500 blocks. Unfortunately, that makes up 0% of the spam I have ever received.

    9. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by ZuG · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You know, it just occured to me that this is really false.

      The spammer shares the costs with the recipient's ISP, and ultimately the recipient (through increased ISP costs). The cost of any one individual spam is very low, but taken together they quickly become noticable.

      The junk snail mailer pays for all of the mailing costs, but each piece of junk mail he sends must be recycled or thrown away, creating a small effect on the cost of garbage for each individual user. The cost of any individual junk mail is very low, but taken together, they do have an appreciable effect on the cost of trash collection.

    10. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by ivan256 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Every week I fill a 35 gallon trash bag with junk mail. I then pay to throw out (recycle) said bag of junk mail. Entire cost, my ass.

      In municipalities that provide trash collection, the government ends up paying that part of the costs of direct mail advertising.

    11. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Wuhao · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you were asking what the difference is in the context of acceptability, junk mail senders are forced to pay the carrier -- the postal service -- for every piece of mail they generate. When I want to send a package through USPS, I can, and the fact that the junk mailers are also using the postal service has only made it easier, since they carry their own weight financially.

      Spammers, on the other hand, force their carrier -- Internet mail servers -- to bear 100% of the cost while receiving no compensation. Thanks to this, mail administrators are now forced to spend an enormous amount of time worrying about keeping spammers out, instead of making sure that the mail of legitimate users gets delivered. When I want to e-mail someone, I am less likely to be able to do so successfully since it's possible to get caught up in the antispam measures that have been set up on the mail server, as well as the recipient's mail client.

      In sum: junk mailers pay their carriers, and contribute to the maintenance of the service. Spammers pay nothing to the mail servers, and are a significant detriment to the service.

      They're both annoying as shit to the recipient, though.

    12. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Hm, I probably wouldn't mind junk mail so much if there were an easy way to liquify nonmetallic material and use it as fuel for my home...

    13. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by 91degrees · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Very little. Ultimately I guess it comes down to quantity. There are at least some practical limitations on junk mail (paper and postage costs money).

      If I had my way, junk mail would be opt-in only as well.

    14. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by introspekt.i · · Score: 1

      One makes me very angry and forces me to set up and maintain filters. The other one I can just wipe my bottom with. Watch out for paper cuts, though. Ouch.

    15. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by doojsdad · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Snail mail spam is what keeps the US Postal Service in business. They aren't going to fight very hard to prevent it.

    16. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by RingDev · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You mean like in a fireplace or non-gas/electric furnace?

      -Rick

      --
      "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
    17. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because with snail-spam, I can cut my heating bill, and piss off those hippy kids in one shot.

    18. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 0

      I was hoping something that doesn't pollute or have horrific smell (do I repeat myself?) like maybe a fuel cell sort of deal.

    19. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by twoshortplanks · · Score: 0

      Surely a spammer pays for 50% of the cost of the bandwidth, since they pay their ISP just as you do.

      What they don't pay for is 50% of the cost of running the mailserver, or the 50% of the cost of the bandwidth between your mailserver and your computer.

      This, of course, is ignoring the fact that most spammers don't pay for anything - the actual spam is sent via a botnet, that a great number of people who aren't the spammer are paying to keep on the internet.

      --
      -- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
    20. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are allowed to define "pornographic content" as anything you wish and the post office can not rule against it.

      http://sowhatcanido.blogspot.com/2005/04/stop-junk-mail_01.html

    21. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by hedwards · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The spammer shares the costs with the recipient's ISP, and ultimately the recipient (through increased ISP costs). The cost of any one individual spam is very low, but taken together they quickly become noticable. That's not really correct. A spammer might have to pay as much as you or I do in terms of costs, but they're getting that amount times millions and millions for free. Since the biggest names these days generally are using bot nets and co-opting servers the cost to the spammer is in most cases essentially zero.

      It's sort of like paying $5 for a car and making somebody else pay the rest of the sticker cost for a luxury car. Yes technically they're both paying, but even street people around here can get their hands on $5 without too much trouble.

      Trying to fight spam with legislation doesn't have a chance without global cooperation, and the Russians in particular just don't care, as do a few other nations. It's difficult to deal with places like the US where most of the spam originating from here is doing so from compromised computers.

      Technical deterrents are difficult to get right, and while they do allow for some help, it's impossible to really fix it. It makes a difference, but with the current net architecture it's a challenge to stop spam and have anonymity as well.

      Ultimately what things come down to is making it less rewarding. What we really need is the ability to fine companies that are paying spammers to advertise for them. Admittedly it would be nice to see spammers drawn and quartered, but realistically, it's far easier to find Target, Walmart, Bestbuy and the other companies I've seen advertised than it is to find a cyber criminal that may or may not be located somewhere in southeast Asia. It's just so much easier to follow the money than it is to try and follow the spam.

      Of course that's going to be fought tooth and nail, and I'm sure there are other problems with it. But it's a far easier solution to the problem than the others are. Of course, that isn't a license to ignore the other parts.
    22. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The cost of 1 piece of mail is about 41 cents. The cost of an email is so small its a fraction of a traction of a cent. Big difference.

    23. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by BenSchuarmer · · Score: 3, Informative

      Contact the advertisers and tell them to take you off their list. Unlike spammers, junk mailers generally honor opt-out requests (they don't want to pay for paper and postage if you tell them there's no chance you'll buy something from them).

    24. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Amouth · · Score: 1

      this is why i let my wife check the mail... now i only get what is worth while....

      --
      '...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
    25. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well for me in my City Garbage is a fixed cost per year. So if I use it or not I pay the same amount... However junk mail helps keep the United States Postage Service running. And for relitivly low stamp prices for the level of service the USPS offers us. Daily Home Deliver and Pickup a close by location to get federal forms. Witout Junk Mail Stamps will be well over a dollar a stamp. Mail delivery will be much slower and a lot of other bad things...

      SPAM on the otherhand is advertising without the good. They dont support services that we want they are a burden on ISPs even the company who chooses to Spam reputation (albiet I havent seen a legit product being sold in years) will be shot. It really is a take-take indrustry that gives nothing back. At least tobaco comanies keep generations of farmers in business. SPAM operations run cheap make money without any benefit they are not a positive impact on the economy, they do no good.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    26. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Aquaseafoam · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Were the above the case, what's to stop someone concocting fake spam to cause financial damage to a company? You'd have to catch them red handed or they could just deny, deny, deny....

      --
      09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0
    27. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Send it back. You must do this. Write on the envelope "gone away" or "not known at this address" and put it in the nearest postbox.

      If you do this (1) the sender has to bear the postage cost of the returned item, (2) they have to dispose of the returned item, (3) you get taken off their list since they have no easy way to determine if you really have gone away or not.

    28. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

      The difference is, with snail spam, it's going to be delivered, and then you're going to have to deal with it. You're still going to pay the cost of throwing it away, recycling it, etc.

      With email spam, there are several stages where you can block the connection before the mail is delivered, thus reducing the cost to you. Not completely eliminating it, but reducing it. I know of no similar steps to take with snail spam.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    29. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by ChuckSchwab · · Score: 0, Funny

      WTF is with you people? Trying to draw all these hairsplitting lines between "okay" solitations and "not okay".

      So-called "spam" is not the problem. The problem is that all you idiots use an outdated system that ALLOWS anyone to send information packets through it with zero traceability, zero accountability, zero credibility.

      Isn't it *our* fault, collectively, for spam? For relying on such a crappy, corruptible system of communication in the first place? If we put a giant button on our homes that says "press to begin ignition process", we'd hardly be justified in claiming that button-pushers are the source of our ills.

      As long as we're ordering our lives around such a corruptible system, we have precisely ZERO right to complain.

      And I don't even hate "spam" like apparently the rest of you do. What you call "spam", I call "messages that give me info on the latest products, technologies, and business modesl." You want less of it? I want MORE of it. Hell, two weeks ago, I got a good deal on a prescription drug (that I won't name...) at about $50 for a year's supply. It takes a while to deliver (hasn't arrived yet), but you sure as hell can't beat the price.

      And the fact is, that consumers LIKE spam. Why do you think spam is profitable? Because people buy the products advertised!

      I think a study asked a bunch of questions about the internet to people to look for correlations and what they found was striking:

      90% of people who think spam should be "eliminated some time in the future" have bought something on line. Does that make ANY sense whatsoever? You hate getting ads in your email, but you're all so eager to buy on line?

    30. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by somersault · · Score: 1

      The energy it costs to deliver it to you is negligible, as is the required energy to properly dispose of it. (hit delete)
      Actually, if you add up all the energy that was ever used by computers and networks to send and receive spam, I'm sure it would probably involve a fair amount of pollution and wasted energy. What percentage of a random sample of internet packets travelling through an ISPs backbone is going to be spam related? Probably quite a lot..
      --
      which is totally what she said
    31. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the other mail that can't fit in my mailbox because of all the spam? I have to waste gas to go pick it up at the main office. Fuck you and your costs.

    32. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by L0stm4n · · Score: 3, Informative

      The other one is virtual. The energy it costs to deliver it to you is negligible, as is the required
      energy to properly dispose of it. (hit delete)

      Oh yeah, also if you have a decent spam filter you will RARELY get unsolicited emails.

      There is NO DECENT FILTER for snail spam. It costs money to power the antispam machines, the extra machines needed to process the mail that gets through and wasted time of people deleting it. I used to work for an ISP/hosting joint. Small mom and pop place. 1 server would have been plenty to deal with our load, except for the spam. a couple hundred domains spam going through our mailservers forced us to cluster up to 6 machines to deal with the filtering.

      I can sort my snailmail spam from real mail in a couple seconds. With electronic spam I have to tweak filters and still end up deleting a good amount from my inbox which takes time.
      --
      superman runs linux
    33. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by pipatron · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It costs the USPS money to deliver it. Money that raises stamp prices, or paid via taxes.

      Ok, so, let's see. The less customers USPS have, the lower the price for stamps?

      If everyone sent 50 letters/day, the stamp price would be so high, it would be unthinkable?

      Apparently I fail to follow this logic.

      --
      c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
    34. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
      At the end of the day, the government still contributes to the USPS.

      No they don't. Not at all. Not even in the middle of the day.

      Do you really think that the few cents they charge per letter would fully cover the cost of snail mail?

      Yes. And why the "few cents" exaggeration? IS that the only way you can hope to make your point?

    35. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Firethorn · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's your option to shred, toss, or burn the mail in a furnace in the wintertime.

      Still, the [i]majority[/i] of the costs are borne by the mailer, thus resulting in limites to the amount, and at least some specifivity. Not to mention that in order to get the best rates you have to identify yourself to the post office pretty well. This limits the amount of scamming that can be done as the scammers are normally stuck paying first class if they want to do anonymous drops. That increases costs to the point it has to be a very good scam or very selectively mailed if the scammer is to have any hope of making money and avoiding the postal police.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
    36. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by pipatron · · Score: 1

      Ok, if this doesn't deserve +5 Funny, nothing does :D

      --
      c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
    37. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by nuzak · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Know how much bandwidth a mail server needs? Quadruple it. That's just to handle the spam. Is that free?

      --
      Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
    38. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by randyest · · Score: 4, Funny

      You should stop doing that. Instead, stuff all the spam back into the postage-paid business reply cards envelopes they send. With a little tape, you can really fit a lot of paper into one of those. They look like balloons when I mail them back. And the mail-spammer gets to pay the postage for the trash back to them! Free for me, helps the post office with a little revenue, and financially penalizes the mail spammers -- that's win/win/win!

      --
      everything in moderation
    39. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by geekboy642 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Careful, your ignorance is showing. Do you honestly believe there are no ways to block junk mail before it is delivered? Here's a helpful exercise: every time you find something you don't know, throw it into Google and skim the first five links or so. Here's what my 10 seconds of casual effort dug up:

      This will block 90%+ of junk mail, and I actually signed up months ago. The only junk mail I get is a local free newspaper that just gets stuffed into every box regardless.
      http://www.dmaconsumers.org/consumerassistance.php

      This thing is pure gold. It will block ALL of those "pre-approved" credit card offers. You know the ones, they come with a 29.99% APR, a $650 limit, and yearly fees? Well, at least the ones my wife gets do. I signed up on this thing and I haven't had a single one since.
      https://www.optoutprescreen.com/

      --
      Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
    40. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by ChrisA90278 · · Score: 1

      What's the difference between unsoliticed snail-mail marketing and unsolicited email

      Easy. With snail main the sender pays for it with a stamp. With spam the sender uses other people's resource to send the mail.

      Actually look at spam from your point of view as an end user spam is a bit like jumk mail. All yuo have to do is sort out the crap and toss it out. but from the ISP's point of view spam is very costly. What if the junk-mailers used fake stamps? the post office would be very upset but you would not care much. This is what's going on with spam. the spammers are costing the ISP's a a lot of time and money

      spam is more like telephone marketing than junk mailing.

    41. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 1

      Actually, Labor is the largest expense of the USPS not fuel.

      The USPS is not an "on demand" entity. The carriers still run their routes regardless if there is a piece of mail destined for an address. Each rural mailbox and postal center collection box must be checked for outgoing mail. Every postal employee that is full time gets paid regardless of the work load.

      Now what junk mail does is offset the expense that the USPS has to pay on a daily basis. The more junk mail passing through the postal system, the more revenue being generated to offset the costs.

      SPAM, on the other hand, generates cost as both MONETARY such as the cost to mitigate the additional flow of email and INFRASTRUCTURE as performance suffers as some non-spam mail may get lost in the process.

      Unlike SPAM, Junk mail has value in job creation. It take labor to create the paper, ink, and equipment. There are workers who generate the mailings and deliver the mailings to the postal service and (as mentioned before) keeps the postal system employed.

      SPAM only benefits the spammer...

      --
      These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
    42. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by sherriw · · Score: 4, Informative

      There's no need to shred un-addressed junk mail (like flyers). If you are getting junk / offers addressed directly to you, I've had good results with calling those companies and asking to be removed from their mailing lists. Typically they don't want to pay the postage for mailing to an uninterested person.

      Now I get essentially zero addressed junk mail.

    43. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Reece400 · · Score: 1, Insightful

      USPS is no longer part of the government, they are a corporation. They wouldn't deliver something for less that it cost to get it there...

    44. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by jcr · · Score: 1

      Every week I fill a 35 gallon trash bag with junk mail.

      Wow, I thought I got a lot. My paper spam is only about a 1-foot stack each week.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    45. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Shuntros · · Score: 1

      I think you'll find it's eBay that keeps the USPS in business.

    46. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The junk snail mailer pays for all of the mailing costs, but each piece of junk mail he sends must be recycled or thrown away, creating a small effect on the cost of garbage for each individual user. The cost of any individual junk mail is very low, but taken together, they do have an appreciable effect on the cost of trash collection.

      I've read about some countires in Europe and other places placing a surtax on goods to handle the cost of disposal (for the packing materials only, IIRC). Maybe something similar on bulk mail is in order.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    47. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I really don't care if it does keep the post office running. I would happily pay a couple dollars to send a letter in the extremely rare case that I do have to send a letter, in order to avoid being bombarded with unsolicited advertisements (many of which you really can't opt out of without significant effort) when I open my mailbox.

      How often does anyone need to send mail anymore? Bills can be paid online. Most documents can be sent electronically. USPS isn't needed for shipping (and now they have can canceled their cheap surface international shipping). The only case I can think of is sending documents that require a pen & ink signature.

      Access to federal forms? Just download + print.

    48. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1
      Surely a spammer pays for 50% of the cost of the bandwidth, since they pay their ISP just as you do.

      Have you somehow missed all the bot-net articles?

    49. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 1

      It's obvious that the 50% figure is from using the "Right Hand Extraction" method (aka pulling it out of your...), but let's talk about your reasoning behind the number.

      All kidding aside, the spammer only pays for access to the internet. He does not in any way,shape, or form subsidize your access to the internet.

      When you pay your ISP for internet access, you are paying for a certain amount of bandwidth for data and certain amount of storage space on the mail server. When you receive spam, you are losing the value of your investment since spam takes space from your email account without providing you any benefit and lowers your carriers ability to provide you the bandwidth you desired due to the incoming spam taking effective bandwidth away from the internet.

      A more accurate statement would be:

      While a spammer pays a small cost for access to the internet. None of the money spent by the spammer is used to offset the resulting expense and loss of ROI experienced by the recipient and the recipient's ISP.

      --
      These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
    50. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by slash.duncan · · Score: 1

      Snail mail spam does allow a couple ways to get rid of it upstream.

      1) At least here in the US, while the postal service doesn't do traditional blocks (but see below), I believe the regulations require advertisers to remove one's name from their lists if asked to do so. The mail must be individually addressed to make that possible, altho it can be addressed to "occupant", but it must have an individual street or whatever address. I believe bulk rate must also have something (often the small card with the individual to address; small cards often get lost and are in any case hard to find among the newsprint) listing the sender, as well, so a customer may send a removal request.

      I've asked for removal from several regular mail spammers around here, and they've done their part. The problem however is that the post office doesn't always do /their/ part. First, as mentioned, those little address cards often get separated from the bulk of the newsprint and etc that forms most of the ad bundle. Technically, this is a violation of USPS regulations, the mail must be delivered in its entirety including the address card, and you can call your postmaster to complain.

      Second, with bulk mail, the tendency of the carrier is often to just shove it into each box sequentially, never looking at the address on the card. After you get your name removed from the marketer's list (as I mentioned, I've had no problems with that part), you'll often still get it -- if you look at the address however, it was to the neighbor next in line (or two or three down, if several have had their addresses removed). Thus, taking your name off lists doesn't always help. However, again, and this is a more serious issue due to the privacy and mail integrity implications, delivering mail to the wrong address is against USPS regulations. This one's therefore DEFINITELY worth calling the postmaster and complaining about.

      Unfortunately I've not yet followed thru on that, so can't say how effective it might be. Also note that if your complaint causes the local postmaster to come down hard on your local carrier, as it SHOULD for the regularly getting the neighbor's mail case, you could end up on not so friendly terms with said mail carrier. One would HOPE they'd be professional about it, but one would HOPE they'd not have to be told to deliver the mail to the correct address, too.

      2) I've not tried this, but someone mentioned it somewhere I was reading, and it sounded reasonable, so I'm passing it on entirely without vouching for the authenticity thereof. Apparently, there's a regulation allowing people to file to block mail they consider obscene. Apparently, some folks took to using this to block advertising. Apparently, when the USPS didn't respond in such advertising cases, someone took them to court. Apparently, the resulting court decision included a ruling that only the individual can decide what's obscene to them, and thus, if they fill out the appropriate paperwork, the USPS is obligated to block mail from that sender to that recipient -- with serious legal repercussions if they fail to do so!

      If this is correct and as should be plain from the language above I've no idea, just passing on what I read in the hope that it's useful, this method should allow you to block certain mail entirely, with legal action possible should the USPS fail to do so. Naturally, the USPS isn't entirely happy about such obligations and doesn't make it easy to find this information. However, a stop at the post office to request the obscene mail blocking form should get you on your way, and verify one way or another whether this is correct, in the process.

      Hope that's useful and that postal services in other countries have something similar if not better. Of course, if anyone could verify the obscene mail block bit, preferably with a pointer to an authoritative source, it'd help me as well. =8^)

      Duncan

      --
      Duncan
      "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master,
      and if you use the program, he is your master."
      R Stallman
    51. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by kindbud · · Score: 1

      The snail mail sender pays for the entire cost of the message(paper, printing, delivery, etc). The spammer shares his cost with the recipient's ISP.

      That's getting dangerously close to an argument the carriers would use to justify charging content providers for delivery of their content to end users. If everyone is in agreement that no one should be able to force extra infrastructure charges on someone else beyond what was planned for, then what defense do we have against AT&T assessing a surcharge on YouTube?

      --
      Edith Keeler Must Die
    52. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Well B2B comminication is still a lot of mail that goes on. Having B2B at $1.00 per letter can get very espensive very quickly.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    53. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by JackieBrown · · Score: 1

      Parent was moderate flamebait? I guess there are some snail mail advertisers here

    54. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by zerocool^ · · Score: 3, Informative
      For those who are skeptical (and i'm one) regarding the fraud or non-fraud of optoutprescreen.com, See this:

      One: Verisign signature.

      SITE NAME: www.optoutprescreen.com

      SSL CERTIFICATE
      STATUS: Valid (28-Sep-2006 to 18-Oct-2008)

      COMPANY/
      ORGANIZATION: CONSUMER DATA INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION
      Washington
      District of Columbia, US

              Encrypted Data Transmission This Web site can secure your private information using a VeriSign SSL Certificate. Information exchanged with any address beginning with https is encrypted using SSL before transmission.
              Identity Verified CONSUMER DATA INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION has been verified as the owner or operator of the Web site located at www.optoutprescreen.com. Official records confirm CONSUMER DATA INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION as a valid business.


      Two: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/prescreen.shtm

      FTC.gov page about the website.

      There are also some blog entries around the web where people have had the same feelings about the website and it's possibility of fraud. As always, do your own research. But it looks legit.

      ~Wx
      --
      sig?
    55. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by fbartho · · Score: 1

      botnets.... Only an *honest* spammer would pay for it's share of bandwidth. And they are all low hanging fruit for people to stop, or they aren't enough of a nuisance in comparison.

      --
      Gravity Sucks
    56. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by calebt3 · · Score: 1

      burn the mail in a furnace in the wintertime Funny you should say that. As I sit here typing, there is a BBQ less than fifteen feet from me full of smoldering junk mail and ID-sensitive documents (after shredding).
    57. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by tinkerghost · · Score: 1

      I get snail mail advertisements all the time; to me they are spam. What's the difference between unsolicited snail-mail marketing and unsolicited email 'spam'?
      Truth in advertising laws apply to junk mail - including that the actual letter has to actually identify who it's from. Failure to do so is a Federal crime -- with actual jail time associated with it. The CAN_SPAM act was partially an attempt to bring the e-mail & s-mail rules closer together.
    58. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Skrynesaver · · Score: 1

      Actually IEE directive from Europe is added to all electrical goods and the seller is obliged to recycle the replaced item

      --
      "Linux is for noobs"-The new MS fud strategy
    59. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by spikedvodka · · Score: 5, Informative

      Screw that... I followed the instructions at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/prescreen.shtm

      and I get practically 0 junk mail... One place to call/visit, as opposed to haveing to call capital one... amex... etc. etc.

      --
      I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
    60. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by TheSkyIsPurple · · Score: 1

      The only reason mail admins HAVE to keep spam out is that people expect it.
      There's nothing saying you can't contract another party to receive your mail for you and junk it, in real life.

      In any case, I still risk losing mail IRL because I tend to toss my junk mail, and sometimes I'll catch a random letter or bill in there... usually just as I toss it so I have to dig it out of the bin.

    61. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

      In Canada, you can place a sticker with the words "No Junk Mail" on the inside of the door of your mail box and then you won't get any. That doesn't work with email.

      --
      Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
    62. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by momerath2003 · · Score: 1

      Thanks, but even though this is legitimate, I'm NOT interested in handing my name, address, SSN, and so forth to a thousand marketing companies on a silver platter.

      --
      I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
    63. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Van+Cutter+Romney · · Score: 1

      You do realize you have a choice to opt out of those pesky pre-screening offers. https://www.optoutprescreen.com/

      --
      Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
    64. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by calebt3 · · Score: 1

      I agree. Although if you think about it, they already have your name and address. It's the SSN I need to keep to myself. Can we opt out with each individual source without revealing it?

    65. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Itninja · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Sure is (or at least was). I knew a guy who got into the spammer business about 8 years ago (he's out now). I asked him the same question. He was sending a couple of million emails a day and I figured his cost for bandwidth must have been huge. But he told me it was all about the scheduling. He paid standard residential rates for ADSL and just scheduled his email server to send out no more email at one time than he could before the ISP caught on. Bascially he was just using 100% of the bandwidth he was paying for, whereas most residential users only use a small portion. Of course, as time went on, the ISP tightened their AUP and just flat out told him 'we know you running a mail server from your house and we won't allow it'. But at his peak he said he was making something like $1000/mo. He told me once he calculated his cost per ad was like 1/10000000 (one-billionth) of a cent.

      --
      I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
    66. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by argent · · Score: 2, Informative

      It costs the USPS money to deliver it.

      It costs the USPS less to deliver junk mail than the mailer paid.

      It costs the USPS more to deliver personal mail than the mailer paid.

      Junk mail subsidizes personal mail.

    67. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by number11 · · Score: 1

      Every week I fill a 35 gallon trash bag with junk mail.

      Wow. That's six gallons of junk mail every day! That's like an entire canvas mail sack daily. Or you're really fluffing it up before recycling it. Or you're in a more desirable demographic than I am (when filling out stupid surveys, I tend to claim that I am a 110 year old retired minister with no income). I get maybe a paper grocery bag (5 gallons?) in a month (or longer). Four or five pieces a day.

    68. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by harp2812 · · Score: 1

      Call me a cynic, but since they're already sending you mail in your name, to your address, coming from credit card companies (credit tied to your SSN), methinks it might be a little late to keep your info out of their hands.

      --
      I've found that nurturing one's Zen nature is vital to dealing with technology. Violence is pretty damn useful too.
    69. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 1

      I don't really pay for snail mail spam, I can easily filter it out with out incurring excessive costs. The cost for sending snail spam are also much higher than the electronic part. This helps limit it.

      --
      Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
    70. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Jurily · · Score: 1

      Do we count maintaining a botnet as "shares his cost"?

    71. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by MightyYar · · Score: 2, Informative

      1. Get a goat
      2. Feed junk mail to the goat
      3. Drink the goat's milk.
      4. Use the goat dung as fuel (Indian-style).
      5. Eat the goat.

      There are lots of good recipes for goat curry or jerk goat. They don't even mind the plastic envelope windows, and they save you the electricity that you would use to run a shredder.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    72. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      well assuming they are acting lawfully they will be paying for some portion of the cost of the bandwidth between thier machine and your ISPs machine. What proporition will vary depending on location and how well the ISPs are doing in peering/transit negotiations. Could be anywhere from nearly none of it to all of it.

      but really that is likely to be a small part of the cost of the spam and as you say many spammers are using stolen bandwidth anyway.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    73. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Firethorn · · Score: 1

      Is it being used to cook?

      Personally, while I'd use junk mail in a furnace(vented to the outside), I wouldn't use it to cook food, too many chemicals.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
    74. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Thuktun · · Score: 1

      You should stop doing that. Instead, stuff all the spam back into the postage-paid business reply cards envelopes they send. With a little tape, you can really fit a lot of paper into one of those. They look like balloons when I mail them back. And the mail-spammer gets to pay the postage for the trash back to them! Free for me, helps the post office with a little revenue, and financially penalizes the mail spammers -- that's win/win/win! If you have a free source of bricks or stone around, you could also send them some samples.
    75. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My father throws an annual party and sends out invitations to 100+ people in the postage reply envelopes he collects throughout the year. Yes, it's mail fraud but it's also damned funny and saves money for the beer and food.

    76. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Zaphod2016 · · Score: 1

      This is actually a brilliant idea. I think I'm going to try this myself for a week and see what happens.

    77. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by nuzak · · Score: 1

      If you overstuff a reply envelope, they will simply discard it. To say nothing of dumbass things like taping it to a brick. They pay a first-class rate per-piece no matter what, so just send it back completely empty. Less effort for you, same expense for them.

      --
      Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
    78. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by RazzleDazzle · · Score: 1

      Have you considered opting out of their mailings? I have been been doing this lately and I have been getting a lot less junk mail. To actually opt you just call the 800 number on their mailing and speak with the representative.

      --
      ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
    79. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by sabt-pestnu · · Score: 1

      > However junk mail helps keep the United States Postage Service running. And for relitivly low stamp prices for the level of service the USPS offers us.

      This reminds me of a short story I read some decades ago (yeah, that old... me AND the story). The premise was that productivity had grown so much that consumption had to be increased as well to keep the economy going. At some point, people simply could not consume fast enough. ... and some bright eyed young man decided, "well, robots build it, why not have robots consume it as well?" - and the economy was saved!

      An no-prize to the person who most thoroughly picks apart the logic...
      Don't know what I'd give the person who identifies the short story... Kudos?

    80. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Wuhao · · Score: 1

      The only reason mail admins HAVE to keep spam out is that people expect it. Well, yes, of course they do. The volume of unfiltered spam coming into an e-mail inbox vastly exceeds the volume of junk mail coming into a postal mailbox. If I'm administering a commercial mail server, I'd certainly consider it to be my responsibility to ensure that the people it serves find it useful. In a corporate environment, that usefulness is pretty much nil if legitimate business e-mail is outnumbered by spam 50:1. If I were in charge of deciding my company's mail server admin, I'd absolutely insist that they consider spam to be a major issue.

      I'm not saying junk mail isn't a nuisance, or that junk mailers pay all parties for all costs incurred -- but the reality is that it takes active and constant maintenance on the part of admins to keep spammers from completely strangling to death e-mail as a medium. I just don't see junk mailers as inflicting anywhere near that level of damage on the postal system.
    81. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by spacefiddle · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hmmm. Are you perchance related to this guy?

    82. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

      Do you honestly believe there are no ways to block junk mail before it is delivered?

      Yes.

      This will block 90%+ of junk mail, and I actually signed up months ago.

      Given that's not a .gov address, I assume what you are talking about is a service which politely asks those companies to stop spamming. This may work in the real world, because it actually costs money to send these things, and they are sent by human beings, not robots.

      However, it is not a way to "block" anything. I can't simply create my own filter and have the post office trash anything that matches it as it comes in. And even if I could, someone is still paying to dispose of it.

      I'm tempted to throw the good old "your idea will not work" form at you. Even if this does work, it is technically not blocking, and it cannot stop everything.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    83. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

      I believe the regulations require advertisers to remove one's name from their lists if asked to do so.

      And email spam is also illegal. I'm not entirely sure this would be effective, and I'm also fairly sure that it would be a bit of work.

      I am not saying I wouldn't ask for an opt-out. But it is a band-aid.

      Apparently, there's a regulation allowing people to file to block mail they consider obscene.... if they fill out the appropriate paperwork, the USPS is obligated to block mail from that sender to that recipient

      That, I didn't know about. Thanks!

      Still has the same problem as opt-out -- it is about a single sender and a single recipient. When I train my spamfilter on v14gr4 spams, I stop getting them, from anyone -- that's the kind of control I'm looking for, although I don't necessarily file everything as spam.

      Then again, I get almost no mail spam, so I don't care yet.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    84. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Dan541 · · Score: 1

      Surely a spammer pays for 50% of the cost of the bandwidth, since they pay their ISP just as you do. No they don't pay nothing to send me spam.

      If they ever did pay anything they would set there mail server up in Europe where bandwidth is dirt cheap an email me in Australia where the bandwidth is bloody expensive and then they profit from this exercise.

      I pay for them to make a profit.

      ~Dan

      Oh I forgot to mention I have to download the email from my server so I've already used triple the bandwidth they have.
      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    85. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by calebt3 · · Score: 1

      Nah. Too many floating ashes.
      But it was neat to see smoke pouring out of it for hours after setting it alight.

    86. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by Dan541 · · Score: 1

      And I don't even hate "spam" like apparently the rest of you do. What you call "spam", I call "messages that give me info on the latest products, technologies, and business modesl." You want less of it? I want MORE of it. Your small dick is your own business your free to buy those pills all you want

      But why should the rest of us have to put up with Spam we don't find it useful and it costs us allot of money?

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    87. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by winkydink · · Score: 1

      Not true says this columnist from the San Jose Mercury News. http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_8888078?nclick_check=1

      --

      "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

    88. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by randyest · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure what makes you think that, but my friend who works in the mailroom at Capitol One, from whom I got this idea, says he gets a few mega-stuffed business reply envelopes every week. Not only does the post office happily deliver them, they also charge extra for the weight and size. I have no information either way as to whether a brick would make it.

      --
      everything in moderation
    89. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by RingDev · · Score: 1

      So you want to combine paper and oxygen and trap the resulting heat and excess electrons? I'm not sure about the electrons, but trapping the heat is pretty simple to do when combining paper and oxygen.

      If you want to get really green about it, grow your own algae farm. Use the algae to reduce the unburnt hydrocarbons in your fireplace/furnaces exhaust. Crush the oil laden algae for your own diesel fuel, then ferment the crushed husks for ethanol. And with the left over dredges you have perfectly good filler for animal feed.

      -Rick

      --
      "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
    90. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by nuzak · · Score: 1

      As long as you stuff it so it seals normally. If you overstuff it to where you have to use a bunch of tape like one poster suggested ... hell they'll probably figure it's full of anthrax.

      Basically it has to be in suitable condition for mailing as a first-class letter, even if it's overweight. Snopes has the links to the actual USPS regs on it.

      --
      Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
    91. Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? by randyest · · Score: 1

      The only mention I see of tape in this thread is my own post, which mentions "With a little tape," not "a bunch of tape."

      Snopes has a thread and a page that mention this, but neither cites regulations or even suggests that the post office will not deliver it (because they will!) Snopes does say this won't reduce the amount of junk mail one gets, which is fine and not at all the goal.

      Anthrax? What? Not sure what makes you think the PO would assume a large taped-up envelope or box would be full of anthrax. You know they see a lot of those kinds of things -- you know, packages and letters -- every day, right? And it only takes a little bit of anthrax to cause havoc, which could fit in even the thinnest/smallest envelope. I just don't get what you're trying to say there, sorry.

      --
      everything in moderation
  3. e360 vs Comcast? Yuck by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 1, Insightful

    A pox on both your houses...

    This is like 4chan vs. The Church of Scientolog (except that in that case I have to clarify that it's 4chan I dislike, not the people joining their campaign as "Anonymous", and the Church of Scientology I dislike, not the people who simply believe in the underlying religious philosophy).

    Btw, why is it that spammers ever appear in court? Why haven't vigilantes already made it a practice to terrorize anyone who publicly acts in furtherance of spamming?

  4. Official: e360 is a spammer by MadMidnightBomber · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Sorry, but that felt very good.

    Where does this leave spamhaus v. e360 though?

    --
    "It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
    1. Re:Official: e360 is a spammer by immcintosh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Leaves them right where they were before. e360 won default judgment against Spamhaus because Spamhaus didn't even deign come to court. This is, of course, because Spamhaus operates totally outside the jurisdiction of US courts, and they simply don't care. Not to mention I don't think any court will be inclined to do anything meaningful to actually enforce that judgment, so e360 has a nice big $11 million judgment that's effectively worthless. Especially considering Spamhaus is a non-profit, e360 will absolutely never collect a single penny.

    2. Re:Official: e360 is a spammer by D'Arque+Bishop · · Score: 3, Informative

      Leaves them right where they were before. e360 won default judgment against Spamhaus because Spamhaus didn't even deign come to court. This is, of course, because Spamhaus operates totally outside the jurisdiction of US courts, and they simply don't care.

      IANAL, but actually, that's not QUITE accurate. If Spamhaus had said to begin with that the US courts lacked jurisdiction, that would have been the end of it and e360 would not have won anything. However, Spamhaus claimed in state court that the suit belonged in federal court, thus acknowledging that the federal courts had jurisdiction. THEN they didn't bother to show up in court, and lost a default judgement.

      Now, whether e360 can get anything out of them is another matter entirely, but they probably could have avoided the whole mess by denying the US courts had jurisdiction in the first place...

    3. Re:Official: e360 is a spammer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      dont forget to mention that they submitted documents declaring that spamhaus didnt trade in [insert forgettable state name here] knowing that they didnt. If taken any further, and proven, someone from e360 would find themselves in federal jail for perjury

    4. Re:Official: e360 is a spammer by Dan541 · · Score: 1

      That leaves e360 on the Spamhaus RBL the way things should be.

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    5. Re:Official: e360 is a spammer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Leaves them right where they were before. e360 won default judgment against Spamhaus because Spamhaus didn't even deign come to court. This is, of course, because Spamhaus operates totally outside the jurisdiction of US courts, and they simply don't care. Spamhaus told e360 to file the case in England but he didn't, then they told the judge there was no jurisdiction but he went ahead anyway, so Spamhaus gave both e360 and the US judge the bird :)

      IANAL, but actually, that's not QUITE accurate. If Spamhaus had said to begin with that the US courts lacked jurisdiction, that would have been the end of it ... Not so, in fact Spamhaus DID tell the court at the outset that it had no jurisdiction but persuaded by e360 lying the court decided it did have jurisdiction over the UK anyway. That's when Spamhaus said "We've told you you don't but if you think you do have jurisdiction, then we'll be just over here in England across this big lake, buhbye!"

      Anyway, it's all moot now since the e360 v Spamhaus case was reversed by the Appeals Court last year.

      e360 came away with nothing but big legal bills, Spamhaus came away with a ton of publicity and showing it was bulletproof to U.S. judgments.
    6. Re:Official: e360 is a spammer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where does this leave spamhaus v. e360 though? e360 v Spamhaus was reversed by the U.S. Appeals Court last year.
    7. Re:Official: e360 is a spammer by techbread · · Score: 1

      Where does this leave spamhaus v. e360 though? You mean 'e360 v Spamhaus', it's as good as dead since it got appealed last year and the court of appeals quashed it. Never was much of a goer anyway since e360 filed in the wrong country so it had no effect on Spamhaus as they're not American.
    8. Re:Official: e360 is a spammer by Kalriath · · Score: 1

      e360 came away with nothing but big legal bills, Spamhaus came away with a ton of publicity and showing it was bulletproof to U.S. judgments. And let's not forget, spammers know that they can't prosecute in UK courts because UK is a "loser pays" system.
      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
  5. Seems like a fair judgement... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But... (and IANAL)

    It sounded like the judge said, basically, that the stated claims were invalid, but that the unmade claim of bad faith action by comcast may have a chance.

    I've had several cases where comcast has silently blocked e-mail sent to me, where I specifically wanted to receive those e-mails.

    If this is one of those companies that sends an advertisement with that little opt-out link at the bottom which is more likely to get you even more spam, then I'm all for Comcast blocking them. If this company (and I have not researched it, so I don't know much about it) does indeed require response to an opt-in e-mail prior to sending additional material, then comcast shouldn't be blocking them.

  6. Comcast winning == good? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since I'm so anti-comcast, I have a hard time being able to distinguish when it's a good thing that they were not on the losing side of something.

  7. e360 aren't spammers. . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Everyone knows they are merely a 'high volume email deployer'.

  8. Still, it's Comcast... by binaryspiral · · Score: 1

    Sure, spam sucks and it's nice to see ISPs raining down lawyers on spammers - but if Comcast wasn't such a collection of corporate asshats, I would feel infinitely better about them winning in court.

    It's like seeing the grade school bully ace a math test.

  9. Re:e360 vs Comcast? Yuck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why haven't vigilantes already made it a practice to terrorize anyone who publicly acts in furtherance of spamming? I've often asked myself that very question. If a pissed-off vigilante were to hunt down a spammer and kill him in cold blood, I have to wonder how the police would even begin an investigation. There's only what? half a billion suspects to consider?
  10. Re:e360 vs Comcast? Yuck by CogDissident · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ever hear of "blue security"? They made a program which, when you got spam email, went to the website and filled out their application with tons of "remove me" messages and junk, making their data files unuseable.

    The spammers fought back so hard, they knocked the nation of Israel off the internet (where their offices/server was), for a few days.

    The lesson? Spamming is big business.

  11. Re:e360 vs Comcast? Yuck by esocid · · Score: 1
    --
    Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
  12. Am I a bad person? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

    Is it wrong for me to hope that a meteorite falls on that courtroom and takes out both parties (but spares everyone else)?

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    1. Re:Am I a bad person? by MrMacman2u · · Score: 1

      Yes. It is wrong to merely hope and not, instead, work diligently on developing your here-to-for latent psychokinetic abilities and start pulling rocks in from deep space and hitting them in the face! Get cracking and all will be forgiven!

      --
      This signature is lame.
    2. Re:Am I a bad person? by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      your post advocates a

      ( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante (*) act of god

      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
      ( ) 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
      ( ) 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
      (*) convincing god to do this would be virtually impossible

      specifically, your plan fails to account for

      ( ) laws expressly prohibiting it
      ( ) lack of centrally controlling authority for email
      ( ) open relays in foreign countries
      ( ) ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
      ( ) asshats
      ( ) 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
      ( ) 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
      (*) gods lack of time for interfering in the affairs of man when they do not find it amusing
      ( ) dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
      ( ) bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
      ( ) 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
      ( ) 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
      (*) killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

      furthermore, this is what i think about you:

      (*) 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!

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  13. Kudo's to the judge by stabiesoft · · Score: 1

    Finally a swift competent decision from the legal system on an obvious case. If only the silly patent cases could be dismissed as quickly.

  14. Re:e360 vs Comcast? Yuck by somersault · · Score: 1

    the Church of Scientology I dislike, not the people who simply believe in the underlying religious philosophy What is the actual underlying religious philosophy? You're saying you don't mind the members but you hate the organisation? Is that something akin to not liking McDonalds, but you don't mind speaking to people who are stupid enough to consider their food worth consuming?

    Note: I do like other fast food places, just I always seem to end up with stomach problems after going to McDonalds, last time someone convinced me to go, I was off work for a few days.. and he was off for a couple of weeks :p
    --
    which is totally what she said
  15. Linhardt is claiming that with me. by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I am suing e360Insight for illegal spamming. http://www.barbieslapp.com/spam/e360/e360insight.htm

    In their failed summary judgment motion (asking the court to dismiss the case based on some evidence), they claim that the spam I tracked to them is not theirs, but it must be someone trying to make them look bad because: 1. They don't spam; 2. That it could have been created in a word processor using publically available information; 3. They don't format their e-mails that way; 4. That it did not come from their IP addresses.

    e360 ignored that they have used Atriks, which hides the true IP address by running it through a sort of legal botnet. They also ignored that they use anonymous domain name registrations, so I must have been a good guesser to get most of the domain names correct (their co-Defendant, Moniker, admitted that most of the domain names I identified to e360 were registered through them to bargaindepot.net -- their sister company/codefendant).

  16. You asked for it? by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 1

    Are you saying a rape victim asked for it because she doesn't carry a ak-47? Bernie Goetz tried that, but he still got convicted for illegal discharge of a weapon when he 'felt' threatened on the train in NYC.

  17. I must conclude that you are a "bad person". by Dimensio · · Score: 1

    Your desire would not result in sufficient suffering for either Comcast or to e360.

  18. I'm still waiting for my judge to rule by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Monday (4/7/2008), I had two motion hearings against e360. One was their summary judgment motion to kick their my case against them, the other was my anti-SLAPP motion against their counterclaim.

    Entire details at http://www.barbieslapp.com/spam/e360/e360insight.htm

    Their counterclaim is for calling libel (calling them a spammer and liar) and abuse of process (asking for their domain names in discovery). At the hearing struck/dismissed their abuse of process claim, and said that their paying my attorney fees for the motion is mandatory. The tentative did not strike the libel claim, but she said she would look into that further as the court needed to investigate if the supplemental request for judicial notice, containing articles quoting Linhardt in the press (Cnet and NY Times, DirectMag.com) is sufficient for limited purpose public figure status.

    She denied their summary judgment motion on my claims against e360. Mostly because e360 refused to provide discovery to me, but relied upon that information in their motion. On the my libel claim against them, she denied that, except the portion saying that he implied that I hacked into his system.

  19. Is That a Blue Moon I See? by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 1

    It's not often I'm in favor of Comcast these days (and yes, I am a subscriber to it due to lack of other available options, despite the FCC's contention that there's ample competition in broadband), but this time I'm happy that they've won. Spammers, along with Phishers, Virus/Trojan Writers, and 'Bot Herders are the true scum of the Internet.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
    1. Re:Is That a Blue Moon I See? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Consrvs vote for candidates who will solve problems we face. Name one problem in the last 7 years which has been solved by the Bush Administration. Deficit? no. Katrina relief? no. War on 'Terrorism'? no. Air Travel problems? no. Health care? no. Like school yard bullies, you folks push the same old over used lines year after year, and vote for people who claim to support your issues. Even with a Supreme Court stacked in 'your' favor, women can still have abortions, you still can't buy a bazooka, and the government is spending like drunken sailor. Actually, that's not being nice to the fine men who man our ships, spending like a Republican seems much more appropriate these days.
    2. Re:Is That a Blue Moon I See? by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 1

      Name one problem in the last 7 years which has been solved by the Bush Administration.

      Lower taxes! Now go away and leave me alone, Mr. Troll Anonymous.

      --
      "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  20. Re:Seems like a fair judgement...--SAME PROBLEM by Nom+du+Keyboard · · Score: 1

    I've had several cases where comcast has silently blocked e-mail sent to me, where I specifically wanted to receive those e-mails.

    I've had exactly that same problem with them, which is why I now use a free gMail account.

    --
    "It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
  21. Re:Twofo Goatse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's trolls like you that waste our mod points.

  22. But if I did that... by PRMan · · Score: 1

    But if I blocked all the credit card offers, how would my wife and I continue to float thousands of dollars at 0% for years and never pay a dime for the privilege???

    --
    Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
  23. the Russians? by Nursie · · Score: 1

    It's the USA that's the biggest problem. Get your own house in order.

    1. Re:the Russians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol, Russia runs one of the biggest spam network. A network that zombies American computers. *golf clap* good job blaming the victims.

    2. Re:the Russians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, and where are most of the spammers located right now? Seems to me that if Russia and the other states would stop turning a blind eye to the problem that there would could do just that.

      But then again, it's clearly our fault that the Russian government won't actually crack down on organized crime.

    3. Re:the Russians? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If someone is not competent to run a system safely (and that applies to any system, not just computers) then they're not really a victim. That's like calling an unlicensed uninsured driver a "victim" because they were driving on the wrong side of the road and crashed into the oncoming traffic.

    4. Re:the Russians? by winkydink · · Score: 1

      Except that it's significantly harder for the average person to secure a desktop computer than it is to drive a car.

      --

      "I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey

    5. Re:the Russians? by Nursie · · Score: 1

      The problem has historically been, and continues to be, run by and for americans.

  24. Re:Twofo Goatse by calebt3 · · Score: 1

    I think that is the idea.

  25. Economies of scale... by argent · · Score: 1

    The cost per message of sending junk mail through the post office is significant enough that there's an incentive for junk mailers to reduce the number of messages thay send, to the point where lists of good prospects can cost many times the actual cost of producing the mailings (which have to be printed, addressed, and physically mailed) and mailing them, because it's more profitable to send out 1000 letters to people who have responded to solicitations before than 100,000 letters to people who never even buy mail-order. Plus, the post office actually makes a profit on junk mail that subsidizes personal mail.

    The result? I get maybe 4 or 5 pieces of junk mail a day, on a heavy day.

    The cost per message of sending email through the internet is negligible. It is cheaper for spammers to actually pay the occasional judgement against aggressive spam fighters than to filter even well known high profile anti-spammers from their lists... let alone people who just don't want the stuff. It's cheaper for them to pay fines for violating do-not-spam lists where they exist than to use them. And they don't pay for any of the infrastructure that they're abusing.

    The result? At one point I had to block several countries access to port 25 at the router because the junk mail traffic to my server was costing me $750 a month in excess traffic charges, and even just handling "HELO...MAIL FROM...RCPT TO...denied" was pushing things.

  26. "positive business"? What are you smoking? by Moryath · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I want some real competition - in the Houston market, Comcrap came in and is the monopoly on cable modem service. A TEENSY TINY area is covered by FIOS, and 80% of the areas covered by DSL don't overlap the Comcrap areas. No, I don't consider satellite internet "competition" either, given their 3000+ ms ping times.

    Prior to Comcrap, we had Roadrunner (time warner) running the service. Since Comcrap broke the agreement with TW and came in our service has gone down the crapper, we constantly have dead periods, bandwidth is cut in half, and meanwhile they run ads claiming (quite fraudulently) that they are "increasing" the number of channels for the cable subscribers.

    Used to be, if we had service outage (say, someone didn't trim their tree and cable got broken) we called the local customer service, we got a tech out, it was fixed within 4 hours. Now, we call customer service and get some fucking moron in India who doesn't speak english, and it takes 2 days just to get some mexican (who also doesn't speak english) in a truck out to verify there's a problem and then say he needs to get some other mexican out to fix it.

    Fuck Comcrap. I want them out.

    1. Re:"positive business"? What are you smoking? by Miseph · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think that the GP was referring not to Comcast's quality (which sucks, I'm with you there) but to the fact that, shit or not, they at least provide some semblance of a service that people want. People are unhappy with Comcast not because they don't want the services they offer, but because they are unhappy that they have to pay through the nose for those services and competitors who offer cheaper and better service are almost always locked out of doing so in a given market.

      Contrast that to e360, who provide a "service" that nobody wants at all. nobody wants e360 gone so that they can get service from a a different spammer, they want them gone because they don't want to be harassed by any spammers at all. Comparatively speaking, Comcast are saints.

      To use a non-vehicular analogy, Comcast is a shitty hospital that provides poor service to the community but is operated and staffed by people with huge community interests and friends in high places, while e360 is a group of frat boys who are paid to steal stop signs so that (outstandingly) sleazy injury litigators can stir up more business in the area.

      --
      Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
  27. Re:I must conclude that you are a "bad person". by Rogerborg · · Score: 1

    It could be a very small but radioactive meteorite, that doesn't kill them immediately, but gives them cancer. Of the balls.

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  28. This is simple folks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    After all these years, very few people seem to recognize or understand the obvious nature of the spam problem.

    Why make this so complicated? It's very, very simple folks:

    1. Email spam comes from hijacked computers
    2. The only practical way to end spam is to either charge for sending too many emails, or to recognize hijacked computers sending too many emails and take them off the net until their behavior stops or is validated as legitimate. If the low level ISP fails to take action, the next ISP up the chain must cut them off.
    3. The solution in #2 will cost ISPs money and upset their customers so they won't do it unless they have to
    4. ISPs have a tremendous amount of money and power and will prevent #2 from being mandated
    5. Therefore, spam is going to continue indefinitely

  29. Re:e360 vs Comcast? Yuck by UbuntuDupe · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I semi-followed that story, but my question was more: why don't vigilantes go after everyone who shows their face in public as aiding spammers or spamming? The BlueFrog thing was all online activities.

    What I'm getting at is, there should be legions of people who hate spam with a passion. While I don't advocate violent vigilante attacks against spammers (so please don't hit me with the "your post advocates a (x) vigilante...), I would imagine that there are enough people ready/willing/able, that every time a spammer *or their attorneys* actually show their faces, then *bam* next thing you know they're a victim of several pranks, get death threats, families threatened, law firms threatened, litigants followed out of court and intimidated, etc etc etc ad infinitum.

    I would futher imagine that by this point, spammers would be so afraid of showing their faces, that they would do everything possible to avoid a court appearance, and thus lose every case actually making it to a hearing, by default.

    Yet ... we do not see this. Spammers and their attorneys do in fact show their faces.

    What am I missing?

  30. Re:e360 vs Comcast? Yuck by CogDissident · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Only "stupid" and "bad at spamming" spammers actually show their faces. PharmaMaster and other nameless, faceless net spammers tend to be so good that finding their real identity is hard.

    Really, do you want to be known as the guy who harassed the spammer equivalent of the short-bus kid? Or do you want to go act out against the people generating 10-20% of all spam on the net?

  31. If marketing is spam, then... by e-scetic · · Score: 0, Troll

    Television commercials are spam. Radio commercials are spam. Any kind of commercial is spam. Any kind of product or service promotion is spam.

    All packaging should be black or white, with labels that only describe the content and nothing else. This includes your milk cartons, your cereal boxes, etc. It shall be forbidden to know where your product came from, lest you develop a preference.

    SERP's are spam, organic or not. How DARE you promote your product or service to people who are expressly engaged in the process of looking for it.

    Internet marketing is spam, you say? Then Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. and just about every business with a web presence is guilty of spamming.

    Yes, these people were engaged in spamming, but no - netiher marketing nor internet marketing equals spamming, for crissakes.

    1. Re:If marketing is spam, then... by Dan541 · · Score: 0, Troll

      I don't know what your smoking but mayb you should come back once the little green elves have gone.

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    2. Re:If marketing is spam, then... by freedom_india · · Score: 0, Troll

      Go back in time 40 years and resurface in USSR.
      Your dreams will be true.

      --
      "Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
    3. Re:If marketing is spam, then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh come on that was definatly funny

  32. e360 a spammer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As if it's not bad enough that e360 is spamming the world, now this company is clogging our court system. Seems like another spam technique to me.