Slashdot Mirror
International Spam Ring Shut Down
smooth wombat writes "An international spam ring with ties to Australia, New Zealand, China, India, and the US is in the process of being shut down. Finances of members in the US are being frozen using the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 while the FBI is pursuing criminal charges. The group sent spam advertising male enhancement herbs and other items using a botnet estimated at 35,000 computers, and able to send 10 billion emails per day. The Federal Trade Commission monitored the group's finances and found that they had cleared $400,000 in Visa charges in one month alone."
Maybe to apply for a credit card, instead of beiing age>=18*, there should be a gullible test.
*
If age >= 18 then can get a credit card;
else only with parental consent.
signature is pants
In the business world, direct email marketing is not considered "intrusive" or "invasive" by the hoards. It might be frustrating to entry-level programmer or minimum-wage Pete, or even Upstart-Business-Guy to get offers from other businesses, but for people who rely on knowing what's new and what's available to make proper decisions and get their jobs done, direct marketing is the first attempt at bridging the communication gap between two companies and starting a successful/profitable business relationship.
It's typically the undirected, consumer mailing and scamming that have given email marketing a bad name; i.e. 3nl4rg3 t3h pen-fifteen. Though, from an outside standpoint, even those are less time-intrusive than television commercials, but oddly not from a social acceptance standpoint.
However, direct email marketing businesses are like the used-car dealerships of today. Most of them are very shady folk selling nothing but rusted nuts and bolts. There are good ones out there that the Fortune 1000 companies rely on as their latest thousand-man rolodex, but you have to do your homework to find them.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
And those people are not going to be reading Slashdot. That's why I'm surprised that the government and ISPs have not cooperated to mount a branded effort to discredit spam (risk of stolen credit card, product not showing up, etc) and educate the masses.
If spam is a burden for ISPs (extra bandwidth, plus complaining users) surely they'd jump on board a campaign if a government or organised group could provide good educational materials.
We watch awkward anti-piracy spiels in cinemas before movies, why couldn't ISPs incorpoate anti-spam messages into their sites, marketing material, bills, etc?
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
I've said it before, I'll say it again:
Less customers means less money flowing to scummy companies. Less money flowing to them means less money being given to spammers. No money in spamming means people stop spamming.
And for the inevitable and snarky "here's why your idea won't work list" post to follow: I know that it isn't legal. That's why your hire a plausible deniability, like a merc company, to do it for you. Geez.
UTF-8: There and Back Again