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Spam Government The Courts Your Rights Online News

Spammers Sue Anti-Spam Groups 581

SuperBanana writes "The Register reports in a story today that spammers have banded together under the name EmarketersAmerica.org to sue various anti-spam groups- days before a large conference on spam hosted by the FTC(which will be attended by many spammers). Anti-spam groups think the timing is not by coincidence, but believe the move may backfire because they will be able to countersue and get access to spammer's internal documents. By the way, if you're wondering who these guys are, check out Spamhaus's directory of top spammers."
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Spammers Sue Anti-Spam Groups

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  • by ih8apple ( 607271 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:42PM (#5791435)
    Here is what one of America's leading sports pundits has been writing:

    Elliott Harris, Chicago Sun-Times: "A fan in Massachusetts, upset at Fox's decision to replace auto racing with Red Sox baseball, faces the possibility of a year in jail for sending more than 530,000 e-mails that shut down Fox's Web site in 2001. Hey, who knew a NASCAR fan would know spam was anything other than something to eat?"
    • by 0x00000dcc ( 614432 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:08PM (#5791737) Journal
      "A fan in Massachusetts, upset at Fox's decision to replace auto racing with Red Sox baseball, faces the

      Damn Yankees fans, I swear ...

    • Random nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SunPin ( 596554 ) <slashspam AT cyberista DOT com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:32PM (#5791996) Homepage
      Increasing the cost of spam should be easy...

      We know which companies sell their email listings, right?

      More than a few of us can write a script...

      A clandestine server running in an undisclosed location--perhaps a public wireless hotspot--can go forever properly filling out the forms of these companies with complete and total gibberish.

      It won't crash servers... nobody will even know until it's pretty much too late and the offended databases are loaded with utter garbage.

      Recently, I wrote about passively doing this to spambots [cyberista.com]. I keep the page [cyberista.com] on the server for good measure.

      My tech articles are geared to a nontech audience so don't give me crap if they sound lame. I don't preach to the choir except when hanging out at Slashdot.

      That said, I don't see why this concept can't be expanded. They have no defense against form scripts.

      • Instead... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Royster ( 16042 )
        You should write a honeypot that looks like a relay but dosn't forward any but the first message sent to it. Running a few thousand of those will do more to fight spam than generating bad addresses.
      • Re:Random nonsense (Score:3, Interesting)

        by plover ( 150551 )
        You need a few more things to make this a more attractive honeypot.

        First, address harvesting bots typically don't parse text looking for the representation of email addresses. They are strictly interested in mailto: urls. Embed your addresses inside anchor tags.

        That said, you might want to consider adding some cover text between those anchors. Add some headings and other webby stuff. I don't know if the harvesting bots are smart enough to recognize honeypots, but if they try you don't want to be giv

  • by Unknown Poltroon ( 31628 ) <unknown_poltroon1sp@myahoo.com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:42PM (#5791438)
    GREAT!!! nOw i know what organization to send the bill to for all this crap about giant penises wanting my credit card. PLus, now we all know where to forward our spam to!!! FANTASTIC!!!!
    • Beat me to the punch, but it is exactly the same thing I was thinking.

      They are better off being hard to find and spread out, than one giant name everyone can sue
    • Funny how they keep their address hidden in a Whois lookup. Perhaps they don't want to receive spam either...
      • The Real Slim Shady (Score:2, Informative)

        by hendridm ( 302246 )
        Oops, I was wrong. A whois at their registrar [godaddy.com] brought up the results:

        Registrant:
        mark felstein
        P.O.Box 667933
        Pompano Beach, Florida 33066
        United States
        Registered through: Go Daddy Software (http://www.godaddy.com)
        Domain Name: EMARKETERSAMERICA.ORG
        Created on: 16-Jan-03
        Expires on: 16-Jan-05
        Last Updated on: 16-Jan-03
        Administrative Contact:
        felstein, mark mefels@aol.com
        P.O.Box 667933
        Pompano Beach, Florida 33066
        United States
        95428
        • by kiwimate ( 458274 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:09PM (#5791753) Journal
          If you click on the link provided, you get the following message:

          Dear Customer,

          Please key in the password you see displayed to the right in order to obtain the information you requested from our WHOIS database.

          In order to protect the privacy of our customers, Go Daddy Software has implemented a process that prevents unscrupulous spammers from running scripts that acquire email addresses from our WHOIS service (which in accordance with ICANN policy must be made available to the public). The password you see is provided in graphic format and cannot be read by a script. Only humans can read it. By taking a moment to key in the password you are doing your part to eliminate SPAM.

        • by GQuon ( 643387 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:36PM (#5792038) Journal
          Well, we should protect his privacy, and not post his email then. Please don't post this link anywhere.
          mefels@aol.com [mailto]
  • Good thinking, counter sue them into droping the case!
    I'm going to sue you for sueing me for sueing you to sue me...
    Imagine the lawer fees on that one!
  • Broken link (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:43PM (#5791449)
    Not a big problem but somebody forgot to throw the http:// in front of the url
    emarketersamerica.org [emarketersamerica.org]
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Now I've got a bunch of verified good email addresses to send spam to.
  • by sczimme ( 603413 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:45PM (#5791467)
    From the article:

    A group of Florida-based porn peddlers, penis enlargement and Viagra spammers has united to file suit against anti-spam organisations.

    Given their similar, uhhh, subject matter, I guess it makes sense they would eventually form a union of some kind.

    (I meant union as in 'coalition' or similar, not any other kind. Probably best not to think too much about that one. D'oh.)
    • by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:57PM (#5791616) Journal
      >>porn peddlers, penis enlargement and Viagra spammers...united
      >I guess it makes sense they would eventually form a union of some kind.

      I'd much rather they formed an aggregate, were sealed in glass, then placed in a deep tunnel in a remote mountain.

      Let future generations worry about the "ethics" of such a punishment.
      • I'd much rather they formed an aggregate, were sealed in glass, then placed in a deep tunnel in a remote mountain.

        What's the half life of a spammer?
        • Worryingly, I was thinking along similar lines. Groups have been working on a non-language sign to say "dangerous radiation here" for the radioactive waste with a half life of thousands of years where we can't guarantee that current language will be intact (heck, check how Shakespeare wrote less than a mere thousand years ago!). I wonder how they'd mark the disposal of spammers?
    • Imagine them all coming into court though with their huge erections preceeding them as they stroll into the room trying to look all serious and injured. They'll sit down in the gallery behind their lawyers and all whip out porn to read while their lawyers argue their case!

      The mental picture is amusing IMO.
  • by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:45PM (#5791468) Homepage Journal
    Damn, and I thought these guys were dirty bastards before!

    • by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:51PM (#5791541) Homepage Journal
      So, as a followup to this, from the SPAPHAUS website "90% of all spam received by Internet users in North America and Europe is sent by a hard-core group of only 180+ individuals"

      It just goes to show how a few incredibly selfish individuals can bring chaos and ruin to society. It obviously does not take many to bring huge costs to business and government, so why is it so hard to prosecute these few individuals for abuse of the internet and indirect theft from business and government (taxpayer) coffers, especially if they are known?

      • You are right. The bad apples of the bunch.

        But...

        why is it so hard to prosecute these few individuals for abuse of the internet and indirect theft from business and government (taxpayer) coffers, especially if they are known?

        It's not that simple. The same laws that govern one thing cannot always be easily applied to other things. Things aren't so black and white. Think of it like "hackers". A "hacker" goes to prison longer than, someone who does, what we consider, a worse crime.

        The internet a

      • So what would it take to file a class action suit on behalf of all users and ISPs? There have to be a large number of users who've missed important mail because it was buried in spam, or who've had to change the email address to get away from it, with the time lost to get everyone they care about switched. And as a small ISP, for the first time in 18 years, I'm in need of upgrading my system for performance reasons, because of the load spamassassin is putting on it dealing with all the f***ing spam it get
    • How DARE you sully the honorific "Bastard"!!!

      Direct from Memorable Quotes from Alt.Sysadmin.Recovery [xnet.com]:

      LANGUAGE: You should only call someone a 'Bastard' if they are deserving of this honorific. Under no circumstances should the word be applied to someone who is neither ruthless nor clued. It *is* appropriate to encourage budding instances of this behaviour with the term of endearment "BOFHlet".

      A LART of biblical proportions on you and your house! $DIETY, what is this world coming to???

      /me scribles
  • Jerks (Score:3, Funny)

    by Whatsthiswhatsthis ( 466781 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:45PM (#5791471)
    Why must they soil the good name of America by appending it to their dubious business?

    eMarketersAmerica, more like eMarketersNigeria
    • Re:Jerks (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:51PM (#5791542)
      good name of America

      Hey, look, there IS still one guy who thinks the US is held in any regard worldwide. Damn, now I owe my buddy a beer.

    • Don't go insulting Nigeria, now. Even the last three juntas and the colonial government don't deserve to have their reputations damaged by comparison to .... I can't type it .... 5pammer5.
  • Contact? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Lugor ( 628175 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:46PM (#5791479)
    Quick, anyone have any contact info for these people? I have penis enlargements to sell them!
  • by HughJampton ( 659996 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:46PM (#5791483)
    KaZaA users suing the RIAA?
    Drug users suing dealers?
    Smokers suing tobacco compani.... Oh.
  • by tmork ( 662252 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:47PM (#5791492)
    A list of mirrors of the text of the filing in flordia's court:

    (Spread out which ones you use, these are alot of folks with home machines on DSL lines. Being /.'ed would only make things worse:)

    http://ares.penguinhosting.net/~leftreveggplant/ fe lstein/slapp.pdf
    http://chickenboner.com/felstein /slapp.pdf
    http://cjllewellyn.homeip.net/slapp.pd f
    http://home.earthlink.net/~bbay/slapp.pdf
    http ://jscript.dk/2003/4/slapp.pdf
    http://members.cox .net/lxix/slapp.pdf
    http://members.shaw.ca/wooly/ slapp.pdf
    http://mywebpages.comcast.net/egplant/s lapp.pdf
    http://SteveSobol.com/slapp.pdf
    http:// www.acornhosting.net/spam/slapp.pdf
    http://www.bi ocenter.helsinki.fi/~atossava/spam/sl app.pdf
    http://www.conmicro.cx/slapp.pdf
    http:// www.dragonfur.org/peewee/slapp.pdf
    http://www.geo cities.com/spammersarestupididioticm orons/slapp.pdf
    http://www.linxnet.com/misc/spam/ slapp.pdf
    http://www.north-lincolnshire.com/slapp .pdf
    http://www.pearlgates.net/nanae/slapp.pdf
    h ttp://www.spamblocked.com/slapp.pdf
    http://www.te chhouse.org/~lou/slapp.pdf
    http://www.tirani.net/ slapp.pdf

    There's also been some lively discussion on NANAE about this issue....
    • I'm glad I wasn't named on this one, and it should probably be safe for the non-US named parties to get out of it (not necessarily, though), but if somebody who's party to it wants to have lots of fun bashing the plaintiffs because of their strategic and tactical mistakes, there should be plenty of opportunity here. For instance:
      • "Discovery" is the process of getting the various parties to produce relevant information. The plaintiff asserts that the anti-spammers blocked the domain names and/or IP addres
  • by Kirby-meister ( 574952 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:47PM (#5791493)
    ...forwarding all spam to the e-mail addresses listed at emarketersamerica.org? :P

    Assuming there are such, as it's currently being hit with a DoS. I think it's the first time a website has deserved a /.'ing.

    • by CvD ( 94050 )
      Everybody now:


      screen -d -m while true; do wget -O /dev/null -m http://EmarketersAmerica.org; sleep 2; done


      :-)

      Oh yeah I was wondering, if I'd really want to send my spam to email addresses listed on the website, how would I go about making sure that my own email address was obfuscated/removed so it wouldn't end up on lots of their mailing lists?

      Cheers!

      Costyn
  • Hah (Score:4, Funny)

    by superdan2k ( 135614 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:48PM (#5791506) Homepage Journal
    Anyone want to take bets as to when the DoS attacks begin? Secondary action: how long after the DoS ends does the site end up being 0wnz0r3d?

    Of course, for once, we'll see the Slashdot Effect put to good use. :-)
  • by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:49PM (#5791518)

    I found out about this from a friend(Hi Scott!) after I submitted the article. He put it best:

    "It is classic... misspellings, copy + paste problems...He named rediculous people as defendents, including the brother of one anti spammer, who apparently lives in Italy and doesn't care about spam at all."

    http://chickenboner.com/felstein/slapp.pdf

  • hmm... (Score:4, Funny)

    by frodo from middle ea ( 602941 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:50PM (#5791529) Homepage
    a large conference on spam hosted by the FTC(which will be attended by many spammers)
    Can we bomb them, Oh please can we bomb them ?
  • by yndrd ( 529288 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:50PM (#5791530) Homepage
    Do NOT register for the mailing list at www.emarketersamerica.org.
  • Offshore? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ichijo ( 607641 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:50PM (#5791532) Journal
    Is it time for antispam organizations to move offshore?
  • by zaqattack911 ( 532040 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:54PM (#5791582) Journal
    These days everybody and their dog has a lil website somewhere.

    Let's say we ditched the email concept, and messaging just involved people going to eachothers websites and dropping a note via webform. To reply, you simply click the link back to the senders message webform etc...

    Then to ensure we don't have web crawling bots auto submitting spam through the forms, you add a dynamically created GIF/jpeg file with a 5 letter code embedded that the subitter needs to type for the form to submit.

    Then, problem solved no? Christ the email protocol we've been using for the last 20years is ready for the shitter in my opinion.

    --Zuchini
    • This completely cuts out some of the actual usefulness of the current mail system.

      I can compose an email on my Palm if I want to - without an internet connection and have it automatically send once it is connected.

      As for the GIF/JPEG thing ... there are blind users who use email. In order for them to use email, you'd need some sort of software that could extract the code from the image. If you have that, then you have the ability for spammers to still send you unsolicited info.

      --

      Not that the system for



    • ... enough said! ...


      It wouldn't be TOO difficult to defeat that system either!


      and after I did, I could spam the spammer's web pages, offering it to them at an unbelievable discount!!!


  • by sparedevil ( 667999 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @01:58PM (#5791617)

    Keeping courts busy with unnecessary and pointless lawsuits, thus blocking "real" and important cases and wasting resources is its own form of spam: judicial spam!

  • Prehaps they should treat it like most trade shows and get the Name + Addresses on the door. The someone could "accidently" leak the mailing list and then we could have anoth Alan Rasky slashdot effect :)

    rus
  • by mdfst13 ( 664665 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:00PM (#5791635)
    The Spamhaus link already doesn't work (at least not for me, YMMV).

    What's really amazing isn't that spammers continue to spam but that they continue to find people who are willing to pay them to do so. Have you ever read what an email marketer considers fair results? 2% of the emails you buy will be viewed (viewed meaning that someone actually generated an http request based on the HTML inside). How do they guarantee this? If they fall short, they will .... send more emails.

    This is an amazing comment on the ineffectiveness of spam. More than 98% of all spam messages are deleted unseen (or bounced). Of the remaining 2%, some of those were only "viewed" in the sense that they had active focus when the receiver hit delete. Of those that generate actual click-through, how many generate sales?

    How stupid does someone have to be to buy an "email marketing campaign?" One could get better results by sending your $1000 to a local charity and putting out a press release.

    Spam --- built on ignorance and stupidity.
    • You know, it strikes me I'm contributing to the "viewed by" statistic. Do I read this stuff? Hell no! But what I do is diligently open the e-mail so I can get the full header and forward that to abuse@Comcast.com. (Who will then diligently ignore it, I'm sure -- I really loathe Comcast.)

      I wonder what percentage of the "viewed" statistic is generated by similar responses? More to the point -- I wonder if there's any way to measure how many are actually read?
    • 2% of the emails you buy will be viewed (viewed meaning that someone actually generated an http request based on the HTML inside)

      And I'm NEVER one of the 2% as I have external images in email turned off thanks to Mozilla. A lot of spammers will use images to gerneate and http request, thereby allowing them to track who views what messages. I'm a much happier camper since I turned off external images and installed spamassassin, although a lot more junk has been slipping by spamassassin now since I first
    • by BlackHawk ( 15529 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:12PM (#5793079) Journal
      • This is an amazing comment on the ineffectiveness of spam.
      Only if you don't complete the math. I haven't priced a spam-campaign, personally, but I have seen adverts for software you can "run from home" that retail for as little $75.

      So let's play a numbers game. Let's suppose I want to sell narfing-irons. I can manufacture them cheaply in India, so I have a good supply, and can make a 60% profit if I sell them for $35 a pair. I want to use a spam campaign, because I know how effective they are. I buy a service for $350, and they will send spam out to 4 million addresses. Just 2% will result in page views. That's 80,000 hits. Let's assume we get a sales rate of .5%. That's right, one-half of one percent. That's 400 sales. Or, total revenues of $14,000. Around $8000 of that is profit, from which my $350 spam-campaign is taken.

      And that was only one run of spam. If I run, say, 10 or 12 campaigns from different services, with similar rates of return, my narfing-iron business will net me in the vicinity of $80K-$100K in profit from Internet-based sales alone. And I didn't lift a finger, other than to ship the product.

      NOW do you see where they get people who will pay for this service?

  • by gosand ( 234100 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:02PM (#5791667)
    So what happens if you send an email to abuse@emarketersamerica.org ?
  • Yeah right (Score:3, Interesting)

    by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:03PM (#5791678)
    blacklisting IP addresses of the plaintiffs, libel, invasion of privacy, the publication of allegedly false information and "intentionally interference with a contract".


    Allright the blacklisting is allright because the user is requesting those sites to be blacklisted. Don't know about invasion of privacy (probably publishing the names and addresses), publication of false information (isn't that libel?). Finally "intentionally interference with a contract".(well at least it's spammer english:) there was never any contract in the first place and is just the user trying to avoid harassment. I'll be very surprised if this goes anywhere then again we may not have the whole story, remember the register isn't exactly an impartial newssource.
  • Where will you find a judge who is remotely computer-literate that hasn't been spammed?

    The marketers will demand that any judge who has been spammed recuse themselves.

    • We should put some effort into figuring out who every Judge, Senator, and Representative is who hasn't been deluged with spam already.

      Then we submit their email addresses to the mailing list at the eMarketersAmerica site and any other spam wesite we can find :)

  • by GMFTatsujin ( 239569 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:05PM (#5791688) Homepage
    "If these 180 were somehow spirited off internet - we'd be left with the Nigerians, and companies spamming by mistake. The spam problem would simply disappear," he said.

    So... who's got 1,800 feet of rope and an orchard to spare?
  • by smoon ( 16873 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:07PM (#5791721) Homepage
    which will be attended by many spammers
    Now where's some of that Iraqi nerve agent when we need it?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:07PM (#5791725)
    Try the asshole attorney's supporting this case. Look at the bottom of the slapp.pdf file:

    FELSTEIN & ASSOCIATES, P.A.
    Attorneys for EMarketersAmerica.org, Inc.
    555 South Federal Highway, Suite 450
    Boca Raton, Florida 33432
    (561) 367-7990 Phone
    (561) 367-7980 Facsimile
    mark@EMarketersAmerica.org
    Mark E. Felstein, Esq.
    FBN: 192139

    I think we have a new address for every free cd offer, junk ad, and telemarketer list in the world.
    • >I think we have a new address for every free cd offer, junk ad, and telemarketer list in the world.

      Or free samples of "White Powder." If you no longer want to recieve more White Powder please fill out this form and mail it back to us and we will promptly sell all your information to every marketer we can find. Thanks.
    • Here is the WHOIS info:

      EMARKETERSAMERICA.ORG WHOIS Results

      The data contained in Go Daddy Software, Inc.'s WHOIS database.

      Registrant:
      mark felstein
      P.O.Box 667933
      Pompano Beach, Florida 33066
      United States

      Registered through: Go Daddy Software (http://www.godaddy.com)
      Domain Name: EMARKETERSAMERICA.ORG
      Created on: 16-Jan-03
      Expires on: 16-Jan-05
      Last Updated on: 16-Jan-03

      Administrative Contact:
      felstein, mark mefels@aol.com
      P.O.Box 667933
      Pompan
  • by Beatbyte ( 163694 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:08PM (#5791732) Homepage
    My name is: Alan Ralsky

    Address:

    5016 Patrick Rd
    West Bloomfield, MI 48322-1543

    I REALLY NEED A PENIS ENLARGEMENT!!! PLEASE!!! I'll EVEN GIVE YOU MY CREDIT CARD NUMBER!!!!!
  • by SquadBoy ( 167263 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:09PM (#5791749) Homepage Journal
    make decks of playing cards with pictures of these guys and then do various things that I will not specify here for legal reasons to them after we find them. :)
  • by bigpat ( 158134 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:09PM (#5791756)
    If I started sending out millions of spam emails using my ISP, then I'm certain I would be shutdown very quickly. So why don't they just unplug the worst offenders?

    Eventually they will run out of aliases and addresses to use. But I suspect that the access providers make a lot of money from spam, probably providing a premium service to spammers much like the adult hosting business. Or maybe the access providers are just so big now that they just don't notice where the spam comes from? I doubt it though, if they were really losing money they would shut them down in a second.

    Even if spam is not coming from your network, then networks could just not peer with networks that allow spammers to operate without discretion, ie those that send out unsolicited emails with false origination information or use brute force spamming techniques such as dictionary matching.

    The worst spammers are akin to a DoS attack, which can be tracked down and stopped. This is basically the same thing. So why not just unplug the spammers one by one?

    Or are they somehow smarter than us? Maybe these are genetically engineered super smart spammers that can anticipate our every move? No, its just the people that can deny them access aren't motivated enough.

  • by LePrince ( 604021 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:11PM (#5791782)
    Spammers sue YOU !

    Oh wait, that's the case here too... Nevermind.

  • Spam as business (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ajs ( 35943 ) <{ajs} {at} {ajs.com}> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:14PM (#5791811) Homepage Journal
    Think about this the next time you advocate centralizing the Net (in terms of SMTP) on large ISPs in order to "solve" the problem of residental users spewing spam (directly or by relay).

    The residential users are annoying because there are so many of them, but if, 10 years from now, the only way you can send mail is to relay through a large ISP's mail servers... who do you think said ISP's best business partners will be?

    For an answer to that question look to the US Postal Service's largest customers: The US Federal Government and bulk mailers.

    THAT is exactly the business niche that spammers are evolving into. All they need is for users to have slightly less choice and ISPs to have slightly more power to tell their users how the Internet works rather than the other way around.

    Push to keep the Internet a network of peers while establishing a system of identity, trust and responsibility (which should in turn also by non-centralized, but rooted on an arbitrary number of certificate authorities and trust databases), and you will do yourself and the rest of the world a large favor!
  • This reminds me of the lawsuits robbers file against homeowners who kicked their arse for breaking in.


  • Here is what I found at http://www.EmarketersAmerica.org

    Coming Soon! emarketersamerica.org This page is parked FREE at Go Daddy!

    Man, they must be serious .... they have their domain name registered!!!


    ... and that is it!!! They don't even have a site up yet! How can you take them seriously!


    ... further, we know which ISP to forward our leftover spam to :)


    Everyone should contact Go Daddy and protest them hosting this site and aiding terrorists (well, they terrorize my mail box every

  • It would be great if someone could post the physical mailing address this organization will be using. I have a couple bricks I'd like to send them.

  • by LordYUK ( 552359 ) <jeffwright821@noSPAm.gmail.com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:18PM (#5791860)
    Okay, I read the first few pages of the lawsuit, and then I couldnt stomach the legalese anymore... I'm not a lawyer, after all...

    anyway, the way it sounds is that they are being sued because they sell products/list information that people use to stop the flow of "crap" from these companies. From what I read, they didnt attack these companies, they didnt DoS them, they merely provided tools that people could use to stop spammers from contacting them.

    The people that are using these tools probably never would have purchased anything from them anyway, and if they are like most of us, the emails are blocked/auto deleted/instantly trashed when they do get through, so its a moot point anyway.

    I think these people are just ticked off because their scummy business is being threatened by people who are intelligent enough to "work the internet", not just "use" it.

    thats just my thoughts, I could be wrong...
    • Okay, I read the first few pages of the lawsuit, and then I couldnt stomach the legalese anymore

      There's no legalese in it. I think it was written by a broken random word generator. They certainly have no clue how the internet works. Hell, they claim they own their IP addresses, despite explicit contracts to the contrary.
  • they will be able to countersue and get access to spammer's internal documents

    What exactly could they counter-sue for now, that they couldn't have sued for beforehand? Wrongful prosecution doesn't fit, since this is not a criminal case. I honestly can't think of anything that they couldn't have already sued for, which indicates that either the anti-spammers don't really have a case for a counter-suit, or they never bothered to take it to legal action in the past.

  • Eddy Marin (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Caveman Og ( 653107 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:19PM (#5791878) Homepage Journal
    Here's the full dope on Eddy Marin, spammer, and why South Florida (especially Boca Raton) is now a haven for spammers.

    Eddy uses a front company, "PG&C Leasing Inc." (aka lauderdale.net) to disguise his activity. This company buys the bandwidth for him to spam through. He then sets up dummy companies to act as "customers" of PG&C. If the heat gets too hot he'll "terminate" a "customer". Of course the spam just continues under another name.

    He's operated like this since 1998. He's had a long time to develope a reputation among his spamming pals, and since he brings money into the local economy, Boca Raton loves him.

    Here's just ONE of his netblocks:

    http://www.senderbase.com/search?searchBy=ipaddr es s&searchString=209.203.192.0%2F19

    The bulk of the spam from that netblock is from "OmniPoint Marketing". If you've been paying good attention. Spam also goes out from "justdous.com, prefersavings.com, dealstwoyou.com, and tlck.net". These are registered to things like "M.M.COMMERCE,INC", and "OptIn LLC" (which is Terry Williams, another Eddy Marin flunkie)

    stealthemail.com ??? Give me a break!

    --Og

  • Spam exists because it is profitable. If we each dedicate just ten minutes a day to order free product literature, tie up spammer's toll-free numbers, or even order a spammer's product on behalf of another spammer, we can cause spam to become unprofitable.
  • EmarketsAmerica.org is run by an incompetent baffoon as a front to some of the sleaziest spammers in existance.

    They've been harrassing the people named in the lawsuit for months, if not years now, and this is just their latest method of doing so.

    What's disturbing about this harrassment in particular, is that they're using tax payers' money by abusing the US courts as a means to go after their arch-enemies, the anti-spammers.

    The actual filing papers can be found from a mirror [jscript.dk] (PDF file).

    Read it, and have
  • by rkent ( 73434 ) <rkent@post.ha r v a r d . edu> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @02:53PM (#5792244)
    eMarketersAmerica.org? I have a new domain name to use when filling out online forms that want an email address. Sweet!
  • by infernalC ( 51228 ) <matthew@mellon.google@com> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @03:16PM (#5792494) Homepage Journal
    From the filing:

    "Should the Defendants, be allowed to continue their assault upon the Plaintiff and the Plaintiff's industry, the Plaintiff's industry will cease to exist."

    Yay. Now there's an incentive for a judge to issue an injunction if I ever heard one: the preservation of spam.
  • by dh003i ( 203189 ) <`dh003i' `at' `gmail.com'> on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @03:42PM (#5792806) Homepage Journal
    It says something about our crappy legal system that total crap like this can even be introduced into a court. There should be a pre-trial hearing to determine if something's even worthy of appearing in a court. No fancy legal bullshit, just some guy who looks at something and says, "that's fucking bullshit...trash can". Like the McD's coffee lawsuite, this is fucking bullshit and should have been trashed by the court clerks upon receiving it.

    blacklisting IP addresses of the plaintiffs

    No-one has to use these blacklists. They can and have the right to blacklist anyone for any damn reason they choose. If individual's don't like their blacklisting policies, they can use a different blacklist. The fact is, these guys deserve to be blacklisted.

    libel

    Hahahhahahahahahahah. For something to be libel, it has to false. Every claim made about these slimebags is completely true. Period. End of discussion. In fact, these spammers need to be prosecuted for frauid: none of that crap you see in e-mails is true. It's all fraudulent.

    invasion of privacy

    Hahahahahah. If you send out thousands of e-mails a day, your e-mail address and contact information are not private. In fact, your e-mail address, phone number, or house number do not get the protection of privacy. That is all public information. Even if this claim was true, there are no penalties for invasion of privacy of the kind they could possibly be referrign to.

    the publication of allegedly false information

    Bullshit.

    "intentionally interference with a contract"

    Bullshit. No-one who has received SPAM had a contract with the spammer to receive it. Period. End of discussion.

    This crap should have been trashed by the clerks who received it, and these guys should have been fined a hundred thousand dollars for wasting the court's time.
    • It says something about our crappy legal system that total crap like this can even be introduced into a court. There should be a pre-trial hearing to determine if something's even worthy of appearing in a court. No fancy legal bullshit, just some guy who looks at something and says, "that's fucking bullshit...trash can". Like the McD's coffee lawsuite, this is fucking bullshit and should have been trashed by the court clerks upon receiving it.

      You obviously don't know the facts in the McDonald's coffee law
  • by TekPolitik ( 147802 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @04:53PM (#5793548) Journal

    Several things point to this being a joke. If it's not a joke, their lawyer is the most incompetent lawyer on the planet.

    1. The "plaintiff" in the suit is not the party alleged to have suffered damage, and cannot sue for the alleged actions.
    2. Several of the defendants described as "entities" are clearly not "entities".
    3. Their claim for "conversion" fails to make out even the vaguest hint of a single element required for an action in conversion.
    4. They claim a "right" to equitable relief. You don't have a right to equitable relief - you have a right to ask for it, and the court can refuse it for any reason the court sees fit.
    5. They're claiming injunctive relief to prevent speech. Even if speech is illegal, injunctive relief is almost never granted to restrain speech.
    6. They describe IP addresses as property. I'm fairly progressive on what can constitute property, but even I have major difficulties with the concept of IP addresses being property.
    7. Paragraph 37 claims that none of the alleged statements of the defendants were regarding matters of legitimate public concern. They're going to have a hard time proving that something currently in consideration in Congress and at a meeting convened by the FTC lacks an element of legitimate public concern.
    8. While some of the other grounds can be argued, they are not plausibly arguable, and the "wrong plaintiff" problem is fatal anyway.

    I have difficulty believing that a lawyer coud really have drafted this crud.

  • by pohl ( 872 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2003 @06:38PM (#5794665) Homepage
    If the spammers are banding together to fight anti-spammer groups, it probably means that those anti-spamming measures are effectively interfering with their business model. Maybe those 550 rejects are actually causing them some pain.

    I've been very happy with my sendmail configuration, where I'm using blacklists and whitelists (/etc/mail/access) and a collection of realtime blocking lists. I had almost given up on recreational computing because of the sorry state of my inbox, but now things are better.

    I think it's time for us to better document & pomote the use of these measures so that more people are sending them 550's, instead of quietly deleting their garbage.

We are each entitled to our own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts. -- Patrick Moynihan

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