Alan Ralsky Gripes About Can Spam Act 706
fdiskne1 writes "The New York Times has an interview with Alan Ralsky, commonly known as the world's worst spammer. CNet News.com is running the same interview. Ralsky admits using open relays and virus-infected PCs and not honoring unsubscribe lists. He complains about having to comply with the new CAN-SPAM law will cost him an additional $3000 in costs to set up a genuine opt-out list. Anyone here feel sorry for him? Okay, I'm biased, but I can't wait until we see him in prison."
Well duh.. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The law was not written for a commercial e-mailer," he said. "I don't think what they are doing is fair."
I think that's the point, Mr. Ralsky..
What an ass (Score:5, Insightful)
Or,
"I personally hate clubbing old ladies over the head so I can snatch their purses. It's rough. But you do what you got to do."
I hope somebody clubs Al Ralsky over the head in a dark alley... Jerk.
Back up a second, here.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Spammers were given a choice (Score:3, Insightful)
If they aren't going to play fair then i dont see why we should. We need to make sure that the financial penalties outweigh the potential profits to be made. If it's a small penalty per email sent, then it'd take a while to whittle away ralskys fortunes.
We need to make an example of people breaking these laws to act as a deterrent. Perhaps a 3 emails and your up for life in prison....
That's nothing. These new laws. . . (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, the price controls on recreational drugs and prostitution are a partial compensation, but the state monopoly on gambling really put a crimp in my style.
What's the world coming to.
Well, at least I'm not a scum sucking spammer.
KFG
personally (Score:5, Insightful)
What the hell does anyone think some low life e-tard in Nigeria or South America care about American laws and spam, nada. Zilch zip nada. The law is a farce and being that its coming close to election, I'm wondering if it was solely sent through for whoring purposes...
Yeah... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What an ass (Score:3, Insightful)
No, of course not. Someone like Ralsky is most likely a sociopath (Antisocial Personality Disorder [mentalhealth.com]). He can't grasp the concept of responsibility for his actions.
Best to throw him in a dungeon and never let him out again, IMNSHO...
Re:Back up a second, here.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Just not Alan Ralsky. It's there to help folks like the DMA do *their* kinder, gentler spam. That it gets rid of the current competition is merely a side benefit that I'm sure they made some sizable campaign contributions to ensure.
Laws can't fix something this broken. (Score:5, Insightful)
The bottom line is that SMTP has got to go. We need to get wide adoption of an e-mail protocol with authentication that the "from" address being claimed belongs to the sender of the message. That's the only way to make sure that spammers lose their ability to send e-mail without reprocussions. The face-value "from" address has to be much more relaiable than the current system lets it be.
Re:capitalism rules! (Score:1, Insightful)
Take the Spam Lists with You (Score:1, Insightful)
So HE thinks it's unfair...?! (Score:3, Insightful)
I would be very interested in hearing how "fair" the owners of all those resources think the new law is. Oh, granted, said law is far from perfect. However, if it helps to force criminals like Ralsky out of business for good, I will be the first to give it a round of applause.
Ralsky's misguided belief that he has any right at all to abuse property that does not belong to him is typical of the spammer mindset. The sooner he, Scotty 'Snotty' Richter, Eddy Marin, and all their spamming ilk get shut down permanently, the better off the Internet will be.
Re:Calling him an ass for those quotes wreaks of.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Broadcasters sell commercial spots on the basis that the advertising will be broadcast with the show, and offer the advertiser some sort of assurance that a certain demographic will be OFFERED that advertisement for viewing. However, I never said I'd watch it. Neither did you.
Now, spammers such as the dipshit in question here are literally STEALING bandwidth and cpu cycles from servers worldwide. They are INFECTING systems and using them as zombies to mail their crap. There is a world of difference between commercial skipping and theft.
As an aside here, Ralsky also says that we have no clue what he's mailing? Maybe I can't pinpoint mail-for-mail the ones that dipshit sends, but spam is spam and very recognizable no matter who it's from, whether it's a legit business, or a single spamming schmuck.
Ralsky isn't the problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
What we need is to get rid of the "demand" end of this issue. Tighten up email so it requires at least some level of authorization to send to someone else, even if it's just by having a certificate of trust or something.
I didn't mean to kill the family... (Score:4, Insightful)
Mr. Ralsky said that he was uncomfortable about this deception, but that he had no choice. "Is putting bogus information in your registrations the right way to do business?" he asked. "No. But the Internet world has forced me to do that."
Why do people still think this is a valid excuse. I am sorry I killed my husband but he didn't use a coaster. I am sorry i killed my child but she kept crying. I am sorry I killed one million people, but they were in the way.
No one makes you do something. You make a choice. You make a choice to go to school or not. You make a choice to go to work or not. You make a choice to live an honest life or not. You make the choice, and you should be man or woman enough to stand by them and take responsibility. Not be yet another sorry excuse for a human and say "I don't recall" or "I didn't know" or "I was ordered to".
He's playing the media and lawmakers like a fiddle (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Ralsky is openly complaining about the slight inconveniences this law has caused in order to affirm this law as effective, hoping to avoid tougher legislation that would actually hinder his "business" practices.
Who minds receiving adverts? (Score:3, Insightful)
If spam was targetted to me and *clearly* marked so it didn't interfere with my regular emailling, and allowed me to easily unsubscribe - i dont think i'd mind too much.
I have no need for penis enlargement pills, but don't objected to what are technically unsolicited adverts from my local computer store. Even if I wanted to take advantage of 90% of spam I couldn't because i dont live in the US.... that's just wasteful.
Re:A question of volume. (Score:2, Insightful)
And to put this another way: I receive that many because I help run an ISP. I have a front-line view of the effect of spam. I can say with confidence that AT LEAST 75% of the email received here is spam. We don't have precise stats, but a conservative guess is around half a million PER DAY come through our servers. Those messages take processing power, disk space, electricity, so on to handle. Messages our customers agree to recieve, we have no problem with. But messages that our customers do not want, and cannot stop, and we cannot stop, we consider theft of our resources, our customer's money, and everybody's time. You as an individual user may think "big deal, I just press delete." But when there are tens of thousands of users at an ISP doing that, it really does add up, and really is a serious issue. And you as an individual user are paying for it, don't think you aren't.
Larry
Victim? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe he should figure out that those are not his networks he is sending the emails over.
And the "if you don't like it unsubscribe..." bit is funny. How about, if I want it I'll subscribe?
Tom
Re:I didn't mean to kill the family... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:All I can say is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Calling him an ass for those quotes wreaks of.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe you can try an experiment and steal some electricity. By your way of thinking it doesn't exist in physical form either so you should be just fine.
You'll find the same thing all over... (Score:5, Insightful)
Every spammer says this, but remember the first rule of dealing with spammers: Spammers lie.
Spammers say they don't want to send spam to people who don't want it, then come up with ways to subvert spam filters. If the really didn't want to send spam to people who didn't want it, then why subvert a spam filter? Someone using a filter obviously doesn't want spam (by definition), yet spammers keep bitching about filters, and how they're making their line of work difficult.
Re:Take the Spam Lists with You (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not the ISPs fault, I'd much rather see them drop all possible offenders than spend a long time investigating each one, and as a consequence having a long delay between the time someone is reported and the time their internet account is dropped.
All you need to do is make it easy for the people receiving the newsletters to opt out, make sure they know someone requested it and it's not spam, and require some sort of verification to make sure anyone can't sign them up.
What would be REALLY nice would be forcing them to confirm every few months that they still want to receive the newsletter. That way you're not sending it to people that don't want it, and if they no longer care about it, they don't have to do a thing to stop receiving it - they just have to wait.
You guys make spam too complicated.... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Buy yourself a domain and setup a default alias that you check...
2. For each website you goto that needs an email, give them their own.
yahoo.com gets yahoo@yourdomain.com
cheaptickets.com gets cheaptickets@yourdomain.com
monkeysex.com gets monkeysex@yourdomain.com
and so on. If one happens to sell/use your address, big deal,
Spammers create jobs (NT) (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Spammers create jobs (NT) (Score:3, Insightful)
The main problem with all these statements is that a spammer is saying them.
Re:All I can say is... (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire system of crime and punishment, at least in the USA, has been the notion of "let the punishment fit the crime". In it's purest form, the concept of modern law is to "set right that which was wronged", in other words, allow the law to compensate a person or other entity to the point before the offense. That is the concept of compensatory damages; punitive damages awarded the wronged serve to further punish the offender.
How a rational person can equate being wronged by receiving unsolicited emails calling for the death penalty for the sender, and say, the punishment that will befall the killer of Laci Peterson is beyond me.
There will come a time when some overzealous anti-spammer will decide to take the law into their own hands, and physically attack a spammer. A taste of that was seen last spring at the Federal Trade Commission summit on spam in DC. Others have made thinly veiled threats to destroy computer server centers, and it is only a matter of time before someone decides to act on their impulses.
If nothing else, any lawyer would counsel against making statements on public Internet sites that may come back to haunt a person later. The First Amendment is fine, it's up to the individual to decide when their statements are free speech, or incriminating evidence.
What punishment (provided Ralsky would be convicted on an offense) do I believe he should get? Compensatory damages equal to the total cost of bandwidth, server space, etc. that he has used sending out emails over the years, and punitive damages ten times the compensatory amount. In the end, instead of living in Bloomfield Hills, he'll be on the corner of Second and Forest, bumming for spare change.
easy now killer (Score:2, Insightful)
You cant be serious. You want this person jailed? While i admit spam is obnoxious, I wouldnt suggest it an offence to warrant incarceration.
Unsolicited commercial messages are streamed at you constantly, billboards, tv, radio etc etc. I dont want to get in a debate about how terrible spam is (uses resources 'we' pay for yadda) but really, is it *that* different? To warrant JAIL TIME? Really now, I think this crowd needs a little perspective.
Re:Well duh.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, how the hell does it cost $3,000 to set up one more table in his SQL database with two columns (email-address and timestamp) and leave it at that? Write a tiny script that directly adds an email address when clicked through a URL - and you're done. Maybe 15 minutes of work, tops.
Because it makes filtering easy (Score:3, Insightful)
The rules force spammers to reveal themselves. While spammers could avoid the rules without legal reprocusions they could circumvent filters that depended on those rules for effectiveness. Now that they have to follow the rules, filters will do their job much better.
For example, I've never gotten a spam that followed the rule of putting ADV: in the subject.
Yes spam is legal so more spam will be sent. But filtering out legal spam (hey wow, a federal distinction finally) will be child's play.
Sure you'll still have to put up with foreign crap but spam is like litter. Every little bit helps.
I can't believe how many people fell for the spammers' lies that this law would be good for them. Now that it's show time, the lie is falling apart.
Ben
Don't throw me in the briar patch! (Score:3, Insightful)
Breaking windows creates jobs too... (Score:5, Insightful)
Bastiat, the ~1870s French economist, was probably not the first person to explain this fallacy [wikipedia.org], but he's the best-known. Sure, successful spammers create some jobs, but they also destroy other jobs, as well as wasting everybody's time and annoying everyone.
Re:You guys make spam too complicated.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Spammers create jobs (NT) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well duh.. (Score:2, Insightful)
The only "legitimate" mailers will a) use confirmed opt-in only, no exceptions, b) never buy/sell/share email addresses, and c) refuse to work with any service/product that uses spam in any form. Period.
Since nobody adheres to these standards then that list of "legitimate" mailers is very short indeed.
Re:Well duh.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You'll find the same thing all over... (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Criminal Charges? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All I can say is... (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, there are about 2.5Gs in an 80-year human lifetime. Ralsky boasts of something like 70 million spams per day. If it takes a human being 1 second to delete a spam, that's one human lifetime wasted per 36 days of spamming. Okay, filters help a lot -- but those filters also cost people-time to create. Aside from that, even if only 5% gets through to a human, he's wasted 1 whole human lifetime in 2 years.
So, what would be a compensory penalty? The 80 years (more than the rest of his life) at community service would be a start. But that doesn't account for all the cleanup of the zombies he relayed through, nor the ISP resources (mailbox space and bandwidth). It also doesn't compensate the public for the loss in usefulness of email.
In Ralsky's case, he cannot possibly afford to compensate for what he's done. But there is more to justice than compensation and punishment. Justice also requires Mercy.
He's 57 years old now. He can collect social security in five years. Let him. (In the mean time, he can sell his big house and move into a small appartment thats easier to afford. Maybe Sanford Wallace is looking for a roomie?) But after he has to start tagging his spam, it'll be so easy to filter that nobody will pay him to send it. I cannot imagine anyone hiring him to work. So, he'll fade into obscurity, and justice will be served by his repentance and remorse.
Except, he's a spammer, so he'll more likely break the can-spam law, and do those next five years in prison (I assume, based on his open admission to news reporters that he uses zombies, that there will be some wiretaps in place by Jan 2 at the latest.) When he gets out, he has the same choice to make all over again.
Re:Well duh.. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm sorry, how is that spam?
Because I didn't give my addy to the guy at the door for purposes of emailing me crap from random event participants. I gave my addy to him because he said it would only be used by the event producers to notify about future events.
Your use of my addy is outside the authorization I gave for using it. That's simple enough for even a spammer to understand.
Re:You guys make spam too complicated.... (Score:2, Insightful)
2. For each website you goto that needs an email, give them their own.
yahoo.com gets yahoo@yourdomain.com
cheaptickets.com gets cheaptickets@yourdomain.com
Assuming you have an account of the form mr_foobar@theisp.com, some isps let you use email of the form
anytext@mr_foobar.theisp.com
Possibly some spammers might realise you've done this when you give out your email, but if they don't, then you have instant traceability. Preferably, make it non-obvious what you've done when you choose the 'anytext' (where 'anytext' is disregarded).
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)