Another Go At Making Spam Cost Money 242
wario78 writes: "The BBC is running a story about the law firm Morrison and Foerster which is claiming damages against the spam company Etracks based in California. They are asking for $50 in damages for each spam they receive, up to the maximum of $25,000 per day. Nice to see a lawyer doing something community-oriented for a change (even if they are just trying to make a profit from it)."
Repeat (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Repeat (Score:2)
Right now, I'm using my state's anti-spam laws to choke it off.
In Illinois, there is a civil penalty of $10 per offense as long as the server and the user are both in IL and you have never had a business relationship with the spammer.
So far, it has worked successfully on a couple spammers. Now, I found out one is based in Chicago.
At least it's easier to serve papers.
Sueing Slashdot (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sueing Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
You jest, however.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You jest, however.... (Score:2, Insightful)
The San Francisco office of Morrison and Foerster, also known as MoFo
Sums up most law firms I know.
Seriously, I think it's great that somebody is finally going after those crooked spammers. I especialy hate the scams. Those are blatantly illeagal. I'm sure this shitty spam company sends out pyramid scheme scams and shit, so they could be sued for that, as well.
What we need is to have is a class action lawsuit against spammers on behalf of the people who fell for these scams. However, no matter what we do, there will always be spam. No way, no how, will we ever get rid of spam.
But in my special email account, the spike hay at charter dot net adress above, I never have gotten one spam. I just do a few simple things. When I have to give my email out to websites, I give them my hotmail account. But then if they are obviously going to use it to spam me, and they don't need to contact me, I give them a phony address and leave the little "Yes. I would like to recieve information about special offers from 3rd parties" box checked. I do this just to fsck up the spammer's mailing lists. I also set Opera to not accept 3rd party cookies, like DoubleClick. And I also run AdAware regularly. Some spyware can get your email.
Anyway, the golden rule for spam is to never, ever, ever, give out your email address. (except to colleagues, friends, family, of course)
BTW, could someone explain to me how on earth DoubleClick is legal? They never gave me a privacy statement. And, it violates the Children's Online Protection Act or whatever because they collect information about children uner 13.
Redundant (-1) (Score:3, Informative)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/15/195620 0 [slashdot.org]
A quick search shows... (Score:5, Insightful)
Original story here [slashdot.org].
Re:A quick search shows... (Score:2)
OMG! CmdrTaco-ism IS CONTAGIOUS! Run like the wind timothy, before you start reposting the same story to the front page in a 15 minute time-span! Get out before you misspell every third word in your "editorial blurb"! Hurry before you get bitchslapped by the legal dept. and made to change your sexist posts about Cisco chicks!
Truth in Advertising (Score:5, Funny)
B-),
Ellen
Re:Truth in Advertising (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Truth in Advertising (Score:2)
I think this URL was actually featured in the original WebPagesThatSuck [webpagesthatsuck.com] book, as an example of extremely bad naming of domains...
up to $25k (Score:1)
Re:up to $25k (Score:2)
Re:up to $25k (Score:2)
lawyers (Score:2, Flamebait)
Nice to see a lawyer doing something community-oriented for a change (even if they are just trying to make a profit from it).
even if? I thought making profits was all lawyers ever did!
take the enron shareholder lawyers, for example, who will rake in (conservatively) 50-100 Million US.
Re:lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see how your opinion of lawyers changes after someone wrongs you and you have to take them to court.
Lawyers are not all evil because they charge money for their services when they can.
Re:lawyers (Score:2)
Yes they are. If you charge someone an unusually high amount of money for a service they need and only you or someone who charges even more can provide, you are taking advantage of them and are being a bad person in the process.
Anyone who charges more that $50 or so for their time, is not worth it and taking advantage of you.
Re:lawyers (Score:2)
You're welcome to go to (and pay for) law school and learn how to properly defend yourself/prosecute. You still won't have the experience more established have, but who knows, maybe after a few hundred cases, you'll have saved yourself a few bucks.
Re:lawyers (Score:2)
Which is true, except most professionals that charge ungodly hourly rates charge you an hour everytime they have to do something.. in any given day, a lawyer will bill several more hours than they actually work.
Well, except "public interest lawers" (Score:2)
Public interest lawers have a lot more in common with your average Open Source programmer than you might think. It takes a pretty strong sense of values to give up 75% of your earning potential to work on the things that you think are "important to all of us", but there are lots of lawers who do just that.
-Mark
Quick! (Score:1)
Spam? Not here... (Score:3, Informative)
If you run your own mail server you can do this stuff yourself - I mean "one-time acounts" and so on. But sneakemail is just too convenient (or I'm too lazy and tired by the time I get home...)
As much as I hate spam (Score:3, Insightful)
The internet has always been self policing. Why should we treat SPAM differently than the rest of email? Yes it sucks, but we can always filter it. We do not need legislation to save the inbox. We need common sense. Legislation is only going to make the internet more of a 'policed state.' I feel as if it cannot be said enough, the internet is not owned by the US and it will only lead to problems if goverments are brought in for annoying crap like spammers.
No I am not a spammer.
Yes I hate spam with a passion.
However, the more geeks want rules to govern the internet, the more the other laws (as well as shit like this) will be passed and upheld.
Stop this crap now.
factual flaw (Score:2, Interesting)
This costs money!
Spammers freeload, use other people's (usually) accidentally open relays, take up bandwidth and waste time. It's extremely offensive, not opt-in, deceitful (NEVER click remove, they just sell the address) and mostly false advertising.
It is and should be legislated.
Re:As much as I hate spam (Score:3, Informative)
Re:As much as I hate spam (Score:5, Interesting)
When I get snail-mail spam (not in caps because it's slightly less evil) I may have the inconvenience of picking it up, and then throwing it away, but I don't pay postage.
Unfortunately, in the Internet the receiver, and everyone in the middle, also pays in resources, and since most users pay for their bandwidth indirectly (and will soon pay directly), it increases the cost of Internet for the consumer. The consumer is paying to read ads he doesn't want to read in the first place and that are not subsidizing any service, and that's not good.
Imagine if you were forced to accept collect-calls and every single tele-marketer in the nation took advantage of that.
The Internet may be self-policing, but we still reserve the right to prosecute for "real world crimes". If a website systematically uses my credit card information for identity/credit fraud, I want them to be legally prosecuted, "filtering them" (not buying from them and spreading the word) is not enough.
SPAM should be treated just like having someone stealing your cable connection, electricity, water or other utilities. There are real-world, monetary damages, which may be small or may accumulate to something significant over time, but either way it's not legal and there may be some penalties involved.
The alternative is regulating through code, but redefining the email standard so as to avoid SPAM would be problematic and (at least the solutions that come to mind) possibly raise some privacy issues.
Redefining the e-mail standard and PATENTS (Score:3, Interesting)
Hey maybe you're actually on to something. That just helped me brainstorm a crazy idea that might involve a GOOD use of software patents!
Redefine the e-mail standard in such a way that is PATENTED. I'm sure someone could think of a way to do that.
Then, grant everyone a free license to use the patent EXCEPT spammers! Of course, come up with a fairly good definition of spam that would include sending bulk e-mail to people you have no prior relationship with.
Then, when a spammer uses the new standard, clearly violating the patent, they can have the crap sued out of them!
What do you think???
Re:Redefining the e-mail standard and PATENTS (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, there is the big problem of prior art. I know this would be a "bad patent" on purpose, but "bad patents" without a lot of money behind them tend to be recognized as "bad" more quickly than is usual.
On the other hand, if you're willing to ignore the issues of prior art and take your chances, why not patent spam itself too? That way you get to sue spammers for patent infringement, not the violation of a license (which, without "damages", is likely to be resolved by revocation of the license, something corporate entities can play with easily).
Re:As much as I hate spam (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy didn't want to run an ISP. He had to. He had an internet cafe and the only ISP in town shutdown, so he bought them out so he could keep his internet cafe going, his only source of income. He's not real technical. Enough to run the cafe, but the ISP was a big hurdle for him. I'm just trying to explain the reason for the open relay.
Now, after this spammer used his open relay, his mail server (and all of his clients) suddenly became blacklisted, and he was unable to send ANY e-mail. He fixed the problem, but the incident cost him dearly.
So, there's another reason. Here's another: I have TONS of stuff filtering spam. I still get tons of it every day that doesn't get filtered. So I'm constantly adding new addresses and stuff to my filters. This takes my time, not a lot, but let's say a few minutes a day. My work time. Time I could be using to be more productive at my job. This hurts my company. Multiply that by everyone in the world who has e-mail, and you start to get an idea of the scope of productivity that's lost each day because of this crap.
What right do they have to use up the bandwidth and services we pay for? What right do they have to interefere with my productivity at work? If you can justify this and other issues that others have raised, you might have a case, but I doubt you'll be able to.
Re:As much as I hate spam (Score:2)
Spamming is one of those cases, and here's why:
In any other advertising medium, from television to magazines to radio, the burden is on the advertiser to pay for the production of the ad, pay for the timeslot its played in. The medium through which we receive this ad (be it a radio station or whatever) sells space to the advertiser to balance out the cost of providing radio entertainment to the masses. If you don't want to hear that ad, you turn it off. It doesn't affect you.
Now, let's turn to spam. The creater of a spam email generally uses free/cheap/cracked software. At most they're shelling out for a cheap dialup, or using one of the many 'free AOL for a month' CDs to not pay anything at all. The spammer then routes that email for free through open relays to hide where the email is coming from to make it harder for people to track him/her, passing on the cost of the bandwidth they use to the ISP. The ISP, who has to pay for that bandwidth, isn't going to take it out of their own pockets (this is a capitalist society after all), they're going to pass the bill on to the consumer, resulting in fee increases.
The receiver of the email has no choice but to sort through email to delete it. We've all heard the argument that 'it only takes a few seconds to delete an email'. But what happens when you are deluged with hundreds of spam emails a day? Multiply that by 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and those seconds add up. Now, while some people might not think those few seconds are worth anything, I personally find it incredibly annoying when I have to take half an hour out of every week sorting through email to figure out what's crap and what isn't.
Filtering? Ok. as long as the spammer is kind enough to place a big "ADV" in the header. What about those that don't (which is the vast majority). How does one distinguish between a spammer and a friend who use re: your question as the subject?
One could go all the way and only those who you know to email you, but that doesn't really cut it if you're using email for business purposes (like I do).
If you follow these arguments to their conclusions, we can either a: track down each spammer in a sort of internet vigilante justice and disable them, which is illegal, time consuming, and wouldn't do a damn thing, or b: give those who are taken advantage of by spammers a lawful way to make these people pay for the bandwidth they suck up in their quest to bring penis enlargers and hot barely legal teens to the world.
Re:As much as I hate spam (Score:2)
Re:As much as I hate spam (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should we treat SPAM differently than the rest of email?
Good question - easy answer. Spam is fraud. Spammers routinely "spoof" their messages, packets, and other information in their attempts to foist the costs of their advertisements onto other people. This is electronic fraud, plain and simple.
I'd have no problem at all with Spam if each message they sent was clearly marked as an unsolicited advertisement. That way I could tell my ISP whether I wanted it or not. But clearly they're not going to do that because most people do not care to accept such ads.
Re:As much as I hate spam (Score:2)
Note that the same applies to most other things.. However, in democracy the majority gives the power to decide for them to a minority - parliament, congress, senate, president, and so on. And it'd be hard to prove that the clueless masses have given the academia the power to decide how internet should work.
This leads to one logical conclusion: the power to decide and enforce has been given to lawmakers, police force, and the courts. Thus, it's up to them to decide and enforce the code of conduct in the internet as seen by the clueless majority. And if the reasonable people don't agree, they're free to set up a new network which doesn't allow clueless people in.
For further reference, check out Abilene, Internet2, Geant, and so on. The academia is moving forward, leaving the old internet for the masses and setting up a new R&D/edunet.
Re:As much as I hate spam (Score:2)
Agreed. But let's architect an email infrastructure that enforces this instead of passing legislation.
The multi-national nature of the internet means that the only laws that will truly be respected on the internet are ones that are technically mandated.
Filtering spam (Score:2)
Filtering can be done based on the content of the message. For example, if the message includes the words "enlarge" and "penis" or "herbal viagara" it will be quickly classified as spam. This is done automatically using algorithms similar to those of search engines.
Also, legitimate e-mails could usually be easily detected: mailing list traffic is tirival, any message including a copy of your sig, your real name, names of people close to you or your place of work, etc. The automated tools take advantace of all this in filing your message.
To try it yourself, see ifile [mit.edu] which does this for both spam filtering and folder classification.
Re:Filtering spam (Score:2)
I check my spam box 1/week. Its not really ther time -- its the distraction that gets me. when I am reading the spambox its easy. D D D D, hmm read, D D D D
Just shoot spammers. (Score:2)
SPAMMERS are no better than thieves. They hide their identities because they know what they do is wrong! Many use stolen credit card numbers to set up drop email boxes and sites.
Maybe you think that if you rape a woman, it is ok because she can avoid you raping her another time by staying away from you.
Re:Just shoot spammers. (Score:2)
SPAMMING uses my computing resources, disk space, and bandwidth.
If SPAMMING is legitimate, why don't spammers fully identify themselfs?
mofo is like that (Score:5, Informative)
so it's not surprising to me that they would expand that social-cause reach to technology too, in the legal realm.
Of course, some people are idiots (Score:2)
Sometimes success! (Score:3, Interesting)
It took me half an hour to track down and mail the free web provider, the free mail provider, the free scripts provider, the (possibly) abused mail-relays etc etc.
Now the web-site is off-line and one by one (I hope) all his services will fail. Scripts will return errors, mailboxes will close and so on.
I guess that will p*ss that spammer off
I want to get an e-mail address with them. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I want to get an e-mail address with them. (Score:3, Insightful)
They could sell email addresses to people and make a fortune. How much would you pay for an SPAM-free email address @mofo.com?
on re ads (Score:5, Interesting)
it seems to me that we all just accept ads as "part of the way we live"
Each time I try to get education, entertainment,
or travel anywhere, I am bombarded with
unsolicited ads. ads that generally fuel the
out-of-control cosumerism all around us.
Read a magazine, get ads.
Watch the news on TV, get ads.
Walk down the street, get ads.
Read the newspaper, get ads.
Watch entertainment TV, get ads.
Even if I want to, I am FORCED to see ads. To be
programmed. (don't tell me to go live on an
island -- I don't want to do that either).
The thing I think is that we don't have to have it this way. I know its radical but imagine for a moment a world where there were no unsolicited ads . This is a real stretch -- many of the assumptions about normal life start to break down if you take this assumption and go with it. We DO have the technology to provide everyone all the information they could want whenever they want to buy something, yet we don't. We make all the businesses compete for visual and auditory bandwidth, annoying the he!l out of everyone.
thoughts?
Re:on re ads (Score:2)
last time i checked, spam was not reducing my internet fees, they are raising it due to the large amount of bandwidth that is being wasted, the ISP has to pay for how many megs of absolute crap a year that no one wanted in the first place
Re:on re ads (Score:2)
My statements were a bit outside just spam on the Internet.
My point was that we are unwillingly forced to view ads by participating in daily life. The fact that they are used to pay for the service is important, but not essential. There could be lots of other ways to pay for services instead of progrmming masses to buy stuff.
Re:on re ads (Score:2)
-jD
YOU ARE A CULTURAL SLAVE
[newslavery.org]
(end of your sig)
Hey, what is this, some kind of advertisement for a website or something? How the hell did THAT get there?
(BTW, check out my own ad for my website in my sig)
Ads are everywhere. Can't avoid them. They are free speech, so what you are objecting to is essentially having to listen to others. It's a lot of trouble to ignore people, true, but it's even more trouble to outlaw the transmission of ideas.
Re:on re ads (Score:2)
It will all stop when people realize
that the enveloping competition that fuels our
society ultimately makes life worse for most
people, not better.
Re:on re ads (Score:2)
I don't see the logic in your argument...what is an alternative that doesn't rely on the goodwill of anyone/everyone (one bad apple/sneaky business spoils that route) and also presents a marketplace that is free of censorship and prohibitive legislation?
Our system isn't perfect, but the solution is not to legislate our problems away, but to EDUCATE them away.
That sounds pretty hoakey, as well as extremely idealistic, but there's no other way. Our society is based on the idea that man is a rational animal striving for his (her) own best interest...treat people like this, and they will behave that way.
"""
your reasoning and assumptions are founded entirely within the current way that we live. If you continue to hold on to them, the conclusion "there is no other way" is inevitable. you have to think bigger.
I never wrote anything about legislating changes. I agree with you that education is first. What people need to realize when they are fixing problems and when they are fixing symptoms. Ads are symptoms. Consumerism is a symptom.
As for extreme idealism... Well. No one but extremists really do much in "today's world."
read my sig
-
Re:on re ads (Score:2)
take a minute and ask yourself seriously: does this make sense:
"""
When you see adds everywhere else, there is a
silent agreement: you see the adds but you get
some sort of compensation in return.
"""
I'm not disagreeing with what you are saying -- just asking people to think: does this tacit contract make sense? Would it not be be better to simply pay for things we want?
you have no choice to whom you enter this contract with.
you have no ability not to enter it.
in many cases, the motivation of the
advertiser (newpaper, tv, billboard owner) is not
to give you compensation, but simply to make
(er.. take) more money. NBC makes a sh!tload
on selling ads. That money goes to the
shareholders of NBC.
often, like in billboards and spam, you get zero compensation
ads promote behavior, that en masse, is unsustainable long term
Re:Get a Grip - Re:on re ads (Score:2)
... if you buy a newspaper, magazine, or periodical, or if you turn on the TV, you should practically expect advertisements by now.
"""
I agree completely with this statement. That is exactly my point. It doesn't make much sense.
--
"""
Welcome to life, buddy. Suck it up and deal with it.
"""
I like to call this the mantra of futility. It is said by people who are unwilling to really think about the roblems in our society; the unassailable. It typically appears close in conversation to the mantra of escape , or the deserted island suggestion.
Following this advice perpetuates many of the problems I see in the world.
Spam laws collection, US States (Score:4, Informative)
Spam laws [spamlaws.com]
Especially
Summary of US State spam laws [spamlaws.com]
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org) [sethf.com]
Is it too much to ask? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it too much to ask for people to drop the incessant lawyer bashing? Lawyers as a group spend a lot of time working on "community-oriented" work. They are expected to devote at least part of their time and effort doing pro bono work, i.e. representing cases in the public interest, frequently for people who otherwise couldn't afford representation. The law is one of the last careers where this is an ordinary expectation.
Re:Is it too much to ask? (Score:2)
Seriously, in the same way that the auto insurance industry, (in MD at least) is forced to handle a portion of MAIF clients. I think the analogy holds both groups are money hungry greedy bastards.
Re:Is it too much to ask? (Score:2)
How about doing some real community service and take on a case here and there that might get bad laws struck down? How about getting your bar association to support tort reform? Why not do something useful, instead of all this self-aggrandizement lawyers are famous for?
Re:Is it too much to ask? (Score:3, Insightful)
Complication has mostly arisen from the fact that somewhere a bias arose that the system attempt to genuinely reach the "right" result a very high percentage of the time, say 99%. Simpler rules would probably result in being right 90% of the time. As a people, so far, we haven't been willing to swallow that 9% difference.
Odds are even the really complicated system that aspires to 99%, is far less good than that, but the tweaks continue and continue. Take a look at the length of the US tax code as a function of time, and ask yourself -- is the tax code now 100 times better than a century ago? Is Microsoft Word 2000 that much better than Wordperfect 5.2? Is THE PHANTOM MENACE that much better a movie than CITIZEN KANE? I don't think any of the above, but the futile search for perfection through complexity continues.
So yeah, the law is bloatware. But what isn't these days?
Re:Is it too much to ask? (Score:2)
I totally agree. I am constantly amazed at how unobvious and frustrating most computer interfaces still are, after all this time. Have you ever tried using Microsoft's online troubleshooting wizards? Absolutely pathetic. Gnome and KDE are no better, Aqua is merely shinier, but they are all the same clumsy drag-drop windowing paradigm. Bleh.
So yeah, the law is bloatware. But what isn't these days?
I was going to make a crack about your Mom, but decided not to.
Re:Is it too much to ask? (Score:2)
The legal system in this country is directly contributing to people learning that they are not responsible for their actions and that if they are careless or stupid, all they have to do to feel better is sue the person or corporation that pointed it out. Not all lawyers are bloodsuckers but a great number of them ARE, and it's about damn time people realize it's OK to call a leech a leech.
Heinlein put "The year they killed the lawyers" into his future history for a good reason. People are a hell of a lot more polite to each other when there aren't any lawyers around egging them into a fight.
If saying that makes them feel bad, I don't give a damn any more than I feel sympathy for a rat on a sinking ship. Too many of them are just along for the ride and don't deserve any consideration at all.
Except for professional "public interest" lawers.. (Score:2)
Giving up 75% of your income to work excusively on projects you believe in for the public good? I'd say that's called putting your money where your mouth is.
-Mark
Re:Is it too much to ask? (Score:2)
Poor old Bernie (Score:2)
Hmm sounds like the beginnings of a
Do small claims instead (Score:2)
Besides, it's a lot easier to say each email caused you $1 of damage, making you have a bad day overall, than it is to claim the each email caused you $50 of damage.
Plus, if someone works out exactly how you do the small claims suit, and publishes the information, it's easy for anyone who feels annoyed or wants to see how the legal system works or just has to go be the courthouse anyway, and the tactic of spamming everyone who hasn't tried suing anyone won't work.
Re:Do small claims instead (Score:3, Insightful)
You can win, in fact if the spammer fails to show you will win by default. That's usually the outcome you will be hoping for.
So now you have a judgement for $5.00. What do you think will happen next? Think the court will enforce the judgment? Think again. Think the court will garnish the spammer's wages? Think again. Small claims court has not the time nor the resources to enforce the judgments they render. You still have to run around with your piece of paper signed by the judge and try to get the system to enforce it. Eventually, after many months of trying, you might be able to get an arrest warrant for your spammer. Then you can begin trying to get the police to arrest him. How high on the list of priorities do you think warrants for delinquent $5 judgments stand?
Not very.
On the bright side, in states with anti-spam laws, you do not have to prove that spam has damaged you in order to prevail in court. The anti-spam laws generally make it easy to win your case, but they do nothing to help you enforce the judgment.
Arrest Warrant (Score:2)
Re:Do small claims instead (Score:2)
Of course, you're unlikely to get your $5 if nobody else joins in. But if someone isn't bothering anyone but you, they're not really a spammer, anyway.
Re:Do small claims instead (Score:2)
just for profit? (Score:2)
I think it is very difficult to see what someone's motives are. It is even worse when the only way to penalize someone is monetarily.
Until someone does this successfully, spam will continue.
I just wonder what they might do with the money....
Not a dent (Score:2)
Re:Not a dent (Score:2)
Re:Not a dent (Score:2)
Is this the new .COM business model? (Score:2)
Make $1000s from the comfort of your own home! (Score:4, Funny)
How about a different spam story? (Score:4, Informative)
Third time's the charm, right?
While I have enjoyed this story every time that is was posted...
1 Another Go At Making Spam Cost Money by timothy with 81 comments on Tuesday April 09, @04:23PM
2 Class Action Lawsuit Against Spammer by CmdrTaco with 299 comments on Friday March 15, @04:24PM
3 MoFo Sues Spammer by timothy with 17 comments on Thursday March 14, @07:36PM
...there's a lot of other spam news out there that we could be reading. Check out http://spam.abuse.net [abuse.net] for a variety of exciting, spam-related news and information, such as:
RULINGS IN INTEL V. HAMIDI BULK-EMAIL CASE [politechbot.com] (California Supreme Court agrees to hear Intel V. Hamidi).
Or you could read this story again...whatever... =)
Accounts of a WA man's spam suits (Score:2, Interesting)
Check out his site [smallclaim.info] that includes court documents, a FAQ on how to successfully sue spammers, and his past/current cases.
Welcome to my SMTP server! (Score:2)
(loercased to avoid lameness filter, newlines added for readibility
I'm seriously considering making my mail server display this. Comments on enforcability/improvements/loopholes?
Re:Welcome to my SMTP server! (Score:2)
Re:Welcome to my SMTP server! (Score:2)
I have a spammers info and I can't stop him! (Score:2)
If any of you would like to tell them how you feel about spam, here's their contact info.
DialCentric Inc.
3A Professional Park Dr.
Maryville, IL 62062
618-288-6661
Here's one of the pieces of proof:
SpamCop version 1.3.3 (c) Julian Haight, Joel Martin 1998-2002 All Rights Reserved
Saved email:
This page may be saved for future reference:
http://spamcop.net/sc?id=z35256178zd5
Parsing header:
Received: from vica.4nsys.co.kr ([210.112.61.2]) by linux.thoughtprocess.net (8.11.0/8.11.2/SuSE Linux 8.11.1-0.5) with SMTP id g3954C000481 for ; Tue, 9 Apr 2002 00:04:12 -0500
Possible spammer: 210.112.61.2
[show] "nslookup vica.4nsys.co.kr" (checking ip) ip = 210.112.61.2
Taking name from IP...
[show] "nslookup 210.112.61.2" (getting name) no name
Received line accepted
Received: from HEWLETT-A6C5B34 (unverified [24.242.162.14]) by vica.4nsys.co.kr (EMWAC SMTPRS 0.83) with SMTP id ; Tue, 09 Apr 2002 13:59:55 +0900
[show] "nslookup 210.112.61.2" (getting name) no name
Possible spammer: 24.242.162.14
Taking name from IP...
[show] "nslookup 24.242.162.14" (getting name) 24.242.162.14 = rrcs-sw-24-242-162-14.biz.rr.com
[show] "nslookup rrcs-sw-24-242-162-14.biz.rr.com" (checking ip) ip = 24.242.162.14
Chain test:vica.4nsys.co.kr =? vica.4nsys.co.kr
vica.4nsys.co.kr and vica.4nsys.co.kr have same hostname - chain verified
Possible relay:210.112.61.2
[show] "nslookup 2.61.112.210.relays.ordb.org." (checking ip) ip = 127.0.0.2
210.112.61.2 is an open relay - saving header for proof.
Received line accepted
Tracking message source:24.242.162.14:
[show] "nslookup 24.242.162.14" (getting name) 24.242.162.14 = rrcs-sw-24-242-162-14.biz.rr.com
[show] "nslookup rrcs-sw-24-242-162-14.biz.rr.com" (checking ip) ip = 24.242.162.14
Paranoid reverse DNS passes
abuse.net biz.rr.com = abuse@rr.com
Possible open relay: 210.112.61.2
[show] "nslookup 2.61.112.210.relays.ordb.org." (checking ip) ip = 127.0.0.2
[show] "nslookup 210.112.61.2" (getting name) no name
[show] "whois 210.112.61.2@whois.arin.net" (Getting contact from whois.arin.net)
Redirect to apnic:
[show] "whois 210.112.61.2@whois.apnic.net" (Getting contact from whois.apnic.net)
whois.apnic.net redirects to krnic
[show] "whois 210.112.61.2@whois.krnic.net" (Getting contact from whois.krnic.net) (old krnic) [show] "whois 210.112.61.2@whois.ripe.net" (Getting contact from whois.ripe.net)
[show] "whois IANA1-RIPE@whois.ripe.net" (Getting contact from whois.ripe.net)
nothing found
whois.ripe.net 210.112.61.2 = bitbucket@ripe.net
Whois found:
Falling back on IP addressing:postmaster@210.112.61.2
Reducing redundant links for 63.172.198.105
Found email address:l1l12345a1@btamail.net.cn
[show] "dig btamail.net.cn mx" (digging for mail exchanger) Found mailserver:btamail.net.cn. = 202.106.196.70
abuse.net btamail.net.cn = postmaster@btamail.net.cn, spam@btamail.net.cn
[show] "nslookup btamail.net.cn" (checking ip) ip = 202.106.196.70
abuse.net shortcut:postmaster@btamail.net.cn, spam@btamail.net.cn
spam@btamail.net.cn bounces (1 sent : 99 bounces)
Using spam#btamail.net.cn@devnull.spamcop.net for statistical tracking.
Found link:http://63.172.198.105/Fax%20Marketing%20Syst
Unescaped: http://63.172.198.105/Fax Marketing System.htm
[show] "nslookup 63.172.198.105" (getting name) no name
[show] "nslookup 63.172.198.105" (getting name) no name
[show] "nslookup 63.172.198.105" (getting name) no name
Tracking ip 63.172.198.105:
[show] "nslookup 63.172.198.105" (getting name) no name
Routing details for 63.172.198.105
[refresh/show] Cached whois for 63.172.198.105:noc@sprint.net
noc@sprint.net: abuse.net sprint.net = abuse@sprint.net
abuse.net sprint.net = abuse@sprint.net
Using best abuse.net reporting addresses:abuse@sprint.net
Whois found:abuse@sprint.net
Please make sure this email IS spam:
From: ecitnf311510@yahoo.com (e-mail & fax marketing programs 31151076543332222211111)
View full message
Report Spam to:
Re:210.112.61.2 (Administrator of network with open relays)
To: postmaster@210.112.61.2 (Notes)
Re:210.112.61.2 (Automated open-relay testing system(s))
To: Internal spamcop handling: (testrelays) (Notes)
Re:24.242.162.14 (Administrator of network where email originates)
To: abuse@rr.com (Notes)
Re:http://63.172.198.105/Fax Marketing System.htm (Administrator of network hosting website referenced in spam)
To: abuse@sprint.net (Notes)
Re:l1l12345a1@btamail.net.cn (Administrator of network hosting email address referenced in spam)
To: postmaster@btamail.net.cn (Notes)
To: spam#btamail.net.cn@devnull.spamcop.net (Notes)
Additional notes (optional - will be the first paragraph of standard report):
Re:I have a spammers info and I can't stop him! (Score:2)
Won't they be disbarred... (Score:2)
50 dollars per email?? (Score:2)
Re:50 dollars per email?? (Score:2)
Re:50 dollars per email?? (Score:2)
my new email address (Score:2)
Simple. I see Subject: Are You Getting the Best Rate on Your MORTGAGE? 10121 5K, I send a bill for $50.
OffTopic (kinda) (Score:2)
We recently installed Sendmail Server (from sendmail corp.) on our systems, along with the Switch and the mobile messaging server. We have 7500 users.
We moved to sendmail (from iplanet) because of 2 things, spam and support.
Yesterday, after continuing to get spam that I *thought* I had filtered, we learned that sendmails subject filter has a 2048 character limit (half taken by / chars, so an actual 1024 limit).
Sendmail corps. recommendation was to use either BrightMail or milter to 'fight spam'...
Does anyone have experience with either? Will milter allow me to have a flat text file that I can add subject lines to, to reject those messages?
Ideally, I would have a [reject "No spam accepted"] section that I could simply paste subject lines into, or even wildcards like "young hot teen".
Also, I have added spamcops rbl to my config, but as of yet, I don't notice a difference. Is it worth paying Maps? Is there a better way to get a current/valid rbl?
What's the answer guys? What do we do to protect our users?
Re:Why is spam treated differently? (Score:4, Insightful)
Case 2 does not cost people money
Case 3 does not cost people money
(Indirect costs, such as increased garbage taxes don't count.)
Re:Why is spam treated differently? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why is spam treated differently? (Score:2)
Then charged you, with no way to decline the charge, the associated materials and printing costs for said hangers, and a surcharge to cover the paycheck of the kid hired to hang them. And put a return address of
- PapaJohn's
With a picture of a naked, supposedly underage teenager with a 92-HHHHH bust cramming a breadstick into $LOWER_ORIFICE.Yahoo.com
Beijing, Vietnam 25840-2474
Re:Why is spam treated differently? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why is spam treated differently? (Score:2)
This is effectively the same principle, tho much easier to apply, as "You keep spamming me, and I'll see to it you get fined" which this mofo.com law firm is doing. Hooray for them!
Re:Why is spam treated differently? (Score:2)
Re:Why is spam treated differently? (Score:2)
Once upon a time Internet was charged per bytes trasnferred + per additional service almost everywhere.Usually there were some discounts for local services but this was the general rule of thumb - you pay what you eat. No buffet lunches.
After that the telcos came. The billing on the basis of 7-8 factors did not fit neither their mentality, nor their exitsing billing systems. So they started billing based on minutes. Later, when services like DSL and cable came along the minutes became meaningless so the pricing became flat.
So yes SPAM can and will disappear. All it takes is to reintroduce usage based billing on residential broadband along. This will also resolve the problems of piracy once and for all. Use can remain at roughly the same price or even become cheaper then now. Abuse will become prohibitively expensive.
Re:$50? (Score:2)
Re:$50? (Score:2)
Eitherway, $50 for an lawyer to read/parse/delete/abuse@ a single UCE seems pretty reasonable to me. How much does an international lawyer firm charge per hour?
oh really? (Score:3, Insightful)
different issue (Score:2)
Charging for actual costs incurred in the delivery of the email is another thing entirely, but does not even come close to approaching $50/message.
unsolicited non-electronic junk (Score:2)
Re:$50? (Score:2)
Of course Intel argued in Intel v. Hamibi that there is also a cost in developing filters to prevent futher spam.
If they wanted to argue for more damages, they could, but then it would take testimony and expert witnesses.
Re:Now only if I could sue yahoo for spam! (Score:4, Informative)
So have you read the mail headers and determined that these spams indeed came from Yahoo or Hotmail? The From: address means nothing. The only thing you can trust are the headers. Most all of the spam that claims to come from these services is sent from somewhere else. Think about it. How long would it take to send 100,000 spams through a Web interface when you're limited to something like 25-50 addresses at a time? Not to mention that each and every one is going to be tagged with the spammer's computer's IP. Hotmail even uses a header called X-Originating-IP so you can't miss it.
If you want a good tutorial on how to read headers, go here [stopspam.org]. It's a bit dated, but it will give you a good foundation on what headers mean.