Good Guys 2, Spammers 0 415
JoeJob writes "A couple of victories in the legal war against spammers. First, a Washington resident has been awarded a $250,000 decision against a spammer that sent him 58,000 copies of a spam. Second, looks like the spammers who are trying to sue Spamhaus, SPEWS, and other spam blacklists have decided to tuck their tails and run. Let's hope this trend continues." If you care to celebrate this, one food springs to mind.
This is what it has come down (to) (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in the day; when the debate about allowing comerical interest on the Internet fired up, many predicted that today' situation would be the outcome... *soft crap destroying the backbone and .com(ers) diluting the content to the lowest common denominator.
First time I've heard of CAUCE (Score:5, Informative)
If you're not in the U.S., you can sign up to their international chapters:
EuroCAUCE - Serving the entire continent
CAUBE.AU - Serving Australia, New Zealand, and all of the Pacific Rim
CAUCE Canada
CAUCE India - Serving Asia and the Indian subcontinent
I'll be signing up today.
I won't be happy till (Score:5, Funny)
So.. (Score:2)
If you get the capital punishment you will be happy?
You must really hate that spam.
Re:So.. (Score:3, Insightful)
or really hate freedom.
nobody likes spam, sure, but this whole scene is really about encouraging the government to regulate communication. i find it amazing that the slashdot crowd who are usually such virulent defenders of an unfettered internet are more than willing to give the government more control when it comes to penis-pill ads!
if you don't like spam, do something about it. filter, build a honeypot relay, whatever. but don't go whining to the feds demanding they r
Re:So.. (Score:2)
We only support freedom if it doesn't bother us.
Re:So.. (Score:5, Insightful)
We only support freedom/rights as long as they don't overlap our own freedom/rights.
In other words,
Your right to walk down the street swinging your arms around like a windmill ends where the tip of my nose begins.
Your right to listen to your choice of music at your choice of volumes ends at the point where I can hear it.
Your right to speak (including sending spam) ends at the point where I decide I don't want to hear it any more.
In my opinion spam is worse than telemarketing phone calls and if there can be federal regulations that keep somewhat legit telemarketers from interrupting my dinner, there is no reason there can't be similar legislation that stops spam from filling my inbox.
It's Wednesday afternoon and my 'Probable Junk Mail' folder already has 228 messages in it since quitting time last Friday. Someone sold part of our corporate e-mail list to a spammer and I'm one of the lucky few to be in that group. I can't even begin to imagine how much spinning drive space is currently occupied by spam messages in my employer's computer systems (dozens of GB I'm sure) let alone the entire world...
Re:So.. (Score:3, Funny)
I then, to prove a point, revoke your right to speak as I don't want to hear it anymore.
Thank you, and have a nice lifetime of quiet solitude. I appreciate it.
Re:So.. (Score:3, Funny)
Damn...
Re:So.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Go right ahead. Add him to the "Foes" page of your SlashDot account and configure it to mod all his articles down to -1. Voila, you don't have to hear it anymore.
This forum is a perfect agument against you - anybody can speak, and you can choose to block anybody you don't want to listen to.
Re:So.. (Score:3, Informative)
Also 99% of all spam is fraudulant in nature. Those pills will not make your dick bigger and there is no money secreted away in nigeria.
If the govt put the same restrictions on spam that they do n mail and telemarketing I would be very happy.
Re:So.. (Score:2)
Actually, what I meant was that, the way he phrased it, it sounded like he would only be happy if he got the capital punishment himself.
Re:So.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Good point. I mean, if I want to spray-paint advertisements on the side of your house, and then charge you for the materials used, that's my right! Free speech and freedom and all that, right?
Re:Analogies are inherently logically flawed... (Score:3, Interesting)
I assert that spam is very much like spray-painting advertisements onto unwilling people's property and making them pay for the materials. In fact, I assert that spamming is actually doing exactly that. You seem to be trying to refute it through ridicule rather than intelligence.
Not that I'm surprised. Your "Internet destroyer" comment means that you're either a spammer, or someone who is just as stupid as a spammer.
Re:So.. (Score:5, Informative)
See U.S. Supreme Court
ROWAN v. U. S. POST OFFICE DEPT., 397 U.S. 728
Chief Justice BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court:
"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit.... The ancient concept that 'a man's home is his castle' into which 'not even the king may enter' has lost none of its vitality.... We therefore categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even 'good' ideas on an unwilling recipient. That we are often 'captives' outside the sanctuary of the home and subject to objectionable speech and other sound does not mean we must be captives everywhere.... The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every person's domain."
You can read the entire Supreme Court decision on the FindLaw web page (http://www.findlaw.com/). The specific URL is http://www.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=U
Then of course, there's the CyberPromo/AOL lawsuit, in which the judge held that CP had no First Amendment right to send UCE to AOL's customers. The transcript for that case can be found at:
http://www.leepfrog.com/E-Law/Cases/Cyber_Promo_v
Note: Most of this was lifted verbatim from Message-ID: 343A9BBF.4340@stanford.edu
Re:So.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, it's not a free communications channel. You, me, and everyone else that connects to the internet has to pay for that connection.
Unlike television and radio, where advertisements are a necessary requirement in order to enjoy free reception (if you have cable, it's your own fault! TV and radio are broadcast free to you) of the programs, spam actually unnecessarily consumes bandwidth and time, especially for those on dial-up and/or metered accounts, and enriches no body but the spammer.
Spam is like all that junk mail you get in your snail mail box every day, except the spammer doesn't even have to pay bulk postage rates.
Whereas TV and radio ads are a kind of symbiosis, where you agree to watch the ads (whether you really do or not), and you get the programming for free, spam is like a parasite. It rides along on the internet, not paying for the bandwidth it steals from people, and clogging their in-box with worthless junk.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I won't be happy till (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I guess you won't be happy.
Look at the articles that show that there are enough gullible people out there to give the spammers a viable (if repugnant) business model.
I figure the bogus lawsuits against spamhaus present a good way for us to fight back. If we can take down some of the main offenders, it won't necessarily reduce the amount of spam we get, but it might act as a bit of a deterrent for some of the other pond scum.
We need to fix the SMTP protocol to put these guys out of business for good. That, or a bullet...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I won't be happy till (Score:2, Informative)
SMTP is a trusting protocol. It relies on the sending computer to correctly identify the sender.
This is how spammers send out millions of messages with bogus From: addresses. If a new protocol was implemented that required the sender to prove their identity (or at the very least, made sure the From: domain is actually in the network being served), that would make it harder for spammers to BS their addresses, thus making it much easier to
Re:I won't be happy till (Score:3, Informative)
Um, no.
Which is sort of the problem with all these fo
Enlargement senders (Score:3, Funny)
They are sent to Federal PMINTA Prisons, and their cellmates are given viagara and enlargment pills that work?
Re:I won't be happy till (Score:3, Informative)
And I agree - bring back the cane!
Re:I won't be happy till (Score:2)
"That, or capital punishment. Nothing like deterring spam with a good caneing."
Damn. And I thought the electric chair was a cruel way of killing people. Still, very creative indeed! Have you ever considered a career at the RIAA?
Re:I won't be happy till (Score:2)
Um, I'm sure you mean corporal punishment, not capital punishment. Capital punishment equates to a death sentence. But maybe when we're talking about spammers both are appropriate?
Re:I won't be happy till (Score:5, Funny)
I won't be happy until someone sends me 58,000 copies of a spam message and I get paid $250,000 for it. That's $4.31 per message. I would love it and ask for more. I would even invest in more bandwidth and a server farm so they could send it to me faster.
Re:I won't be happy till (Score:5, Funny)
I think you made a typo. There's not supposed to be a "k" after 250. :D
Government debt. (Score:2)
That could pay for the war in IRAQ. It also remands me of the scene on Airplane where everyone was lined up to slap the screaming woman.
Virus Spam (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Virus Spam (Score:3, Informative)
You can filter at the server end based on subject: Of course if you don't run your own server, you're SOL.
Re:Virus Spam (Score:2, Informative)
You've probably got a good point here -- but it'd be an even better one if you mentioned what mail server this little recipe worked with. Would you be so kind as to post that info, so I and other mail server admins might be able to use it?
Re:Virus Spam (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is that these new-age "viruses" aren't lethal enough - infected systems spew digital crap for years without themselves being affected.
What some helpful soul should do is wait a week after a new virus appears, so that everyone has plenty of time to patch against it, and then release a version of that exact vi
Heck - I'm still getting bogus infection reports. (Score:2)
Heck. I'm running a completely non-microsoft shop and am still getting bogus bounces from mail transfer agents warning me that I might be infected, because the darned worm found my "Rod" address in somebody's address book and is masquerading as me.
(But at least the author of ONE of the darned MTA firewalls had the cluefulln
Re:Virus Spam (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Virus Spam (Score:3, Insightful)
Now that's sleazy! (Score:5, Funny)
When a group of lawyers thinks you are too sleazy to join them, then that's really saying something!
Whoa! (Score:2)
Re:Whoa! (Score:2)
Maybe I've been watching too much sci-fi... (Score:2)
Kjella
Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Musubi (Score:5, Informative)
Similar to RIAA tactics (Score:2)
Unfortunately, I think that the RIAA's financial clout is likely to give it a greater chance of success than individual anti-spam activists.
Re:Similar to RIAA tactics (Score:2)
Re:Similar to RIAA tactics (Score:3, Funny)
LOL! That made me almost spew coffee all over my laptop, and I'm not even drinking coffee.
Except that... (Score:2)
RIAA has bigger resources, but also a much larger spread target
Correction... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Correction... (Score:2, Insightful)
Suing SPEWS, etc. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Suing SPEWS, etc. (Score:2)
Persoanly I filter at the client level rather than with a blackhole list. But my mail is at a hosting center incoming bandwith is free. I had a spammer steal an entire
Re:Suing SPEWS, etc. (Score:2)
Yes, but...
People aren't free to choose if when they're being feed disinformation.
Boycott organiziers like SPEWS should be accountable for what they "say" via their lists.
If, for example, they claim to list only spammers, and ISPs that support spammers,
but they also list anyone who owns a rab
Re:Suing SPEWS, etc. (Score:5, Insightful)
Again, where's this "disinformation?" Having trouble comprehending the SPEWS FAQ [spews.org]?
"Good guys 2, Spammers 0" (Score:5, Funny)
You can imagine my dissapointment.
Why are you dissapointed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why are you dissapointed? (Score:2)
The hyperbole here's too thick even more me. If you'd honestly pick having your skin slowly stripped off by lashes or knives over being poor and in debt to the court system for life, you've got some serious priority issues. Having no financial future isn't that bad. Sheesh.
ISPs? (Score:4, Interesting)
You'd have people signing up for AOL, just to get the spam.
Re:ISPs? (Score:2)
250k! thats it? (Score:4, Interesting)
On another note I was eating dinner wiht a friend and she told me in VERY strong terms that spam would "never go away" and as a business practice it works great and she supports it. She said in her company's case they "send" out their marketing material to harvested emails that are sold to them froma third party. Yet inthe next sentence she complains about getting penis enlargemtn emails and breast enhancers.....
meh!
Re:250k! thats it? (Score:3, Interesting)
The big money will come in the punitive damages.
Hate Spam? Use SpamBayes (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hate Spam? Use SpamBayes (Score:2)
no use for me then... I only get around 3 spams a month... :)
But will he collect? (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually finding and garneshing their accounts is possible but I can not imagine that will be easy or practical.
The other question I have is, how about a class action law suit. I know about 100 million people that would like to sue, the ULTIMATE class action.
Com'on (Score:2, Interesting)
Welcom'... (Score:5, Funny)
I, fo' on', welcom da' new musubi cookin' overlords
But the spam was true! (Score:2)
$250,000 is more then $10,000. Profit!
I'm not a spammer (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm not a spammer (Score:4, Insightful)
It took the folks behind SPEWS to get ISP's around the world to sit up and take stock of their problems with hosting spammers, spammish websites and providing dns to spammers. Nothing hits home like listening to a customer tell you about how you're going to leave their service unless they clean up their network space.
Re:I'm not a spammer (Score:2)
Does this frighten anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
They did point out (Score:2)
But yes, I was thinking the same thing... delighfully named indeed!
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
The most important part... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the end it's about winning in court - and a $250,000 win in court would be would more than twice that in settlement. Spammers, time to duck and cover, because I see only more of this type of legal retaliation in the future.
Simple Solution (Score:4, Interesting)
Instead of relying on a technological solution that will be circumvented sooner or later, why not follow the money?
Going after the spammers themselves seems to be a losing proposition because they have become adept at being elusive. The people in this equation that cannot afford to be elusive are the ones that are actually collecting money from the targets of spam. The people that are paying the spammers for their services are the ones that need to be penalized. When the spammers are no longer useful they will die out.
Making money from spam should be made illegal. I think it would be a lot more effective at reducing spam than the methods that are being used now.
If my logic is in any way flawed, please let me know.
Good Guys 2, Spammers 0? (Score:3, Funny)
maybe I'm just pessimistic?
Can't get his house, unfortunately... (Score:2)
Earn thousands from the comfort of your own home! (Score:3, Funny)
Here's how:
1) Move to Washington state.
2) Set up an email account.
3) Populate the web with your email address.
4) Collect the spam.
5) Sue for thousands.
Good Guys 1, Spammers 1 (Score:3, Insightful)
If he gets his wish, he's won. The only purpose of that lawsuit was to cause as much cost as possible to the defendants in legal fees and otherwise. It was such a blatant attempt to stiffle free speech, that Filthstein should be disbarred for it.
The lawsuit also exposed him as the quack as he is. He should be disbarred for that reason as well. You guys should read the motion to dismiss from the defendants' lawyers. It's absolutely hilarious on how it points out the glaring errors in Filthstein's suit. It's not just factual errors regarding the issue at hand, but procedural errors any competent lawyer would've caught before he would've filed the suit.
For the "FUCK SPEWS" crowd out there, this suit had NOTHING to do with SPEWS. Filthstein and his buddy, convicted cocaine trafficker Eddy Marin, were suing the most vocal critics of Eddy's spam empire, that's all. They just wrapped it around the "we hate SPEWS" banner, because otherwise it would've been too obvious that the suit was nothing but a SLAPP suit.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers
in on the Hawii Spam joke (Score:2)
Good call... (Score:2)
The ultimate solution (Score:2, Funny)
Now, what will happen if they send (not share) thousands of copies of it
Im all too happy with that
my new tactic for paying for college... (Score:3, Funny)
goaheadandtryme@elinxubox.com
go ahead try...I'll see you in court
Brian
How appropriate (Score:3, Funny)
How appropriate, that an article about spam would be submitted by a user named JoeJob [catb.org].
Re:american jurisdiction (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: $250,00 a fair settlement? Certainly.... (Score:4, Insightful)
At first, you might feel it's excessive to make someone pay out $250,000 for dumping a bunch of spam mail on somebody (presumably by accident, since they couldn't think it made any kind of business sense to send mail tens of thousands of times to the same address?).
If the punishment isn't high enough to make the spammer think twice about his/her actions though, it won't function as a deterrence. (It's fine and good that settlements make amends for wrong done to the person suing, but in cases like this, it's sensible to ensure the money awarded is sufficient to deter the accused from doing the same thing to somebody else. Why cause more people to tie up the court system with similar cases brought against the same guy, if you can put a stop to it the first time?)
Re:american jurisdiction (Score:2)
Re:Fuck SPEWS (Score:5, Insightful)
SPEWS is pretty much the same thing, if you don't like them don't use them. If you don't like that your ISP uses them, switch ISP's or have them remove the spam filtering on your account, it's that simple.
It's very apparent you have never had to deal with spam and angry users at the ISP level, it's a whole different ball game, don't advocate DDos of the tools that we need to protect our users. You shouldn't advocate DDos for anything, not even spammers.
Re:Fuck SPEWS (Score:2, Flamebait)
Under your "logic" (note the quotes), you would encourage a city to put up military roadblocks, and prevent anyone from going in, when they find one crack dealer in your neighborhood. And when you go to complain, noone exists. Not "you know their name, but don't have access to them", but "nobody knows their names, and we won't tel
Re:Fuck SPEWS (Score:3, Informative)
Please. SPEWS is intended for blocking email, not EVERYTHING.
I have the freedom to associate with whomever I want. So do you. Do not our servers have the right to associate with whichever servers we choose? Apparently not, in your opinion.
And when you go to complain, noone exists. Not "you know their name, but don't ha
Re:Fuck SPEWS (Score:3, Insightful)
It isnt. And no one said it was. (Or if they did, they are wrong.)
> How is my ISP being a dork about it my fault?
Again, it isnt. Nor is anyone claiming it is.
You are not being blocked.
Your ISP is being blocked, and rightfully so.
9 times out of 10, the ISP (be it local or backbone) is willingly and knowingly faking records to show that the spam came from your ISPs space, or another of their customers IP blocks. That is why ISPs lik
Re:Fuck SPEWS (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm well aware of that supposed procedure ("supposed" because, after all, who can verify it?). It still comes down to the fact that I can't send email to anyone with a SPEWS-crippled mailserver - not because of my sins, or my ISP's sins, or even their upstream's regional office's sins, but because of the old actions of someone in another part of my continent.
I know that the idea is to increase co
A pretty ineffective DDoS (Score:2)
Re:Blacklists. (Score:2, Informative)
Bah to that.
I used the Osirusoft lists for a good while. They helped me reject more spam than you can shake a stick at. I don't care about the guy's personality that runs the show (Joe), I just like his product. Just as I like OpenBSD.
Re:500$ per email?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:500$ per email?! (Score:3, Interesting)
Fines are usually *not* based on the "cost" but instead of "deterent value". If the fine was a penny, the spammer might just pay it.
Re:Where did they find this lawyer? (Score:5, Informative)
Mark Felstein is not only the representing council for EMarketersAmerica, he's also their sole corporate officer, and as far as anyone can tell, their only member. The EMA was formed mere weeks before the lawsuit was filed.
One of the defendants assertions has always been that EMarketersAmerica was formed for the sole purpose of filing the lawsuit. In fact, somewhere on the NANAE [google.com] threads was a remark that Felstein admitted that he would dissolve EMarketersAmerica at his earliest opportunity once the lawsuit was resolved.
Of course, the defendants might have a thing or two to say about that...
Re:Hey everybody (Score:2)
If only that were true...
Re:This is wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is wrong. (Score:2)
In Washington State the penalty for a single piece of spam is $500.00. This spammer got of easy.