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Spam Your Rights Online

Spammer Profile: Scott Richter 438

Posted by michael from the call-as-often-as-you-like-no-minimum-purchase dept.
prostoalex writes "Westword.com published an article on Scott Richter, the owner of what is supposedly the nation's fastest-growing online marketing company, which mostly specialized in sending out those unsolicited electronic mail messages. Richter is the guy currently being sued by New York Attorney General and Microsoft Corporation for sending out nearly 9000 e-mails only to Hotmail accounts."
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Spammer Profile: Scott Richter More

Spammer Profile: Scott Richter

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  • Spam time! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ChaoticChaos ( 603248 ) * <l3sr-v4cf@NOspaM.spamex.com> on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:23PM (#8173832)
    WTF is HIS email address???

  • Write your congress-critter! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Scott Lockwood ( 218839 ) * on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:24PM (#8173837) Homepage Journal
    Voice your support for the Death Penalty for spamers!

    • Re:Write your congress-critter! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tom ( 822 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @07:04PM (#8174970) Homepage Journal
      Why exactly was the parent modded as Funny?

      Now while we can argue about whether or not it's a bit excessive, I'm taking bets that the sudden and brutal death of, say, the top 20 US spammers would bring spam down to 1995 levels almost instantly.

      In addition to the 20 cretins that we are rid of, the next 20 might also realize just who will be filling the freed-up slots, and a good part of them will move into something that resembles honest work.

      Now for the "may be excessive" part:
      Wars have been fought and thousands been killed for less.
      Spammers commit a crime that is not very much realized in the modern world - they attack the common. They don't rob one guy a lot, they rob everyone a little. In other times, there would have been no hesitations to subject them to the most drastic penalties.

      In fact, the death penalty should be modified for spammers to make sure it's slow and painful. A literal death by a thousand needle pricks might be very appropriate to the crime. Just pinch them once for every spam they sent.
      • In fact, the death penalty should be modified for spammers to make sure it's slow and painful. A literal death by a thousand needle pricks might be very appropriate to the crime. Just pinch them once for every spam they sent.

        ...and I'm also sure that's why you're at +5, I'd like to hear your opinion on how someone raping, torturing and finally killing a child should be punished. Or Osama Bin Laden for that matter. Because then you either have some really morbid ideas, or you believe that sending a bunch
        • By the same logic that lets you judge spammers by the total damage caused by spam, the RIAA should also be allowed to judge pirates by the total damage caused by piracy.

          No, because as has been documented (including this FA) only a small number of Americans are responsible for most of the spam. With file trading, there are millions of us^H^H them, so dividing the damage by the number of perps does not lead to death penalties in this case.

        • Kjella, those 1's and 0's are only as good or bad as they're used for. E.g., posting pics of child rape is also just 1's and 0's, but somehow that doesn't make it as harmless as hosting a human rights site.

          E.g., if you're into splitting things into bits and then debating those bits, a landmine is just nitrogen, oxygen, iron, carbon, and some other equally harmless elements. Nothing you wouldn't find in soil naturally, you know. So, by that kind of warped logic, surely noone should be punished for placing a

    • Obligatory bash.org quote... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Zone-MR ( 631588 ) <slashdot AT zone-mr DOT net> on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @07:11PM (#8175040) Homepage
      In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penisses, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.

  • Know what I hate? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:24PM (#8173844)
    It's bad enough that they're spamming me, but then they lie about me signing up for their list. I didn't sign up, I know I didn't sign up, they know I know I didn't sigh up, so why bother?

    • Re:Know what I hate? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JuggleGeek ( 665620 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @07:46PM (#8175374)
      I don't understand why they tell blatent "You signed up to our list" lies either. It isn't, as someone suggested, because it's illegal if you didn't sign up - it isn't (at least in the US.) The Can Spam law was very clear - they can legally spam you until you beg them to quit. Regardless, they were making that claim for a long, long time before any laws about spam were in place.

      Spammers have a different mindset from normal people.

      They are trying to sell a product, but they usually tell lies in the subject field and/or the From line. Most of us wouldn't think "Hey, I want to sell to people, so I'll start out by making it clear that I'm lying to them and can't be trusted." But spammers think that way. And some people are apparently dumb enough to buy from them.

      • Re:Know what I hate? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Wednesday February 04, 2004 @07:56AM (#8178599) Journal
        Sadly, they're just doing what everyone else in the computer industry is doing. It's become not only acceptable, but _expected_ to lie your ass off.

        "Normal" people also wouldn't, for example, think "hey, I'm trying to sell stuff to these people, so let's first make sure I've annoyed the living crap out of them. Surely they'll express their hatred by buying lots of stuff."

        Yet all the pop-up and pop-under ad retards do just that. Not only that, but now they want to take over the browser and force you to watch half a megabyte of full screen movie before you can even get to see what the site offers. Yeah, that's gotta fly well with both the potential buyers _and_ the site owners. Not.

        Or see the RealNetworks retards. Yeah, buddy. Spamming the living hell out of me with popups, even when not using RealOne, surely will make me reach for the credit card and buy the premium player. Not.

        Speaking of which: "Normal" people would never think, "I'm trying sell people stuff over the 'Net, so let's install spyware on their computers until it crawls, hog their bandwidth, spam them with popups, etc. And generally make it hard to use the very medium over which I'm selling stuff."

        Gator, anyone? And a thousand others.

        "Normal" people would never think "I'm trying to build a loyal fan base, so let's sell them a clearly non-tested non-functional product."

        Yet, at least one game I've bought (Victoria from Paradox Entertainment, German version) threw up a script syntax error right on startup. FFS, not a crash, not a sound lockup, nothing even remotely blamable on my drivers or hardware. A script syntax error. Noone even started that game before selling it. Sad.

        Basically IMHO the spammers are just a symptom of the complete lack of accountability or responsibility in this industry. The whole "if you can make a buck with snake oil, lies and deceit, go for it" mentality. Spammers are just the brute force/low IQ version of what everyone else is doing.

        Until we stand up and say "no more!" to the whole snake oil deal, it will only get worse.

    • Re:Know what I hate? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Fr33z0r ( 621949 )
      I've had my (ISP) email address for the past 8 years or so, and when I first got that internet connection I was pretty naive, I'd use my real email address everywhere, it was on a popular site, it went unmunged on newsgroups and all was well. Not so long after getting it the spam started coming in, and it's increased over the entire 8 years without my involvement (I stopped using that address many years ago when I got my own domain)

      That address must be on every spam list/CD known to man, my ISP offers (f

  • I've got it! (Score:3, Funny)

    by swordboy ( 472941 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:24PM (#8173848) Journal
    This guy must be Andy Richter's [about.com] brother - the guy who wrote the MyDoom virus [slashdot.org]!

  • New business? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by monstroyer ( 748389 ) * <devnull@slashdot.org> on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:24PM (#8173852) Homepage Journal
    Just yesterday [slashdot.org], Microsoft was devising a plan to invoice spammers, now they are suing a spammer. Who needs the operating system business when you got hotmail!

    9000 spam emails doesn't sound like that much. An acquaintance of mine is the developer of si20 [si20.com] and there's more spam than 9000 in a measly half a day of operations.

    Is this merely a symbolic legal pursuit? Or is this considered a lot of spam by the powers that be?

  • Profile?? (Score:3, Funny)

    by nycsubway ( 79012 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:25PM (#8173854) Homepage
    He'll be about an eight inch tall, squashed under my shoe if I ever meet him.

  • OptInRealBig's policy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:25PM (#8173860)
    The policy from the guy's spam business site:

    It prohibits:

    "Unsolicited promotions, advertising or solicitations (commonly referred to as "spam"), including, without limitation, commercial advertising and informational announcements, except to those who have explicitly requested such e-mails."

    Hmmmm.....

    • His policy is Rule #1 compliant. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dimensio ( 311070 ) <darkstar@LISPiglou.com minus language> on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:30PM (#8173935)
      Rule #1: Spammers lie.
    • Miss one pre-checked "Share my e-mail address with your partners!" link on any website you give your e-mail address to, and it's game over for that account. You've explicitly requested to be spammed and put onto so many lists you'll never get off of them all...

    • Opt in? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by RT Alec ( 608475 ) *

      I once complained to "dotregistrar.com" about one of their clients. I used their web form [dotreg.com] to file the complaint, since they do not have any operational phone numbers. An e-mail address is required, so I used "alec@dotregistrar.mydoman.com" (I have configured my mail server to allow me to create these types of addresses on-the-fly). I never heard back from them, but to date I have recieved over 100 spam to that very same address!

      Their AUP [dotreg.com] does state:

      DotRegistrar may disclose any Required Information, spec

  • Fatal allergies? (Score:5, Funny)

    by The I Shing ( 700142 ) * on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:26PM (#8173872) Journal
    By any chance, does that article mention anything that he's fatally allergic to, say, something that could be purchased in bulk from a supermarket?

    Just wondering.

  • Booo! ... oh wait (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:26PM (#8173878)
    He's a spammer! Burn him!

    Oh wait, he's spamming Microsoft Hotmail accounts? Oh hey man welcome back to the community!

  • He's #4 (Score:5, Informative)

    by rossz ( 67331 ) <ogre@@@geekbiker...net> on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:26PM (#8173881) Journal
    Spamhaus.org [spamhaus.org] rates him as the nation's (world's?) #4 spammer [spamhaus.org].

  • Tired of the "fastest growing" statistic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:27PM (#8173886) Journal
    If I got one hit on my website last month, and got fifty this month, I'd have, statistically, the fastest growing web site in the world.

    You see this in business news all the time. Brand X is the fastest growing company blah blah. Well, yeah. It's easy to see big growth numbers when you have three employees.

    • I suppose you could look at it like that, in terms of percentages...but I think a better way to describe the growth might be in terms of acceleration...example:

      Spammer A averages 500,000 emails/day, and increases his averages 1000 emails/day/day.

      Spammer B averages 200,000 emails/day but increases his average by 5000 emails/day/day.

      Obviously spammer A is 'worse' (sends out more total emails), but spammer B could be said to be growing faster.

  • Never fails to amaze.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Epyn ( 589398 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:27PM (#8173887)
    I am amazed that you can run an entire business of sending out emails that no one reads. I understand tha overhead = negligable thing, but still...How can he afford the trained monkies to write these things.
    • ... sending out emails that no one reads.

      Obviously false. That's the carrot at the end of the stick.

      <grrr>
    • Since if one idiot in 100,000 clicks on it he makes money.....

    • Re:Never fails to amaze.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @06:19PM (#8174526) Homepage Journal
      the problem is that there's people out there who buy this stuff.. just read the bit about the iraq playing cards.

      his a classic example of an oppurtunist that just doesn't care, just as long as he makes money. had he been from a different neighbourhood he would be pimpin or selling crack. " At 32, Richter's already spent nearly two decades chasing the Next Big Thing -- and finding it, the past few years, in cyberspace."

      "The Pentagon had developed the cards as an intelligence tool, to be distributed to the troops. Richter saw them as the war souvenir the public had been waiting for. Within hours, his company was shooting out e-mails advertising the cards for sale -- more than 15 million e-mails, in fact. Richter moved 40,000 decks of the cards in a week, buying them for 89 cents each and selling them for $5.95. Yet at the time he started the blitz, he didn't have a single deck in stock. Nobody did.". find a product that's cool for stupid people and sell it through a medium that reaches the stupid people - kaching!

  • Most spammers run and hide from their reputation, but the even scummier version is proud of what they've done, and seek the publicity of being the most known spammer of the time... figuring that'll be good for their business, those who want ads by spam but don't know how to do it will turn to him.

  • Will this last very long? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Srividya ( 746733 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:27PM (#8173892) Homepage
    I am surprised that mass emailing is still profitable in America, with its restrictive new laws against spam. From India, cheaper connection costs and abundant IT expertise, in addition to laws which allow complete freedom of email, would seem to make India the much better choice for mass emailing business. How long till competition puts Mr. Richter out of business?

    • Re:Will this last very long? (Score:5, Informative)

      by pyros ( 61399 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:43PM (#8174094) Journal
      I am surprised that mass emailing is still profitable in America, with its restrictive new laws against spam.

      Your misconception is that the new federal law (which replaces all state laws, some of which had real teeth to them) is restrictive. The irony in the law being named CANSPAM, and it really is named CANSPAM, is not to be understated here. The law says that UCE must be labeled as such, but leaves it up to the sender to define how it is labeled.

    • They already do that.

      From the article here [microsoft.com]:
      "lawsuits charge Richter and his accomplices with responsibility for sending illegal spam through 514 compromised Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in 35 countries spanning six continents."

  • The best part is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:29PM (#8173925)


    ...that you'll die sooner or later, and then you won't get any more spam.

    Unless of course there's life after death, in which case you'll probably get spamned for all eternity.

  • Just Curious (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Poligraf ( 146965 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:31PM (#8173944)
    Is it possible to "SPAM back" someone by the means of /. effect?

    Imagine a couple hundred thousand /.-ers sending angry mail to some sites/accounts each day ...

    One thing though is to somehow avoid showing your own address in order not to get into SPAMmers databases.

    • Re:Just Curious (Score:5, Insightful)

      by YouHaveSnail ( 202852 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:43PM (#8174093)
      Is it possible to "SPAM back" someone by the means of /. effect?

      I suppose you'd also favor chopping off someone's hand when they steal something?

      An eye for an eye is not sound policy. We've got various laws against using your computer to create a nuisance for others, and they apply to us all, not just to spammers. I don't think I'd cry if any or all of the top ten spammers happened to be hit by a truck, but that doesn't mean I condone intentionally running them down.

      This guy is finally getting at least some of what he deserves, which is a trial potentially followed by punishment under the law. If you can contribute evidence to support the charges against him, or bring new charges, then go for it. Otherwise, leave it be.
      • I suppose you'd also favor chopping off someone's hand when they steal something?
        No, but i wouldn't be opposed to a public flogging of a criminal in liu of jail time, certanly less costly for the american tax payer and more of a deterrent for crime. I think the 8th amendment needs some rework.

  • This guy sounds like a real prize (Score:5, Informative)

    by LochNess ( 239443 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:31PM (#8173950) Homepage
    From the article:
    "And Richter now finds himself in a media spotlight at a time when he's coming off probation from a felony conviction arising from a fencing investigation two years ago -- a subject he's not at all eager to talk about.".

  • Free Advertising (Score:4, Informative)

    by Squeebee ( 719115 ) <squeebee AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:31PM (#8173956)
    Sadly, all we are doing is giving this guy free advertising. Even bas publicity is good publicity. On a different note, a lot of these guys are not ashamed of what they do. I met one once at an Open Source conference and when you ask him what he does he very plainly states "I'm a spammer". The guy was a total pariah.

    • Re:Free Advertising (Score:3, Interesting)

      by djh101010 ( 656795 )
      I met one once at an Open Source conference and when you ask him what he does he very plainly states "I'm a spammer".

      I am a fairly mellow person, but boy, if I ran into one of these guys, I'd have a hard time not just taking a (physical) jab at them. I'm very sure I wouldn't (be able to | want to) stop myself from giving a very blunt verbal response.

      Long ago, there was a cracker in Milwaukee (early 1980's) who made it to the cover of Time Magazine. I ran into him a few years later, and the only questi

  • surprise (Score:2, Insightful)

    by fuentes ( 711192 )
    "OptInRealBig sends out between 50 million and 250 million e-mails a day, generating close to $2 million a month in revenues."

    And people wonder why spammers do what they do. There are $2m worth of idiots connected to the internet.

  • I can't believe I am saying this.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rydian ( 29123 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:33PM (#8173975)
    Woohoo! Go Microsoft!

    I hope you win this one.
  • For all his success, why doesn't he sport a William Shatner(tm) Rug on that shiny dome?

  • YahooMail, too (Score:3, Informative)

    by cethiesus ( 164785 ) <cethiesus@yAUDENahoo.com minus poet> on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:36PM (#8174015) Homepage Journal
    I get about 30 messages a day from this guy's "Allied Marketing Promotions Inc." on my Yahoo account. They usually arrive in chunks of 5-10 messages at a time, all peddling different "products", mostly the same spam fare such as mortgages and pills of one sort or another. It started about two weeks ago but Yahoo's spam filter still hasn't caught on...

    Definitely someone with an aluminum bat deficiency.

    • THOSE bastards????

      Well, thanks to his spamming operation suddenly bombarding me with piles of messages at my work address, I've gone to the effort of completely firewalling his netblock from my mailservers. Along with several other spamhaus-listed netblocks. So, to all of you OTHER spammers who can no longer get to the servers at work, you can blame "Allied Marketing Promotions" for getting you cut off completely.

      It was odd, over the last weekend I suddenly started getting about 20 "Allied Marketing Pro

  • "The Internet Is Not Free" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by the_mad_poster ( 640772 ) <shattoc@adelphia.com> on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:38PM (#8174029) Homepage Journal

    Says asshat: What people don't understand is that the Internet isn't free.

    GOD I FUCKING HATE THESE PEOPLE!

    Since when does this dickhead own the Internet? Since when is it "not free" as in "you owe me money"?

    ARGH! I not only support the death penalty for these asshats, I think they need to deport this guy's goddamn family to central Cambodia.

    The absolute contempt that these people have for all other living beings outside their small inner circles is so mind-numbingly infuriating that I can't even come up with a suitable rant against this guy. The absolute level of FURY that these moronic losers can invoke through their childish, imbecilic, self-centered "give it all to me" outlooks on life could never BEGIN to compare to the narcissism displayed by everyone in Hollywood COMBINED. NEVER HAVE I SO DESIRED TO POP SOMEONE'S HEAD LIKE AN OVERINFLATED BALLOON!

    • Re:"The Internet Is Not Free" (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:46PM (#8174143)
      C'mon, man. Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel.

    • Re:"The Internet Is Not Free" (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:53PM (#8174235)
      There needs to be a new moderation:

      "fucking pissed off, but right."

    • Re:"The Internet Is Not Free" (Score:5, Funny)

      by NineNine ( 235196 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @06:05PM (#8174367)
      Have you thought about maybe getting a hobby... like heavy drug use?

    • Re:"The Internet Is Not Free" (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Random BedHead Ed ( 602081 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @06:21PM (#8174553) Homepage Journal
      What people don't understand is that the Internet isn't free. I make my money by signing you up at my Web site, getting your information, and using that information to figure out what you like.

      I quite agree. When I hear this type of confused smokescreen argument I think of everyone's favorite litigious bastards [sco.com], the SCO Group. No such thing as a free lunch, so pay me right now.

      The argument is weak, and not very well thought out. The assertion he's making is that my e-mail can't be free because there's no such thing as a free lunch. But my e-mail is already non-free. I see ads when I check it. I pay something like $17 a year for POP3 access. In short, his crap e-mail doesn't justify my mailbox's existence. There is already an economic model behind it before a single spam lands in it.

      There is a special place in hell for people like Scott Richter, and we owe a lot of thanks to to the folks from Redmond and New York who are helping to escort him there.

  • Jail... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dieppe ( 668614 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:38PM (#8174034) Homepage
    It's clear from the article that this joker should be in Prison for theft, and other crimes...

    But according to him he's raking in the big bucks! He used to be fat, but now he's 240lbs! Hey, I wonder if he has a large penis now as well?

    Point is, the article failed to mention the fact that he is still stealing resources from other ISP machines. While he claims that the Internet isn't free, and he's one of those good "internet marketer bulk emailers" and that all 40 million email addresses were opt-in, and that he's not one of those scummy "hard core spammers" and he honors all remove requests...

    Spammers ALWAYS LIE!

    He and Darl should get together sometime...

    ----

    I know, this is probably redundant and has probably already been said... but I do hate when thieveses like this joker just keep getting away with spamming.... so the question is asked. Who is giving him the money to continue his "business" and how can we (or anyone) stop it?

  • I love these guys. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by amarodeeps ( 541829 ) <dave@dubi t a b l e.com> on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:39PM (#8174039) Homepage
    "I'm not going to argue that there isn't one person in forty million who didn't subscribe," Richter says. "But we document where the addresses come from, and when people complain, we remove them from our list. What people don't understand is that the Internet isn't free. I make my money by signing you up at my Web site, getting your information, and using that information to figure out what you like."

    Here we see a prime example of self-delusion and self-righteousness substituting for morality. Right, the Internet isn't free. But I didn't realize that I was paying Scott Richter to get online--I thought I was paying Verizon for DSL service.

    It is entertaining to see how much these people hate Steve Linford [spamhaus.org] though.

    It's really simple folks: if what you are doing is legit, why do you have to forge your headers? Why do you have to hide behind false email addresses? If it is legit, why do you have such a hard time getting legitimate ISPs to sell you bandwidth? Figure it out.

  • Contact Info (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:41PM (#8174066)
    From a PDF of the lawsuit:

    OptInRealBig, LLC is a limited liability corporation, with its principal place of business at 1333 W 120th Ave, Suite 101 Westminster, CO 80234.

    Wonder if he is getting enough mail at is office? I would expect that a few additional catalogs would do alot to spruce up the place.

  • spamming != marketing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EmbeddedJanitor ( 597831 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:42PM (#8174087)
    How the hell can you call spamming "online marketing". Although I'm, a techie, I have respect for skilled marketeers, analyzing markets and fitting producsts to customers.. Spammers just dump their shit indiscriminately. It's like calling the burger flipper at McDonalds a chef!

  • Talbott: 'Spam king' didn't opt for this call

    Having been steadily bombarded with e-mail come-ons for "Vi@gra," breast enlargements and the secret to "ALL NIGHT sex," an average recipient would no doubt like to tell a spam king to back off.

    So when Scott Richter's phone number landed on my desk, I called. And, lo, he answered. I asked him if he'd mind my printing his number in the newspaper.

    His colorful response suggested that he wouldn't like it. On the other hand, millions of us don't particularly li

  • more information (Score:5, Informative)

    by cluge ( 114877 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:44PM (#8174109) Homepage
    This article misses a few key points that are summed up nicely here [spamhaus.org] (requires a click to accept policy and then REFOLLOW the link) The SpamHaus information includes not only a brief description of his transgressions, but addresses from his domain registry etc. The one thing to remember about this person is that he has been dilligently obeying the first rule of spammers for years.

    Rule 1: Spammers lie Take a look at a few of his quotes here [google.com]

    The article about him from the BBC is what scares me. "We are very excited [about the new CAN-SPAM law]," said Scott Richter, the president of OptInRealBig, an e-mail marketing firm in Westminster, Colo. "All of our clients had been worried about the California law. In the last two hours we have been booking a lot of orders for January."
    This guy is the kind of guy that would piss in your pool. Now that he's got the internet, he gets to piss on millions of people at a time.

    AngryPeopleRule [angrypeoplerule.com]

  • According to Clint Talbott of the Daily Camera [dailycamera.com], Scott Richter's office address is:

    1333 W. 120th Avenue Suite 101
    Westminster, CO, 80234

    No mention of a home mailing address, unfortunately. Maybe it's actually listed in the Qwest white pages? Somehow, though, I doubt it. . .

  • Slashdot Interview? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GeorgeH ( 5469 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:52PM (#8174221) Homepage Journal
    How about a Slashdot Interview with this guy (or another spammer)? I think it would be really interesting to see what (civilized) questions we could ask him and what his answers would be. He says that he puts himself in front of the media so it shouldn't be too hard to get in touch with him.

    How about it editors? (I tried suggesting an interview [slashdot.org] with a spammer before, but since I didn't have a name or contact information the editors didn't want to hear it. I wonder why I should do their job for them when they're the ones getting paid...)

  • The best line in the article is the last... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Frennzy ( 730093 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:59PM (#8174299) Homepage
    The sign on the window next to the entrance of OptInRealBig's offices in Westminster leaves no room for misunderstanding. Or irony.

    NO SOLICITING.

  • Bizarre Quote from article (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @05:59PM (#8174311)
    spamlord says: "What people don't understand is that the Internet isn't free".

    Thats right. Thanks to the spamlords its a cost-center for most firms transmitting and receiving this junk instead of a profit center.

  • My favorite (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jeffkjo1 ( 663413 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @06:13PM (#8174458) Homepage
    My favorite quote from the article:

    "We made nothing," Richter recalls. "I thought all you had to do was put up a Web site and you'd be a millionaire. I didn't understand the Internet."
    Richter, on his first attempt at online marketing.

    He just summed up the entire tech bubble.

  • Proof that spam works (sadly enough) (Score:5, Informative)

    by Nept ( 21497 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @06:38PM (#8174736) Journal
    Read the article. Case in point was Iraq trading cards. He sent out 15 million emails, received 40,000 purchases. That's 1:375. Better than I would have thought. That's also $5.06 profit per transaction, which means he grossed $202,400, and I'll bet his net take wasn't much lower than the gross (what's the overhead for a spammer? Virtually nil, I would imagine.)
    • I don't know about the overhead, but I'm sure it's bigger than zero. Fifteen million emails at (say) 1K apiece (probably an overestimate, but it's a rough order of magnitude) is fifteen gigabytes.

      If you want to get that out in any sort of reasonable order, you're going to require a T1, at $1K per month. It's probably more than that; he probably requires a T3, for more money. Plus a bunch of servers and a small team of MSCEs to maintain them.

      Plus his own marketing department to find people willing to hi
    • Yeah, but the Iraq trading cards is the only non-dodgy thing ever advertised by spam. Compared to fake drugs, fake degrees and genital enhancers. The sort of things that wouldn't even get advertised on QVC.

      Heck, I wanted to buy a deck! I just didn't (even from a web search) because I thought if that sort of things was advertised by spam it must be a con of some sort. So the spammer polluted the idea of me buying it from other companies on the web.

  • I've blocked several hundred domains (Score:3, Insightful)

    by KalvinB ( 205500 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @07:34PM (#8175274) Homepage
    in my Mecury Mail rule file.

    That doesn't block the senders e-mail address but rather the links that spammers use. Spammers use countless IPs and countless forged e-mail addresses to send spams that all point to the same domain so it's a highly effective means to block large amounts of spam. You also can't obfuscate a link thanks to HTML standards. And since only spammers use those domains there's 0% collateral damage. Unless someone is foolish enough to buy one of the blocked domains that doesn't intend to use it for spam.

    The other benefit is that a new IP is free from the ISP or from that open proxy. Domains cost money. By filtering out those domains I've basically cost spammers a thousand bucks or so because all those domains are now useless to advertise to my e-mail accounts. The more domains they buy to try to spam me with the more money they waste.

    I also have a simple catch-all written in VB to bait spam with on my home connection which saves me money on bandwidth since I can preemptively filter domains on my real server.

    Ben

  • Watch Scott the Spammer in action.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dynamoo ( 527749 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @07:42PM (#8175357) Homepage
    Here's a very recent thread at Abestweb [infopop.cc] where Richter tries to con some affiliates into signing up to his program. It all starts to unravel when they begin to pick him apart. Look out for the Ukranian connection.

    Oh just for fun, one of Richter's outfits is CPAempire [cpaempire.com]. Check out the parody site at SPAMempire [spamempire.com]. ;)

  • he costs me money (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @09:19PM (#8176057)
    I am now getting somewhere in the area of 40,000 spams a day to one of my servers. This system handles e-commerce for a number of small and medium-sized companies. The volume of junk e-mail has gotten so out of hand that it's bogging down my mail processes sending/receiving clients order acknowledgements and critical communication.

    More than 80% of the mail my system handles is totally unsolicited. In fact, a substantive portion of it is random names @ random domains - there's no way it was ever solicited or welcome!

    Now I have to build an entirely new server because F'ing assholes like this guy waste my resources and I have to handle his shit or else I'll lose my legitimate business. To say I'm furious is an understatement to the Nth degree. Any money this asshole makes is at the expense of thousands of ISPs who have to spend money and time on bandwidth and system resources. THIS GUY NEEDS TO BE IN JAIL!!!

  • Energy Source (Score:3, Funny)

    by pipingguy ( 566974 ) on Tuesday February 03, 2004 @10:33PM (#8176485)
    One of the (non-computer) engineering types on my mailing list sent this in:

    SPAM as an energy source? Somebody hasn't thought this one out - Spam takes some amount of energy to create, so the reaction is basically endothermic. But, on the receiving end, we all know that it frequently takes considerable time and energy (expressable as watts) to get rid of it. So, at that point, it is again endothermic. So, this is following the rules of thermo, there is an unavoidable energy loss in the process. If we want to quantify the power input of a PC, divided by the amount of spam generated per unit time, we could get the energy input (input of energy in terms of creativity and potential information is taken as approaching zero). And on the output end, while it may cause increase in blood pressure and temperature, at best it is a catalyst, contributing nothing to the reaction.

    Conclusion, spam is adding to the entropy of the universe - WE HAVE FOUND ANOTHER SOURCE OF GLOBAL WARMING!

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