Spammer Bankrupted by Anti-Spammer Suits

www.sorehands.com writes "The well known spammer Scott ("Snotty Scotty") Richter has filed for bankruptcy protection. In a Denver Post article Richter claims to have less than $10 million in assets but more than $50 million in debts including the $49 million that Microsoft is seeking. Microsoft is not the only lawsuit that Richter is defending, as a law suit filed by anti-spammer Dan Balsam and being handled by anti-spam attorney Timothy Walton is still pending. Hopefully, Microsoft will have the automatic stay from the bankruptcy court dissolved so that they can stop Richter from spamming and gather more evidence."

It's only because MS is suing

[denis-The-menace]

If it was anybody else, he would fight on.

Re:It's only because MS is suing

[Sv-Manowar]

AOL are also well known to chase spammers into the ground, and now that the spammers know that big companies are onto them, they are changing their ways and using different methods

SPIM (im spam), exploiting google via cloaking, SMS spam and phishing are some of the ways the current spammers are 'diversifying'

Re:It's only because MS is suing

[rich_r]

sms spam less so, mainly because there is a direct cost associated with it, per message. Those who do sms have to target rather than send as much as possible.

Re:It's only because MS is suing

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's because the bankruptcy laws are about to change next month. If he had waited, he might actually have to pay something.

Re:It's only because MS is suing

[erick99]

He will survive. After he emerges from bankruptcy he will start a new company that delivers spam or does something similar. It's in his blood and I can't see the guy doing something else for a living.

Chapter 11 != "Out Of Business"

[billstewart]

It's worse than that - bankruptcy laws are designed to fairly allocate the debtor's remaining assets between creditors, and Chapter 11 is designed to allow debtors that are bankrupt to continue operating because they can generate enough money to pay back their creditors more than if you simply shut them down and sell off the chairs and file cabinets (as opposed to Chapter 7, where you do shut them down and divvy up the cash and other assets.)

This means that as long as they're in Chapter 11, they'll be c

Go Microsoft

[Cerberus911]

This time microsoft deserves our support. It's time to go with the lesser of two evils :)

Re:Go Microsoft

[alnjmshntr]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, MS are doing a good job at tracking down large scale spammers and hitting them where it counts.

You just have to look at how little spam is directed at hotmail these days, to know that it is working.

Re:Go Microsoft

[ScentCone]

If you knew the vulnerability that was being discussed, then why did you attack the strawman of e-mail reception being the vulnerability

Because I was anticipating that someone, like you, would fall for the poster's own straw man, which is the relaying issue. So I wasn't putting up a straw man, I was eliminating one from the discussoin. Yes, 0wned boxes are part of the problem, but it is more a symptom of the problem. The real problem is the viability of spam as a faux-business model, and that causes the

Re:Go Microsoft

[aztektum]

A spammer up against a convicted monopolist corporation. What a funny way of labeling "lesser of two evils"

Re:Go Microsoft

[oliverthered]

especially when it's often holes in Windows that are exploited so send out the spam.

Re:Go Microsoft

[geminidomino]

Again this argument comes up, and there's still no evidence to support it. IIS has a smaller installed base than Apache, yet it is still targeted more often.

Whether it's because MS products are designed to be used/administered by idiots or because the products themselves suck, both are possibilities, but the "larger install base" argument still doesn't hold water.

Re:Go Microsoft

[devilspgd]

Most of the holes are in the user -- In the majority of recent viruses the only way it gets installed is by the user opening an attachment.

If you can convince an idiot to run a virus when they're using Windows, you can put that same idiot in front of a Linux box, trick them into running the attachment, their Linux box will get hit too.

Now, if the user isn't running as root, the virus can't completely 0wn the system. So what? A spam-sending botnet doesn't need root, it needs no more access to the system

Re:Go Microsoft

[diamondsw]

This is why we we HAVE situational ethics. Sure, Microsoft, on the whole, is worse than a spammer. However, in this case they are fighting on our side; i.e., against spam. Unless you're completely irrational, then yes, Microsoft is the lesser of the two evils here.

Re:Go Microsoft

[DunbarTheInept]

I agree - consider what MS's actual motivation here is: Someone is exploiting their broken security model to send spam. They're after the spammer not because they care about internet users' annoyances, but because they don't like how the preponderance of spam helps people realize how bad their product is.

It's just like the DMCA-enabled tactic of nailing anyone who can prove by example that you're lying about how good your security is.

Re:Go Microsoft

[goldspider]

So does that mean that Microsoft is good today? And it made it on Slashdot??

Record low temperatures reported in Hell!

Re:Go Microsoft

[hackstraw]

This time microsoft deserves our support. It's time to go with the lesser of two evils :)

"Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil."

-- Jerry Garcia

Re:Go Microsoft

[ScentCone]

Perhaps all of the responses about the lesser of two evils still being evil are missing the point. There's nothing evil about shutting this clown down. It's a blow for our ability to constructively use the 'net when (rich!) loser scammers hawking V1@gra see it all come down in a stinking pile around them. Good riddance, and thanks, Bill, for using that army of retainer lawyers in this way.

Re:Go Microsoft

[MightyMartian]

C'mon guys. Spam is not a problem if you don't give your email addresses to spammers - and better, have a few email addresses to use when you don't trust someone.

I'm going to be blunt, and if I'm modded down, so be it.

You, good sir, don't have the vaguest fucking idea what you're talking about.

As we speak, I'm looking at my two mail gateway servers getting hit with distributed dictionary attacks in the neighborhood of several hundred per minute per server. These are delightful little attacks, using common addresses like magic@ and love@, as well as variants like rescue911@. These attacks, coming from zombies all over the Internet, actually were shutting down on our mail server until we put it behind two Postfix boxes that fend off the worst of it.

Since we are a private company, we are not Constitutionally obliged to deliver this crap, or even to let anything past our system. Beyond that, well over 90% of our customers have request that they not see spam at all.

The REAL solution to spam is to first have fuzzy-thinkers like yourself actually understand where this shit is coming from, the strain that it puts on networks and on network admins before it ever hits your fucking mailbox.

Have a lovely day, and enjoy your intense and overwhelming ignorance.

Re:Go Microsoft

[Anonymous Custard]

You, good sir, don't have the vaguest fucking idea what you're talking about.

I still can't decide whether I love or hate this /. rhetorical trick of addressing someone civily before directly insulting them.

Re:Go Microsoft

[lgw]

There's an important difference between being rude (inappropriatey familiar) and being insulting. There's no excuse for being rude, even while being insulting. ;)

Re:Is your email server validating these addresses

[gregmac]

It doesn't put any strain on network admins.

Did you even read his message at all?

I got a call last night that our mail server was really slow. Logged in to see that the load average is skyrocketing from spamd, and there are several thousand undelievered messages building up in the queue. We were in the process of getting a dictionary on a couple of domains, and spamassasin couldn't scan them as fast as they were coming in. I think last night it was about 400,000 messages.

Over the past few months, this has become more and more common, and now we're looking at putting another system in front of that for the sole purpose of scanning email. This costs us time figuring out how to deal with it (and dealing with it on a temporary basis to keep the server up), in the hardware we're going to have to buy, money to be spent to colocate another system, bandwidth costs, and the time to set it all up, and keep it running in the future.

How exactly do you figure there's no strain on the network admins?

Re:Is your email server validating these addresses

[Just Some Guy]

Over the past few months, this has become more and more common, and now we're looking at putting another system in front of that for the sole purpose of scanning email. This costs us time figuring out how to deal with it (and dealing with it on a temporary basis to keep the server up),

I had an article published at http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/i s sue_02/focus_spam_postfix [freesoftwaremagazine.com] that might help you with the setup part.

I used a cast-off Pentium 233 box running FreeBSD and Postfix to build a f

Re:Is your email server validating these addresses

[MightyMartian]

Greylisting is a popular method, though we had problems with our customers not being understanding about the odd message of theirs getting held up. When you're talking about tens of thousands of zombies, tarpitting and block-lists can become itself a huge resource hog. We tried a number of solutions, and basically just set up some Postfix boxes. It's a testament to Linux's TCP/IP implementation that a Pentium Classic-MMX 233mhz with 128mb of RAM and a Pentium II 266mhz with 128mb RAM can withstand the on

Re:Is your email server validating these addresses

[MightyMartian]

Uh, who doesn't have a fucking idea of what he's talking about? Please elaborate on how being a private company has anything to do with constitutional obligations?

This is what I was referring to. If this isn't referring to the Constitution, then I'd love to hear why you think commercial mail services ought to deliver every bit of zombie-generated fraudulent advertising to the end-user:

This country had a long long tradition of anonymous speach (check out how Ben Franklin and other founding fathers got support for their ideas). Cracking down on spammers is just a politically correct way of cracking down on anonymous speach at large.

It doesn't put any strain on network admins. I have my own mailserver running on a public IP. When "ron.slashdot@[mydomain].com" got spam, I started using "ron.slashdot2@[mydomain].com" -- and I informed everyone I cared about who had used that address about my "real" address ([e-mail]). I have been a heavy email user since the 80s; and have many gigabytes of email archived - but never once had a major problem with emails that I didn't submit to a spammer.

Wow, you are really quite clueless. I'm guessing by your comment that you don't actually know anything at all about administrating large mail systems, and are just some goofy little hobbiest without a very small presence on the Internet.

We administer over a thousand email addresses for over a hundred domains. We are hit every day with a minimum of 900,000 distributed dictionary attacks, where common addresses like jsmith@ and magic@ are nailed from thousands of zombies all over the world. Now, 99% of these will get rejected out of hand because we don't actually have a jsmith@ or magic@, but each connection is a drag on the resources of the server, and if you get enough of them in a row, they can become a DoS attack.

Our mail server was being brought to its knees by these attacks. There were periods when it would cease to respond on port 25 for up to fifteen minutes at a time, not only blocking incoming mail, but preventing our customers from sending it out. They got all sorts of charming timeout messages, and we lost a few customers who went to other services (read: spam cost us $$$). What's more, because we are billed on the 95th percentile, these attacks were topping out our bandwidth limit and we were paying several hundred dollars a month for about three months (read: spam cost us big $$$).

I finally got smart, installed Linux and Postfix on one of our old boxes and made that server our MX record, and essentially hid the main mail server. Last month I put a second Postfix box online to handle the traffic. The Linux boxes filter out something like 97% of all the incoming mail attempts, almost all of which are either virus-infected or zombie-generated spam messages. As I said, each joe job or distributed dictioanary attack takes up an enormous amount of resources. Here's a sample of the addresses being puked at us for each domain:

homogeneization5@,brannigan@,ckwt111@,tacheometer9 11@,sunspot1111@, tzi-dar111@,boogey911@,fitzsimmon111@, skewering911@,ldiscs5@,tztl911@,lacemaker111@, tzub5@,tunr111@

This is just a sampling from the last 60 or 70 seconds of one of my Postfix boxes, and this is a pretty light load. Now, hopefully, you may at least have some vague understanding of the kind of crap that's being puked at mail servers.

Re:Is your email server validating these addresses

[Anonymous Custard]

Even in that case, a company could just shitcan all the spam, since they're not the US Government and can ignore the first amendment all they want.

I wouldn't say they can ignore the first amendment, but blocking spam fits in to the fact that while the first amendment lets you talk all you want, no one is forced to listen.

Spamming an email server is the equivalent of calling the company's secretary and demanding she take down messages for thousands of random people, and if you happen to mention the name o

Re:Is your email server validating these addresses

[hesiod]

> companies are not congress, and they cannot make law.

Well, the first part is right... The second used to be.

Re:Go Microsoft

[MightyMartian]

Well the method that causes the most problems for those of us who have to administer mail servers is the distributed dictionary attack. I outlined it elsewhere, but basically what a spammer does is command hundreds or thousands of zombies to start puking a dictionary of email addresses at a domain's mail server. So you get stuff like bob@, bobb@, bobc@, bobd@... ricka@, rickb@... and thousands of other variants.

The essential idea is that if you throw enough shit at the wall, some is bound to stick. Usi

Re:Go Microsoft

[MightyMartian]

You can't see it because the parent was modded a troll.

Beyond that, the point of this entire thread is that whether or not you publish your email address is besides the point. Whether you never receive spam or not, it's almost certain that your mail server is getting bombarded with these distributed dictionary attacks coming from zombies. If you happen to have an address like [e-mail], then I can assure you that the only reason you are not seeing spam is because either your ISP or your own mai

anti-spam VS Censorship

[Stephen Samuel]

Maybe all censorship is not bad.
First they censored the spammers, but I was not a spammer so I did not stand up.

Stopping spammers isn't about censorship.

Consider:

• You start yelling at me.
• I tell you to stop,
• You yell louder,
• I plug my ears
• You get a megaphone
• I lock myself inside my house
• You get a full sized sound system
• I brick up the windows
• You get a stadium -rated sound system
• You blow out the neighbour's windows with the sound system
• You get arrested for destruction of property
• You claim first-ammendment rights.
• You get laughted out of court

This is essentially an analogy of the spamming industry.

It doesn't matter what you're saying. Content is irrelevant -- even the fact that communication is (supposedly) occuring (( given that the target recipient does not want to hear you, the existence of communication is questionable )). When it gets annoying, destructive and even expensive for the people who have to deal with your actions, it's just illegal.

Re:anti-spam VS Censorship

[Stephen Samuel]

I have never spent 10-15 minutes a day dealing with spam, infact I spend more time taking the extra crap that comes with my bank statement down to be recycled, and that's not counting the time it takes to recycle or dispose of the junk.

Some people do spend noticable ammounts of time dealing with SPAM. I have one friend who claims he gets hundreds of spams a day. I've automated the process of complaining about spam sources, and I'm down to about 30 a day (from a high of almost 200). On the other hand, I

Re:Go Microsoft

[MindStalker]

Hu? He went to court and was found guilty. Yes there are appeals going on, but don't say he wasn't proven guilty of anything.

Re:Go Microsoft

[AK Marc]

This is not justice. This is a powerful company able to destroy another one even before that other one has been proven guilty of anything.

He was destroyed because he was losing the court battles. If he were innocent, he could have mounted a successful defense. He gave up because he knew he was going to lose.

Wikipedia has an article on Scotty

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Richter

Like it or not, he makes more money than most reading slashdot.

Link +

[baudilus]

here's the link, for all you lazy clickers

Scotty2Hottie [wikipedia.org].

If he's making so much money, why is he filing for bankruptcy? He's only got 25 employees and a monster bandwidth bill, but I still can't see him spending $15M a year (what he claims to make) on operating costs. A few mil for the bandwidth, some salaries, and a lease (plus other small costs). This guy is slick.

Re:Wikipedia has an article on Scotty

[nametaken]

Its assumed that anyone filing for bankruptcy protection with $50 million in debt, probably makes more than me. ;)

Re:Wikipedia has an article on Scotty

[CSMastermind]

So do the people who head organized crime.

Re:Wikipedia has an article on Scotty

[wk633]

Like it or not, he makes more money than most reading slashdot.

My observation is that people who are not particularily intelligent, are good at lying through their teeth to appear friendly, and have no morals, make lots of money.

And they all seem to be in Sales.

Because he is doing something illegal

[KingSkippus]

He makes money from doing something illegal. Drug dealers probably make more money than me, too, but that's not a good thing.

Plus, as pointed out, at least I'm pretty sure that my money-making method (i.e. working at a so-called legitimate job) will sustain me through the rest of my life. His money-making method will get him sued into bankrupcy (case in point) and perhaps even thrown in jail.

Yeah, I like my way better, too.

Ahh, that explains it

[Lisandro]

I had this warm, fuzzy feeling all day. I now know why!

I guess it may not be that profitable

[bblazer]

If this holds it may begin to show that the profits from spamming are just too risky, and others may not wish to try it. On the other hand, bankruptcy is often just a shield to protect assets. Maybe with a combination of civil and criminal action we will one day see a reduction in spam.

Re:I guess it may not be that profitable

[Golgafrinchan]

It would be nice, but I think it's unlikely.

Tomorrow's spammer will be much more sophisticated, both technologically and when it comes to the law. Tomorrow's spammers will know the tricks around the CAN SPAM act and whatever else the governments of the world throw at them.

Why? Because IF they are able to operate within the rules of the law, they can make money. People keep spamming because other people keep clicking on the ads. Spammers won't stop until people stop clicking on the ads!

Think about the war on drugs. It'll never end until either the government gives up, or demand for drugs decreases substantially. Same thing here.

Re:I guess it may not be that profitable

[Tom]

Think about the war on drugs.

Now that's an entirely different animal. The reason why the war on drugs has not and will never end is that too many people profit from its continuation. And I don't mean the drug lords, I mean the police, special forces, their suppliers and everyone in the game. I mean, your cool anti-drug special force would be dissolved if the drug problem were solved, wouldn't it?

Re:I guess it may not be that profitable

[nametaken]

a combination of civil and criminal action

I can see it now. They seize his mailing lists to contact everyone to join the class action lawsuit. A spam promising free money thats actually true!

About time we institute bankruptcy laws

[Mycroft_514]

to keep him from declaring bankruptcy.

Re:About time we institute bankruptcy laws

[mark-t]

And what do you propose, exactly? In particular, what if it is the _person_ and not his company, that is declaring bankruptcy?

If a person has no ability to pay their debts, and no forseeable point in time at which their circumstances could change to be able to repay the debt, holding the debt over their head for the rest of their lives is not at all far removed from slavery practices, however more civilized it might appear to be.

It is unconscionable to hold any person to remain in debt for an unjustifi

Re:About time we institute bankruptcy laws

[nametaken]

Yeah, he'll be pulling an OJ Simpson soon.

I mean hiding his assets, not killing people.

But now that we're on the topic, jerk should have hired Johnny Cochrane.

That's the problem

[FiReaNGeL]

Even when lawsuits are successfull, they just go bankrupt. Some may even be intelligent enough to hide some money for later...

As long as stupid people buy their stupid crap, theyll continue. Lawsuits or not.

Just making sure I understand...

[Golgafrinchan]

So... Microsoft is the good guy in this one?

If you hear something, that's my head exploding.

Re:Just making sure I understand...

[DogDude]

So... Microsoft is the good guy in this one?

In all seriousness, life isn't as black and white as Slashdotters or George Fucking Bush seem to think. A company can't be "evil" and more than a country can be "evil". "Good guys" and "bad guys" are vehicles to simplify movies and books, and the bible for the simple minded.

Court Awards Dischargeable In Bankruptcy?

[Maestro4k]

This may be something that varies by state but are damages/etc. awarded from a lawsuit dischargeable under bankruptcy laws? I know my deadbeat dad tried (and failed) to get out of a court settlement over back child support years ago so in that case at least it wasn't allowed.

Granted it's not like they can get much from him if he's legitimately broke, but I don't believe he can stop MS & others from collecting what the court awarded. The bankruptcy court will dispose of his assets and decide who gets what portions, but what's left he'll still owe once he's out of bankruptcy protection.

IANAL so if I'm mistaken someone please correct me, I'd like to know.

Re:Court Awards Dischargeable In Bankruptcy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Granted it's not like they can get much from him if he's legitimately broke, but I don't believe he can stop MS & others from collecting what the court awarded. The bankruptcy court will dispose of his assets and decide who gets what portions, but what's left he'll still owe once he's out of bankruptcy protection.

Back child support isn't dischargeable in bankruptcy because it is a non-dischargeable debt. There aren't many of those. Curiously, the only debts that aren't presently dischargeable in bankruptcy are fines imposed for crimes, child support awards and...guess what...student loans. You can thank the GOP for the latter in 1995. That's right. Punitive damages awarded for mass torts are dischargeable in Chapter 11 for the big boys, but if Billy or Sally can't repay their student loans, tough titty. Now they want to do the same with other kinds of consumer debt. Bastards.

This looks like a liquidation (Chapter 7) not a debt restructuring (Chapter 13) so yeah, while a lot of his assets are going to go bye-bye, he won't owe bupkiss after the discharge order goes through. That's what bankruptcy is for. Your credit smells to high heaven for 7 years and for those 7 years further protection isn't available, but anything discharged is wiped clean.

I'm seeing some pretty mean-spirited comments on bankruptcy on this board. I assume these people work for credit-card companies. Sorry, but weaking bankruptcy protections to get one spammer is a pretty bad trade-off. He's bankrupt. That should be enough.

What a bunch of nonsense

[hawk]

I am an attorney, but this is not legal advise. If you need that, get it from an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.

Nearly everything this AC wrote is just plain nonsense.

Curiously, the only debts that aren't presently dischargeable in bankruptcy are fines imposed for crimes, child support awards and...guess what...student loans

No. Those aren't the only ones. Certain taxes (time dependent), fraud, luxury goods or large borrowing within 60 days of filing (presumptively), omitted debts, willfully

Re:Court Awards Dischargeable In Bankruptcy?

[doormat]

Why should somebody have the right to run up credit card debt and get a way out later on?

Because, as it turns out, most credit card debt related bankruptices are not due to Joe Q Public buying a $10,000 plasma TV and stuff and then just filing. It turns out half are due to life-threatening medical expenses (cancer, coronary, etc). The new legislation just creates a sort of indentured servitude to the medical industry. They can charge whatever they want (you do want to live right?) and then even if you declare bankruptcy you cant escape.

Re:Court Awards Dischargeable In Bankruptcy?

[ivan256]

If credit card debt couldn't be canceled with bankruptcy, the card companies wouldn't be able to get away with charging those high rates. Right now they get away with it because companies with lower rates won't issue a card to people with lower credit ratings. If the risk to the companies were reduced, the fierce competition in the credit card market would cause lower-rate cards to force the higher rate cards out of the market.

That wouldn't, however, solve the problem of cards being issued to people who we

Finally, I found something

[nomad63]

I finally found something that Microsoft did and I really liked.

Now the target is to prevent him rising from the ashes and restart spamming again.

So - hydra, Obi Won, or True Death?

[Dark Paladin]

Which way will this saga play out? Will it turn out that Spammer Boy is a hydra, and that his demise, like killing of the head of a drug cartel, will spawn a series of replacements who, in true criminal fashion would start killing each other but because they're spammers they'll annoy each other comparing the size of the IMMENSE ORGASMS ORDER TODAY?

Or will he be more like an evil Obi Won, and if you strike him down he will become more powerful than you can ever image thanks to FREE HERBAL VIAGRA JUST $39.99 A PILL?

Or will he suffer the True Death as the sunlight strikes him just as the stake enters his heart while his body collaspes into a pile of dust while he screams out MY NAME IS UBENTO FROM NIGERIA AND DURING THE US INVASION OF IRAQ I WAS GIVEN A MILLION DOLLARS THAT YOU CAN HELP ME EXPORT WITH A LOAN OF ONE MILLION DOLLARS?

Or will this post suffer the lameness filter from Slashdot? Only time will tell.

Money eh...

[baudilus]

He claimed his company operated legally and made $15 million a year sending 15 million e-mail messages a day.

So if I send one email every day for a year, someone will pay me a dollar? w00t!

Why bankruptcy is bad

[Godman]

See, this is kind of stupid. We shouldn't be suing for money, we should be puttin this guy in JAIL!

If he files for bankruptcy, the government pays his debts, etc..., what's to stop him from doing it again? and again? and again? You get the point. As long as he's free, he's going to be doing this. The only way to stop it is to put him in jail.

Re:Why bankruptcy is bad

[Anonymous Coward]

If he files for bankruptcy, the government pays his debts, etc..., what's to stop him from doing it again? and again? and again? You get the point. As long as he's free, he's going to be doing this. The only way to stop it is to put him in jail.

If it's any comfort, you're not entitled to bankruptcy protections for losses incurred due to your own criminal and/or actionable activity, such as fraud. Even if all his spamming was legal, there's documented instances of him lying to his own customers. Not that

Re:Why bankruptcy is bad

[pqdave]

Government does NOT pay his debts. Depending on which chapeter he files under (I didn't RTFA) either most of his assets will be liquidated, and his creditors get some of what they are owed, or he gets a court-ordered payment plan in exchange for no collection activity as long as he fulfils that plan.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

[Fox_1]

I've worked with parts of Microsoft before and strangely enough this article reinforces what I saw, they aren't all bad - oh I know they are the evil empire and everything - but you can't get that much money and geekness together without some good happening. Besides when it comes down to evilness I'll take the big MS over millions of dirty little spammers everyday, at least their damage to my computer is more bad program design then malicious malware.

Re:The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

[BitZtream]

The problem being that a lot of the spam on the internet is due to their bad program design and poor coding. So you're picking one side of the same evil, MS suing doesn't help the problem, them fixing their exploitable machines so they stop turning into spam relays is a starting point. Then fixing their applications would be a nice next move. It does amuse me that HTML email, which MS basically MADE popular ... is now being ... toned down. As in, Outlook2k3 not loading images by default. Perhaps if the

No Mercy

[DimGeo]

I hate when companies make people bancrupt with lawsiuts. I really love to see MS make that poor shmuck bancrupt. Yes, I'm a hypocrite.

Best part of the whole article:

[hackstraw]

"It's the legal fees that are battering the company," said OptInRealBig.com lawyer Steven Richter, father of Scott Richter. He said the company faces lawsuits from Microsoft and other parties in Colorado, California and Utah. "OptIn is profitable but for these lawsuits."

Wow, the kettle doesn't fall far from the black pot tree now does it?

Dissent

[m50d]

I know many here will be cheering, after all it's an evil spammer, but does this strike anyone else as being scary? Yes he's broken laws and done bad things, we suppose, but does he really deserve to owe $49 million? And how much of that is from legal costs rather than straight fines? If he did wrong and has been convicted he deserves to be punished, but the legal system as it stands can bankrupt an innocent all too easily.

Re:Dissent

[Guppy06]

"Yes he's broken laws and done bad things, we suppose, but does he really deserve to owe $49 million?"

That's the question the courts are there to answer. They say "yes."

After all, how much as MSFT spent to try to protect their own networks from such messages?

"If he did wrong and has been convicted he deserves to be punished, but the legal system as it stands can bankrupt an innocent all too easily."

You're no longer an "innocent" if you've been proven guilty already.

Re:Dissent

[Tom]

but does he really deserve to owe $49 million?

Absolutely. By any estimate, that's a fraction of the damage he has done to the public at large.

Chapter 11 protection

[AndroidCat]

The 5-year-old company, which employed 25 people last year and had 350 clients, will continue to operate under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, he said.

It's not quite time to sing the ding-dong [tripod.com] song yet.

Lawsuits are not a good business tool

[ites]

Although it's tempting to cheer as Mr Richter is beaten down by the weight of Microsoft's legal muscle, I have severe misgivings about this.

First, corporations should not be attempting to lay down the law. The legality or not of spamming is for the State to decide, and there should be criminal prosecution of those who break the law.

When corporations can turn the law to their advantage, they will inevitably attack the real threats to their business - competitors.

Second, criminalising spam (or bankrupting spammers through civil suits) will only drive spammers to work outside the reach of the US courts. While US spammers can reasonably be expected to evolve over time to collaborate with their host society, foreign spammers don't have any incentive to (e.g.) refuse to promote child snuff porn.

Lastly, spam is a problem that will, eventually, go away by itself. Yes, I actually think this. There will come a time when people say, "of course you could send a million unwanted emails, but who would be so stupid?"

Spam is unsolvable by technical means, and it's unsolvable by legal suits, civil or criminal. It will disappear when the Internet has matured to the point where business is more than a one-shot affair, and tit-for-tat becomes the rule, not the exception.

So when the school bully picks on someone you don't like, don't cheer. Next time it'll be you.

Re:Lawsuits are not a good business tool

[KillerBob]

With IPv6, however, it's really easy to block all mail coming from any specific country.

I dunno about you, but I'd feel less bothered about blocking all mail from Uzbekistan than from the USA. And if the ISPs in the country have a problem with it, they can lobby their government to criminalize spam, too. Personally, I'd rather operate universal blacklisting with explicit whitelisting, but there's just too many ISP's in the USA, with new ones popping up daily, for that to work.

Spam is unsolvable by techni

Re:Lawsuits are not a good business tool

[Elwood P Dowd]

First, corporations should not be attempting to lay down the law. The legality or not of spamming is for the State to decide, and there should be criminal prosecution of those who break the law.

Who do you trust to legislate proper behavior on the internet? Tom DeLay? The UN?

This jackass has done material harm to Microsoft, by damaging the value of their webmail service. This is exactly the time and place for a civil dispute. Dunno why you're saying that Microsoft is a bully picking on someone else. Here, Microsoft is a bully beating up someone that tried to steal Microsoft's lunch money. That same jackass has stolen our lunch money in the past. Cheer 'till you lose your voice.

I don't know why you say that Spam is unsolvable by technical means. It's absolutely solvable by technical means, but those technical means will take huge amounts of time and money.

Re:Lawsuits are not a good business tool

[ites]

Who do you trust to legislate proper behavior on the internet?

The same institutions I trust to legislate proper behaviour everywhere else. True, my trust in the current crop of legislators is pretty low. But still higher than my trust in large corporations.

Spam solvable? OK, solve it. Whatever technique you develop, people will find a way around it. Forever. If you can eliminate spam as it exists today, new varieties will appear that bypass whatever guards you place. Look at the "win an ipod" sign

Re:Lawsuits are not a good business tool

[Elwood P Dowd]

I'd explain why but the margin is too small to hold my notes...

Ahahaha. Now I've spilled single-malt scotch all over my tweed jacket.

Spam solvable? OK, solve it. Whatever technique you develop, people will find a way around it. Forever.

Notice how I didn't say quickly or cheaply. I said the opposite. SPF & web-of-trust would eliminate spam. Even if SPF hits no new roadblocks, it will be a costly and slow process. The issue isn't that there are no technical solutions.

I do not like watching Microsoft (or a

Got an e-mail from him earlier...

[NightWulf]

Dear Sir/Madam

My name is Scott Richter, but you can call me Snotty Scotty. My company has come under attack from an evil empire and I was forced to flee for my life. I have $10 million in assets I wish to hide. If you let me sign over these assets to you I will be forever in your debt. I will glady split half of this sum with you once I have fled to the tropical paradise of Canada.

If you agree please send a registered letter with your name, address, e-mail address, social security number and bank routing number to:

Prisoner #773849

San Quentin Prison

San Quentin, CA 94964

Please hurry, they let me out to the exercise yard soon, and I feel my other assets will soon be raided.

Give credit where credits due

[joey_knisch]

Dear Scott Richter,

My name is Dr Ahmed Abdalla director and board member, Transparency International, Kenya. I got your email address from the web directory so I decided to contact you.

We are interested in diverting some funds currently floating in the suspense account of the federal pay office to your account as soon as possible.

Source of the funds are:

During the Arap Moi's government, government's officials awarded contracts to their own companies, these contracts were grossly over invoiced. Now the present government set up contract review panel to settle those owed outstanding amount. My colleagues and I have identified a huge amount totaling US$870m (Eight hundred and seventy million us dollars) overseas.

We would want US$43.8m (Forty three million Eight Hundred Thousand) dollars out this money oversea transferred to your account because we are not eligible to operate foreign account, and I have been mandated to search for a partner abroad. We really want this transfer made as soon as possible before the government, who have started refunding money from Moi's foreign accounts track this money. We will be offering 20% for your assistance. If you would want to proceed with this transaction please reply with your name and phone number and if you do not accept my offer please treat with utmost confidentiality.

Best Regards,
Dr Ahmed Abdall

Bankrupcy

[rokzy]

filing means he's let off the excess debt? he still loses his $10 million in assets? he has to sell his mansion etc.?

Maverick justice?

[Golgafrinchan]

While I'm not going to complain about a spamming company's bankruptcy, I'm a little bothered by how this was handled. From the article:

Microsoft officials called the filing a victory. "Microsoft and the state of New York said we would drive him into bankruptcy, and together we have," said Aaron Kornblum, Microsoft's Internet safety enforcement attorney. "The kind of spam Mr. Richter was sending was not only annoying, it was illegal, and the law sets out penalties for this kind of illegal activity."

It sounds like Microsoft took the law into its own hands. They saw that the government couldn't/wouldn't do anything about him, so MS blasted him with lawsuits until he succumbed.

Isn't this the kind of justice most of us Slashdotters don't like? After all, many of us have complained about the RIAA suing someone, and that person has to settle out of court because they can't afford to fight. Isn't this the same thing?

Re:Maverick justice?

[StikyPad]

After all, many of us have complained about the RIAA suing someone, and that person has to settle out of court because they can't afford to fight. Isn't this the same thing?

It's not at all the same thing. The difference is: The one guy has been found guilty in the court of public opinion. And the court of public opinion is never, ever wrong. So who cares if this guy's financially ruined? We, the public, have all the facts, and God is on our side.

Re:Maverick justice?

[triclipse]

I missed the part about Microsoft suing Mr. Richter in Microsoft Court under the Microsoft Civil Code. Since when is it "taking the law into your own hands" to ask the government to enforce the law?

Well said. Moral relativism has its limits. The factual and legal scenarios with RIAA and with spammers are very different.

yeah right...

[grasshoppa]

...this guy, bankrupt as he claims to be, has more than I will ever make many times over.

Crouching lawsuit, hidden assets

Not a good result

[pr0nbot]

"It's the legal fees that are battering the company," said OptInRealBig.com lawyer Steven Richter

Spammer or no, I don't like the principle that if you run out of money to defend yourself, you lose.

Re:Not a good result

[Desert Raven]

Um, did you catch the name of that lawyer???

Steven Richter is Scotty Richter's father.

So if the legal fees are "battering the company", one of two things is happening. Either Scotty's father is ripping him off royally (possible, after all, the son's a crook too). Or, Scotty's father is charging tons of legal fees as a way of protecting Scotty's ill-gotten wealth.

They want bankrupytcy protection...

[gmuslera]

.. unfortunately, their mail asking for it was rejected by the spam filter.

Hello quickly orangutan!

[Hard_Code]

Are you in debt?!?

GE_T OU*T OF DEB?T FAST

with our fool.proof pla-n

banana charlie sprocket

He moved to West Africa

[Tablizer]

Dear Sir,

I am a consultant operating in West Africa named Scott Richter. I am being persued by evil slashdotters who do not like my wonderful products and messages. For this reason I cannot move money in my name through normal banking channels. I think the only way to succeed is to seek help from a foreigner....

Bogus "profitability"

[mabu]

I have always contended that the notion that spammers make tons of money is overblown hype. The fact that this company's attorney is the father of the owner is a classic example. If they were really making money they wouldn't be hiring the CEO's dad to do this stuff. And if the CEO's dad is milking the company into bankruptcy, then there is some kind of poetic justice and consistency in the family that almost brings a tear to my eye.

Re:Random Commentary

[Anonymous Coward]

But the commercials you see are paid for by the advertiser. Every person paying for internet access is paying for spam, so if anyone is a socialist, it's the spammer for making sure everyone pays for his ability to send spam.

Re:Random Commentary

[DaHat]

The general difference between commercials on free tv and spam online is that spam online does not go to pay for the programming or content you are seeing.

Re:Random Commentary

[srleffler]

In fact, the spam makes the material you are viewing more expensive, by increasing everybody's bandwidth costs.

Re:Random Commentary

[DeathFlame]

There is no demand for spam. He's not filling a demand. He's sending you mail you don't want, and you can't refuse.

Spam and commercials are not even nearly the same. The only analogy you could make is junk mail, but that isn't nearly as bad as spam, due to the cost of sending mail vs sending an email.

Re:Random Commentary

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a retarded argument.

Once you start getting free internet service for putting up with spam, come see me.

That's not even mentioning the tons of other issues surrounding the shady tactics used by spammers. Sender address spoofing, compromising MTAs so they can use them to spam, sending porn advertisements to childrens email addresses just to name a few.

Legitimate business you say? Where?

The spam I don't have an issue with is from websites I actually use or have bought products from, that use real

Re:Random Commentary

[Sheetrock]

The Internet has been an excellent tool for communication and entertainment, but as it grows in popularity measures must be taken to control the impact any one member of the community can have on the whole.

As the whole has been pounded pretty heavily, it becomes apparent protections need to be in place on what used to be open bandwidth. Much as with radio, restrictions on use actually create more opportunities than are eliminated -- stopping P2P would mean broad new choices in applications, games and media, stopping hackers would mean better online shopping, and stopping spam would ironically make communication easier and more popular.

Soon we will be using smart cards to get online and perform transactions. It looks like they'll be in our computers now via DRM but maybe that'll help us find a meaningful solution (spam or pirate and your $400 motherboard becomes useless for getting on the Internet.)

Re:Random Commentary

[FidelCatsro]

? i pay for my email server .
yet i get spam ,the spammers dont pay me so down to0ples that logic .
I also pay for my internet conection, I dont mind ads on websites if the ads are non intrusive(i dont install shockwave on my reqular browser and use adblock for the worst offenders) .
This is not a Left wing vs wing argument ,its an abusive trade tactic vs our rights argument.
However i dont like the fact that a lawsuit alone can bankrupt people , this is open for abuse .

Re:Random Commentary

[QangMartoq]

How is spam a problem? I'll tell you.

Let's say that I run a personal mail server on my headless Linux box in the closet, which handles my personal mail, mail for my small home based business, and a few accounts for friends.

With scum like Mr. Richter and his ilk running around spamming people, my mail server incurs an additional load, in the form of increased bandwidth of useless messages pouring into it, which require me to upgrade my hardware and/or storage space to cope with it and still maintain some reasonable modicum of speed and reliability.

The spam also causes me to expend time and energy fighting it, setting up filtering software, tweaking it, etc.

Who pays for these upgrades that the spam forces me to have to put in place? Not the spammers. Me and my wallet.

If there were no spam, I could run the system on some old 386 I have in the basement, and not have to worry that it'll drown in an unwanted assault of traffic that has nothing to do with, and no value for, my customers, my business, my friends, or me.

Now, if the above illustration was for a small time mail server, imagine how much bigger the costs are to an ISP, or an upstream backbone provider. MUCH higher. And you wonder why people are fighting spam?

Spam costs little (or in most cases, nothing) for the spammer to send, but it costs people money to deal with it.

Re:Greed always takes them down.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and look at you wanting a free iPod and FreeGamingSystems.

You are a hypocrite.

My problem with freewhatever sites..

[MadAnthony02]

I don't really have a problem with people giving up their personal info and buying crap they don't need in the hopes of getting a free whatever.

What annoys me is the referral system, which means that people keep needing to get more people to sign up (to support the bottom of the pyrmid). People have trouble finding 5 people or whatver who haven't signed up, so they start spamming message boards, putting in their sigs, ect. Pretty soon they start posting just so their sig gets posted, and message board q

Arrogance helps a bit, too

[The Angry Mick]

In Richter's case, if he had just kept his mouth shut occasionally, he probably wouldn't have become such a target. Instead he flaunted his disregard for other folk's opinions and built an incredibly high precipice to throw himself off.

Unfortunately though, it's not he'll be selling pencils on the street corner any time soon. As many others have already mentioned, he's most likely got a large chunk of change squirrelled away in a few Cayman accounts that'll keep high on Margarita's for years to come.

Re:Greed always takes them down.

[FidelCatsro]

Your fake sig is spam for a pyramid scheme . so i dont think you should be one to be commenting on greed or spam really.

Re:When you have that much debt

[Tony Hoyle]

I prefer the laws we have here. It doesn't matter what you do with your money.. the state can take all of it and sell your assets to the highest bidder to recover it (the principle being money gained illegaly does not belong to you). They also have the right to empty bank accounts, retirement plans, etc. and for the big cases can sqeeze the offshore accounts too (easy against some countries, less so against others).

They use it a lot against drug dealers etc. using that against spammers (who are also gaining money by in an illegal manner) would be really nice.

Unfortunately Richter is in the US where all he has to do is claim he's compliant with the (I) CAN-SPAM (AS-MUCH-AS-I-LIKE) act and he's home free.