Spammers 'repent'

Grok Headline matches for Spammers 'repent'

More Spammers Threatening To Sue
Anti-Spammers

More Spammers Threatening To Sue
Anti-Spammers 06/11/2004 12:55 PM
It looks like the various spam laws that help legalize spam are making the spammers extra litigious. Following a lawsuit in the US by a spammer against an anti-spam operation for still block their email, some spammers in the UK are threatening Spamhaus with lawsuits for still having them on their blacklist. The problem is that, just because the law now gives them the permission to spam, it doesn't mean people aren't allowed to make their own private efforts to block them. The laws may allow them to send their spam, but there's nothing in these laws that require people to receive it.

Referer spammers are comment spammers
too

Referer spammers are comment spammers
too 02/01/2005 10:08 PM
Is there a connection between referer spamming tools such as Reffy, and mass comment spamming in Movable Type?

Take My Spammers... Please...

Take My Spammers... Please... 09/09/2004 10:39 AM

Interesting story from the BBC about giant service provider Savvis’ internal debate over whether to expunge spammers from their network. The article details their angst over hosting spammers vs their love of that sweet green cash.

Alif Terranson, a former Savvis employee who was responsible for keeping the network clean, objected to the spammers and wrote a 200-page report detailing his complaints about the spammers.

He told the BBC: “One of the Vice Presidents told me, ‘Take no action against any Cable & wireless customer - they are profitable and they are off limits.’

“He was talking specifically about that 200-page report which at the time was 95 spammers. When I left Savvis in April it was almost 100, today it is 148.

Two hundred pages? I don’t like spam, but I doubt I could write that much on it. Maybe he should have mailed it a page at a time with subjects like ‘H3RE’5 TH4T B1G SP4M RE.PoRT!!! F4NTASTIC REEDING!!!’

After being threatened with blacklisting by anti-spam groups, they finally decided to give the spammers their walking papers, but it goes to show you just how hard spam is to get rid of. The lost profits of these customers is small potatoes to the world’s second largest provider, but Mom & Pop providers would probably be loathe to get rid of them.

Via Multiple Sources.

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"spammers"

"spammers" 01/04/2004 03:27 PM

Everyone Sue Some Spammers

Everyone Sue Some Spammers 02/18/2004 12:07 PM
Who knew? Apparently, today is a "sue a spammer day" (though, perhaps it should be every day) as both Earthlink and AOL have announced lawsuits filed against spammers. Earthlink is going after an Alabama spam ring. Instead of relying on weak anti-spam laws, Earthlink is charging them with violating racketeering laws. It sounds like a fairly sophisticated operation, using a variety of fake identities and rapidly changing websites to avoid detection. Meanwhile, AOL is going after a Florida company who they had sued once before, but which was thrown out over questions about jurisdiction. This time, the lawsuit was filed in Florida, rather than in Virginia.

Spammers

Spammers 09/07/2004 02:49 AM
I haven't said anything about spam in a while. I've stopped keeping track of my monthly intake, no longer look...

Spamming spammers?

Spamming spammers? 03/22/2005 03:49 PM
IBM unveiled a service Tuesday that sends unwanted e-mails back to the spammers who sent them.

The new IBM (Research) service, known as FairUCE, essentially uses a giant database to identify computers that are sending spam. E-mails coming from a computer on the spam database are sent directly back to the computer, not just the e-mail account, that sent them. "Spam has become a high priority security issue for businesses today," Stuart McIrvine, IBM's director of corporate security strategy, said in a prepared statement.

"By creating a multi-layered defense that proactively repels spam at its source, companies can get ahead of spammers and malicious hackers who are always looking for new ways of penetrating IT systems through e-mail." IBM said the new solution effectively minimizes the growing threats of "phishing and spoofing -- tactics used to trick people into disclosing information that can lead to identity theft."

News source: CNN

Read full story...

This Week's Top 10 Spammers

This Week's Top 10 Spammers 06/14/2004 04:15 PM
Spam is a continuing (and annoying) presence in our e-mailboxes. But who's sending the junk messages? Here's a list of the top culprits and what you can do about them.

Spammers in the slammer?

Spammers in the slammer? 12/12/2003 12:01 AM
The Virginia Attorney General announces the first felony indictments of spammers in the U.S. under VA's new anti-spam law.

Can The US Can Spammers Outside The
Country?

Can The US Can Spammers Outside The
Country? 04/30/2004 12:16 PM
It turns out that not only did the feds charge some American spammers under CAN SPAM this week, but they also went after some Australian spammers as well. The article is unclear, but it sounds like they're not using CAN SPAM for the complaint against the Australian spammers, but are instead going after them for fraudulent advertising. Still, it does raise the question about how far the arms of US law can reach in going after spammers. I imagine it's not so difficult to go after Australian spammers, since the two countries are closely aligned and are likely to cooperate. However, as spammers migrate to less closely allied countries, will the feds be able to do anything?

Spammers given boot

Spammers given boot 09/23/2004 12:38 AM
News.bbc.co.uk - Wed Sep 22, 09:41 am GMT

First spammers charged under new US law

First spammers charged under new US law 04/30/2004 03:25 AM
ZDNet UK Apr 30 2004 7:53AM GMT

Spammers are giving up, AOL says

Spammers are giving up, AOL says 12/29/2004 08:44 PM
National Post Dec 30 2004 12:44AM GMT

AOL Spammers Scram?

AOL Spammers Scram? 12/28/2004 03:17 PM
The Internet service provider claims drastically reduced spam. How good is this news?

Will China Really Go After Spammers?

Will China Really Go After Spammers? 09/15/2004 01:39 PM
For quite some time, it's been known that many spammers use Chinese servers to send out spam. The Chinese government hadn't paid much attention to spam, preferring to do more important things online like blockin g out Google. However, after realizing that (uh oh) political activists might start using spam to get their message out, they announced plans earlier this year to crack down on spam. It looks like it took them a few months to realize it wasn't as easy as they've expected, so they've now agreed to work with foreign anti-spam firms to try to tackle the problem. These anti-spam firms are excited about this, because they think with some cooperation from the Chinese government and Chinese ISPs they'll be able to do a lot more in stopping spam coming from China. Of course, it won't be long until spammers move on to some other country (or to various zombie systems). Still, for all the talk about how China is now interested in stopping spam, it is worth remembering that the only reason they got interested originally was to block political speech. So, is it really a coincidence that Symantec's anti-virus software is suddenly deciding that a program to route around Chinese government censorship is a trojan that should be blocked? It makes you wonder what kind of deal these security firms struck with the Chinese government.

How Spammers Find You

How Spammers Find You 02/15/2004 09:10 PM
Macleans Online Feb 16 2004 1:13AM GMT

Big Bounties Only Way To Take Down
Spammers

Big Bounties Only Way To Take Down
Spammers 09/16/2004 10:41 PM
The idea of "bounties" for anyone who can track down a spammer is not a new idea. Larry Lessig has been suggest ing it for a while and the FTC has been conside ring whether or not to add it to CAN SPAM. While they've said in the past that they doubted it would work, today they reported their findings, which claim the only way to make a spam hunting bounty system work is to pay some serious cash to spam hunters: $100,000 to $250,000. Note that this is more than what the FBI pays for tips on its 10 Most Wanted list. While the report claims such a bounty would have to come from taxpayer funds, perhaps they should talk to some companies. Large ISPs already pay plenty trying to weed out all the spam clogging their network. Perhaps they'd be willing to toss a few hundred thousand dollars into a bounty system, hoping that taking down spammers would relieve some of their network congestion.

Can You Slow Spammers Down?

Can You Slow Spammers Down? 02/16/2004 10:53 PM
Yet another anti-spam company is making news for their slightly different take on how to stop spam. The company, TurnTide, is offering a router for ISPs that watches over email traffic, and if the traffic is consistent with that of spam, the system slows down the traffic to a crawl, making spamming less lucrative, in theory. This is, basically, a more commercial means of offering a greylisting solution. The company, which showed up with a new $1 million in funding today at DEMO 2004, claims they have no competitors - but that (as always) is untrue (and whoever invested in them needs to tell them that). My guess, though, is that it won't take spammers too long to figure out ways to get around this sort of blocking maneuver. At their own end, they'll simply find spam-sympathetic ISPs (as they do now) that would never use such a system. Then, they'll probably just hijack more machines and have them each send out limited amounts of email to trick the system into believing they're legitimate.

Experts: Spammers are on the run

Experts: Spammers are on the run 01/26/2004 10:18 AM
Boston Globe Jan 26 2004 2:14PM GMT

FTC Settles With Spammers

FTC Settles With Spammers 05/07/2004 02:58 PM
Last year (before CAN-SPAM was even in place), the FTC sued a couple of spammers for using deceptive subject lines and spoofed email addresses to send people to a porn site. The spammers have now settled with the FTC and agreed to give back $112,500 that they received from the spam. Of course, I wonder if that's all they really received from the spam. Besides, if they just are giving back what they made from the spam, then there seems to be no actual punishment on top of that for spamming. Also, if the FTC could go after people for misleading subject lines and spoofed return addresses, why did we need CAN-SPAM in the first place?

Why do Spammers Spam?

Why do Spammers Spam? 05/14/2004 09:17 AM
Ladies and Gentleman that is the million dollar question and now we have some insight into exactly what is happening...

Damn spammers!

Damn spammers! 10/28/2003 11:06 PM
Those spammers have really sunk to new lows now! They're now posting spams to my blog! So I've had to...

Comment spammers

Comment spammers 10/30/2003 10:25 PM
I have been spared the invasion of the comment spammers because my weblog was offline this summer. But to pre-empt them, now that comments are back, I installed Blacklist. I then did a Google query on blacklist.txt, and pasted the...

Down with Blog Spammers

Down with Blog Spammers 11/10/2003 11:39 PM
Adam Kalsey says it: Now spammers have turned their attention to weblogs and comment forms. In order to increase search engine rankings you are posting advertisements to our Web pages. What you failed to understand is that bloggers are smarter, better connected, and more technologically savvy than the average email user. We control the medium that you are now attempting to exploit. You've picked a fight with us and it's a fight you cannot win. And you know what? He's...

Spammers, I Salute You

Spammers, I Salute You 04/13/2005 05:58 PM
For both your creative ways to get around spam blockers and your incredible stupidity in doing so. I saw this in my mail box,...

Microsoft Goes After 8 More Spammers

Microsoft Goes After 8 More Spammers 06/11/2004 07:15 PM
In its latest salvo against unwanted e-mail flooding customer mailboxes, Microsoft has filed lawsuits against eight more spammers. The company claims the spammers deceived customers and attempted to hide the source of the spam. Redmond is now pursuing over 80 lawsuits against spammers around the world. Last March, Microsoft joined forces with AOL, EarthLink and Yahoo! to sue hundreds of spammers under the new CAN-SPAM act.

How much will the Bounty be for Spammers

How much will the Bounty be for Spammers 05/23/2004 07:52 AM
Back when America had a true wild wild west their where bounty posters for murder's, bank robbers etc. Well the...

A Look Into How Spammers Spam

A Look Into How Spammers Spam 05/14/2004 01:32 PM
Nothing all that surprising here, but some anti-spammers have managed to get themselves into the various "spam clubs" where top spammers trade tips with each other. From that they've learned, as we all pretty much knew already, that the state of the art in spamming is using compromised machines that have had a trojan installed on them. Lists of such controllable machines are offered to other spammers, both for additional spamming capabilities and for denial of service attacks. Basically, the spammers have built up quite a distributed super computer - and those contributing cycles and bandwidth don't even know about it.

Commentary: Spammers must pay

Commentary: Spammers must pay 12/16/2003 11:19 AM
CNET Dec 16 2003 10:49AM ET

Spammers target home PCs

Spammers target home PCs 03/06/2004 02:00 AM
BBC Mar 5 2004 9:22AM GMT

Hurricanes Affecting Spammers?

Hurricanes Affecting Spammers? 09/16/2004 03:14 PM

AOL, Earthlink sue alleged spammers

AOL, Earthlink sue alleged spammers 02/19/2004 12:04 AM
Two major Internet service providers, EarthLink Inc. and America Online (AOL), have filed civil complaints against two alleged spam rings this week in an attempt to save their subscribers from unwanted commercial e-mail.

In (Sort Of) Defense of Spammers

In (Sort Of) Defense of Spammers 02/18/2004 02:52 PM

FTC Recommends Bounty on Spammers

FTC Recommends Bounty on Spammers 09/16/2004 10:38 PM

Microsoft takes on eight more spammers

Microsoft takes on eight more spammers 06/11/2004 10:01 AM
Computer Shopper Jun 11 2004 2:13PM GMT

Microsoft sues eight spammers

Microsoft sues eight spammers 06/11/2004 01:07 PM
Microsoft has filed lawsuits against eight spammers under a new antispam law that went into effect in January. Microsoft accuses them of violating the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act. The spammers spoofed their domains, routed their email through open proxies, and used misleading subject lines. The spammers sent millions of emails for body-part enlargement pills, dating services and get-rich-quick schemes.

US ponders $250,000 bounty on spammers

US ponders $250,000 bounty on spammers 09/20/2004 04:57 PM

Hurricanes Don't Stop Spammers

Hurricanes Don't Stop Spammers 09/16/2004 05:14 PM
For years, the refrain has been that many spammers seem to make their home in Florida, so when a few people noticed their spam levels dropping recently, they assumed it must be due to all those hurricanes in Florida. So are spammers shutting down their servers and evacuating? Business Week doesn't think so, though, a few of the spamming operations they contacted in Florida did admit to taking a few days off. Still, it looks like there was barely a dent in overall spam production, and there are clearly enough spammers elsewhere to pick up the slack.

PlayStation spammers refund $25,000

PlayStation spammers refund $25,000 02/12/2004 05:46 AM
ZDNet UK Feb 12 2004 10:32AM GMT
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Spammers 'repent'

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