what is wrong with this picture?
NewsScan Daily, 15 May 2003 ("Above The Fold")
[offlist]
on the positive side, it's clear from the spam summit a week ago that the
FTC has done the math and understands what the score is, and is being as
agressive as their budget and their mandate from congress allows.
unfortunately, until proper legislation is passed, they are to some degree
hamstrung by said mandate from congress.
richard
At least it is a step in the right direction. If this person is convicted
it's one less spammer to worry about (even though that's like saying it's
one less ant to worry about). I would really love to see some solid
legislation on convicting spammers but the way congress is, it could take
years 
Maybe, JUST maybe this case will deter other spammers - but I doubt it!
Chris
what is wrong with this picture?
apart from the fact you've confused nanog with spam-l?
this exemplifies the corporate and legislative attempt to confuse
spam == uce with forgery. if they can make the latter the issue,
this leaves the way completely clear for unsolicited commercial
email from the corporate sector which now fills our post boxes with
ground trees.
Carmack stole identities to sign up for Earthlink accounts. Don't confuse this with putting someone else's email address in his ratware.
And the thing that protects us against unsolicited commercial email from the corporate sector is ISPs enforcing their AUPs. Spammers forge, steal, hijack to avoid AUP enforcement.
Maybe, JUST maybe this case will deter other spammers - but I doubt it!
at best it will deter other header forgers. while it is true that this
is good, i predict that in 3-5 years, the level of spam will be the
same, but it will all come from the corporates with un-forged headers.
look in your post box. listen to the radio. watch television in the
states.
randy
on the positive side, it's clear from the spam summit a week ago that the
FTC has done the math and understands what the score is, and is being as
agressive as their budget and their mandate from congress allows.unfortunately, until proper legislation is passed, they are to some degree
hamstrung by said mandate from congress.
ack
randy
well, that was supposed to be offlist. oops.
sorry about that,
richard
This issue is not just that the spammer in question forged headers, this
person also used stolen credit card numbers to sign up for new accounts to
thwart Earthlink's abuse department. I suspect this will be the core of
the fraud case - any activity involving use of stolen card numbers over
telecomunications networks is wire fraud. There may also have been
fraudulent claims made in some of the UCE emails (yes, shocking! 
Kudos to Mary Youngblood at Eathlink for going after this guy...
- Daniel Golding
One bit of insight to take away from this is the fact that if he was forced to commit
identity theft and fraud in order to continue his spamming, then obviously we're doing
/something/ right...
The flip side is the realization that professional spamming is lucrative enough that
at least for one person, it was worth the risk of breaking the law in order to keep it
up.
-C
The flip side is the realization that professional spamming is lucrative
enough that at least for one person, it was worth the risk of breaking
the law in order to keep it up.
Don't know about that, he couldn't make the $20K bail...
Charles
what is wrong with this picture?
> this exemplifies the corporate and legislative attempt to confuse
> spam == uce with forgery. if they can make the latter the issue,
> this leaves the way completely clear for unsolicited commercial
> email from the corporate sector which now fills our post boxes with
> ground trees.
Well, the issues are perhaps a little more complex than you're portraying
them. J.I. and I spent the better part of two years working on the
California law, which has a similar provision.
From a customer's point of view, spam is anything they didn't want to
receive.
From an ISP's point of view, spam is anything that was sent or
received without having been paid for.
From a politician's point of view, spam is non-political UCE.
These are almost wholly incompatible views.
One thing that everybody can get together on is that if someone sends spam
(for _any_ of those values of "spam") using a forged source address,
that's bad.
Thus, it's easy to get a provision through which puts heavy penalties on
source-address forgery, even if nobody can agree on what spam itself is.
-Bill
^^^
Sorry, J.D., as in Falk. It's very early here.
-Bill
Well... I consider stupidity the only offense worth the death penalty.
--vadim
Vadim Antonov wrote:
Well... I consider stupidity the only offense worth the death penalty.
Sadly it is not always self-fatal. Sadly, the stupid are usually promoted or
elected. All over.
Peter
Well... I consider stupidity the only offense worth the death penalty.
--vadim
you should hope you're always in the position of being the judge, then.
s.