E-Mail Spammer Jailed

[Connie]

http://www.jaguarpc.com/blog/archives/83

[Gwaihir]

According to Forbes this guy is such a big fish that we should be able to actually notice a drop in spam now his activities have ended.

[Vin DSL]

Oh, gosh, don't know about you, but that makes me *feel* better... a sacrificial lamb!

What a joke!

It's like the 1000s of death-row inmates we have, here in the USA.

In a just society, they would all be put to death tomorrow... but, no, they drag one away from basketball and weight-lifting even once in a while and kill them, to keep the sheeple happy.

This spammer doesn't mean jack!

[CeciliaH]

Eh - Catch one - another 5 will pick up the slack. Theres simply way too much money in spamming to just let it go. He probably has such an extensive network that he can "hire" a few people to run it on his behalf while he deals with the legalities -shrug-

[Vin DSL]

Eh... another 5 will pick up the slack...

Exactly!

It's just another useless societal 'feel good' gesture...

[the_ancient]

According to Forbes this guy is such a big fish that we should be able to actually notice a drop in spam now his activities have ended.

I am sure his bot net was sold/taken over before the police made the arrest, if it was not, it will be after all he has to pay the lawyers some how, what better way

[Gwaihir]

Exactly!

It's just another useless societal 'feel good' gesture...

I'd like to think sending such folk to jail for quite a while does have some deterring effect. If not, well to see action like this taken indeed does help me feel good and I like to feel good, so I don't think that's useless.

[the_ancient]

I'd like to think sending such folk to jail for quite a while does have some deterring effect.

No it just sends them outside of the US, most of the big spammers are already outside the Long Arm of the US Legal System.

[Gwaihir]

Sends them? You think (m)any folk would immigrate over that? I'd rather look at it the other way around: if they can keep some 300 million people from spamming (US population), that's a very nice contribution. And US is far from the only country with anti-spam laws, ours (Netherlands) for example are showing to be quite effective.

As for reach: if they are willing to risk international relations over some mp3s (AlllofMP3.com), can't they exert some pressure here and there regarding spamming as well? About that pretty much EVERYONE agrees that it's nothing but a damned money eating nuisance.

[Spathiphyllum]

Go after the company that hires the spammer, not the spammer. Sure, if you can jail the spammer or fine him out of existence, then go ahead if convenient. The real target, though, is the company that uses the spammer even if it goes through some laundering middlemen.

Hopefully the fine will be substantial and a disincentive high enough for him to quit rather than some quick jaunt through the prison only to reunite with all of that stashed cash after good behavior.

[the_ancient]

Sends them? You think (m)any folk would immigrate over that? I'd rather look at it the other way around: if they can keep some 300 million people from spamming (US population), that's a very nice contribution. And US is far from the only country with anti-spam laws, ours (Netherlands) for example are showing to be quite effective.

and many more are not, aka China, Russia, etc

As for reach: if they are willing to risk international relations over some mp3s (AlllofMP3.com), can't they exert some pressure here and there regarding spamming as well? About that pretty much EVERYONE agrees that it's nothing but a damned money eating nuisance.

ROFL risk international Relations? We cant get support over REAL problems like Proliferation of Nuclear Arms, you really think Russia (allofMP3) gives a a damn about some MP3's? OMG that is the funniest thing I have heard this decade


BTW, the Largest Spam Bot net is controlled by a Russian

[the_ancient]

Go after the company that hires the spammer, not the spammer. Sure, if you can jail the spammer or fine him out of existence, then go ahead if convenient. The real target, though, is the company that uses the spammer even if it goes through some laundering middlemen.

Hopefully the fine will be substantial and a disincentive high enough for him to quit rather than some quick jaunt through the prison only to reunite with all of that stashed cash after good behavior.

Most Reputable business are not using the Spam Nets, Infact most Spamm today is done with one goal in mind, ID THEFT, the web sites you go to via the links in spam or either the Spoofed or Fake business' set up for this purpose.

[Ron]

The simplest way to stop this stuff in its tracks would be to make every ISP responsible for packets leaving their network. (No spoofed headers, or return email addies.) Then a few laws regarding spoofing headers and unsolicited commercial ads and.... voila.

Any compromised machine would be able to spam only their neighbors on their network before the first intelligent router (if the spambot could figure out how to do that). See how fast an ISP would shut down someone on their own net spamming their own customers

If a country doesn't play along with the requirements, then their email packets can't come into a country that does. Maybe all of their packets; Sorry. So Russia can keep spamming Nigeria and vice versa all they want.

[Spathiphyllum]

OMG that is the funniest thing I have heard this decade

Um, you need to get out more.

...Most Reputable business are not using the Spam Nets, Infact most Spamm today is done with one goal in mind, ID THEFT...

Hey, get the few reputable ones and all of the disreputable ones. I don't have any problem with that. As far as ID theft, yeah, that's a problem... and the penance for that should be considerably harsher. I'd consider that something like aggravated robbery.


Ron, I thought about suggesting that (whether at the ISP or, more globally, at backbone providers) but figured it might be too heavy-handed. If the trend continues, I imagine such assigned responsibility will become inevitable.

I'd actually like to see some sort of fee structure on emailings to control email abuse such that certain volumes become cost prohibitive. I'm sure there will always be methods to get around whatever limiter is implemented, but a few roadblocks would likely prove useful.

[Ron]

I don't think that the backbone level is granular enough, and I think it might be too difficult a task at that level, too.

I know it wouldn't be fun, but JAG's routers could look at every packet leaving the facility and ensure it wasn't spoofed; it's return address matched the sender's IP or was one of JAG's, or was on some sort of an exception list. That email domains matched a senders' authority. Stuff like that. It would have to be in the routers, I'd guess.