Ante_Spam's Electronic ANTISPAM Workshop

New antispam efforts aren't expected to end the scourge

2003-12-26T21:47:00.000-08:00

==============================

Now Look-a-here..
already they are trying to gauge The
Effectiveness of legislation with this new
Canned Spam Act; Personally I know that it
needs to be investigated to insure success.

maybe that's what they're proposing..
I sure hope so, This Holiday Spam
has been thick as a Canned Ham.

and I don't even eat pork,,oh nooooo!!!!!

Damn,,

Ante' Spam

==================================

Antispam Law's Effectiveness Doubted

Tech leaders in business expect to keep their spam filters in place despite new law.

http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,aid,114046,00.asp

Grant Gross, IDG News Service
Wednesday, December 24, 2003

WASHINGTON -- An antispam bill that was poised to become law in the new year may do little to stem the barrage of junk e-mail, according to corporate information and technology officers who deal with the problem daily.

The legislation, called the CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act, was signed into law by President George W. Bush earlier in December.

It requires senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail to let recipients opt out of future mailings, sets penalties for sending deceptive messages, and begins the process of creating a national Do Not Spam list. The measure requires all e-mail advertising--not just unsolicited messages--to include a valid reply-to address, a valid postal address, and accurate headers and subject lines.

Concerns Remain
But CIOs say it won't work, since so much spam comes from outside the United States.

Tod Ferran, CIO of Riverton Motor, an auto dealership based in Sandy, Utah, says you'd need "the authority of a world government" to enforce such a law. Instead, he favors a technological solution. The open-source Mozilla e-mail system he uses includes a junk e-mail filtering feature, he notes. He also recommends "education of the public" to not respond to spam solicitations.

Matt Kesner, chief technology officer of the Fenwick & West law firm based in Mountain View, California, says he thinks legislating against spam is worth a try. Still, he questions why Congress would pass a bill that would trump a strong new California antispam law.

That measure, passed in September but overruled by the federal law, would have required marketers to get permission from or have an existing business relationship with a recipient before sending e-mail. Without better technological and legal solutions, Kesner says he's afraid "we'll get to the point where we accept e-mail only from people we know."
===========================================

Spam Laws: Bark or Bite?

New antispam efforts aren't expected to end the scourge.

Tom Spring
From the January 2004 issue of PC World magazine
Posted Thursday, December 04, 2003

http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,aid,113633,00.asp

If you're cheering about the recent progress toward antispam laws and a proposed national do-not-spam list, you should hold your applause: Neither is expected to vanquish spam, and they both might block e-mail you want to get.

California has adopted an antispam law, and Congress is still considering the federal CAN-SPAM Act (see highlights of each, "What the Antispam Laws Do"). The federal bill is a good first effort, says Jared Blank, a Jupiter Research analyst. But Blank believes the California law will hurt thousands of honest businesses, and that both efforts will ultimately fail to curb most spam--primarily because the slimiest spammers won't follow the law and will likely move offshore to try to stay beyond its reach.

In the meantime, legitimate businesses are nervously paring their marketing lists, afraid of being fined for communicating with customers.

Getting Tough
California's law, taking effect January 1, is the stricter of the two. Companies that send marketing information and sponsored newsletters by e-mail are concerned.

They warn of a cottage industry for "spambulance" chasers--lawyers who pursue well-heeled newsletter advertisers. (Editor's note: PC World produces a number of e-mail newsletters that are supported by advertising.)

Michael Mayor, the president of NetCreations, which builds double opt-in e-mail lists for businesses, says that he's dropping all California e-mail addresses from the database. New Yorka??based retailer Silberman's Army & Navy fears the law will prevent e-mail promotion of its Working Gear Web site. "There is a strong probability that someone on any list we acquire could be a lawsuit," says Dave Zabell, a consultant.

Microsoft, several ISPs, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation support the law. "The California law will for the first time give us some recourse to go after these guys," says Craig Newmark, founder of the popular Craigslist Web site.

The CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act has U.S. Senate approval and is now under consideration in the House, where it could pass by the time you read this.

"This legislation is an important step toward giving consumers more control," says Senate sponsor Ron Wyden (D-Oregon).

Diverse Support
Supporters include the Telecommunications Research and Action Center, an advocacy group, as well as the National Consumers League and Consumer Action.

"I believe the potential of this medium is at stake," says Sam Simon, who chairs the Telecommunications Research and Action Center. "[Spam] is out of control."

Businesses' key concern with the act's proposed national do-not-spam list is that spammers won't abide by the list anyway, while legitimate small companies will face a huge burden, says John Rizzi, CEO of E-Dialog, an e-marketing firm. "Spammers are not people who pay a lot of attention to legal rules," agrees J. Howard Beales III, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.

"There is still no silver bullet for spam," says Louis Mastria, director of public and international affairs for the Direct Marketing Association, an industry group that includes both e-mail and traditional mail marketers.

For the foreseeable future, update your spam filters and keep hitting .

-------------------------------------------------------

What the Antispam Laws Do -
California Spam Law (formerly SB 186)

Unsolicited commercial e-mail may not be sent from California or to a California address.
The law applies to senders as well as to advertisers on whose behalf messages are sent.
Damages may be up to $1000 for each message sent to an individual, and up to $1 million per incident.
Exempted are companies that you (the e-mail recipient) have done business with, as well as companies whose commercial messages you have opted to receive.

Federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003(S. 877)

Unsolicited commercial e-mail must be labeled, and must include opt-out instructions and the sender's physical address.
Deceptive subject lines and false headers are prohibited.
Violators face jail sentences of up to a year and fines of up to $1 million. Repeat offenders face jail terms of up to five years.
Federal law preempts any state laws that prohibit unsolicited commercial e-mail outright.
The FTC is authorized to establish a "do-not-e-mail" registry.

E-mail ‘Cluster Bombs’ Are Next Online Scourge

2003-12-22T09:48:00.000-08:00

=======================

Dig This,
E-mail ‘Cluster Bombs’ Are Next Online Scourge
What ??

Ante' Spam

----------------------------------------------------

E-mail ‘Cluster Bombs’ Are Next Online Scourge
Direct Newsline - a daily marketing newsletter, Dec 16 2003

http://directmag.com/ar/marketing_email_cluster_bombs/index.htm

Online marketers beware. What if someone’s e-mail inbox was inundated with hundreds or thousands of messages in a short period because of your Web site? It would paralyze online activities, the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal reported.

This e-mail onslaught are called “cluster bombs.” They work by locating a flaw in some Web sites that allow “the bomber” to pose as a victim and fill out Web site forms, like those that allow the user to sign up for a mailing list. Then, software called agents, Web-crawlers and scripts could be used to fill in thousands of forms immediately in that person’s name. That results in a “cluster bomb” of unwanted automatic reply e-mail messages to the victim, the Journal said.

The solution, said researchers at Indiana University Bloomington who identified the problem, is to set up the subscription system so that the user sends their own e-mail confirming registration, instead of the system automatically sending an e-mail back.

----------------------------------------------------

Bush Signs Anti-Spam Legislation

2003-12-16T20:43:00.000-08:00

================================

Dig This,
The Government finally does something,
now lets see it it's effective.

God Knows We Sure Need Somthin,

Ante' Spam

-------------------------------------------
========================
-------------------------------------------

Bush Signs Anti-Spam Legislation
By DEB RIECHMANN

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=FF-APO-1151&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20031216%2F181192984.htm&sc=1151

WASHINGTON (AP) - A new law that President Bush signed Tuesday will outlaw shady techniques used by some of the Internet's most prolific e-mailers, but the government still hasn't decided if it will create a do-not-spam registry of e-mail users.
``Spam, or unsolicited e-mails, are annoying to consumers and costly to our economy,'' White House press secretary Scott McClellan said after Bush signed the bill.

The law will prohibit senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail from disguising their identities by using false return addresses or misleading subject lines, and it will prohibit senders from harvesting addresses off Web sites.

``This will help address the problems associated with the rapid growth and abuse of spam by establishing a framework of technological, administrative, civil and criminal tools, and by providing consumers with options to reduce the volume of unwanted e-mail,'' McClellan said.

The law was applauded by representatives of Internet providers Earthlink and America Online who attended the bill-signing ceremony, along with several lawmakers.

``Combined with enforcement under state anti-spam laws, as well as damage lawsuits by Internet service providers, we hope to turn the tide against outlaw spammers,'' AOL Chairman Jon Miller said.

Under the law, the Federal Trade Commission is required to study the idea of setting up a do-not-spam registry modeled after the national do-not-call list of people who don't want to get telephone solicitations. The FTC, which must deliver a plan to Congress within six months, has expressed doubts that a registry is feasible, but lawmakers, including Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., are adamant about getting one established.

``We will be vigilant to make sure that the no-spam registry is adopted by the FTC and if they refuse, we believe Congress will move the legislation forward,'' Schumer said.

Some critics of the new law are angry because the federal law nullifies stronger anti-spam legislation passed in California and other states. They also say the federal law does not keep e-mail users in America from receiving spam from other nations.

The California law would have required businesses to get an Internet user's permission before sending them any e-mail advertisement, said California State Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, who helped write it.

``If Congress really had an interest in putting spammers out of business, it would have used California's new law as a model, put a bounty on the head of every single spammer and let as many people as possible go after them, just like we do with junk faxers.''

Marketers who peddle goods and services through e-mail ads said they supported parts of the law because it distinguishes legitimate commercial e-mail from unlawful spam and imposes criminal penalties, including jail time, on spammers. However, the Direct Marketing Association, a trade group for businesses interested in interactive and database marketing, said it remains concerned about the creation of a government-run do-not-e-mail registry.

12/16/03 18:11

Congress Votes to Can Spam

2003-12-08T23:35:00.000-08:00

Finally,

Ante' Spam

==========================

Congress Votes to Can Spam

Associated Press
Story location:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,61518,00.html

03:40 PM Dec. 08, 2003 PT

WASHINGTON -- Congress on Monday approved the first national effort to stem the flood of unwanted e-mail pitches offering prescription drugs, cheap loans and other come-ons.

President Bush has indicated he intends to sign the measure into law. Indeed the White House revamped its own e-mail system this summer over a flood of so-called spam.

Clogged inboxes have become a leading irritation among Internet users, an increasing business expense for companies and a popular target for Washington interest before an election year.

"Today, it's a nightmare that threatens to overwhelm people's legitimate use of the Internet," said Rep. Heather Wilson, (R-New Mexico). "All the technologies and the filters have failed to keep our inboxes free of junk."

The House voted without dissent to approve slight changes Senate lawmakers made to the "can spam" legislation, which would outlaw the shadiest techniques used by the Internet's most prolific e-mailers, who send tens of millions of messages each day.

The bill would supplant tougher anti-spam laws already passed in some states, including a California law that takes effect Jan. 1.

The bill was among the farthest-reaching Internet measures approved during Bush's term, which has largely continued the Clinton administration's hands-off approach toward regulating America's technology industry. The last such major legislation was a 1998 law banning websites from collecting personal information from children under 13.

The anti-spam bill encourages the Federal Trade Commission to create a do-not-spam list of e-mail addresses and includes penalties for spammers of up to five years in prison in rare circumstances. The Senate previously voted 97-0 to approve the bill.

The legislation would prohibit senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail from disguising their identity by using a false return address or misleading subject line. It also would prohibit senders from harvesting addresses off websites and require such e-mails to include a mechanism so recipients could indicate they did not want future mass mailings.

"This is one of the more sweeping Internet regulatory schemes we've seen," said Alan Davidson of the Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology. Although he criticized parts of the anti-spam bill, he said consumer frustration was driving lawmakers.

"Most people are going to be glad this bill is heading to the president soon," he said.

Some critics said the bill didn't go far enough to discourage unwanted e-mails. The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail called the congressional effort "really disappointing." The group prefers a law requiring marketers to obtain someone's permission before sending them any e-mails. It said the alternative method of consumers asking marketers not to send them any more messages hasn't worked.

"What Congress is effectively doing is ignoring these laws that haven't worked everywhere else they've tried," said the group's spokesman, John Mozena. "This bill fails the most basic tests for anti-spam legislation; it doesn't tell anybody not to spam."

Spam Slayer: Ten Tips and Tricks

2003-11-24T17:04:00.000-08:00

==============================================

Dig This,

Ante' Spam
==============================================

Technology - PC World

Spam Slayer: Ten Tips and Tricks
Mon Nov 24, 3:00 AM ET

Tom Spring, PCWorld.com

Watch out for worms bearing spam. A nasty spam-based worm called MiMail.J is crawling into in-boxes. This sequel to the MiMail worm also masquerades as a PayPal message urging victims to click on an attachment to update their PayPal-related financial and personal data. MiMail.J goes one step further and requests credit card and Social Security (news - web sites) numbers. The attached program is named either "InfoUpdate.exe" or "www.paypal.com.pif." Be sure to update your virus definitions and scan those attached files.
How satisfied are you with your e-mail software? Does it block spam and do everything it should? Does important e-mail get lost in the weeds? Are hundreds of megabytes of spam saved and hidden on your PC?

Spam can make your e-mail software feel more like a garbage can than a mailbox. Because no e-mail software is perfect, here are some tips to help turn your e-mail client into an easier-to-use, more reliable messaging client--without requiring a software upgrade.

Free of Distractions

Spam and other e-mail messages not directly addressed to you can crowd your in-box to the point that important e-mail gets lost. You can create a rule in Outlook Express 6 that puts any e-mail messages not addressed directly to you in a separate bulk e-mail folder.

To create the rule, go to Tools, Message Rules, and Mail. Next, click on the New Rule tab and create a new rule. You'll want to check the box labeled "Where the To line contains people". In the box below, click on the blue underlined words "contains people". You'll want to add your e-mail address and click Add. Now click on Options and choose "Message does not contain the people below", and select OK and OK. Now put a checkmark in "Move it to the specified folder" and click the blue underlined word "specified". Lastly create a new folder named Bulk e-mail, highlight it and hit OK and OK. If you use Netscape's e-mail software, go to Tools, Message Filters, and New. Select "Match all of the following" and use the Subject drop-down menu and select "To." Add your own e-mail address and then in the box at the bottom of the window select Red. That way all e-mail addressed directly to you will be highlighted red in your in-box and hard to miss.

Attachments Blocked?

Last year, Microsoft distributed a security update for Outlook Express 5 and 6 that changed the program's settings. Users who installed the update found that file attachments to e-mail messages were automatically blocked. The change was to prevent attachments that harbored viruses from being downloaded and launched within your in-box. This is a great feature for Net novices, but for advanced users it can be frustrating. To disable the feature, follow these steps, but be sure to scan attachments for viruses before opening them.

In Outlook Express, click Tools, Options, and the Security tab. Next, uncheck the box that says "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus."

Delete Mystery Spam

Outlook and Netscape share a habit of backing up deleted e-mail in Outlook's Deleted and Netscape's Trash folders. Microsoft's product saves up to 2GB of old Outlook e-mail even after you've deleted the messages from your Deleted folder. I found 300MB of mostly spam messages I thought had been deleted from my Netscape Trash folder. It's not easy to recover these messages if you needed them, and why waste hard drive space saving spam, anyway?

Deleting trashed messages cluttering up your hard disk in Netscape is a challenge. Go to Start, Search, Files and Folders, and select "All Files and Folders." Be sure to select "Search hidden files and folders" by expanding the "More advanced options" menu option. Search for the word "trash." Search results will deliver a number of folders containing files named "trash." The one to delete is likely the largest in file size and will follow the convention:

"C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\ApplicationData\Mozilla\Profiles\default\5z3f9dp.slt\Mail\pop. YOURISP.com".

In older versions of Windows the file path will look like this:

"C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\YOURUSERNAME\Mail".

It's okay to delete this file as the Netscape program automatically regenerates the folder.

In Outlook, hidden e-mail is a lot easier to delete. First, go to Tools and Empty the "Deleted Items" Folder. To prevent Outlook from storing deleted messages in the future, go to Tools, Options, select the Other tab, and check the box "Empty The Deleted Items Folder Upon Exiting."

Avoid Chat Room Spam

Spammers are notorious for trolling AOL chat rooms hunting fresh spam meat. To minimize spam, create a decoy screen name just for chatting.

Put Hotmail on a Spam Holiday

If you're on vacation and away from your Hotmail account, you probably dread the spam that awaits your return. To prevent spam overload and trick spammers into thinking your e-mail address is no longer active, you can close your Hotmail account for up to 90 days. But if you abandon your account for more than 90 days, you can kiss your Hotmail user name goodbye. Closing your account means you cannot send or receive messages, and stored e-mail and addresses are deleted.

Spammers will think your e-mail address is dead and the spam onslaught will subside. On the flip side, your friends will think your e-mail address is dead as well, so don't forget to inform them. To re-activate your account, just sign back on to Hotmail within 90 days.

Never Read Spam Twice
It's bad enough you get tricked into reading spam once. But if your Outlook or Outlook Express clients don't immediately display messages as read when you read them, you may end up rereading spam. Here's how to mark a message as read (or unbold e-mail messages) in your in-box the instant you click on it.

First go to Tools, Options, and select the Other tab. Now click on the Preview Pane option in Outlook Express (Outlook 2003 calls it the Reading Pane) and check the box next to "Mark messages as read in preview window." Select 0 as the number of seconds you want to wait before marking the message as read.

In Outlook Express, go to Tools, Options, and select the Read tab. To the right of "Mark messages read after displaying for" change the time to 0 seconds.

Shut Up About Spam
A notification feature intended to alert you when you've got e-mail can drive you nuts. If you use a Windows XP (news - web sites) and XP Pro computer with multiple user profiles, every time you log onto your desktop a message relates how many unread e-mail messages you have.

To prevent this notification nag, you need to find out which programs generate them. XP typically culls new message information from your Outlook Express e-mail client and your Messenger client that is tied to an MSN or Hotmail account.

To prevent Messenger from informing you of new e-mail messages, go to the Messenger program's Tools menu and then select Options. Next, select the Preferences tab and uncheck "Run this program when Windows starts." In Outlook Express, go to Tools, Options, and click on the General tab. Deselect both "Automatically log on to Windows Messenger" and "Send and receive messages at startup."

Nag Messages, Part II
You can also prevent new e-mail alerts from popping up out of your system tray for Hotmail, MSN, and Outlook.

To prevent Messenger telling you about every new e-mail message, open Messenger, click on the Tools menu, and select Options. Next, select the Preferences tab and uncheck "Display alerts when e-mail arrives."

In Outlook Express, go to Tools, Options, and click on the General tab. Next, go to the "Check for new messages" box and max out the times Outlook checks for new messages to 480-minute intervals. The trade-off is that you will have to manually hit Send/Receive in Outlook to check for messages.

In Outlook 2003, go to the Tools menu bar, select Options, and click E-mail Options. Now, click on Advanced E-mail Options, and customize the "When new items arrive in my In-box" section.

A Nice New Ring to Spam
If you like new message alerts but are sick of the sounds of the alerts, you can change or silence the programs that generate them. Go to Start/Settings/Control Panel and select Sounds and Audio Devices. Here you can modify Windows sounds. Simply click on the Sounds tab and scroll down in the Program Events field and find your e-mail or messaging client and change or remove the sound.

Make Filters Mobile
If you've painstakingly created spam and e-mail filter rules for your Netscape e-mail client and want to set up Netscape on a new PC, here's how to take your filter rules with you.
Go to Start, Search, Files and Folders, and select All Files and Folders. You'll want to make sure you selected "Search hidden files and folders" by expanding the "More advanced options" menu option. Search for the word "msgfilterrules." Search results may deliver a number of folders with the msgfilterrules file in it. The one you are looking for when using Windows XP and XP Pro will be associated with your ISP and will follow the convention:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\ApplicationData\Mozilla\Profiles\default\6y2pe1cq.slt\Mail\pop.YOURISP.com

For Netscape Junk mail control rules (Spam/Junk mail controls), you need to look for training.dat file in your "slt" folder located here:

C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\ApplicationData\Mozilla\Profiles\default\5z3f9dp.slt
Q&A
Q.Periodically I receive e-mail full of nonsense words in the subject line and message body. Other times I get e-mail with nothing but funny-looking characters that don't look like letters. What is behind these mystery messages?

--Bill B.

A. What looks like gibberish may be one of two things. Unintelligible text in a subject line or body of an e-mail is likely spam written in a foreign language. Often e-mail software chokes on foreign characters. Not able to convert foreign characters, e-mail programs display them as characters such as boxes, upside-down question marks, sun symbols, and many others.

There is no sure-fire way to block this type of freaky spam. You might try to copy typical junk characters from one message and paste them into your e-mail software's filter rules.

Random nonsense text in e-mail subject lines like "Hello v13uopn9tt5n22 Yes U can!" and misspelled words are also designed to trick spam filters. By misspelling words, like "best m0rtgage qu0te!s", spammers hope to evade spam filters that identify spam through keywords.

'Cyber Sweep' Nets 125 Arrests

2003-11-20T22:21:00.000-08:00

=============================

Criminals Identifying eachother..
now if the gov't can put them in a room
and get some money out of them for what
they've done to all of us, all of this will be
worth something, maybe.

Stay Tuned,, I know I will -

Ante' Spam

==============================================

'Cyber Sweep' Nets 125 Arrests Wired News Report
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61317,00.html

12:41 PM Nov. 20, 2003 PT

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday that law-enforcement agents had arrested 125 suspects in a crackdown on Internet crimes ranging from hacking and software piracy to credit card fraud and selling stolen goods over the Internet.

The investigation, begun Oct. 1 and dubbed Operation Cyber Sweep, involved police from Ghana to Southern California and uncovered 125,000 victims who had lost more than $100 million, he told a news conference. Seventy indictments to date have led to arrests or convictions of 125 people, with more expected as the probe continues.

"The information superhighway should be a conduit for communication, information and commerce, not an expressway for crime," Ashcroft said.

Those arrested stand charged with a variety of crimes that highlight the innumerable scams and criminal acts that now take place online.

‘‘Online criminals assume that they can conduct their schemes with impunity," Ashcroft said. ‘‘Operation Cyber Sweep is proving them wrong, by piercing the criminals' cloak of anonymity and prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law."

The cases range from a Virginia woman who sent fake e-mails to America Online customers asking them to update their credit card numbers to a disgruntled Philadelphia Phillies fan who hacked into computers nationwide and launched spam e-mails criticizing the baseball team.

Many are accused of selling stolen or nonexistent goods online, a leading cybercrime category. Suspects fenced stolen goods through online auction sites like eBay, set up phony escrow services to handle payments, and touted fraudulent investment clubs through slick websites, according to a summary of cases provided by the Department of Justice.

Suspects also stole classified files from government computers, hacked into business computers to steal customers' credit card numbers, disabled computers running child-abuse hotlines, and sold counterfeit software or computer-memory chips, the Justice Department said.

It said one California man continued to send online death threats to a Canadian who he thought was sending him spam e-mail even after authorities asked him to stop.

U.S. Secret Service agents worked with foreign law enforcers to track down suspects who operated across international borders, leading to the arrest of a Romanian man who they said bilked some $500,000 from online auction participants.

Authorities in Ghana and Nigeria also helped track down suspects and recover millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.

The crackdown stemmed from indications that Internet fraud continues to rise. The Internet Fraud Complaint Center, run in part by the FBI, referred some 58,000 complaints to law enforcement in the first nine months of 2003 -- compared with 48,000 for all of 2002.

Chief Postal Inspector Lee Heath said many suspects were simply transferring time-honored scams to the Internet.

"We'd like to say it's just old wine in a new bottle," he said.

Federal agents said they had not yet found the perpetrators of the Blaster worm and SoBig e-mail virus that disabled millions of computers this summer, but had gained some valuable leads, thanks to a reward program set up by Microsoft.

A similar cybercrime sweep in the first half of the year led to 135 arrests.

Reuters and AP contributed to this report.

Spammers now clogging blogs, cell phones, IMs

2003-11-19T12:14:00.000-08:00

================================

and today's Nonsense is all about
spamming Personal Devices.

the government should be heating up some
branding irons, and lining the heads of these companies
up in front of the Lincoln Memorial - tagging em with spam,,

Who thinks this is going to end here..
Oh-Nooo,,

Ante' Spam

================================

Posted on Thu, Nov. 13, 2003

Spammers now clogging blogs, cell phones, IMs

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/7254592.htm

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - Three years ago, Adam Kalsey set up a Web log to share his thoughts about online business and the digital revolution. Like countless other ``bloggers,'' he lets his readers post comments on his entries.

Recently, his site has been getting remarks like ``Thanks for the information!'' and ``Sounds great!'' They're not from supporters, but from people -- or machines -- who leave names like ``Generic Viagra,'' ``Online Gambling'' and ``Free Poker'' and links to unsavory sites.

Spam has never been limited to e-mail. But now, commercial pitches are increasingly popping up in online chats, instant messages, cell phones with text messaging and, as Kalsey found, Web log comments.

Spammers are flocking to new communications tools like moths to light, threatening to cripple these tools just as they are beginning to take off.

Howard Rheingold, a futurist who predicts always-on communication will revolutionize public discourse, is worried that all these new forms of spam could freeze the revolution in its tracks.

There will be no great social transformation if cell phones are turned off, instant messenger programs shut down or blog comments disabled to halt the flow of offers for online porn or cheap drugs.

``It forces you to either turn off the comments and lose some of the value of the medium, or spend your time deleting spam,'' said Rheingold, who runs his own blog.

Today, most of the attention of lawmakers has been on e-mail spam, which is estimated to comprise nearly half of e-mail traffic. Attempts to write broader laws have not succeeded, and might whittle away at free speech.

``We ought to be legislating general concepts -- things like, you can't market to somebody who's asked you not to,'' said David Sorkin, a professor who studies spam laws at John Marshall Law School. ``But in the case of spam in particular, that hasn't really worked.''

It's possible legislation targeting unwanted e-mail could be used to fight other unwanted communication; text messages on cell phones often originate from e-mail. Laws limiting telemarketing also might be useful.

But that assumes the legislation will work, and that spammers won't move outside the law.

Kalsey, a Web consultant who lives near Sacramento, Calif., has taken matters into his own hands. In fact, many of his comments of late have focused on combatting Web log spam, including the creation of a ``Comment Spam Manifesto.''

Working from the theory that blog spam can be combatted like real-world graffiti, Kalsey tried deleting messages as fast as they appeared. That worked for a few weeks but the volume has recently been increasing.

Now he's tracking down those who leave the comments, collecting evidence and reporting them to their Internet providers and domain registers so their accounts can be canceled. If it sounds like a lot of work, it is. Fortunately, help from others is available.``What you failed to understand is that bloggers are smarter, better connected and more technologically savvy than the average e-mail user,'' it reads, addressing the spammers. ``We control this medium that you are now attempting to exploit. You've picked a fight with us and it's a fight you cannot win.''

``The blog immune system does seem to be responding,'' said Kalsey. ``People are coming up with collective solutions like black lists for spammers. If one person gets spammed, then all the others who use that software can ban them.''

Most of today's comment spam doesn't urge someone to click on the link. Rather, it's posted to boost a site's position on search engines. Web crawling software robots released by search engines notice keywords and links, and that information is used to determine relevancy.

Mena Trott, chief executive of Six Apart, the maker of the popular Web log system Movable Type, said the company is working on updates to make deletion of unwanted messages easier.

Cell phone carriers and providers of instant messaging services, meanwhile, are finding that their spam problems can be much more disruptive to workflow.

For IM, spam is growing just as the technology jumps from personal to business communications. To address the problem, companies are blocking messages from outsiders, instituting ``white lists'' of accepted contacts or not allowing IM at all.

But that's making messaging less convenient.

``In (corporate) instant messaging, we're doing more of a closed approach than what we were seeing with e-mail,'' said Paul Judge, chief technology officer of the antispam firm CipherTrust Inc. and co-chair of the Anti-Spam Research Group.

America Online, the largest instant-messaging provider, has a number of roadblocks in place to halt spam IM, or spim. Among other things, a software sentry looks for spammers -- automated or in-the-flesh -- who try to send multiple messages simultaneously to many people, said spokesman Nicholas Graham.

``All the carriers have been hit with situations like this,'' said Nextel spokeswoman Mila Fairfax. ``Each carrier has applied a filtering system to try to flag messages that appear suspicious to our system.''
Cell phone text message spam can be even more disruptive -- and expensive.

Some Nextel Communications cell phone subscribers recently got a 3:30 a.m. message urging support of the workers in the southern California grocery strike. Another spammer urged a vote in favor of recalling California Gov. Gray Davis.

Aside from early morning annoyance, some plans charge for each message sent or received. Nextel, which last month installed a filtering system, offers refunds to any customers who complain.

``We will be going after (spammers) to the furthest extent of law,'' Fairfax said. ``Anything we can do, we will do.''
------

On the Net:

Spam Law summaries: http://www.spamlaws.com

Six Apart: http://www.sixapart.com

New Virus Appears As Pay Pal scam

2003-11-17T19:31:00.000-08:00

New Virus Appears as Pay Pal Scam

http://www.pcworld.com/resource/printable/article/0,aid,113478,00.asp

Antivirus vendors offer prevention, fixes for snoopy Mimail.
Lincoln Spector, special to PCWorld.com
Monday, November 17, 2003

If you get an e-mail message warning you that your PayPal account is about to expire, don't open it. If you open it, don't double-click the attachment. If you double-click the attachment, don't complete the form asking for your credit card information. And if you do fill in the form, call your credit card company immediately.

And don't blame PayPal. The problem is an e-mail virus, Mimail.I, first spotted on November 13. Most viruses are sick jokes; this one's out to steal your money.

How It Works

It also scours your hard drive for new e-mail addresses to send the same bogus message. These messages, like the one you got, are "spoofed" to appear as if they came from PayPal.Mimail (pronounced "my mail") arrives in an e-mail that appears to be from PayPal. In very convincing language, it states that your account will expire soon unless you resubmit your credit card information. "We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause," the text politely reads.

The letter even appears concerned about your privacy: "Please do not send your personal information through e-mail, as it will not be as secure." Instead, it asks that you run the attached program. That's where you enter your valuable information, which it then sends to four different e-mail addresses

"It appears to be another step in the advancement of spam," says David E. Sorkin, an associate professor with the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law, at John Marshall Law School. "A few months ago there was talk about spammers using viruses to send spam. Now they're using them for fraud."

Bryson Gordon, senior product manager for McAfee's Security Consumer Division, finds this "far more sophisticated in social engineering [than previous worms] ... We're starting to see marked change in the battle with viruses: a worm for profit."

Slow-Moving Pest
Luckily Mimail hasn't spread very far--at least not yet.

"It's not a major event. We're seeing less than a hundred infections overall," says Vincent Weafer, a senior director at antivirus vendor Symantec Security Response.

As Weafer notes, that can change. "103259 Klez sat around for about a week and then shot up," he says. But he doubts this one will spread like Klez. Mimail is a "relatively easy one to explain. You can say 'If you see this, delete it.'"

But justice is not likely to be served. According to Weafer, the culprits will get caught "Only if they're stupid." The logical trail to follow, of course, is the four e-mail addresses embedded in the code, but it's possible to set up anonymous e-mail accounts without identifying yourself, or set up an account with a stolen credit card.

What to Do
One thing is for certain: We'll see this sort of trick again, so it pays to take precautions.

Be suspicious of any e-mail that asks for personal information, security experts advise.

PayPal promises it "will never ask for your password or account information in an e-mail," and most other companies on the Internet do likewise. If an e-mail message contains a link to a form, examine the URL closely--it could be just one letter away from the correct domain name.

Report suspicious e-mail to the company that is allegedly its source. PayPal has an e-mail address, spoof@paypal.com, for just this purpose.

And, of course, keep your antivirus applications and definitions up to date. Users of Symantec's Norton AntiVirus products, as well as security programs from BitDefender and Network Associates, were able to download the appropriate protection by last Friday morning. In addition, both BitDefender and Network Associates offer free Mimail fixes on their Web sites.

Spammers Target Instant Message Users

2003-11-14T07:43:00.000-08:00

Dig This,
SPIM - Talk About Talkin Trash.
I guess this is why I don't really use the chat programs anymore

Enough Already,,

Ante' Spam

==================================

washingtonpost.com

Spammers Target Instant Message Users

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36039-2003Nov13.html

By David McGuire
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Thursday, November 13, 2003; 11:03 AM

Nicole Fann was shocked the first time it happened.

Fann, a consultant at a Northern Virginia high-tech company, was working on her computer when a new window popped up. It was an instant message from someone called "hot_girl" inviting her to "come check out my website."

She had no idea who sent the invitation and didn't trust the dubious nickname, so she blocked the sender from her Microsoft Network instant message account.

"It's just kind of disconcerting, because the only people I give out my IM [instant messaging] ID to are people I know," Fann said. "E-mail is one thing, but to get an instant message is a totally different experience. It's a lot more intrusive and it's a lot more unexpected."

"Spim," as people are beginning to call unsolicited instant messages, is the latest installment in the growing epidemic of unwanted electronic ads and a further sign that unscrupulous online marketers will seek to take advantage of all of the Internet's communication tools, not limiting themselves to spam or pop-up ads.

"This is part of an overall trend to make people watch advertising," said Chris Hoofnagle, associate director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. "It's kind of a forced consumption and we haven't developed the proper tools to ward off this invasion."

Even for people who grudgingly accept that e-mail spam is here to stay, instant message spam is unsettling, not to mention embarrassing. Unlike e-mail, which people can check at their leisure, spim is an intrusion that presents itself on the desktop with all the annoyance of an unexpected pop-up ad.

Reid Dossinger, a Web developer at a Washington, D.C., nonprofit firm, compared it to a salesman pounding at your front door.

"You have the impression that it's just your friends who are connected to you [over IM]," said Dossinger, who has received unsolicited pornography advertisements at his America Online and Microsoft instant messaging accounts. "It feels like somebody just inserting themselves into your group of friends."

It is not even certain whether Fann's message from "hot_girl" was sent by a real person sitting at a computer or whether the message was generated by an automated program designed to send out hundreds of similar messages to random targets.

It would be fairly easy to automate the process, but not as easy as it would be to write a program to send out millions of e-mail messages, said Matthew Prince, chief executive of Chicago-based Unspam, a consulting firm that advises businesses and governments on how to comply with anti-spam laws.

It's difficult to pin down who is behind instant message spam and how it is sent, and there are no solid estimates available to reveal the size of the problem. But the good news for users is that it's not easy for spammers to send thousands or millions of unsolicited instant messages. Instant message providers like AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo have a lot of control over their instant message networks, and these firms are already committing resources to making sure the spim problem never reaches the same scale as spam.

"There's a small number of points of control and the network managers can throttle the spam much more effectively than they can in the distributed architecture of e-mail," said Jason Catlett, president of the anti-spam organization JunkBusters.

AOL, for example, uses "rate limiting" technology that puts a cap on the size of messages users can send as well as how many recipients they can reach.

"I don't think IM spam has become anything on the scale of the problem that regular spam is," AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein said.

Weinstein said AOL has other measures at its disposal to block spim but would not provide details, saying it would give spammers clues to get around those techniques.

One tool AOL Instant Messenger fans can use is the "knock-knock" feature, which allows them to choose whether they want to accept a message from an unknown sender. Instant messaging users also can repeatedly "warn" message spammers until they are temporarily kicked off the network.

"Will they find other ways to get back into the system? Yeah, they probably will, but those tools are effective in slowing [spammers] down," Weinstein said.

Microsoft recently updated its instant messaging products to curb spam, said Sean Sundwall. Customers using the latest versions of the software can only receive messages from their online "buddies."

"IM spam is increasing. It's concerning," Sundwall said. "It has the attention of Congress and the FTC and what we are gearing up for is preventing it from becoming the next big vector for spammers to inundate customers with unwanted messages."

Unlike anonymous spammers, established marketers have not shown much interest in using instant messaging, said Patricia Faley, vice president for ethics and consumer affairs at the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). She said some DMA members have toyed with marketing models that use instant messages for special offers but only after getting a customer's consent.

Faley said the DMA plans to adopt a policy on instant message marketing within the next six months, and the group already is on record opposing "dictionary attacks" where spammers send marketing materials to random accounts.
"We have a policy not to shock, surprise or upset consumers," Faley said.

The Federal Trade Commission is tracking instant message spam but has yet to act on it, said staff attorney Brian Huseman. "We haven't seen a great number of consumer complaints about it so far, but we'll definitely keep an eye on it."

Similarly, Congress and the states have taken no action on instant messaging spam. Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), who sponsored the CAN-SPAM Act that passed the Senate last month, is monitoring the issue and may act on it next year, said spokesman Grant Toomey.

Instant messaging is not a big revenue generator, but companies have good reason to keep their networks clean, said Matt Rosoff, an analyst at Kirkland, Wash.-based Directions on Microsoft. Microsoft and AOL look at their IM offerings as gateway services that help draw customers in to their paid Internet offerings. Staying competitive requires happy customers.

Under that rationale, IM user Dossinger is a perfect example of why instant message spam needs to be stopped before it becomes an epidemic: "If I got even a quarter of the amount of IM spam as I do over e-mail, there's no way I'd still be using it."

Web hijack riles Belkin router users

2003-11-12T06:52:00.000-08:00

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dig This,
Now a peripherals manufacturer feels it's okay to get into
the mix, sending spam directly to your browser with an
implanted bit of Firmware - How Utterly Stoooo-ped,,,

I wonder where this assault will end,,

to quote Lil John and the Eastside Boyz,
"From the Window to the Wall,,,"

Damn,,

Ante' Spam

.................................................................................

Web hijack riles Belkin router users

http://earthlink.com.com/2100-1039_3-5104863.html?tag=st_pop

Last modified: November 10, 2003, 9:39 AM PST
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

(update Belkin is trying to defuse a potentially embarrassing situation that arose after network administrators learned the company's routers can periodically hijack users' Web connection and display an advertisement for parental control software. )

Every eight hours, a random computer that's hooked up to a local area network may receive an unsolicited advertisement for a trial version of parental control software, instead of the Web page the person had hoped to visit. The behavior can be permanently disabled, but it is turned on by default in new Belkin routers when they are shipped.

"We are crafting a statement apologizing and accepting responsibility," a Belkin representative said on Monday. The company said a firmware update, which customers would have the choice of installing, would be available in a week.
Kannyn MacRae, a business unit manager at Belkin, said the advertisements only appear when a customer closes a window in the installation process instead of selecting either the "yes" or "no" options for the 6-month trial.

"If the customer closes the window without giving an answer, then eight hours later they'll be asked again if they want to turn it on or turn it off," MacRae said.

The controversy began on Nov. 4, when a post on the Usenet newsgroup news.admin.net-abuse.email said the unwanted behavior appeared in a router software revision dated Sept. 15, and concluded: "One thing's for sure, I'm never going to buy another Belkin product!"

Scores of network administrators responded in hundreds of follow-up messages over the next several days, with many likening Belkin's decision to VeriSign's move in September to take control of all unassigned .com and .net domain names. The posts, which were primarily angry, warned that Belkin's hijacking could have unintended consequences, such as randomly breaking Web sites' JavaScript files, style sheets, internal frame pages, and Extensible Markup Language data.

Eric Deming, a Belkin product manager, defended the behavior in a follow-up post Friday that defended the practice, saying: "We did this not to be evil, we did this to make sure that any nontechy person (part of our target audience) would have ample opportunity to opt in or out of the free six-month trial of the parental control feature." Deming said the behavior was added in response to "popular demand" and was easy to turn off.

By Monday, however, Deming's post had been deleted from Google Groups, a popular Web front end to Usenet.

Belkin sells networking products, surge protectors, cables, in addition to Universal Serial Bus, FireWire and mobile device accessories. The Compton, Calif.-based company's products with the redirection feature include the 802.11b, 802.11g, and wired routers. Belkin is privately held and reported worldwide sales of over $460 million in 2002.

How to Get Less Junk Mail FAQ - By Chris Hibbert

2003-11-04T22:20:00.000-08:00

This is a very useful FAQ,
I suggest Printing It to use when
going into your anti spam planning strategy session.

Check It Out,,

Ante' Spam

--------------------------------------------------------

Archive-name: privacy/junk-mail
Last-modified: August 29, 1998
Last-modification: updated many addresses
URL: http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/privacy/junkmail.html

How to Get Less Junk Mail

Are you getting unsolicited mail that's more trouble than it's worth? Here
are some things you can do that will give you more control of what comes into
your home. I don't know of anything you can do that will stop the influx
immediately, short of moving and not telling anyone (including creditors,
employer, insurers, old friends, and especially the Post Office). If you're
willing to start slow and spend some time on it, you can slowly cut down the
amount of junk mail you get.

Contents
Introduction
Some simple actions that may help a lot
Handling companies that sell lists
How Companies Get Your Address
How to track the spread of your name
Asking to be removed from a list
Actions that won't help

Questions and Answers
Q1. How do I contact the big companies that sell lists?
Q2. Who else can I get to help me stop the junk mail?
Q3. How do I stop the loose unaddressed flyers I get twice a week?

Dealing with specific types of organizations
mail-order catalogues
Memberships in organizations
phone book listing
warranties/product registration cards
800/900 number services
contests (You may already be a winner!)
credit cards
Change of Address notices

The first thing to realize is that there are several different sources of
junk mail, and there are different things you have to do for each of them.
There are some broad-band tools you can use to stop a lot of junk mail at
once, but these miss some important categories. For the rest, until you
figure out why you got a particular piece of mail, you can't take the action
that will prevent its recurrence. It's important to realize that some
companies maintain their own lists, while other companies buy the lists they
mail to. In the first case, you have to talk to the company that is sending
the mail, and in the second, you have to talk to whoever they bought your
name from.

Some simple actions that may help a lot

One approach attempts to stop all the unsolicited mail at once. The good
part of this approach is that it's not much work, the drawback is that you
may stop receiving some mail that you wanted, but were only getting as a
side-effect of something else. There are several different organizations you
can contact, including the Direct Marketing Association, an organization of
direct mailers. [see Q1.] and a few companies that charge a fee for
individually contacting companies that are sending you mail. [See Q2.]

Among the companies that have their own lists are local merchants who like to
send out periodic reminders, and the national firms that send out twice
weekly piles of advertising to all postal patrons, The two big companies in
this latter business are ADVO ("Mailbox Values") and Harte Hanks
("Potpourri"). [See Q3 for how to deal with these two.] You won't be able
to tell which pieces are coming from mailers who have you directly on their
lists until you've reduced your junk mail to a level that makes it worthwhile
to individually call the sources of the mail you get.

Companies that sell lists

Dealing with re-sold lists is a long process. You have to find out who's
selling your name, and ask them to stop. There are two possible approaches
to tracking down the companies that are selling your name. You can either
ask the companies that are sending you the mail, or you can track the spread
of your name and address.

If you're not getting much junk mail, you can easily call the companies that
sent you something and ask where they got your name. As long as you're
polite, the people in the direct mail department are quite willing to tell
you this. Often they will tell you the names of the two or three places from
whom they bought lists in the last month, and you can figure out which one
knows about you. Other times if you read them the codes on the mailing
label, they can tell you exactly who it was.

You can also head off the problem entirely by always telling organizations
which you deal with through the mail that you don't want them selling your
name. You can do this with a note when you order something or send your
dues, or you can send them a separate note or call their national office on
the phone.

How Companies Get Your Address

Companies compile addresses for their direct marketing lists in a number of
subtle ways, based on innocuous actions you may be taking without realizing
the effects. The most common ways are simply by buying lists from catalog
sales companies and magazing subscription lists. This is an important source
of income to many magazine publishers, and mail-order sales companies.

Another big one is the use of the mail-in warranty registration cards. In
most states, it is illegal to require you to send in the registration in
order to be covered by the warranty. The companies provide the cards in
order to collect names of interested consumers. To be fair, many companies
do offer benefits for sending in the cards that may be worth the chance of
additional junk mail. The toll-free complaint lines provided with consumer
products are also harvested for the addresses of interested customers to
advertise to.

It's important to realize that any time you dial a toll-free number, the
company you called automatically receives access to your phone number. With
the advant of caller ID, many companies can get your number even if you are
paying for the call. In most locations, there are ways to permanently or
temporarily disable caller ID so the called party doesn't learn your number.
Businesses that deal with consumers can easily get reverse-lookup directories
to get your address (and usually your name) from your phone number.

In most states, the Motor Vehicle Department sells address lists. These are
particularly valuable, since they contain the addresses of nearly all adults
in a state.

Most companies you pay bills to--credit card companies, department stores,
phone companies, etc.--also sell address lists.

How to track the spread of your name

If you're getting a fair amount of junk mail, it's probably easier to start
by adding markers to the address used by correspondents you want to continue
to receive mail from. A simple trick you can use is to modify your name in
some way that you keep track of. When you receive something unsolicited in
the mail, you check your list and see where they got your address.

I use different middle initials with different organizations, but you could
also change how you spell your first or last name, or add an apartment number
to your address (or add a superfluous letter to your already-numbered
apartment). If you are dealing with a professional organization, you might
add a title, or a department name.

Asking to be removed from a list

Once you've identified a particular company and want them to remove you from
their list, (either the one they mail to directly, or the one they sell)
there are a few common steps to take. Start by calling customer service and
tell them you want to stop getting mail. Then follow up by keeping track of
mail you get from them, or mail addressed to the name you only use with them.

When you call again in a few weeks or a month (depending on how long they
said it would take), you want to be able to tell them what in particular you
received, and when, so they can figure out which list they missed the first
time. In all cases, be polite, don't refer to "junk mail" unless the clerk
wants to know why you care, and be persistent. If the person you are talking
to doesn't know what to do, ask to speak to their supervisor, and be willing
to patiently explain your predicament again.

Tactics that won't help

I assume that your objective is to receive less mail. You might also be
interested in encouraging mailers to send junk mail less often. The
following are tactics that won't succeed at either of these goals, but (if
you're vindictive) might make you feel better.

Using Business Reply Envelopes to complain will usually not get the attention
of the mailing company. If you attach them to a brick or overfill the
envelope, the post office will discard them. If you send them back empty, or
with a complaint about the catalogue you didn't want, they'll be discarded by
the people who open the envelopes. The mail is usually opened by people who
only get paid for actual orders they pass on to the company, so they don't
often bother to relay complaints or count the number of replies that didn't
contain orders.

Your use of the BRE will cost them money, but they'll never notice it, so
this won't cause them to change the way they do business. (Unless the number
of people sending empty BRE's becomes a substantial fraction of the number
sending orders. This might lower the effectiveness enough that they'd stop
doing mail order. Not likely.)

If you want the company to pay attention, get in touch with their customer
service people. Most of the time, the company never even saw your name, so
they can't do much to keep you from getting future ads. They buy lists from
other companies, and those other companies are the ones you need to get in
touch with. They might be interested if you were offended by their ad, but
otherwise they'll just point out that many people order merchandise from them
in response to the mailing. If you want to stop getting the mail, find out
who they buy names from, and get those people to stop selling your name.

Q1. How do I contact the big companies that sell lists?

A1. The best place to start is the Direct Marketing Association. Their
member organizations are some of the direct mailers who send the stuff.
They apparently don't accept phone calls any more. Their mailing address is

Direct Marketing Association
Mail Preference Service
PO Box 9008
Farmingdale NY 11735

They also have a telemarketing suppression file, which you should also
request explicitly.

Direct Marketing Association
Telemarketing Suppression File
PO Box 9014
Farmingdale NY 11735-9014

Other big list resellers include:

Metromail Corp.
List Maintenance
901 W. Bond
Lincoln, NE 68521

Database America
Compilation Department
100 Paragon Drive
Montvale, NJ 07645-0419

Dunn & Bradstreet
Customer Service
899 Eaton Avenue
Bethlehem, PA 18025

Q2. Who else can help me stop getting junk mail?

A2. This list changes so often, I'm only keeping it on-line. Please take a
look at http://www.cpsr.org/dox/program/privacy/junkmail.html#Q2

Q3. How do I stop the loose unaddressed flyers I get twice a week?

A3. There are two different companies: ADVO ("Mailbox Values") and Harte
Hanks ("Potpourri") that send these out in different areas around the US. The
advertising is sent as a "supplement" to an address card which has the
postage-paid notice on it.

These bundles are sent to every address in the affected areas, and it takes
two separate actions to stop it. First you have to get ADVO or Hart Hanks to
stop printing the address card, and only then can you get your mail carrier
to stop delivering the advertising.

Both ADVO and Harte Hanks have local offices scattered around the country,
and the best way to get off their list is to talk to the local office. The
cards usually have the local phone number on them, or at least an address
(call directory assistance.) Ask for the circulation department, and call
back in a week to check that they really did remove your address. Be
prepared to wait 8 weeks for the mail to stop. They'll occasionally
"accidentally" send out another card, but it's easier to stop them the second
time.

Your postal carrier "knows" that everyone on the route is supposed to get
one, so she'll keep delivering them even if it looks like the address card is
lost. It's against the law for them to deliver unaddressed mail, so it only
takes a phone call to the supervisor at the local post office to convince the
carrier to stop. There will occasionally be a mistake after that (when
there's a substitute or new carrier) but it doesn't take very many calls to
convince the supervisor you really mean it.

There's no need to threaten lawsuits or anything, just tell them you received
unaddressed mail. With ADVO and Potpourri, you may have to point out that
you found out how to get off the lists before they understand, but the postal
supervisors do know what the law says.

In many rural areas, ADVO uses "rural route" addressing, which means
that they don't put individual addresses on the cover cards. (When I
talked to them, they claimed they were in the process of converting
all their areas to individual addresses, but it may take a while.) If
your card comes addressed just to "rural route #1", you can still get
the post office to stop delivering to you, but it's more work.
Instead of getting ADVO to stop generating an address card for you,
you have to get them to tell the post office that they no longer want
you to get one of their packets. Once you've gotten ADVO to tell the
post office, you can start bugging the carrier to stop delivering your
copy. It's more work than when they use individual addresses, but
several people have told me that this process works.

Dealing with specific types of organizations

Here's a list of some of the kinds of organizations that direct marketers buy
names from and what you can do about each.

Mail-Order Catalogues

Use a distinct address with each catalogue you order from. Your name will
occasionally be sold to someone you don't want to hear from, and you have to
know where they got your name to make it stop. When you find that a
catalogue resells your name to places you don't like, ask them to add your
name to their suppression list. Most don't have any trouble with this
request.

One thing to be careful about: many will "correct" your name and address from
your checks, so you have to continually make sure that they're using the
name/address you chose for them. I have my checks printed without name or
address so I can choose what each organization sees. You're always supposed
to write down the account number anyway.

Memberships In Organizations
(charitable, political, religious, professional, etc.)
Just like mail-order catalogues; use a distinct address for each. Many will
sell your name without warning.

Phone Book Listing

Many organizations build their address lists from telephone directories. In
addition, these lists can be cross-matched with others and occasionally
they'll make inferences based on your listing. (sex from first name,
ethnicity from last name, profession from title, etc.) You can get an
unlisted number, but there are directories that include those listings, they
just cost more. A cheaper way to have an unlisted number is to pick a fake
name for the directory. Any phone calls or mail for that name you can be
sure are junk.

You can also ask the phone company to list your name and number without your
address if you think that will be sufficient for your friends to find you.
(If you have a common name, or live in a large metropolitan area, your name
alone may not be enough.) Some companies will still pay for the more
expensive directories that give even unlisted addresses, but this may reduce
the incidence of junk mail.

Warranties/Product Registration Cards

You are seldom required to send in registration cards in order to be covered
by a warranty. Most of these cards are send to the National Demographics and
Lifestyles Company which compiles direct mail lists of people based on the
life-style, family income, and buying habits that people describe on the
cards. Write to them at:

National Demographics and Lifestyles Company
List Order Department
1621 18th St.
Suite 300
Denver, CO 80202

800/900 Number Services

800 and 900 number services can easily find out your name and address when
you call (they use reverse directories indexed by your phone number.) Many
of them compile and sell lists of people who are interested in their product
or watch their TV show. Make your 800-number phone calls during a break at
work. Don't call 900-number services unless you don't mind your name
appearing on lists of people who use the particular service.

Contests (You May Already Be A Winner!)

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch! There are some real contests that
give out real money, but not many, and the odds are never very good. Many
things advertised as contests these days are just fishing expeditions for
names to add to mailing lists. Others are serious fraud. Never give out
credit card numbers over the phone unless you're positive the company you're
calling is reputable.

Credit Cards

Some credit card companies sell lists of customers to direct mailers. They
know a lot about your lifestyle: what you buy, where you travel, and how much
you spend. Banks don't seem to use the same information from your checks, so
if you're looking for a little more privacy...

Birth Certificates, Marriage Licenses, Property Records

You can't do much about these except use a variant spelling and track down
each use of the name. Most of the list compilers are willing to drop your
name if you ask.

Credit Bureaus
The major credit bureaus sell lists based on their databases.
You can contact them at their websites (try the obvious name) or:

Trans Union
555 W. Adams St.
8th Floor
Chicago, IL 60661
800-888-4213

Experian (TRW)
POB 949
Allen TX 75002
888-397-3742

Equifax Credit Information Services
PO Box 740256
Atlanta GA 30374
800-685-1111

The three companies operate shared phone numbers that allow you to ask not to
get pre-approved credit cards. You can call (800)353-0809 or (888)567-8888.

Change of Address notices

The post office sells the names and addresses from its Change of Address
cards. They even encourage bulk mailers to use the data so there will be
fewer miss-addressed letters. If you're having trouble dealing with the junk
and want to stop getting it, contact all your correspondents individually and
don't fill out the Post office's form.
- ---
Chris Hibbert protecting privacy in the computer age is
hibbert@netcom.com like trying to change a tire on a moving car.
http://www.aimnet.com/~hibbert/home.html --Colin Bennett

--------------------------------------------------------

2003-11-03T09:54:00.000-08:00

They Yanked Spam Cop - What a Crock,

Ante' Spam

Why Spamcop got yanked

By Jan Libbenga
Posted: 03/11/2003 at 10:22 GMT

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33724.html

Anyone who tried reporting spam to the popular Spamcop service this weekend got a nasty surprise. The site had bizarrely disappeared. And no, it wasn't a server outage.
Joker.com, the German service that registered the Spamcop.net domain name, decided to yank the Spamcop.net domain name from its database, citing false Whois information.

The Whois database records the contact information for each registered domain in the DNS, the data query service used for translating hostnames into internet addresses.

On October 15, Spamcop.net owner Julian Haight received an email from Joker.com, which claimed that "the address-record of the owner of this domain is incomplete or wrong".

Haight discovered that only thing wrong about the record was a disconnected phone number. He corrected the number using Joker's own web-admin interface and figured that would be the end of it. Not for Joker.com. The registrar pulled the plug on Spamcop.net last Friday (October 31).

"It appears that a false complaint can spur a process, whereby the owner of the domain must fax a signed response or face termination of service," Haight writes. 'It should be noted that the original complaint (about the incorrect phone number - The Reg) was false and presumably malicious in nature - a human-engineered denial of service attack.'
Joker.com corrected the mistake and from today (Monday) Spamcop is alive and kicking again.

The interesting thing is that Whois records are chockful with incorrect details. Spammers frequently register domain names using bogus zip codes, real-looking phone numbers that turn out to be nonexistent or disconnected; and countless email addresses that bounce. Joker.com's databases are no exception.

In September, the Bush administration ordered The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to improve the "accuracy of Whois data." However, not much has happened. Registrars only seem to respond to complaints, even incorrect ones, and do very little checking themselves.

2003-11-02T22:49:00.000-08:00

Spam: Always Annoying, Often Offensive
URL: http://cyberatlas.internet.com/big_picture/applications/print/0,,1301_3097351,00.html
Dig This,

Ante' Spam

Spam: Always Annoying, Often Offensive

http://cyberatlas.internet.com/big_picture/applications/print/0,,1301_3097351,00.html
By Robyn Greenspan

Many Internet users are doing without their indispensable e-mail as their inboxes become increasingly overrun with unwanted — and often offensive — messages. A comprehensive study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that a full 60 percent of survey respondents have reduced their e-mail usage because of spam, and 73 percent avoid giving out their e-mail addresses.
The June 2003 survey of nearly 1,400 Internet users reveals the growing frustration now associated with the communication app, particularly on personal e-mail accounts. The Pew report found that while e-mail users receive slightly more messages in their work accounts, the proportion of spam in personal accounts is higher and more time is spent dealing with the unwanted messages in personal accounts.

Work vs. Personal Daily Spam Stats Work Personal

10 or fewer spam messages 54% 44%
More than 50 spam messages 10% 11%
No spam at all 7% 40%
5 minutes or fewer dealing with spam 40% NA
No time dealing with spam NA 40%
Half-hour or more dealing with spam 12% 10%
Hard to get legitimate messages 55% 34%

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project

The payoff for spammers lies in the 1 percent of recipients who give money as a response to an unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE), the 7 percent who order a product or service, and the 4 percent who provide the personal information that is requested in the UCE — data that has become valuable currency on the Internet.

Reactions to Spam

Delete it immediately without opening 86%

Clicked "remove me" 67%

Clicked to get more information 33%

Reported UCE to e-mail provider 21%

Ordered a product or service 7%

Reported UCE to consumer or government agency 7%

Provided personal info requested in UCE 4%

Given money in response to UCE 1%

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project

Deborah Fallows, senior research fellow at the Pew Internet & American Life Project and author of the report, believes that legislation against spam is inevitable, but a mix of methods will be needed to completely kill UCE. "That [legislation] alone won't stop the spam; it will be a combination of legislation, technology and litigation against the spammers — tipping the balance where it's harder, riskier, more awkward for spammers to operate."

Women are more affected by spam than men, particularly when the content is offensive or obscene. "The general findings are striking, but inside the data are even more disturbing details about the reactions women and parents have with pornographic spam," said Fallows. "Pornographers deserve a special place in hell as far as they are concerned."

Bothersome Aspects of Spam
Women Men

Unsolicited nature 85% 83%
Offensive or obscene content 83% 68%
Deceptive or dishonest content 82% 77%
Potential damage to computer 81% 76%
Compromise of privacy 79% 73%
Volume of spam 78% 76%
Can't stop it 77% 74%
Time it takes to deal with spam 71% 67%

Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project

Younger Internet users are more tolerant of UCE, and veteran surfers are more sophisticated about spam, the Pew study also revealed. Nearly one-third of those aged 18-29 say spam is just part of life on the Internet and not a big deal, compared to 18 percent of those over age 30.

Fallows comments on the potential for users to become desensitized to UCE: "I think users' tolerance for spam does have a limit. I don't know where that limit is, but I don't think spam will get to the point of killing e-mail — where people will just give up. I think there will be enough pressure against spam to lower its buzz to a low enough level that people will tolerate it and calm down to where a degree of spam is just 'part of the deal.'"

On the state of tolerance, Fallows adds, "Right now, we're probably somewhere in between; it's gotten bad enough that forces (technology, legislation, litigation) are mustered to take action. But not so high that users are jumping ship. And it will likely be forced down to a lower level we can live with more easily."

October 22, 2003

2003-11-01T13:50:00.000-08:00

EU anti-spam directive introduced
URL: http://arstechnica.com/archive/news/1067716714.html

Dig This,
the EU anti-spam directive introduced .
finally,,

Ante' Spam

--------------------------------------------

Ars Technica Newsdesk

EU anti-spam directive introduced
Posted 11/01/2003 @ 1:58 PM, by Andrew "andyfatbastard" Brennan

http://arstechnica.com/archive/news/1067716714.html

Brussels has issued a new directive to it's members outlawing a wide range of Internet technologies (or plagues, depending on your viewpoint). As of Friday, it is now illegal to send spam from inside the European Union. Spyware and any kind of unauthorized digital tracking are also outlawed. It is now up to the individual member states to introduce and enforce legislation to uphold the directive.

The broadly-worded guideline covers any form of digital transmission including cellphone tracking and text messages. Any form of electronic marketing may only be used in a situation where a prior business relationship has existed, or where the receiver has opted-in in order to protect legitimate businesses from prosecution.

Cookies (which register users' preferences as they visit websites) and other invisible tracking devices that can collect information on Internet users, such as 'spyware' may only be utilised if the user is given clear information about the purpose of any such invisible activity and is offered the right to refuse it. This will enable the user to decide which forms of access to his equipment are acceptable and which are not.

Location data generated by mobile phones can only be further used or passed on by network operators with explicit user consent. The only exceptions are (1) the transmission of the location data to emergency services; and (2) transmission of data to law enforcement authorities, subject to strict conditions, for purposes such as national security or criminal investigations.

Spam: With a limited exception - covering existing customer relationship - e-mail marketing is only allowed with prior consent. Disguised identities and invalid return addresses, often used by "spammers", are also outlawed. This "opt-in" regime equally covers SMS messages and other electronic messages sent to any mobile and fixed terminal. Member States can also ban unsolicited commercial e-mails to businesses.

Huge doubts remain over the enforceability of the law. Most the spam received by EU citizens comes from outside the Union, but at least this is a step in the right direction. If the US and China bring in the similiar laws that are in the works, we could start seeing prosecutions and extraditions all over the world. While it'll never be possible to stamp out spam altogether, a few hefty fines would go a long way as a deterrent.

2003-10-28T21:00:00.000-08:00

And Todays News....

F.Y.I.

Ante' Spam

How spammers are targeting blogs

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3210623.stm

Technology analyst Bill Thompson has been getting lots of comments on his weblogs, unfortunately most of the want to sell him Viagra. He has been "flyblogged".

Online equivalent of putting ad for "private massage" on your coat
Earlier this week I got an e-mail to tell me that someone called Levitra had commented on one of my entries on the VoxPolitics weblog.

Since it's a group weblog for "e-democracy titbits and crumbs", we get quite a few comments from random readers, and often they are useful and informative, so I read it with interest.

Sadly, it was not about the latest e-voting disasters in California - a topic of great interest to me - but a rather obvious piece of spam.

It said; "Interesting comments and a Superb Web Site" and then, like so many spam e-mails, had a link to a site that wanted to sell me a Viagra alternative.

Over the next few days I got 20 more, most offering Viagra substitutes but one featuring a cable TV scam - presumably for the times when I would have used up all my Viagra supplies.

Every one of them was posted as a comment on the blog, and they could only be removed individually through the administrative pages of the site, which takes ages.

It felt like the digital equivalent of flyposting - coming home one day to find your windows covered with posters for dodgy clubs and bands you have never head of.

Although the term flyblog has been used already to mean either blogging about flying, or blogging while flying, I would like to claim it for the practice of posting spam comments to people's blogs like this: I have just been comprehensively flyblogged.

Clever program

A quick online search revealed that the problem has been around for a while, but until recently it was largely done by individuals who would visit blogs and post their adverts, along with a link to whatever dodgy website they were promoting.

It had not happened to any of the sites I am involved with, so I had not noticed it or heard about it.

Now, however, it seems to have been automated: some clever programmer working for one of these iniquitous outfits has written a tool that goes around a list of weblogs and collects information on the various posts made to it.

It then creates the right HTML to fool the blogging software into thinking that a comment has been entered, and the resulting advert is posted to the blog as if it was legitimate.

It depresses me to think that any open medium can be so easily undermined by people with no scruples, no sense of responsibility and no idea of the damage they are doing

That would explain why my colleague and fellow VoxPolitics poster James Crabtree is now getting 20 to 30 of these spam comments a day, reaching the point where he no longer has the time to remove them.

What is worse, there is no obvious way to block these posts without putting serious obstacles in the way of those who have legitimate comments to make.

Asking people to register before they post comments, or making them validate their comments by sending an e-mail and waiting for a reply, just get in the way. Building blacklists of sites that flyblog will be as ineffective as attempts to blackmail e-mail spam.

Blogs evolved out of a desire to remove barriers to online conversation, and restricting their ability to add comments would seriously reduce the sort of lively debate that makes them so interesting.

Perhaps the worst thing about flyblogging is that it is not covered by any of the spam laws that I am aware of, and probably is not illegal under data protection or hacking laws.

After all, a public blog with an accessible comments page is hardly a closed system, and even if you have an acceptable use policy saying what sort of postings you welcome, that is not legally binding either.

It is hard at first to see why the spammers are doing this. I am unlikely to be reading the comments on the latest mobile voting trials when I suddenly come across an advert for vicodin and feel so interested that I click on it.

Search rankings

One theory is that the real target is Google. A spammer's site with lots of references in well-indexed blogs will have a higher Google PageRank, so that anyone foolish enough to actually go searching for the product will find the spammer's site.

It is an interesting, but as yet unproven, hypothesis.

Whatever the reason, it is moving from a minor to major irritant. None of the other blogs I contribute to or run has been affected yet, but I can only assume it is a matter of time before the spammers move in, as they did first with UseNet and then with e-mail.

It depresses me to think that any open medium can be so easily undermined by people with no scruples, no sense of responsibility and no idea of the damage they are doing.

It also feels a lot more personal and intrusive than e-mail or UseNet spam.

A blog is a place to express your views in a public arena, and having some unknown people fill the space with advertising is the online equivalent of finding that someone has pinned a card advertising "private massage" to your coat when you were not looking.

I feel quite upset by this, and angrier with the spammers and their lack of respect for the principles of online co-operation than I have been for years.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Thompson is a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital.

2003-10-26T21:01:00.000-08:00

Spam choking Net users
URL: http://www.mcall.com/news/yahoo/all-a1_5spamoct23.story

Uh Huh,, Dig This,
They're Finally admitting that Spam is having a negative effect
on internet use.. Finally,,,

"Uh- Huh,,"

Ante' Spam

==============================

Spam choking Net users
Study shows junk e-mail can 'degrade the online experience.'

http://www.mcall.com/news/yahoo/all-a1_5spamoct23.story

By Wendy Solomon - Of The Morning Call
11:20 PM EDT, Oct 25, 2003

It's gotten to the point where Joan Trimble doesn't even read the hundreds of e-mails sent to her home computer.

Why spend hours reading it when most, if not all of it, is junk mail, said the Salisbury Township resident.

So, like millions of others, Trimble hits the delete button, hoping she hasn't dumped legitimate e-mail from friends or family along with the clutter of junk e-mail.

''Every day it gets worse,'' Trimble said with annoyance.

Trimble's frustration is reflected in a new nationwide study released Wednesday that concludes the deluge of junk mail or ''spam'' filling Internet users' in-boxes is beginning ''to undermine the integrity of e-mail and degrade the online experience.''

Among the key findings of the report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, an independent, nonprofit research organization that examines the social impact of the Internet:

25 percent of e-mail users say they are using e-mail less because of spam.

52 percent of e-mail users say spam has made them less trusting of e-mail in general.

70 percent of e-mail users say spam has made being online unpleasant or annoying.

30 percent of e-mail users are concerned their filtering devices may block incoming e-mail that is important to them.

80 percent of e-mail users are bothered by deceptive or dishonest content of spam; 76 percent of e-mail users are bothered by offensive or obscene content of spam.

55 percent of e-mail users say they get so many unwanted e-mail messages in their personal account that it's hard to find the ones they want.
''People just love e-mail and it really bothers them that spam is ruining such a good thing,'' says Deborah Fallows, senior research fellow at the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Lawmakers apparently agree, as the Senate voted 97-0 Wednesday to impose tough new limits on spam.

The measure outlaws senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail from using false return addresses or misleading subject lines. It also bans senders from harvesting addresses off Web sites and requires spam to include a mechanism so recipients can indicate they do not want future mass-mailings.

About 93 percent of adult Internet users, or about 117 million people, use e-mail, and it remains the most popular online activity, the study said.

An estimated 30 billion e-mail messages are sent daily; almost half are junk.

Savvy, experienced Internet users such as Leah McKernan, national manager of communications for KidsPeace in North Whitehall Township, are troubled the most by spam, a finding supported by the study.

McKernan conducts much of her work online and yet was still snookered by a spam letter she got the other day.

''I opened it. It was a form e-mail addressed to me and it looked like an e-mail letter. I read the whole thing. And then I realized, I don't know this guy. This is spam! I was angry,'' McKernan said.

''I felt very had by it. I do most of my business by e-mail so I felt pretty savvy before I even opened it.''

The study also shows that spamming works. Seven percent of e-mail users, or 8 million people, have ordered a product or services offered in an unsolicited e-mail.

Personal e-mail accounts receive more spam than work accounts because employers often install filtering systems or their systems are closed, the study said.

In addition, personal e-mail accounts usually are provided by large Internet service providers, such as Yahoo or AOL, that are often targeted by spammers. People are less guarded with their personal e-mail addresses, thereby making them easier to ''harvest'' by spammers, the study said.

Even though PPL Corp. in Allentown installed an anti-spam filter, ''It's a constant battle because spammers stay one step ahead of everyone,'' said Nancy Bishop, a spokeswoman for PPL.

Trimble, a title clerk for attorney William K. Malkames in Allentown, who does not have a filter on her personal account, said she seldom receives spam at work because of a filter.

Yet during her brief telephone interview for this article, she received spam titled ''Debt Management with a Christian Perspective.''

There is a lack of consensus on what defines spam — both in the study, in industry and on Capitol Hill, where efforts to pass legislation have been unsuccessful. The Pew study says about 92 percent of e-mail users agree that spam is ''unsolicited commercial e-mail from a sender they do not know or cannot identify,'' but there is less agreement on other features of spam.

For instance, 76 percent of e-mail users also consider unsolicited religious content or political messages to be spam.

Fallows said most surprising to her was the vehemence of the responses about unsolicited pornographic e-mail.

''People just go ballistic about the pornographic stuff. Anytime we asked a question that went anywhere near it, about adult content or pornography, the numbers just soared to the very top. It made me think there is just something different about adult-content spam that bothers people so much more than anything else,'' she said.

The report said that 83 percent of women are bothered by offensive or obscene content of spam compared with 68 percent of men. And more parents with children under 18 object to adult content in spam than non-parents.

Additionally, more young people (between 18 and 29) are tolerant of spam than older people.

That finding does not surprise Robert Kraut, professor of human-computer interaction in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie-Mellon University.

Kraut says his research shows that teenagers essentially have abandoned e-mail because of spam and prefer using instant messages.

''While their parents who are still dealing with the same degree of spam don't have that alternative. They don't have a set of other people they can communicate with by instant messaging, so they can't withdraw from the use of e-mail the way their kids can,'' Kraut said.

Fallows said reducing the amount of pornographic spam would go a long way toward mitigating the problem of spam in general.

''People just wouldn't get as much spam and they wouldn't be so horribly upset and offended by spam,'' Fallows said.

Trimble regards spam as one of life's annoyances, as many did in the study.

Said Trimble of e-mail: ''It's a way for you to connect to people and family members, but it is a hassle everytime you open it up.''

The Pew study set out to explore the relationship between Americans and spam, their feelings about it and how they interact with it.

Data was collected from a national telephone survey in June of 2,200 adults, including 1,380 Internet users.

Additionally, 4,000 first-person narratives about spam were collected by the Telecommunications Research and Action Center, a national consumer group that invited Internet users to submit stories about their personal experiences with spam.

wendy.solomon@mcall.com

610-820-6780

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

==============================

Study: Spam Is Making Consumers Log Off
Sun Oct 26, 2:35 AM ET
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20031023S0013

Antone Gonsalves, TechWeb News

The spam that's clogging e-mail boxes with sleazy marketing messages for sexual-performance drugs, porn, debt reduction and weight loss is undermining consumers' trust in e-mail and is making their online experience less enjoyable, a research firm said Thursday.

A survey of consumers by the non-profit Pew Internet & American Life Project found 52 percent trusted e-mail less because of spam, and 60 percent had reduced their e-mail use "in a big way" to avoid the annoying, and often offensive, mass mailings.

In addition, 70 percent of the respondents said spam had made being online unpleasant and annoying, partly because they were offended by spammers' attempts to deceive people, Deborah Fallows, senior research fellow for Pew, said. E-mail that appeared innocuous from the subject line, for example, can contain pornographic pictures unsuitable for children.

People surveyed were losing trust in the reliability of e-mail, because they were no longer sure that their messages would make it through spam filters used by individuals and most businesses, Fallows said.

Respondents reacted strongest toward pornography sent by spammers, with more women saying they were offended by the content than men, 83 percent to 68 percent, respectively.

"Whenever we asked questions about pornography, obscene content or offensive material, they really blew up with an extreme reaction," Fallows said. "The same reaction (toward pornography) showed up in every measure we took."

An overwhelming number--86 percent--of e-mail users surveyed said the most popular way of dealing with spam was to immediately delete the messages. A total of 73 percent of respondents avoided giving out their e-mail addresses and 69 percent avoided posting it on the web, in an attempt to not end up on spammers' lists.

The survey also showed why spam could be lucrative. A significant minority, 7 percent, of e-mail users said they had ordered a product or service that was offered in an unsolicited e-mail, and 33 percent had clicked on a link to get more information.

E-mail users were confused as to whether clicking a "remove me" button in spam would stop future mailings, or just confirm their existence for a permanent place on a spammer's list.

People also were confused about the definition of spam. While 92 percent agreed that it was "unsolicited commercial e-mail from a sender they do not know or cannot identify," messages with religious, political or charity-fundraising content was considered spam by some and OK by others. Respondents also had varying answers about how businesses should use email in communicating with potential customers.

Adults between the ages of 18 and 29 were more tolerant of spam than older people, with 32 percent of younger adults saying spam wasn't that "big a deal," compared to only 18 percent of older adults.

While not advocating legislation or any other solution to reduce spam, Fallows acknowledged that doing nothing could eventually keep people away from the Internet, which would affect online retailers and other businesses.

Market research firm Gartner Inc. predicts that spam will account for 60 percent of e-mail traffic on the Internet by mid-2004.

"If people are discouraged with using their e-mail, then they could get discouraged with doing other things on the Internet," Fallows said.

The analyst, however, believes Congress, technologists, businesses and consumers will eventually work together in finding a solution to spam, because of the damage done to everyone.

"I'm an optimist who believes things will get better in the long run," Fallows said.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

2003-10-25T13:23:00.000-07:00

Well Awritey Then,, Go Cali Go Cali Geta Spammer Go Cali.
URL: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?
tmpl=story&cid=582&e=1&u=/nm/20031024/wr_nm/tech_spam_lawsuit_dc

Well Awritey Then,, Go Cali Go Cali Geta Spammer Go Cali.
Looks Like Cali is going to be hard core.
This is what I'm talkin about.
Stop educating New Spammers,
cause the real use for Email is supposed to be Communication..
Duhhhh ?????

Thank You God,
California is steppin up to the Plate and now
other states and the Federal Gov.need to take
the hint and move in this same direction, quickly.

Sho Ya Rite Cali,,

Ante' Spam Got Nothin But Love Fa Ya Baby !!!
Dig This Piece

=========================================

: "California Wins Its First Anti-Spam Judgment
Fri Oct 24, 6:30 PM ET Technology - Reuters Internet

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=582&e=1&u=/nm/20031024/wr_nm/tech_spam_lawsuit_dc

By Barbara Grady
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California won its first anti-spam judgment on Friday when
a court fined a marketing firm $2 million for sending out millions of unsolicited e-mails
telling people how to spam, the state's attorney general said.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer brought the case against PW Marketing of Los Angeles
County and its owners Paul Willis and Claudia Griffin in 2002 under a 1998 state anti-spam law.

The law was strengthened last month to make it easier to sue spammers.
Lockyer's spokesman Tom Dressler said while this case was decided under the original statute, the attorney general's office expects in the future it will be easier to try cases under the updated, tougher law.

PW Marketing and Willis and Griffin were charged with sending out millions of e-mails advertising 'how to' guides on spamming and long lists of e-mail addresses.

The judgment, which Lockyer said will be the model for future spam injunctions,
forbids PW Marketing from sending unsolicited commercial e-mail, accessing computers
that belong to other people without their permission and disguising its identity by sending e-mails that appear to originate from a different address.

The injunction also forbids Willis and Griffin for 10 years from owning or managing
any business that advertises over the Internet.
The tougher measures in in the new statute include allowing individuals to sue spammers
and collect damages of up to $1,000 per e-mail. Another provision forbids sending unsolicited e-mail advertisements unless recipients give prior permission to receive such e-mails.

The old law made it illegal to send to recipients who had specified they did not want to
receive e-mail advertising. It also required senders to provide a phone number or valid
e-mail address for opting out on each e-mail -- something the company did not do,
the attorney general's office said.

2003-10-16T22:42:00.000-07:00

Global consumer awareness campaign against spam
Dig This,

This Cat Randy has a wonderful website,
and I suggest everyone check it out and join his mailing list.

He really has the correct perspective.

Check it out Baby, Randy is Workin to Stop SPAM,

Mo-Lata,, Fa Shizzzle
Ya Auntee -

Ante' Spam

http://www.spamprimer.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is Noteworthy
Open letter 9/26 from Junkbusters to Members of Congress

http://www.junkbusters.com/dmlaws.html#DNM

Junkbusters' proposal for a Do-Not-Mail registry

Open letter 9/26 from Junkbusters to Members of Congress
Friday, September 26, 2003

Having campaigned for several years for national Do-Not-Call list, I applaud the speed and resolve with which Congress moved to ensure that the DNC registry would not be delayed by the Oklahoma court decision. The American public is overwhelmingly in favor of the privacy protection the registry would provide, and we at Junkbusters commend those of you who supported it.

The Denver court's ruling of unconstitutionality cannot be so quickly resolved, but I am confident that a satisfactory result will eventually be obtained through the courts. In 1970 the Supreme Court upheld a law which they said ``permits a citizen to erect a wall ... that no advertiser may penetrate without his acquiescence.''

I now suggest Congress consider the introduction of analogous legislation that would establish a national Do-Not-Mail list, to stop unwanted printed solicitations. Above 65% of American households do not respond to the more than 70 billion solicitations mailed each year. A DNM list would reduce this enormous waste and burden on consumers and the environment. By prohibiting the sale of marketing information about individuals who choose to register, it could also improve privacy and reduce identity theft.

The U.S. Postal Service is already required by federal law to maintain a list of people who do not wish to receive pornographic solicitations, and anyone can fill out the USPS's Form 1500 to request inclusion. The law also prohibits the inclusion of registered individuals in mailing lists sold. (It was this law that the Supreme Court upheld in 1970.) One approach to DNM legislation could be to extend this USPS service with an option for all commercial mail, not just sexually oriented material.

Another approach might be used for a more specific service relating to offers of credit. As you know, these pose a risk for identity theft, and many people (some of whom might enjoy receiving catalogs) would like to be able to stop the credit offers rather than having to sort and shred such mail. An amendment might be made to the Fair Credit Reporting Act to require a national Do-Not-Mail-Credit registry.

Other approaches could be used, for example combining the DNC and DNM registries operationally, or establishing a separate new registry. We would be pleased to discuss with your staff the merits of various approaches.

Although the Direct Marketing Association has maintained both DNC and DNM lists for many years, there has been no mandatory federal list for either until the recent DNC registry, which has proved extremely popular. Americans deserve and want a national DMN registry too.

In the case of email, our recommendations are different, because an opt-in policy should prevail here. Legislation has already been introduced proposing a national Do-Not-Email registry, but our support for this is qualified. We believe maintaining a database of individual email addresses would be impracticable and undesirable, because of the risk of the database being used improperly for spamming. The proposal might however work at the level of domain names (the part of an email address to the right of the @ sign), where a company or ISP could indicate a prohibition of spam to all addressees at that domain.

I thank you for your consideration of legislation for a national Do-Not-Mail registry.

Sincerely

Jason Catlett
President
Junkbusters Corp.

7--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------7

A Few Need to See Headlines

1.
Airline data used to profile passengers

http://www.junkbusters.com/news.html#JetBlue

Data on millions of JetBlue passengers was used in a study on profiling, Wired News reported. (9/18) [NY Times] [AP] [News.com] [News.com on EPIC complaint] [NY Times letters] The case is being investigated by two federal agencies. [NY Times] The flight data was matched with data from the giant personal data vendor Acxiom. People don't want Acxiom to sell data about them can write Acxiom an ``opt-out'' letter (such as the one that JUNKBUSTERS DECLARE drafts for several such companies) or call them on 1-800-922-9466, or email info@acxiom.com. Acxiom denied to the AP that it had violated its Wesley Clark, the former Army General who announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, is a board member of Acxiom, according to FreeRepublic.com.

2. Separately, an Ohio spam law was signed by the Governor. (2002/8/1) [AP]

The Federal Trade Commission announced it caught and sued seven spammers who sent deceptive chain letters promising extravagant amounts of money in return for five dollars. ``This chain letter deceptively claims the program is legal and urges recruits who question its legitimacy to contact the FTC's Associate Director for Marketing Practices. Well, I am the Associate Director for Marketing Practices,'' said Eileen Harrington, the FTC's Associate Director for Marketing Practices, ``and these chain letters are illegal.'' (2002/2/12) [FTC announcement] [Reuters 2] [Reuters 1] [Newsbytes] Junkbusters President Jason Catlett praised the Commission's action, saying that suits against spammers should be brought more broadly and more often, including suits for fake return addresses and opt-out instructions. ``The FTC is fortunate in having a strong statutory basis to defend their name against spammers. But they're not the only ones being abused. Members of congress and businesses have been victims. All Americans deserve a law that lets them easily sue spammers. Government enforcement alone is not going to keep spam down to tolerable levels.''

Separately, a consortium of banking, insurance and securities firms mounted an opposition campaign to anti-spam legislation, which they claim would have a "chilling effect" on expanding e-commerce. The consortium includes Bank of America Corp., Merrill Lynch & Co., Chubb Corp.'s Chubb Group of Insurance Cos. and Credit Suisse First Boston. ``Shame on these companies,'' said Junkbusters President Jason Catlett. ``They want to keep the door open for themselves to spam, just as they pester us with telemarketing calls and credit card solicitations.'' Two congressional representatives responded by asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether the use of spamming by securities firms. (2001/3/26) [Reuters/CNET] "In order to better understand financial services industry e-mail spamming practices, we request that the commission initiate an immediate investigation into securities industry use of unsolicited 'spam' e-mails," wrote Reps. John Dingell (D., Mich.) and Edward Markey (D., Mass.)

Earlier, several consumer groups wrote a letter to Congress calling for a law prohibiting unsolicited commercial email, with strong legal rights for individuals who are spammed. (2001/4/26) [Internet News] [PC World] [Scripps] [DM News] [Ecommerce Times] [CNET] [UPI] The Senate Commerce Committee's Communications Subcommittee held a hearing on spamming and bill S.630 . Junkbusters President Jason Catlett testified and opposed the present form of the bill as insufficient to stop spam. [Catlett's written testimony] The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE) also released a statement opposing the bill.

Separately, California resident Ellen Spertus successfully sued Kozmo for spamming her. (2001/4/19) Kozmo has ceased operations.

3. Global consumer awareness campaign against spam
A diverse group of companies and organizations has launched a global consumer awareness campaign against spam. (9/26) [IIA News Release] [Network World/IDG] [Info World/IDG] [Computerworld/IDG] The campaign aims to make spamming less economical by cautioning the small number of people who might respond to spam. Participants include several Internet trade associations, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo!, Junkbusters, and Consumers International (representing 250 consumer organisations in 110 countries).

A strong anti-spam bill was signed into law by the governor of California. (9/23) [Internet News] [NY Times] [DM News] S.B. 186 states that no one may "[i]nitiate or advertise in an unsolicited commercial e-mail" either sent from California or to a California e-mail address. (An exemption is granted where the sender has a pre-existing business relationship with the recipient.) It gives individuals the right to sue. It will take effect January 1st. Junkbusters President Jason Catlett praised the bill, commenting that it should be held up as an example to federal legislators.

The leading pro-spam bill in Congress, misleadingly titled the RID SPAM Act, has been ``weakened even further to provide near-perfect immunity to the big companies who are virtually dictating the legislation to their compliant congressmen,'' said Junkbusters President Jason Catlett [Washington Post] (9/18, p. E01) The Post quoted a spokesman for Rep. Tauzin saying that ``the self-regulation plan improves the bill because it creates a grievance process for individual consumers who might otherwise have trouble getting the attention of law enforcement authorities when marketers are continuing to target them.'' Catlett replied that consumers should be able to sue spammers themselves. ``One of the key deficiencies of this bill is that consumers can't sue companies, and a large new section virtually stopping law enforcement from suing them isn't going to help. An Attorney General would have would have to prove that the company knew they were repeatedly spamming people who told them to stop. That might happen if they found a discarded company memo saying "We bad. We spam. We won't take no for an answer." Otherwise it's a pretty unattainable level of proof, which is what the companies want. And class action damages are excluded. The seal program should read "Immune to Lawsuits". Or maybe "How's my spamming? Call 1-877-FTC-HELP."''

Here is a sample of the new language in the bill.

``A person that participates in a self-regulatory program... made shall not be liable ...unless such participant has actual knowledge of the noncompliance with the guidelines.. of the self-regulatory program.''
Catlett continued: ``The worst deficiency in the Tauzin bill is that it is an it is an opt-out bill that preempts state law and gives no rights to consumers, therefore it will make the spam problem substantially worse. The self-regulatory exemption for Microsoft and their fellow lobbyists is merely adding an insult to the widespread injury that the public will suffer.

``This is an awful bill for so many reasons. The one that strikes you first is that it's so long and complicated. Contrast it with very short law that outlawed junk faxes in 1991, ``No Person May... send an unsolicited advertisement to a telephone facsimile machine.'' The Tauzin bill takes thousands of words to avoid doing what needs to be done: making spam illegal.''

Federal legislators have ignored all the main points proposed for effective spam legislation by the many public interest groups in the Privacy Coalition. (7/18)

Senators Hatch and Leahy introduced the Criminal Spam Act (CSA), which includes a penalty up to five years in prison for certain spamming practices, but would not cover simple spamming as even a civil offence. (6/19) [CNET News.Com] Junkbusters President Jason Catlett said that although he supports stronger penalities for spamming, `It would be a mistake for Congress to criminalize some practices while leaving spamming legal, giving people who are spammed no rights against the spammer.''

Senator Schumer introduced his long-anticipated SPAM Act (Stop Pornography and Abusive Marketing Act), S.1231. (6/11) [Washington Times] [Atlanta J-C] An unusual feature of the bill is a registry of email addresses that do not want spam. Junkbusters President Jason Catlett said he would only support an opt-out registry if it worked on the level of domain names, covering all email addresses at the domain. (The current draft of the bill seems ambiguous on this point.) ``less than 1 person in 100 wants spam, so why require the other 99 to expose their email addresses in some huge database? Spammers have a long and shameful record of using opt-out registries as lists email addresses to spam.'' Catlett said that a registry would also would also be difficult and costly to operate if based on individual email addresses. Like many bills, the SPAM Act includes labeling requirements. Junkbusters opposes labeling because it caters to an unsatisfactory combination of opt-out and filtering technology rather than opt-in, and it leaves legislation open to constitutional challenges based on the First Amendment.

Separately, Reps. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.) and Gene Green (D-Tex.), plan to introduce another opt-out bill with fewer loopholes than other proposals, the Washington Post reported. (6/17, p. E01)

The leading pro-spam bill was introduced into the House by Representative Burr, cosponsored by Reps. Tauzin, Sensenbrenner, Goodlatte, Stearns and others. (5/22) [Reuters] [News.com] [Infoworld] [Detroit Free Press] H.R. 2214 is titled the Reduction in Distribution of Spam Act of 2003 (RID SPAM). Junkbusters President Jason Catlett commented that it should have been called the Rapid Internet Demise Act.

A broad coalition of privacy, anti-spamming and consumer groups immediately released an open letter to key congressional committees calling for a consumer-enforcable Federal prohibition against spamming. (5/22) [Reuters] The groups argue that anti-spam measures such as H.R. 2214 currently being considered by Congress are too weak because they don't actually prohibit spamming (merely require an opt-out), and don't allow consumers to sue spammers.

"People are drowning in spam, and the proposals Congress has been producing just tell people to swim harder and apply to the government for the occasional life raft," said Junkbusters President Jason Catlett. ``These opt-out laws are nowhere near strong enough to reduce spamming. People should to be able to sue spammers in small claims court for the first spam they get, just as they can with junk faxes.''

An editorial in the San Jose Mercury News commented: ``They think the best way to curb spam is for Internet users who are fed up with useless solicitations to nicely ask each of America's 23 million or so businesses to take them off their junk e-mail lists. We ask nicely that Congress junk this legislation.'' (5/27)

Separately, the California State Senate approved an opt-in bill that would allow individuals to sue spammers, Reuters reported. (5/22) Junkbusters President Jason Catlett applauded its passage, commenting that ``California is setting an example that the federal Congress should notice. In the late eighties, California banned junk faxes ahead of the 1991 Federal law. I hope the corresponding time lag for junk email will not be measured in years.''

The Senate Commerce Committee approved the Can Spam Act. (6/19) The Committee held hearings on spam. (5/21) [AP] [MSNBC] [Internet News] [InfoWorld] [Washington Post] Chairman John McCain said he hoped to send an anti-spam bill to the Senate floor by August, Reuters reported. Microsoft said it would only support a law that provides special exemptions for marketers who electronically call themselves ``trusted senders'' [Washington Post]. The only witness representing consumer interests was EPIC, whose testimony urged opt-in and a private right of action. Spammer Ronald Scelson told the committee "I agree with having laws governing bulk e-mails," Internet News reported. Junkbusters President Jason Catlett testified before this committee on this topic in 2001.

H.R. 2214 was long anticipated. (5/12) [Reuters] [Internet News] [Philadelphia Inquirer] [Washington Post] (5/13, p. E1) Junkbusters President Jason Catlett denounced the draft and introduced forms of H.R. 2214 as a "federal license to spam." "The bill shamelessly ignores consumer interests and common sense in favor of spammers. It says ``Go ahead and spam people until they scream, they can't sue you. Just follow these easy guidelines, and if you have any trouble with them, try one of our many handy exemptions.'' Early drafts of the bill would completely override stronger state laws that prohibit spam or allow individuals to sue spammers. ``This bill should be called the Spam Preservation and Protection Act,'' Catlett said.

``At the Federal Trade Commission's workshop held at the end of April, a substantial majority of the expert participants very clearly articulated that to be effective, spam legislation would need to be opt-in with a private right of action. (Dissenting opinion came from spammers and the Direct Marketing Association.) Yet the Tauzin bill not only ignores this consensus and sides with spam, it include exemptions that seem to have been designed to make life easier for spammers. For example, it makes an opt-out last only three years and includes an exemption for "separate business lines" that basically allows all of a company's affiliates to spam. Consumers don't want to opt out from spam for every brand that a company might trademark. They don't even want to have to opt out from each of the hundreds of thousands of companies in the world. And they shouldn't have to. They want a law that says "Don't spam." Period.''

``Many of the provisions in bills that are supposed to be anti-spam will be at best ineffective. Even criminal penalties for certain common spamming practices will not substantially reduce the volume of spam if the basic provisions permits spamming. Compulsory labeling such as ADV and ADULT in the subject header is not necessary if unsolicited email is prohibited, and it may even cause constitutional challenges to the law. Provisions against "harvesting" of email addresses may be too late, as many such lists have been compiled, and spammers are now moving on to "dictionary attacks" which simply use systematic guesswork.''

People who want to tell the House committee leaders that spamming should be prohibited, not just regulated, can send letters such as these samples addressed to Representatives Tauzin and Sensenbrenner.

Separately, the FTC announced actions against 45 spam scams. (5/15)

Earlier, a broad coalition of privacy, anti-spamming and consumer groups called on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to recommend a consumer-enforcable Federal prohibition against spamming. (4/30) The FTC held a major public workshop on Spam April 30-May 2 and will deliver a report to Congress by early July. [Reuters] [DM News] [AP] [Internet Week] [Newsday] [CS Monitor] [WSJ] Junkbusters President Jason Catlett was a panelist.

In an open letter the groups argue that anti-spam measures currently being considered by Congress are too weak because they don't actually prohibit spamming (they merely require an opt-out), and don't allow consumers to sue spammers.

"It has been demonstrated that an opt-out law such as that proposed by S. 877 will exacerbate the problem - the volume of spam from Korea increased by a factor of 11 in three months after a similar requirement was introduced there," said Scott Hazen Mueller, Chairman of CAUCE.org.

"Consumers should to be able to sue spammers, just as they can sue junk faxers and telemarketers who phone them at 10pm." said Jason Catlett, President of Junkbusters Corp. "Enforcement actions by the FTC and other agencies are welcome, but they will never be enough to turn back the rising tide of spam."

The signatories to the letter are: privacy groups Junkbusters Corp. and and the Privacy Rights Clearing House; anti-spam groups SpamCon Foundation and CAUCE.org (Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email); and consumer groups Consumer Action, the Center for Digital Democracy, Commercial Alert, and Consumers Union, publishers of Consumer Reports.

A survey by filtering company Surfcontrol indicated that 82% of business users consider unsolicited mass e-mail from legitimate or well-branded companies to be spam. (2003/4)

Separately, the Governor of Virginia signed a law criminalizing certain spammer behavior. (4/30) [Computerworld] [Governor's Press Release]

A bill that would prohibit certain kinds of typical spammer behavior was reintroduced in the Senate, as S.877, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. (4/10) [Reuters] [PC World] An earlier version of the bill passed the Senate Commerce Committee in May 2002, but its defects are that it is an opt-out bill with no private right of action. (2002/5/1) [Washington Post] [Reuters] [Infoworld] Junkbusters President Jason Catlett testified on an earlier version of the bill saying that an opt-out approach will not solve the spam problem, and that people should only receive commercial email from companies they have given permission to send it.

Although the Senate bill is currently the most prominent, a separate bill has been considered in the House for years. In May 2001, the House Judiciary Committee further weakened H.R. 718, the Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Act of 2001, by removing the right of consumers to sue, among other anti-consumer measures. (2001/5/23) [Release by Rep. Wilson] [DM News] The U.S. Public Interest Research Group had already objected in a letter to the prohibition against class action suits. The House Energy and Commerce Committee had earlier approved this bill, where it has been opposed by privacy advocates as too weak, and industry lobbyists as too strong. [Newsbytes] It is a weakened version of H.R. 3113, which was almost passed by Congress last year. (2001/3/28) [Newsbytes] [WSJ] Junkbusters, which had supported H.R. 3113 and H.R. 718, withdrew its support of H.R. 718 because the bill has been weakened to an ``opt-out'' spam bill that offers no ability for individuals or ISPs to prevent the first spam from any organization. (2001/3/28) [IT World] Its findings suggest a pro-spamming attitude, said Junkbusters President Jason Catlett.

(3) Unsolicited commercial electronic mail can be an important mechanism through which businesses advertise and attract customers in the online environment.
``Wrong. No major legitimate business sends UCE. It's against the terms of service of every major ISP. This is a bad bill trying to impose a bad marketing model on the Internet,'' Catlett said. ``Opt-in is only sustainable method for email.'' Bill sponsor Rep. Heather Wilson told the Associated Press that ``Consumers should have the same power to stop junk e-mail from invading their home as they do with junk mail, telemarketing and junk faxes.'' Catlett commented that junk faxes are currently opt-in, and telemarketing calls and junk mail are an opt-out. Commercial email should be opt-in, but this bill is trying to make it opt out, he said.
Earlier, the Direct Marketing Association announced that it would pursue anti-spam legislation. (2002/10/20) [Press release] [Ecommerce Times] [Newsfactor] The AP quoted a DMA official saying ``the DMA supports unsolicited e-mail marketing as long as it targets a certain demographic or interest group -- say, 25- to 35-year-olds or homeowners -- and isn't merely sent to every e-mail address one can gather.'' Junkbusters President Jason Catlett said that ``The DMA has finally admitted after years of denial that legislation is needed to control spam. But they are still supporting spamming. Instead of promoting a law that would really reduce spam, they are trying to redefine spam as slightly-targeted non-fraudent email with an opt out. Wrong. Spam is unsolicited commercial email, no matter whether the spammer had any demographic information on the spammee, whether it contains lies or truth, removal instructions or not. All spamming should be illegal.''

In February 2002 the DMA announced what it considers acceptable behavior for spamming by its members. (2002/2/4) [DMA Release] [Full DMA Guidelines] [DM News] [Reuters] [CNET] In their own words, they ``promulgated groundbreaking online marketing guidelines to assist consumers in identifying legitimate commercial e-mail from spam and promote higher ethical standards among marketers.'' Junkbusters President Jason Catlett said that ``Consumers don't need any help from the DMA to distinguish spam from email that they asked for.'' The DMA continued its "opt-out" policy, under which spammers can send email to people unsolicited, provided they include instructions to ask the sender to stop. ``Spam with an opt-out is still spam,'' said Junkbusters President Jason Catlett. ``The DMA is condoning practices that are unacceptable to the vast majority of online users, are prohibited by almost alls ISPs, and are illegal in many jurisdictions. Its compliance program is as silly as the Guild of Burglars saying it will expel housethieves who steal from the same home twice.''

The Federal Trade Commission and 12 federal, state, and local law enforcement and consumer protection agencies announced various enforcement actions against deceptive spam and Internet scams. (2002/11/13) [FTC press release] [WSJ] [FTC on address harvesting] Junkbusters President Jason Catlett applauded the efforts, but said that spamming won't be substantially reduced until a law gives individuals the right to sue spammers directly.

Separately, New York's Attorney General sued MonsterHut, Inc., to stop them sending unsolicited e-mails that they claim was requested, Internet News reported. (2002/5/28)

In January 2000 the DMA launched its "Electronic Mail Preference Service" (e-MPS) at http://www.e-mps.org/ (2000/1/10) [Wired News on eMPS's flop] Leading anti-spam groups called on Internet users and companies to reject this attempt to change email marketing from an "opt-in" to an "opt-out" system. Junkbusters President Jason Catlett contrasted the DMA's position with its sister organization, the Canadian Marketing Association, which since 1997 has prohibited its members from sending unsolicited commercial email. "Most businesses and industry groups have long understood that spamming is bad for consumers, bad for the Internet, and bad for business. The e-MPS from the DMA is a really rotten idea, as awful as a trade association of oil companies maintaining a list of people who don't want petroleum waste dumped near their property. It just shouldn't happen. People shouldn't register, and companies shouldn't use it." [Press Release] [SJ Merc] [Press release from http://www.OptInk.com] [DM News] Even an editorial in the industry trade magazine DM News said the e-MPS isn't the answer. ``Spammers won't use E-MPS, and the companies responding properly to current market conditions don't need it. Those conditions? Opt-in e-mail marketing. ... The old 99-percent-who-don't-respond-don't-matter rule doesn't work anymore.''

The Internet Alliance, a DMA subsidiary said of the e-MPS in a press release ``While, as DMA acknowledges, it will not eliminate all UCE abuses, it will help. It is clearly a useful component of a combined industry/public/government response.'' Catlett rebutted this statement, saying ``The DMA's e-MPS isn't part of a solution, it's part of the problem.''

H. Robert Wientzen, President and CEO of the Direct Marketing Association addressed members at the DMA's 1999 annual conference with the following words ``Well, let me begin by recognizing that bulk unsolicited commercial e-mail is not real popular with consumers. And to date, very few of you are employing it. However, we also feel that most of those who push for an opt-in-only regime have very little understanding of the incredibly negative impact it would have on the future use of e-mail as a marketing tool.'' (1999/10/25) Junkbusters President Jason Catlett commented: ``The DMA knows people hate spam, and that almost all of their member companies are afraid to do it. Yet they are continuing their pig-headed push to impose an opt-out system on the Internet community.''

The DMA had been negotiating with anti-spammers, trying to push back the near-unanimous view of people online that they should only get email marketing messages if they explicitly ask for them. [Wired News] [Interactive Week] The DMA's president told DM News ``We have for a long time said [the spam debate is] not about opt-in as opposed to opt-out.'' Catlett retorted: ``That's exactly what it's about.'' [Salon] For more on the DMA's spam policies, see our filings with the FTC in 1997.

A Washington state court ruled against a spammer who used misleading subject lines such as "Did I get the right e-mail address?" (2002/9/13) [Seattle PI] [DM News] [Portland Business Journal] Junkbusters President Jason Catlett commended the Attorney General for ``going after a commonly despised practice of spammers and winning. I particularly dislike the burden of having to open spam to determine whether it's spam. Although this suit is not going to solve the spam problem, I think this action will resonate with a lot of people. If this kind of suit deters a few spammers from using the tactic, it could save a lot of human time wasted.''

Sprint has been sued under a recently-enacted Utah law requiring the label "ADV". The suit, Terry Gillman v. Sprint Communications, is a class action. (2002/8/1) [CNET] [AP]

2003-10-08T08:38:00.000-07:00

==============================================

Dig This, Finally someone has a real thought about resolution,,

Stay Tuned Folks,

Ante' Spam

-----------------------------------

US needs Euro-style spam laws, says APIG

http://wd.ittoolbox.com/news/dispnews.asp?i=102219

VNUNet.com
By Dinah Greek
Tuesday, October 07, 2003

The US must model its anti-spam laws upon those in Europe if it is to effectively crack down on unsolicited email, the All Party Internet Group (APIG) has warned.

The parliamentary anti-spam group is sending a group of its members to Washington to persuade the US congress that unless there are similar global laws to outlaw spam, the problem could get worse.

APIG believes that the EU solution offers better protection than many of the bills currently in front of congress.

"We are not saying we have the right solution but it's in everyone's interest to find a solution," said APIG treasurer, Brian White MP.

The group is concerned that the US might adopt an opt-out measure. This would be at odds with the EU directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications, which will introduce the opt-in principle to EU member states.

"The US should adopt the opt-in line we have here in the EU, and this is the single most important measure in the report," said Richard Allen MP, APIG's joint-vice chairman.

He warned that if the US, which is currently considering a number of anti-spam bills, adopts one at odds with the EU, it could "potentially make matters worse, which is why we are going to Washington to beat the drum".

Brian White feared differing laws would be leapt upon by spammers, who would use dissension to wriggle off the hook. "We want to make legislation complementary so spammers can't play countries off against each other."

Also in its report on spam, APIG warned that the UK Information Commission, which has to police the EU anti-spam laws, is under-resourced. If policing spam is to be effective, it advised, government will have to give the commission stronger powers to deal with spammers.

And the group criticised the Department of Trade and Industry for a loophole in the planned enforcing of the directive, which does not penalise spammers sending their junk mail to businesses.

The DTI has made "a very serious mistake in not prohibiting unsolicited business-to-business email", said APIG, calling on the department to reverse this decision.

To see more of VNUNet go to http://www.vnunet.com

Copyright © 2003 VNU Business Online Limited (UK) [All rights reserved]

2003-09-25T18:55:00.000-07:00

Gov Gray Davis signs nation's toughest anti-spam bill
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/6847467.htm

Posted on Wed, Sep. 24, 2003

Gov Gray Davis signs nation's toughest anti-spam bill

MEASURE FACES CHALLENGES, WILL BE DIFFICULT TO ENFORCE

By Aaron Davis
Mercury News

Gov. Gray Davis on Tuesday signed the toughest anti-spam law in the nation, declaring it illegal to send Californians unsolicited e-mail advertisements.

The measure raised hopes that the daily deluge of online pitches for herbal Viagra, car insurance and get-rich-quick schemes may soon become history.

Yet even anti-spam advocates and lawmakers cautioned that the law and its penalties will be tough to enforce because junk e-mailers often cloak their identities in mass mailings by using false return addresses, offshore computer servers and other tricks.

The law allows spam recipients to sue for damages of $1,000 per message and $1 million per marketing campaign. It also gives the state's attorney general as well as e-mail providers such as Microsoft and AOL broad new powers to pursue spammers.

State lawmakers and anti-spam advocates are betting that the top-to-bottom possibilities for enforcement will clean up online in-boxes.

``It turns basically everybody who hates spam into the enforcement authority,'' said Ray Everett-Church, chief privacy officer for the consulting firm ePrivacy Group. ``Not everyone will go down to the courthouse, but you'll get enough of us old cranks who will that we can make it too financially dangerous for spammers to continue.''

The law, written by Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Los Angeles, targets not just the individuals or firms who operate spam servers but also makes liable the often bigger and wealthier companies that are being advertised in spam. The legislation passed the state Assembly and the Senate two weeks ago. The law will take effect Jan. 1.

Anti-spam advocates say California's path-breaking law may help reshape the national debate.

``The only thing that would be better, would be a national anti-spam law that's equally tough,'' said Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach, who had drafted a similar bill in the state Legislature.

California's spam law faces a potential challenge this fall: Congress is currently debating five different versions of anti-spam legislation. Most are weaker than California's law and, if passed, would preempt enforcement here.

Critics also have threatened a court challenge to a provision in the state law that makes it illegal for people or companies outside California to send unsolicited commercial e-mail to California e-mail addresses.

Though there's little legal precedent to support the claim, advertisers say the provision violates interstate commerce rules.

Murray counters that the real power of the new law is the authority it gives the state's attorney general to go after spammers anywhere in the country -- or even offshore.

``We are confident this would stop the billions of dollars we are losing because of spam,'' Murray said Tuesday at a news conference in Sacramento. ``There are no loopholes, no way of getting around it.''

The California legislation is considered strong because it bars unsolicited commercial e-mail pitches unless a recipient has given explicit permission, or in other words ``opts in.'' Most anti-spam proposals are weaker because they allow commercial pitches unless an individual takes the step of withdrawing permission, or ``opts out.''

The new state law, citing a study by San Francisco-based Ferris Research, claims that spam will cost U.S. organizations more than $10 billion this year from lost productivity and higher costs. According to the study, California organizations face $1.2 billion this year in spam-related costs. It is estimated that nearly half of all e-mail traffic is now spam.

Microsoft spokesman Sean Sundwall said the problem of spam driving consumers away from using e-mail prompted the software giant to support anti-spam legislation. Microsoft had opposed Bowen's earlier anti-spam proposal.

``We're pleased the state of California has taken on what we believe is a serious problem. We hope it fosters greater trust for e-mail users,'' Sundwall said.

The support of Microsoft and other e-mail service providers is crucial to the law's success, supporters say, because they are among the only ones with the technical resources needed to track down spammers. Microsoft in June filed 12 lawsuits against alleged spammers, based on a new Washington state anti-spam law.

The only legitimate e-mail advertisements allowed under the new law will be from companies who have existing relationships with customers.

For example, if a customer has signed up to receive an airline's weekly specials via e-mail, those arrangments are still valid. Also, if a consumer has purchased from a company, that business has the right to continue advertising to its customers. Consumers, however, can respond to those advertisements and request to be excluded from further mailings.

While tough on spam, California's law does not specifically target identity-theft and other e-mail scams that often seek to obtain personal financial information.

``Spam and scams aren't going to go away tomorrow because of the passage of this law,'' Everett-Church said. ``This sets a clear bar, though, for what's legitimate e-mail business. Scams will have to be next.''

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2003-09-22T23:01:00.000-07:00

Dig This,

Ante' Spam

=============================================

Antispam Legislation Lags

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112554,tk,dn091903X,00.asp

Congress is pondering nine antispam laws, but none is close to approval.

Daniel Tynan, special to PCWorld.com
Friday, September 19, 2003

Public outrage against spam has become so palpable that even Congress has taken notice. Over the last nine months, politicians of all stripes have announced their cures for the spam epidemic.

Lawmakers are now mulling nine separate proposals to deal with the problem of unsolicited commercial e-mail.

Some of the bills would impose civil or criminal penalties for sending deceptive messages. Another would create a database of people who don't want to receive spam, and still another would issue rewards to those who turn in suspected spammers.

So far, not one is close to becoming law.

That's not what the legislators said early in the session. Early indications were that an antispam measure would pass this year. Several states, including California and Virginia, were tackling the issue on their own.

As the 108th Congress settles down to its most difficult annual task--passing appropriations bills to fund the federal government--odds for passage of an antispam measure this year are virtually nil. Any law that does come to a vote will be a hybrid, taking pieces from different bills. And none will likely be strong enough to please most antispammers.

Familiar Territory
We've been down this road before. The 107th Congress considered eight antispam bills; the 106th Congress pondered eleven. None came close to passage. This time most experts believe Congress will actually pass something. But when the lawmakers do it, and what they will pass, is up for grabs.

The CAN-SPAM Act, cosponsored by Senators Conrad Burns (R-Montana) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), has been proposed with slight modifications in each of the last three sessions. Among other provisions, it calls for civil penalties of up to $1 million for e-mail that's deliberately deceptive. The Burns-Wyden bill is the only one to have passed out of committee this year, and is now awaiting a Senate floor vote.

But such a vote isn't likely to happen anytime soon, says Ari Schwartz, associate director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. If Burns-Wyden does come to a vote, Schwartz says, it will probably include language from the Criminal Spam Act of 2003, which carries penalties of up to five years in prison for sending fraudulent e-mail. Senator Charles Schumer (D-New York) has also pledged to add his "Do Not Spam" registry to any pending legislation.

A more likely candidate for a floor vote will come in the House, where Representative Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) has strong support for his RID Spam Act, which is cosponsored by congressional powerbrokers Billy Tauzin (R-Louisiana) and John Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin). There it will probably be combined with language from the similar Anti-Spam Act of 2003. Both laws would outlaw deceptive messages, prohibit harvesting of e-mail addresses, and allow ISPs (but not individuals) to sue spammers for damages.

Even then, both houses would have to pass their own bills and come up with one version they can agree on, a process that could stretch well into next year.

No Sure Cure
For many antispammers, such delays are a good thing.

"None of the bills will solve the problem, and a few stand to make it far worse," says Andrew Barrett, executive director of the SpamCon Foundation.

"The problem is that much of the language in the various bills tries to redefine what spam is. It focuses on fraudulent content rather than permission from the intended recipient," Barrett says.

Schwartz says that while the CDT would favor a law requiring permission-based e-mail, attacking deceptive messages is a necessary first step in the war on spam.

"No one is under the illusion that legislation will stop spam in its tracks," Schwartz says. "The question is, can we stop it from growing? If we accomplish that, then we can look at ways to drastically reduce the amount of unwanted mail."

But for now, we'll just have to wait.

2003-09-22T22:47:00.000-07:00

Looks Like the Koreans can read those stop spamming me messages
after all,,,,,

More on this to follow,
Stay Tuned..

Ante' Spam

=======================================================

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112564,tk,dn091903X,00.asp

Korean Spam Drops Under Tough Law

Most commercial e-mail is still spam, but stiff penalty has slowed the flow.

Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
Friday, September 19, 2003

A revised law in South Korea designed to regulate spam is proving a success, according to the results of a recent study.

An antispam task force at the Korea Information Security Agency finds that spam levels dropped among 1000 users queried three times in the period between March and July, although the volume of commercial e-mail, both wanted and unwanted, rose slightly, a researcher at the center says.

Stiffer Fines
In March, a KISA survey found an average of more than 90 percent of commercial e-mail received by users was unsolicited. A similar survey in May found the level of unsolicited e-mail had dropped to 75 percent. The July survey puts the figure at just over 70 percent.

Behind the fall in the amount of spam received by users is a strengthened antispam law, says Aaron Won-Ki Chung, a researcher at KISA's spam response center in Seoul.

"The act that regulates spam was amended in December last year," he says by e-mail. "It newly established criminal charges and raised fines to [U.S. $8585] from the previous limit" of U.S.$3434.

The revised law prohibits automatic generation of e-mail addresses, the harvesting of e-mail addresses from Web sites, and the use of technical means to get around spam blocks. It also strengthens control of illegal labeling of commercial e-mail and protection of juveniles from spam.

KISA's July survey finds the average number of commercial e-mail received, including those for which consent was given, is just over 57 messages per day during the month. Of those, 41 messages are classified as spam, with 35 judged as illegal spam and 23 as obscene spam. Those figures represent decreases from the March survey, Chung says.

Other Efforts
KISA's findings come as several nations around the world are drafting antispam legislation and debating the best way to stem the growing amount of spam filling mailboxes worldwide. The issue is a hot topic already this year in a number of countries including the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and member states of the European Union.

Debates have focused just as much on the content of legislation as whether it will be effective and lead to less spam.

Federal Trade Commission Chair Timothy J. Muris recently said he thinks legislation alone will have a limited impact and that technology must also be enlisted to fight spam.

"No one should expect any new law to make a substantial difference by itself," he told a group of business executives and government officials at an August conference, according to a transcript from his office. "Eventually, the spam problem will be reduced, if at all, through technological innovation... legislation cannot do much to solve the problem."

South Korea is not the only East Asian nation trying to stem the flow of spam.

The Internet Society of China says its members, which include Chinese government bodies, companies, and ISPs, have stopped accepting e-mail from 127 mail servers identified as sources of spam. Sixteen of those servers are in South Korea while 90 are in Taiwan, eight in China, and the remainder in other countries.

2003-09-18T18:23:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting Twist,,
Check It Out,

~Ante' Spam

==========================================

Virus Sender Helped FBI Bust Others
http://start.earthlink.net/newsarticle?cat=2&aid=D7TL1TGO2_story

Virus Sender Helped FBI Bust Others

David L. Smith, left, leaves the Monmouth County Courthouse in Freehold, N.J., after his initial court appearance on Thursday, April 8, 1999. Smith, 30,sent out the "Melissa" e-mail virus. Court documents unsealed at the request of The Associated Press show that for almost 2 1/2 years Smith worked mostly full time cruising the dark recesses of the Internet while the FBI paid his rent, insurance and utilities. He gathered information about malicious code senders, leading directly to two major arrests and preempting other attacks. (AP Photo/Daniel Hulshizer)

September 18, 2003 05:08 PM EDT

David Smith was a desperate man. But he was also smart. And he knew secrets about computers that the FBI wanted.

Facing jail time, public wrath and a fortune in potential fines, the 30-year-old sender of the fast-spreading Melissa computer virus did what hundreds of criminals have done before. He agreed to go undercover.

Federal court documents unsealed at the request of The Associated Press show that for almost two years, Smith - then out on bail - worked mostly full time cruising the dark recesses of the Internet while the FBI paid his tab.

What did the FBI get? A windfall of information about malicious code senders, leading directly to two major international arrests and pre-empting other attacks, according to federal prosecutors.

What did Smith get? Just 20 months in federal prison, which was about two years less than the minimum sentencing requirement, and about 38 years less than he faced when initially charged.

"Sometimes it takes a thief to catch a thief," said former federal prosecutor Elliot Turrini, who handled Smith's case and agreed to the reduced sentence. "There are very few people who can walk the walk and talk the talk of a sophisticated malicious code writer. The average FBI agent with good training is not one of those people."

About 63,000 viruses have rolled through the Internet, causing an estimated $65 billion in damage, but Smith is the only person to go to federal prison in the United States for sending one.

Investigators say virus senders are usually incredibly hard to track, operating around the world in an obscure and anonymous environment. But in 1999, the FBI, acting on tips from private computer security experts and America Online, tracked down Smith, a computer consultant from Aberdeen, N.J., just days after he unleashed Melissa.

The virus, named after a Florida stripper Smith had known, was the fastest-moving one computer security experts had ever seen. At least 100,000 personal computers were affected in the first week, according to the Computer Emergency Response Team at Carnegie Mellon University.

In the end, the virus, which spread through Microsoft Outlook e-mail, infected more than 1 million computers and caused more than $80 million in damage.

Smith, who is serving his sentence in federal prison in Fort Dix, N.J., refused interviews with the AP. His attorney did not return calls.

But Smith told the judge while pleading guilty that he did not expect the amount of damage that took place.

"When I posted the virus, I expected that any financial injury would be minor and incidental," he said. "In fact, I included features designed to prevent substantial damage."

According to the court records, Smith began cooperating with the FBI immediately after his arrest. Initially he was working about 18 hours a week, but at the request of the FBI he soon increased his commitment to at least 40 hours a week. In exchange, the FBI paid his rent, insurance and utilities, which totaled nearly $12,000.

His first big result came in early 2001, when Smith gave the FBI the name, home address, e-mail accounts and other Internet data for Jan DeWit, author of the so-called Anna Kournikova virus in the Netherlands. The FBI passed the information to authorities in the Netherlands. DeWit surrendered and was sentenced to probation.

Also in 2001, Smith recorded online discussions with Simon Vallor, 22, the author of the "Gokar" virus that infected Microsoft computer systems worldwide. The FBI contacted detectives in the United Kingdom, who arrested Vallor early last year. He ultimately pleaded guilty to writing three viruses and got two years in jail.

Smith helped identify a vulnerability in IBM Web server software, which the company then patched. The federal prosecutor also said Smith was working with the FBI to develop an investigative tool that could help identify an e-mail sender who was trying to mask his or her identity.

In addition to using e-mail, online mailing lists and newsgroups to communicate and learn about virus senders, Smith collected 1,745 samples of computer viruses and malicious code for the FBI, the court documents say.

Ken Dunham, a computer security expert and senior analyst at Reston, Va.-based iDefense, works undercover in the hacker world to help track virus disseminators.

"Somebody like David Smith, with his background and experience, would be able to talk to individuals and win immediate trust," he said. "He was getting great information that the FBI wouldn't have been able to get otherwise. They needed someone on the inside."

But Peter Tippett, chief technologist at virus-fighter TruSecure Corp., said prosecutors may have exaggerated Smith's contributions. Tippett said private consultants are often more resourceful and can provide much better information about tracking hackers to the FBI.

"In my book, this doesn't add up to all that much value," he said. "They're giving him more credit than he deserves."

Because so few virus senders have been convicted - Smith in the U.S., Vallor and one other in the United Kingdom, DeWit is the only one in the Netherlands - Computer Security Institute editorial director Robert Richardson said he wouldn't be surprised if Smith is just the first of a series of virus senders who, once caught, go to work for the FBI.

"He more than sang like a canary," Richardson said. "He was a narc."

2003-09-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

E-mail arteries clogged by tons of spam
History is telling us that this needs to be Checked,
Quick Congress,,

Ante' Spam

========================================

E-mail arteries clogged by tons of spam

http://www.post-gazette.com/nation/20030314spamnat4p4.asp

Friday, March 14, 2003

By Jonathan Krim, The Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- The flood of unsolicited messages sent over the Internet is growing so fast that spam may soon account for half of all U.S. e-mail traffic, making it not only a hair-pulling annoyance but also an increasing drain on corporate budgets and possibly a threat to the continued usefulness of the most successful tool of the computer age.

Spam continues to defy most legal and technical efforts to stamp it out. The surge has spurred calls for national legislation, but deep divisions remain regarding what constitutes spam and how best to regulate it. In the meantime, spammers, Internet providers, company network administrators and anti-spam vigilantes are locked in a ferocious electronic arms race.

Many spammers have become so adept at masking their tracks that they are rarely found. They are so technologically sophisticated that they adjust their systems on the fly to counter special filters and other barriers thrown up against them. They can even electronically commandeer unprotected computers, turning them into spam-launching weapons of mass production.

"The spammers are evil folks," said Matt Korn, America Online Inc.'s vice president for network operations. "As hard as we're working, they are working 24 hours a day. That's the level to which this battle has escalated."

Roughly 40 percent of all e-mail traffic in the United States is spam, up from 8 percent in late 2001 and nearly doubling in the past six months, according to Brightmail Inc., a major vendor of anti-spam software. By the end of this year, industry experts predict, fully half of all e-mail will be unsolicited. (About 40 percent of U.S. Postal Service mail is business marketing.)

Many companies with legitimate products rely on the ability to reach millions of existing and potential customers through e-mail, and they argue that their solicitations are not spam. But of the total volume of unsolicited mail pouring into e-mail boxes, much is pornographic, comes from scam artists or contains viruses.

"We're seeing a slow degradation of the medium," said Jason Catlett, a computer scientist and founder of Junkbusters Corp., an anti-spam and privacy advocacy group. "Many people don't get on the Internet, or abandon it, because they don't like the trash that they see."

According to Ferris Research Inc., a San Francisco consulting group, spam will cost U.S. organizations more than $10 billion this year. The figure includes lost productivity and the additional equipment, software and manpower needed to combat the problem.

Robert Mahowald, research manager for IDC, said his firm estimates that for a company with 14,000 employees, the annual cost to fight spam is $245,000. And, he said, "there's no end in sight."

One of the battle lines in the war against spam is inside an unmarked building in northern Virginia where a bank of computer screens tracks the volume of e-mail pouring into the system used by America Online's 35 million subscribers.

On a recent afternoon, an unexpected spike suggested the work of spammers using one of their favorite new weapons, the "dictionary" attack.

With special software, spammers can generate millions of e-mails using combinations of letters and numbers, such as JaneH79, placed in front of the @aol.com portion of the address. Enough are generated that many match real e-mail accounts.

That's when Charles Stiles and an anti-spam team take over. They work in a separate back room because some of the Web sites they need to examine to track down owners are so sexually explicit that colleagues might find the workplace offensive.

The group first determines whether AOL's spam filters, which block 1 billion messages a day, need to be adjusted. Meanwhile, a large monitor displays the code for the network address of the computer that sent the suspected spam. The address is automatically cross-checked against a list of registered owners.

But there is an immediate problem: Some of the addresses show up on the display as "unknown." Many others are obvious fakes, making it difficult to track down the senders to get them to stop, or to sue them if they don't.

Although there are anti-spam laws in 26 states, the direct-marketing industry and some Internet retailers have successfully lobbied Congress against a federal law.

That posture has softened as the volume of spam -- and complaints from irate businesses and home-computer users -- has skyrocketed. Marketers now say that while they prefer technological solutions, a national law would be helpful and more effective than a patchwork of state regulations that vary in strength and approach.

But prospects for getting a law passed are unclear. Industry and many anti-spam activists are divided over how to combat the problem, and even on how spam should be defined.

Marketers of legitimate products worry that their messages are getting lost in the din, threatening what has become a thriving business. Although Web site advertising fell victim to the dot.com implosion, marketing via e-mail has been an Internet bright spot, growing to a $1.4 billion industry last year, according to Jupiter Research.

These companies want any law to distinguish their ability to distribute such e-mail from messages that have deceptive subject lines, commit fraud or are designed to thwart detection of the sender so they cannot be stopped on demand.

But anti-spam activists argue that any piece of unsolicited commercial e-mail sent in bulk is spam, even if it comes from "legitimate" businesses.

Only one state, Delaware, bans unsolicited commercial bulk e-mail. But Steven Wood, a lawyer with the state attorney general's office, said the state has yet to have a successful prosecution because it is so difficult to track spammers down.

Analysts say the best chance for legislative action is the return of a bill sponsored in the last session of Congress by Sens. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., which would outlaw e-mail with deceptive subject lines and forged code that masks a sender's identity.

Burns said he hopes to join forces with House members, such as Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., who also have proposed spam legislation. Burns said he is optimistic that his bill will pass this year and that President Bush will sign it.

So far, the White House has been silent on legislation, although the Federal Trade Commission plans a three-day symposium on the problem late next month.

2003-09-14T19:02:00.000-07:00

Seems Like New Zealand has decided to take a pro-active approach
to resolving and understanding this stupid phenomenon

-= Stay Tuned =-

Ante Spam

==================================================
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Schoolchildren may get to study spam

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2658773a28,00.html

15 September 2003
By HEATHER WRIGHT

Students could soon be getting qualified in spam as part of their computer studies.

The creation of a half-day NZQA module for schools was one of the ideas floated at an InternetNZ council meeting.

The non-profit society is hoping to raise more than $100,000 for an anti-spam campaign.

Vice-president David Farrar says the society intends putting together a campaign that will focus on education, technology, self-regulation and, ultimately, legislation.

"None of them are solutions to spam by themselves, but together they can form something that will alleviate the problem for most people."

Mr Farrar says planning is expected to be complete by October and the campaign will kick off soon after.

The Government, Consumers' Institute, software developers and Internet providers are likely to be involved.

The campaign will include a central website to provide anti-spam information from a range of providers. The site is likely to include a rating system for anti-spam software, with people able to share their experiences.

Last week InternetNZ lodged complaints with the Commerce Commission, Health Ministry and Privacy Commissioner over the activities of Christchurch spammer Shane Atkinson. Mr Atkinson promoted penis enlargement pills via spam, reportedly sending out up to 100 million e-mails a day. Mr Atkinson said recently that he had given up spamming.

Mr Farrar says the organisation has received several reports of spam e-mail referring to similar products and websites coming from the IP address block Mr Atkinson has used.

"It could be that some of his associates in America have carried on without him."

2003-09-14T18:43:00.000-07:00

-----------------------------------------------------------
Ante Spam News Clips - Monday 09/15/2003
=================================

We Changed Focus and decided to cover the news
in the wake of the Attacks by backdoor exploitors.

Microsoft Knew all the time, and they never told us..

Wonder Why ??

Ante Spam

------------------------------------------------------------

New spam technique exploits news events

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-09-11-spam_x.htm

By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — There is a new scam to spam.

E-mail marketers increasingly are sending unsolicited e-mail with subject headers disguised as news alerts to fool consumers into opening them. The tactic surfaced during the U.S. war against Iraq this year. Now it is gaining steam as Californians near an Oct. 7 gubernatorial recall election and could become an online nuisance during the 2004 presidential election.

Spammers "used to use sex to get your attention, then e-mails tied to holidays like Mother's Day. Now, it's topical come-ons," says spam analyst Matt Cain of META Group. "The intent of every spammer is to try every trick to get you to open a message."

Spammers are looking for a new edge, because consumers and corporations are investing in anti-spam software and are better trained to spot spam. Lawmakers are crafting bills to slow spam, which is expected to hit 7 trillion messages this year, nearly double that of a year ago.

If e-mail marketers are successful getting consumers to open their messages with references to the recall election, "You can be sure there will be substantially more spam during the presidential primaries next year," says Ken Schneider, chief technical officer of leading anti-spam vendor Brightmail. "People will take advantage of any current event to make a buck."

At least 20 million e-mail messages with references to the recall — many from direct marketers hawking "Terminator for Governor" T-shirts and adult DVDs for another candidate — were sent in the past month. About 100 million are expected, Brightmail says.

The California election, with its celebrity roster of candidates — Arnold Schwarzenegger, porn king Larry Flynt and actor Gary Coleman — and national political implications, could provide the compelling storyline that spammers are seeking to reach a wider audience.

A distributor of adult DVDs is using the candidacy of porn star Mary Carey to sell two of her films for $14.95. Carey says the mass mailing is hurting her campaign.

"I'm very upset, because it offends people, and they're profiting from my name," says Carey, whose staff is trying to track and stop the spam.

Some of the more than 100 candidates, including columnist Arianna Huffington, are delivering spam to potential voters. Huffington's e-mail pitch, with the subject header "An Independent Voice for Change in CA," was sent to hundreds of thousands of people, seeking donations. It does, however, come with an option to be removed from future e-mailings.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-09-11-spam_x.htm

------------------------------------------------------------

Where No Spam Has Gone

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_373275,00030007.htm

QuiteATake.com
Deepak Mankar
Mumbai, September 13, 2003

Spammers of the world, unite. You've nothing to lose but your pains. Pain of being misunderstood. Pain of being at the receiving end of abuse, ill will and heavy bounce rates. Pain of feeling you've no support group of like-minded folks. Cheer up, dudes. There's one now. Bulk Club, an online community that offers tips, tools and a comforting community for bulk emailers, already boasts a membership of 150. According to the Wired magazine, the membership roster was inadvertently left open at the Club's website. It reads like a Who's Who of top-of-the-heap blacklisted spammers. For instance, Damon Decrescenzo, sued recently by Microsoft and Amazon. And John Milton (also known as Davis Wolfgang Hawke), an ex-neo-Nazi' who turned to spamming millions with the offer to increase the dimensions of you-know-what. For $20 a month, members can access the website's archive of best-practice spamming tips, spamming software, spamming community forums where you can share your spamming stories and, all they need to practice 'responsible spamming' - whatever that means! After the accidental revelation, the site was hacked and driven off the web presumably by anti=spam activists. wired.com. P.S.: To read a really, really delectable joke about the wacky folks who think success is a function of Internet savvy, go to freecoolcash.com.

OPENING A BRAVE NEW FRONTIER. Where no spam has gone before.

Looks like any target would do for a spammer. The latest victim they've found has nothing do with e-commerce. It's the comment feature of blogs where reader reaction is supposed to be posted. Read what Steve Outing wrote on 3 September: "Spammers know no limits to their obnoxious habits, it seems. The latest ploy by spammers is to target user comment areas on blogs and websites. This blog has a user comment feature for each item, though I've yet to encounter this problem. But others in the weblogging world do report being hit by comment spam, and some are setting up blacklists to block known comment spammers." (Could spamming be a pathological addiction?) Outing recommends that every blogger monitor reader comments and weed out the comment spam as well as tasteless posts. poynter.org.

----------------------------------------------------------

TEN SUREFIRE WAYS TO REDUCE SPAM. Learn them at Scambusters.org.

There's an eponymous article at the Scambusters.org website that's sure to help us all in dealing with spam. Here's the list verbatim: 1. Remove your email address from your website. 2. Conceal your email address on your websites. 3. Consider subscribing to a spam Prevention Service. 4. Use email filters intelligently.
5. Download free filter sets. 6. Avoid filter conflicts. 7. Use Positive Filtering. 8. Multiple email addresses.
9. Disposable email addresses. 10. Webmail accounts with unlimited aliases. Please go here for the full story: scambusters.org.

2003-08-23T08:23:00.000-07:00

Happy Saturday - Welcome to Our Post a Spammer A Day Campaign.
================================================

Happy Saturday - it's the first day of our Post a Spam A Day Campaign.
todays spam comes to us from the stupid folks at submiturlfast.com
I received this ridiculous letter earlier today. just the thought that they
use their spiders to go out and harrass folks in this manner should
be C R I M I N A L...
so since it isn't actually criminal yet in Michigan -
we're going to start our own Ante' Spam's Hall of Shame.

if you want to send some spammer an email of disgust
please feel free to use this address : E-mail: jennifer_hanson@submiturlfast.com
she is the spammer who sent this note below and she says she wants to get email.
so lets give her a few pieces to enjoy.

our first entry is below -
come visit us often to see who we've added each day.
this will continue for at least the next 30 days and then we'll connect
the spammers together and see where the majority of spam originates
from in our contest. we'll notify the State Attorney General and also the
Legislators about our Displeasure with being forced to endure something
as unneccessary and costly as this Spam Assault From Their State.
Hopefully they'll listen. I have a feeling they will since we'll make our pleas public.
that way everyone will have an equal chance to see what's really happening in their state,
with regards to stopping this never ending deluge of UCE's ---- SPAM.

On With the Show Mateys,,

This is my response to the spam below my note.
enjoy - I'm hoping for a response from this spammer.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

First thing Spammer
There is no www.ausetkmt.com in need of your help.

We handle our own submissions and this is not
Something that we feel you can help us with.
We have a specialized approach to submission,
And your spamming is not what we need.

You are just a Spammer and need to realize
That I and all the other folks you have spammed
In your spamming career, were not deserving of this
Type of mistreatment.

The cost of this email and it's processing should
Be sent to you for repayment. 1 hrs time = $250.
I'm a highly trained professional so wasting my time
Is going to be expensive.

Think twice before continuing this unneccessary and
Wasteful mis use of email.

BTW, Your Name and Address as well as the entire header for
This mail will be immediately published. When we find your
Personal email address info we will add that to the posting
As well, since you think our addy is public - welcome to the club.

Stop Spamming,

Ante' Spam

http://antespam.blogspot.com/

====================================================
Original Headers

X-Apparently-To:xxxxxxx @yahoo.com via 216.136.130.210; Fri, 22 Aug 2003 22:57:33 -0700
Return-Path:
Received: from 211.101.236.31 (EHLO localhost.localdomain) (211.101.236.31)
by mta463.mail.yahoo.com with SMTP; Fri, 22 Aug 2003 22:57:32 -0700
Received: from ()
by (8.12.8/8.12.5) with ESMTP id e7N5iBv3026373
for ; Wed, 23 Aug 2000 13:58:12 +0800
Message-ID: <2944CR1000012145@s2h6a0w3.trafficglue.com>
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 13:49:16 +0800 (CST)
From: Jennifer Hanson
Reply-To: Jennifer Hanson
To:xxxxxxx@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: search engine submission for www.ausetkmt.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-EMA-CID: 19198563
X-EMA-LID:
X-EMA-PC: 0f72d2db59500

-----Original Message-----

From: Jennifer Hanson [mailto:bounce@submiturlfast.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2003 1:49 AM
To: xxxxxxx@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: search engine submission for www.ausetkmt.com

Hi,

I visited www.ausetkmt.com, and noticed that you're not listed on some search engines!
I would like to introduce to you an affordable service where we can help enhance your
business' global online presence and increase the number of visitors to your website.

Our unique technology at
http://s2h6a0w3.trafficglue.com/mnkr/www/r?1000012145.2944.3.D7gVY3z7Xlack3
submits your website to over 300,000 search engines and directories every month.

You'll be surprised how simple it is to now reach out to an international market
and increase the visibility of your products and services, at a low cost to you.

Why not visit us at
http://s2h6a0w3.trafficglue.com/mnkr/www/r?1000012145.2944.3.D7gVY3z7Xlack3
and let us help you direct traffic your way?

I look forward to hearing from you!

Best Regards,
Jennifer Hanson
Sales and Marketing
E-mail: jennifer_hanson@submiturlfast.com http://www.submiturlfast.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not interested in our service?
To be taken off our mailing list, please follow the instructions below
http://s2h6a0w3.trafficglue.com/mnkr/www/r?1000012145.2944.1.cpFD8X7MWXAd7$

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
there were no instructions below - just this link which tried to steal my addy from my browser.
http://s2h6a0w3.trafficglue.com/mnkr/www/r?1000012145.2944.1.cpFD8X7MWXAd7$

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Incoming mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.512 / Virus Database: 309 - Release Date: 8/19/2003

===========================================================

2003-08-22T13:23:00.000-07:00

===========================================
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
the Evil of the Sobig.f Virus - Why are we having this now ?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Take a look at this page about the Sobig.f Virus and you can get a clear
idea of just how dangerous this thing is.

it takes a two pronged approach to evil by spamming
after invading. talk about evil. the person who wrote and
put this virus out there deserves all the civil and criminal
charges that are possible. the way they have drawn movement
to almost a stop on the internet is akin to a global crime.

there has never been a virus that took this approach to
infecting the Internet, and hopefully the anti virus experts will
devise a way to prevent these types of virulent code violations
from inhibiting our lives again.

This is the coverage on Yahoo on the Virus

This is the Google Coverage on the Virus

This is the Reuters Coverage on the Virus

This is the CNet Coverage on the Virus

2003-08-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

Today's Issue ~ V I R U S H O A X E S,,
=================================
Virus Hoaxes
=================================

Virus Hoaxes -
http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=hoaxes

There are a lot of viruses out there. But some aren't really out there at all. Virus hoaxes are more than mere annoyances, as they may lead some users to routinely ignore all virus warning messages, leaving them vulnerable to a genuine, destructive virus. Next time you receive an urgent virus warning message, be sure to check the list of known virus hoaxes below.

Remember: Never open an email attachment unless you know what it is—even if it's from someone you know and trust.

Remember that virus writers can use known hoaxes to their advantage. For example, AOL4FREE began as a hoax virus warning. Then somebody distributed a destructive trojan attached to the original hoax virus warning! The lessons are clear: Always remain vigilant and never open a suspicious attachment.

Virus Detection and Prevention Tips
===============================================================================

Mcafee's Virus Detection and Prevention Tips are located here http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=tips

===============================================================================
Virus Detection and Prevention Tips

Do not open any files attached to an email from an unknown, suspicious or untrustworthy source.
Do not open any files attached to an email unless you know what it is, even if it appears to come from a dear friend or someone you know. Some viruses can replicate themselves and spread through email. Better be safe than sorry and confirm that they really sent it.

Do not open any files attached to an email if the subject line is questionable or unexpected. If the need to do so is there always save the file to your hard drive before doing so.

Delete chain emails and junk email. Do not forward or reply to any to them. These types of email are considered spam, which is unsolicited, intrusive mail that clogs up the network.

Do not download any files from strangers.

Exercise caution when downloading files from the Internet. Ensure that the source is a legitimate and reputable one. Verify that an anti-virus program checks the files on the download site. If you're uncertain, don't download the file at all or download the file to a floppy and test it with your own anti-virus software.

Update your anti-virus software regularly. Over 500 viruses are discovered each month, so you'll want to be protected. These updates should be at the least the products virus signature files. You may also need to update the product's scanning engine as well.

Back up your files on a regular basis. If a virus destroys your files, at least you can replace them with your back-up copy. You should store your backup copy in a separate location from your work files, one that is preferably not on your computer.

When in doubt, always err on the side of caution and do not open, download, or execute any files or email attachments. Not executing is the more important of these caveats. Check with your product vendors for updates which include those for your operating system web browser, and email. One example is the security site section of Microsoft located at http://www.microsoft.com/security.
If you are in doubt about any potential virus-related situation you find yourself in, you may report a virus to our virus team.

Mcafee.com's Virus Site is Here -
http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp

What is a Virus?
A virus is a manmade program or piece of code that causes an unexpected, usually negative, event. Viruses are often disguised games or images with clever marketing titles such as "Me, nude."
What is a Worm?
Computer Worms are viruses that reside in the active memory of a computer and duplicate themselves. They may send copies of themselves to other computers, such as through email or Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

What is a Trojan Horse?
A Trojan horse program is a malicious program that pretends to be a benign application; a Trojan horse program purposefully does something the user does not expect. Trojans are not viruses since they do not replicate, but Trojan horse programs can be just as destructive.

Many people use the term to refer only to non-replicating malicious programs, thus making a distinction between Trojans and viruses.

Virus Removal Tools are located here http://us.mcafee.com/virusInfo/default.asp?id=vrt

McAfee Security provides you with a powerful set of virus removal tools, designed to automatically detect and remove viruses that infected your system. These applications are also valuable because of their size, making them easily downloadable even with a slow Internet connection. If you suspect your system to be infected with one of the following viruses, these invaluable FREE tools will allow you to repair any damages to your computer.
Get up-to-date protection today. McAfee VirusScan is the easiest, most convenient way to protect your PC from computer viruses like Nimda, SirCam, Bugbear and others.

Those Stupid Spammers and this Worm,,

Please take a moment and read this entire post so that you
Can more clearly understand what this virus is doing.

Ths is ridiculous that someone wastes this much time
Creating mischief. They should be put up on a big
Bulletin board and folks should be allowed to throw their
Infected computers at them.

That'll show em.

Ante' Spam
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----Original Message-----
From: Anti-spam@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Anti-spam@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 6:01 AM
To: Anti-spam@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Anti-spam] Digest Number 296

For more information, see:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Anti-spam

------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are 3 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. Side Effect of Sobig Virus?
From: "Kevin"
2. Re: Side Effect of Sobig Virus?
From: Brian Fistler
3. OT: Re: Side Effect of Sobig Virus?
From: Dracomark

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2003 22:57:17 -0000
From: "Kevin"
Subject: Side Effect of Sobig Virus?

I've gotten literally dozens upon dozens of the Sobig virus posts, and they all
look like they do NOT come from people I know, and all look alot like
spammer addresses (typical bogus-looking, ad-related addresses).

Since I'm on a Mac using MailSmith, nice safe dead-end for the virus. I'll be
curious to see if adding all these to SpamSieve will cause a noticeable
decrease in SPAM over at least the short term? ;-)

Kevin Quosig
kevin at quosig dot com

"All days come from one day
that much you must know,
you cannot change what's over
but only where you go."
--"Pilgrim" by Enya (A Day Without Rain)

Wednesday, August 20, 2003
3:56 PM

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message: 2
Date: 20 Aug 2003 19:06:19 -0500
From: Brian Fistler
Subject: Re: Side Effect of Sobig Virus?

Kevin,

The virus "spoofs" the return address as being from one of the email addresses in the infected person's [PC files - was "address book"].

What you have in common with the people who the virus SAYS it is from, is simply that you and they have a common acquaintance.

(This is NOT saying that a spammer couldn't get infected and have a REALLY big address book for the virus to harvest and send, but in all likelyhood, the people you are seeing the virus "from" are simply in someone's address book who also has YOU in their address book.)

Those people are ALSO receiving the virus from the same infected person, and some of THOSE viruses are appearing to come from YOU... Hence the reason you may occasionally get a "bounce" message, or a message telling you that you are infected.

Brian

On Wed, 2003-08-20 at 17:57, Kevin wrote:
> I've gotten literally dozens upon dozens of the Sobig virus posts, and
> they all
> look like they do NOT come from people I know, and all look alot like
> spammer addresses (typical bogus-looking, ad-related addresses).
>

[Moderator note: Changed first sentence to allieviate misinformation.]

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message: 3
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 01:07:49 -0000
From: Dracomark
Subject: OT: Re: Side Effect of Sobig Virus?

--- In Anti-spam@yahoogroups.com, Brian Fistler wrote:
>
> The virus "spoofs" the return address as being from one of the email
> addresses in the infected person's [PC files - was "address book"].
>
> What you have in common with the people who the virus SAYS it is
from,
> is simply that you and they have a common acquaintance.
>
>
> [Moderator note: Changed first sentence to allieviate
misinformation.]

Explanation:

For a very long time viruses have scarfed email addresses from many
source files on the infected PC, NOT just address book (.WAB) files!
And the virus will not only send itself to those addresses it finds
in VARIOUS FILES on the infected PC, it will use those addresses as
the sender "From:" field, and mask the source.

There is no certainty you have any relationship with the infected
PC. I spoke with a gentleman today who received over 120 copies of
SOBIG.F. He has the unfortunate circumstance of having his name on
many web pages and on his intranet. (Sobig loves intranets.) ;-)

This is why KLEZ still annoys us even though it's easily detected, it
is extremely difficult for the casual computer user to determine its
origin and inform the infected party to do something about their
problem.

Read up on the most common or potent virus threats and you'll also
understand spamming viruses have already happened and may become
more prevalent in the future.

See: http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/ .

Mark

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2003-08-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

==================================

It's Anti Spam Monday and this is the News

===================================

Spammers Runnin and Duckin --- Oh Yeah,,

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3518682&thesection=news&thesubsection=general

Spammer ducks for cover as details published on web
19.08.2003
By JUHA SAARINEN
A New Zealander who sent millions of junk emails out every day has shut his business after his personal details were posted on the web.

Shane Atkinson - whose business is known as spamming - said the barrage of abuse made him worry about the safety of his children.

His identity as the man behind millions of spam messages promoting penis enlargement pills was revealed in a Herald article last week. Mr Atkinson said that on a good day he and his associates would send out 100 million messages.

He said that since the article was published, anti-spam activists had been "having a field day". He had received more than 20 phone calls, five of them obscene.

His personal information, street address and phone numbers were "plastered all over the web", he had been subscribed to a gay-dating site and his email address had been added to "tons of email lists".

"I have already banned my 5-year-old from answering the phone," he said.

The article also led to rackshack.com, the US web service that hosts Mr Atkinson's servers, being entered in the Spam Early Warning System list, which many networks use for blocking email traffic.

Rackshack gave notice that it would shut down two of Mr Atkinson's servers because of the listing, forcing him to move the servers to a different network.

Mr Atkinson has decided to get out of the spamming business, citing the "negative feedback" and saying that he "never intended to break any regulations". He has asked affiliates to stop doing the work for him.

"I sort of feel good now about stopping this," he said.

"I'll just stick to search engines and web sites - that's still plenty of fun and money."

Internet group InternetNZ has said it will file formal complaints against Mr Atkinson with the Commerce Commission, the Ministry of Health and the Privacy Commissioner.

New Zealand does not have specific anti-spam laws.

2003-08-18T20:21:00.000-07:00

Spammers Runnin and Duckin --- Oh Yeah,,

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3518682&thesection=news&thesubsection=general

2003-08-16T14:30:00.000-07:00

========================================

Weekly pointer to the SPAM-L FAQ
========================================

The Pointer to the SPAM-L FAQ - this is a very important site for Spam Fighters-
and anyone who really wants to get clarity on if a UCE is Spam..
You can click into any link in the FAQ once you click the Title or URL Link;
This takes you directly into the FAQ site. Within This Blog.

Check It Out,, and if you agree with the concepts,
Join Us on SPAM-L; Spam Fighters and Spam Definers.

Ciao for Now,

Your Auntee

Ante' Spam

==============================================================

Subject: FAQ: Weekly pointer to the SPAM-L FAQ (Automated Posting)

The SPAM-L FAQ
Version: 4.06

Last Revision Change: 24 Apr 2002

This is the SPAM-L FAQ, a document dealing primarily with how to post
to the SPAM-L mailing list, what to post, and what not to post. It
also includes technical information on how to track down spammers,
decipher message headers, perform traceroutes, etc. If you are a
newbie and these terms confuse you, don't worry. Everything you need
to know is explained here, though it may take some time to understand
it all. If there's something you don't understand, feel free to ask me
directly or ask in SPAM-L. We'll be happy to help, that's what we're here for.

Contributions, comments, corrections, flames, and any other
correspondence regarding this FAQ should go to Doug Muth

The latest version of this FAQ can be found at:
* http://www.claws-and-paws.com/spam-l/ _________________________________________________________________

What's found in this document:

1. SPAM-L (Newbies to SPAM-L should read this first)
+ What is the purpose of this FAQ?
+ What is SPAM-L?
+ How do I subscribe?
+ How many people are on it?
+ Who owns/maintains it?
+ Is the list and/or this FAQ copyrighted?
+ How many messages does SPAM-L get each day?
+ How can I stop from getting so many messages from the
list?
+ How can I determine my current subscription options?
+ OK, what is "spam", then?
+ I want to unsubscribe, but forgot how!
+ I want to join, but I'm worried that a spammer will get
my e-mail address!
+ How do I search SPAM-L?
2. Posting to SPAM-L (Please read this section before posting)
+ What should be posted?
+ Some posting guidelines
+ How much/often can we post?
+ Please do not feed the trolls
+ So how do we keep the trolls out?
+ A word about using profanity
+ Signal and Noise
+ How topics work
+ The topics for SPAM-L
+ Just how do I post to SPAM-L, anyway?
+ How do I receive my own postings to SPAM-L?
+ How can I distinguish posts to SPAM-L from other e-mail
that I get?
+ Should I forward every spam I get to the list?
+ I just posted a spam I got, and got flamed. Why?
+ I just posted something to the list, and it got rejected,
why?
+ Can we advertise anti-spamming products/services in
SPAM-L?
+ People can't verify my PGP signature, why?
+ Please don't CC SPAM-L on complaints
3. Tracking spam (Technical stuff)
+ OK, I just got spammed. Now what?
+ But I only got one copy. How do I know it was really sent
in bulk and therefore spam? (Added: 25 Jul 1999)
+ What are these "headers" you folks keep talking about?
+ How can I view the headers with mail client X?
+ How do I read them?
+ What does "forging" mean?
+ Uh, what's Telnet?
+ What is the "point of injection"?
+ How can I track down the sending system?
o What about these "stealth" mailers?
+ A word about firewalls and forwarders.
+ What's this stuff in parentheses in the Received: header?
+ How do I track down the point of injection?
+ What about host names like "222.173.190.239" or even
"3735928559"?
+ Why should I bother to track down the point of injection?
+ What's traceroute, and how do I use it?
o I don't have/use/understand UNIX, Can I still use
traceroute?
o Traceroute says "unknown host", now what?
o Traceroute hangs, now what?
o I get a bunch of asterisks (**), now what?
o Web Based Tracerouting
+ What's WHOIS, and how do I use it?
o Using 'Whois' for Domains (.com, .net, .edu, .org)
o Using Whois for Country-Code Top Level Domains
(ccTLDs, .au, .ch etc)
o Using Whois for IP ranges and ASNs
+ Huh, what was all that?
+ I'm too lazy to use WHOIS or don't have enough time. Is
there a "default" address which I can e-mail? (Added: 25 Jul
1999)
+ Postmaster bounced! Now what?!? (Added: 25 Jul 1999)
+ What are netblocks, and how are they useful?
+ What's nslookup, and how do I use it?
+ How to do some web-based spam tracking
+ How can I test a system to see if it relays e-mail?
4. Blocking spam
+ How do I "block" spam?
o I see this funny header which seems to occur only in
spam e-mail. Could I filter on that?
+ How do I "block" spam in a LAN?
+ How can I "block" a site?
+ What's a UDP?
+ What's an IDP?
+ What's a plussed address?
o How can I use it effectively?
5. Miscellaneous
+ Calling an ISP voice and complaining - Why and How?
+ Calling a spammer's 800 number, be careful!
+ Getting more information on a spammer.
+ Complaining to the postal service - Why and How?
+ I got flamed by a spammer I complained to. What do I do?
+ I got flamed by the sysadmin of a site. What do I do?
+ Help! Am I being spammed by a list member?
+ I seem to receive more spam now that I'm subscribed to
this list!
+ I'm a webmaster, why should I remove a paying customer
just because he spamvertised his site from another system?
+ How can I mirror the SPAM-L FAQ?
+ Can I mirror SPAM-L?
+ How much do you listowner people get paid anyway?
+ How can I tell when this FAQ is updated?
6. Resources
+ Glossary
+ Web Sites
o Information
o Legal
o Media
o Organizations
o Tools
7. Credits
8. Changes from previous versions

=============================================

2003-08-16T07:30:00.000-07:00

Hello on Saturday from the Restored Black-Out Belt.

We have power, water and everything seems back to normal, however I never trust the power when it's hot like this
so without further A-Do, We give you our Friday/Saturday Ante-Spam Update.

lots of things happened this week when we began our Spam Unmasked Project.
One Major Spammer sent out a letter to lots of folks claiming not to be a spammer..

"Yeah Riiiiiiiiiiiite Buddy" Your Own Mail says "You're on 200+ lists-
and have a network of over 1/2 a million on a wireless network"
sounds like a HEFTY pool of folks you're spamming regularly Buddy,..

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We're hoping that this person understands that if they launch even one more attack that we
are involved in - Their Name Will Be Emblazoned Broadly In B I G BOLD Text Everywhere We
can Find a Place - anywhere infact that there is free space to tack it up as a spammer.

We at Ante'Spam are tired of this particular Liar, and We've decided this is our last time trying
to get them to understand the real meaning of UCE. Enough Is Enough.
================================================================

Now ON With the Show:

This week we discovered a few great sites which give lots of information on Understanding
and deciphering Spam and it's Origins.

We Want to share a couple of the items with you here,

Rice University Computer Technology - Referred to us by : Mark on AntiSpam-l
Thanks Mark !!!

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2003 14:17:02 -0000
From: Dracomark
Subject: Re: MSNBC series about spam problem

--- In Anti-spam@yahoogroups.com, "David B. Smith" wrote:
> On 10 Aug 2003 at 5:25, Dracomark said succinctly:
>
> > Some good reading material in an ongoing MSNBC series about the
> > problem with spam proliferation. Honest, real stuff here.
> >
> > Spam wars: How unwanted e-mail is burying the Internet
>
> Well, mebbeso, but when reading through the articles, I was pointed
> toward a "survey" MSNBC was doing, and I gotta ask myself, where

Must be random; I never saw any suvey. (Though I do see them
frequently here on Yahoo.)

> that- data gonna go? Am I "opting-in" to some spamlist somewheres
> just by going to their webpage?

Never forget, it's not spam when you 'ask' for it - 'opt-in'. Given
a properly configured system, I know of no way simply visiting a web
page will reveal your email address UNLESS you somehow agree to it.

> If not them, maybe their "partner"
> who does the popup ads at their site?
>

And extending this strategy to extreme absurdity ... STOP NOW ...
UNplug yourself and your machines from any contact with the net.
It's your only hope.

Mark
--
http://it.is.rice.edu/~rickr/safe/

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Rice University has a great website on Computer Software Technology and Computer Security check it out here http://it.is.rice.edu/~rickr/safe/

I also think that this website had a profound effect on our understanding of how spam can be prevented.
we have borrowed and reposted here a part of their website that deserves a look -

Where to Find Security Patches
Here are some quick links you can use to locate useful security tools and patches.

Security Announcements for All Microsoft Products
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/

Windows 95/98/Millenium/2000:
Windows 95: http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/

Windows 98/Millenium/2000: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

Internet Explorer & Outlook Express: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/default.htm

Microsoft Office 2000: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/

Microsoft Office 97: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadCatalog/dldWord.asp
--> Click Word 97 Downloads

Microsoft Office 4.2/Word 6 Macro Virus Protection Macro: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/wd1215.exe

Macintosh:
Apple MacOS Updates: http://asu.info.apple.com/

Microsoft Office 98 for Mac: http://www.microsoft.com/macoffice/

Internet Explorer/Outlook Express for Mac: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/ie/default.asp

Office 4.2/Word 6 Macro Virus Protection: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/softlib/mslfiles/mw1222.hqx

===================================================
This is some great advice on HOAXES
===================================================

Hoaxes are usually easy to identify, if you know what to look for.

Hoaxes have been forwarded many times. If the message headers indicate that the message has gone through many hands, it's probably a hoax. On the other land, legitimate virus notifications here at Rice will be sent to the ALLDEPTS mailing list, and forwarded to faculty and staff by departmental secretaries.

Hoaxes name a lot of names. In an effort to sound authoritative, hoax messages will usually name impressive-sounding corporations, goverment agencies or individuals. In the example above, the hoax author mentions a half dozen corporations and commercial products. This is a strong indicator that the message is a fake; a real warning from an IT professional will only include relevant information.

Hoaxes never have references. A legitimate virus warning will always refer you to a Web page where you can get more information. Hoaxes never do, because there is no more information.
Hoaxes never have dates. When a real IT professional sends out a message about a virus, he or she will include an action date and a time period during which users should be concerned. Since the hoaxsters want their message to propagate for as long as possible, they never include dates.

Hoaxes never have remedies. Hoaxes are always hopeless; the hoaxster wants you to think that the problem is so serious that there is no hope of recovery. Of course, if there were hope of recovery, the hoaxster would have to refer you to information about recovery... but they can't, because it's all lies.

Hoaxes always ask you to forward the e-mail. If you don't forward the e-mail to everyone you know, then the hoax never propagates. So hoax messages will always encourage you to forward the e-mail. Real messages from IT professionals will never ask you to forward the message willy-nilly.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Advice on Hoaxes - Read the Above and Follow it Closely.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We Found this on Yahoo Of All Places - Hey This is some good stuff, check it out

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/mail/context/context-71.html

Why would I want to prevent HTML graphics from being downloaded?

Emails can contain offensive images or can contain invisible images that tell the sender that you have opened that email (and thus verify that your email address is active). To prevent spammers from subjecting you to these images, you may wish to prevent all images from loading until you are satisfied that they are safe to view. This is one of the many ways Yahoo! Mail protects you from spam.

By enabling the option to "Block HTML graphics in email messages from being downloaded," all remotely stored images will be replaced with this image . To view the message with the original images, click the "Show HTML Graphics" link at the bottom of the message.

Why do I still see images in Yahoo! Mail?
Images that are sent as attachments will be shown in the attachments area, even with this option turned on. Also note that this option will not prevent images outside of the email messages from loading. Navigational, informational, and advertising images will still be loaded.

=================================================================

All In All Fab-u-lus !!! Thanks Yahoo, for giving us something we can use finally, other than Spam.

one link of notice that we should all use regularly ==> http://urbanlegends.about.com/

it prevents SPAM from Repopulating and Hoaxes from Exploding..Use It !!!

More anti spam later in the weekend.
till then - SMASH SPAMMERS and SPAM

Ya Auntee'

Ante' Spam

Drop Ya Auntee' Some Mail if ya Smashin Spammers:
antespam@spammers-suck.cjb.net

2003-08-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

Thursday, August 14, 2003
WELCOME To Ante Spam's Electronic ANTI-SPAM Workshop

Ante Spam is Now Smoking out the spammers

------------------------------------------------------------

Today begins a new day on the Realities Groups.

NO MORE Spammers.

This means if you spam, and we know you are a spammer
We will be removing you without even a word to you.

You know who you are, and so do we.. so do us all
A favor and leave, because the heat in the kitchen
Is just getting started.

================================
This is the first of a group of articles on SPAM
and UCE which are intended to be a portion of an
Electronic Anti Spam Teach-In.

We at Realities receive 500+ pcs of mail daily
And sorting them to remove the spam made us notice
A pattern. Then the pattern became familiar, too familiar.

It was a person who says they are a part of our
Community; but yet and still they constantly
Harvest EMAIL Adresses from all the Groups they
Are members of; without even a word to the innocent
Victims, who are left in a barrage of spam from
Every viagara, loan and sex hawker they can sell
Our addresses to. These folks even have the nerve
To sell the owners addresses of the groups they
Belong to; as a part of the huge multi thousand
email address cash cow they are milking at our
Expense daily.

No More Pimping and No More Pork.

Spammers Leave Now or expect your whole
Business to be exposed directly to everyone
On everygroup we belong to; along with you.
Which could be well over 100+ last count..

Ya Betta Recognize -

Ya Ante'

Ante Spam

Anti Spam Department
Realities Design Studios

http://ausetkmt.com/blogs/antespamblog.html
Providing You with the Internet Power Groups: ThinkTank; Historynotes;
Afrospirit; Yorubalife-l; and Realities Forums.

and now "Ante Spam's Electronic ANTISPAM Workshop"
visit us on the internet at : http://spammers-suck.cjb.net/

================================================

and now the News :

------------------------------------------------

http://silicon.com/news/165-500001/1/5385.html

Wed 30 July 2003 03:11PM BST

More spam in July than during all of last year
Are we agreed it's a problem now?

Anybody still unconvinced about the scale of the spam epidemic should
consider this fact: MessageLabs intercepted more spam in the last month
than in the whole of 2002.

While this is in part proof that filtering is more widely used, it is
also an indication as to just how much spam is being sent and received
each day. According to MessageLabs spam accounted for 50 per cent of all
email again during July.

MessageLabs' anti-spam service scanned more than 156.6 million emails
during July. Of those 79.7 million were identified as spam and
intercepted.

MessageLabs, in its monthly report, also reported the interception of
1.7 million viruses throughout July - equal to one in 166 emails. Worst
offending sectors for the distribution of viruses were leisure and
sports and entertainment were around one in 70 emails sent is a virus -
perhaps a reflection of the more relaxed attitudes in such sectors.

The threat-savvy IT sector however is far more secure with just one
virus in every 223.4 emails. Other areas where virus writers are
enjoying little impact include legal (one in 520.8) and accounting (one
in 1,384.6).

Will Sturgeon

------------------------------------------------

http://spamnews.com/blog/C740927464/E76461799/index.html

BLACKLIST V. BLOCKLIST

Politically correct speech seeps its way into spam fighting

BLACKLIST V. BLOCKLIST - spamNEWS 5/27/2003 by ed.

Politically correct speech seeps its way into spam fighting

I have a strong suspicion that the neologism "blocklist" got started at
a company that publishes blacklists, during a time when they were being
sued into complacency ... I expect that in an attempt to soft sell what they were
doing to a judge, they coined this horrid new term. However, this perversion of
the English language is just sad, under any circumstances.

black*list n. A list of persons or organizations that have incurred
disapproval or suspicion or are to be boycotted or otherwise penalized.

Are we now saying "We approve of spammers, but have arbitrarily decided
to stop their traffic"?

The aversion to the use of blacklist is predicated upon the synonymic
association of the term to Joseph McCarthy's infamous list of
communists, real and imagined. The word blacklist was coined, according to
Merriam-Webster, circa 1619*, 330 years prior to the Washington Witch Trials, used to great
success before and since with a measurable degree of acceptance, and
none-too-overwhelming negative connotations, apart from those intrinsic
to the definition of the word.

[* Thanks to Declan McCullagh for the nudge towards M-W

------------------------------------------------

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/32103.html

Spam dumpster diving
By Jan Libbenga
Posted: 31/07/2003 at 13:22 GMT

Anti spam activists struck gold this week when they found a website,
which contains thousands of zipfiles, left behind by or nicked from a
spammer. Nearly a gigabyte of email addresses, unzipped.

So, where is it from? Almost certainly from TornadoPromotions.com Inc,
an American company that offers services to send e-mail advertisements
to as many as 150 million consumers at a time.

Its growing list of clients includes Morgan, Colling & Gilbert,
Recreational Factory Warehouse, Legends Sports Management Group,
American Liberty Financial and Body N Soul Spa, to name but a few.

Recently, the company purchased a 2,500-square-foot house, equipped with
a 62-inch television set, an espresso/martini bar with Starbuck's-like
retro furniture and walls draped in bold red, green and yellow,
according to news reports.

CEO Ernie Falco III says he runs a "decent e-mail promotion company. We
don't do any adult content, nothing vulgar," he was quoted as saying in
a San Francisco Chronicle article. "We don't do any Viagra stuff
either."

Is he telling the truth? The files do contain addresses targeted toward
"Adult". Although, targeted may not be the right word here. Under
"Church" it has one address "peepshow@..." Some addresses have expired
long ago, according to Usenet users who began feverishly searching for
their own name. So much for accuracy.

Falco and his business partner Ryan Totka created a CD-ROM database
containing 40 million e-mail addresses, which were culled from the
Internet using e-mail harvesting software. Lately, the emphasis has
shifted somewhat. The company now provides Internet clients with top
listings on major search engines. Which is why they left the dumpster in
the open? ®

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http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20030730-063127-6410r.htm

Computer virus invades through spam

LONDON, July 30 (UPI) -- British computer experts issued a warning
Wednesday
about a new Windows virus that can be carried along with spam e-mail.

The BBC said the virus isn't in the spam itself, but on a Web site
that can accessed through a link in the e-mail message.

The spam message tricks people into clicking on a link by using a ruse
such as "you have an Internet kiss waiting." Once at the site, a
program may copy passwords, login details or even credit card numbers.

------------------------------------------------

ARE THE 419ERS THE MOST HEINOUS OF THE LOT ?

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/5786411.htm

Posted on Mon, May. 05, 2003

At Large: Leonard Pitts Jr.
Smoking out the spammers

I am sick and tired of the Africans.

Sicker and more tired than I am of people trying to sell me home loans,
ink cartridges and easy money-making opportunities. Sicker and more
tired than I am of receiving newsletters I never requested from groups I
care nothing about. Sicker and more tired than I am of offers to enhance
certain highly personal body parts. Not to mention helpful pictorials
illustrating the use of those body parts.

All that e-mail is annoying, but I place the Africans in a special
category of aggravation usually reserved for cockroaches and
telemarketers.

Because they won't take ''Die, scum'' for an answer. They will not go
away. To the contrary, they have come after me with the same scam
several times a week for what must be two years now.

The particulars change some, but the gist of the spiel never does. A
high official of some African nation -- Congo, Nigeria, South Africa --
is supposedly in desperate need of an honest intermediary to assist in
the discreet transfer of some obscene amount of money and he has heard
that little old me might fit the bill. For my troubles, I am promised a
generous share of the proceeds. All they need is my bank account number.

Yeah, that's going to happen.

But then, maybe you think I'm unduly suspicious. After all, if you can't
trust strangers who contact you of the blue to offer you the moon on a
pie plate in exchange for sensitive personal information, well . . . who
can you trust?

Cool, then. Give them your bank account number. After all, if you check
your e-mail, chances are good you'll find that the Africans are offering
you the same opportunity.

Indeed, unsolicited commercial e-mail, otherwise called spam, otherwise
called the kind of words most of us don't like our children to catch us
using, has become downright inescapable in the last couple of years.
According to the most conservative estimates, it now constitutes 40
percent of all e-mail, the overwhelming majority as fraudulent as that
sent by the alleged Africans. One newspaper reports that the percentage
is projected to top 50 percent as early as this summer.

The stuff is growing like kudzu at a prodigious cost in money, time and
productivity. Thankfully, people have begun to notice. Recent days have
seen a flurry of activity aimed at getting spam under control.

The state of Virginia just enacted what is said to be the nation's
toughest anti-spam law. A number of other states and Congress itself are
pondering similar statutes. Last week, the Federal Trade Commission held
a three-day symposium on spam. America Online has filed suit against
several spammers and teamed with rival Internet providers Microsoft and
Yahoo to combat the glut.

The bureaucrats, lawmakers and Internet providers have recognized the
plainly obvious -- that what's at stake is nothing less than the
viability of e-mail itself, its continuing value as a tool of
communication and legitimate commerce. An innovation that once seemed to
make life a little easier is rapidly becoming one of life's bigger
annoyances. How long before people begin to decide it's not worth the
hassle?

The problem, of course, is finding a solution that works. Spam filtering
devices are partially effective at best. And as for harsher measures:
How do you fine them if you can't find them? How do you throw the book
at them if you don't know where they are? Junk e-mail, like the Internet
itself, is such an amorphous entity that regulating it is not unlike
herding cats or grabbing Jell-O in your fist.

So chances are, we're going to have to wait awhile for the technology to
catch up with the problem. Fine, but whatever solution surfaces better
be one that satisfies. I'm thinking of a button you could push that
traces spam back to the computer it came from and causes it to explode
in a big orange fireball. Or to melt into a smoking black puddle.

Hey, I'm not picky. Just so long as we get the Africans first.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do 419ers have a moral leg up over other spammers ?

http://spamnews.com/blog/C740927464/E1175194226/index.html
The article in the Miami Herald, "Smoking Out The Spammers " provoked
the some thoughts.

First off, the writer is laying down some racist rhetoric: "I am sick
and tired of the Africans". There is no need to blame an entire
multiracial continent for the actions of a few.

Did the Nigerians invent the scam? Actually, no. Abram Sykowski, (while
living in Montreal) developed and perfected a twist on the much older
Spanish Prisoner scheme. Moreover, it may not even be Nigerians sending
this stuff. My analysis of the 419 spam I have on hand shows that it is
predominately coming from a2000.nl, a holding company registered in the
Netherlands . Their website
redirects to http://www.upc.nl/index.php, which is the United and
Philips Communications B.V. company. I'll need to go to Amsterdam to
investigate this further ... and it has been days since my last trip
after all.

So, which is it? Are we supposed to be sick of the Poles, the Africans,
the Dutch or the Spanish? How about we just get sick of the spammers,
and leave the racist verbiage out of it, ok?

An interesting side note: Charles Ponzi maintained residence here for
some time, as well. To boot, Montreal is a centre of illegal swindling
telemarketing boiler rooms, mostly controlled by the Hell's Angels. So,
who wants to play Sin City?

The term '419', incidentally, derives from the Nigerian Penal Code,
which provides against this swindle, in the article numbered, you
guessed it, 419.

Secondly, while I cannot think of any good excuse to spam, I do
understand the motive of abject poverty and starvation, which may lead a
person down the path of desperation. Nigerians has a GDP of $841 USD per
capita (2001 est. ref. The CIA World Fact Book).

The spammers ensconced in Boca Raton (see the article 'Boca Stamping
Itself Spam Capital') and Miami are far more well-to-do than the people
living on the other side of the world, and trying just about anything to
avoid the terrible fate of starvation. The Florida spammers can well
afford to "get a real job". While a continual stream of 419 is annoying,
I can find a much bigger place in my heart for it than, say, rape videos
and kiddy pron, flowing in from Amsterdam and Russia, or genitalia
enlargement products and mortgage pitches coming in from what is rapidly
becoming the armpit of North America.

"But Neil" you say - people have been killed by these criminal gangs ...
well, no. I have done quite a bit of research trying to find an original
citation; the U.S. government maintains a set of documents at the CIA
and State Department which circuitously quote one another as source
material, over an unnamed Swiss businessman who supposedly was been
kidnapped, and maybe even killed. However, no names are ever mentioned.
The murderous 419 gang seems to be an urban legend.

I was able to track down one seemingly valid report in the London Times
(thanks to reporter Brian Brady of the Scotsman Newspaper), of an
Englishman kidnapped in South Africa. OK, bad enough, but still not
murder (The article is not online; it is replicated below).

Of course, there's the case of the legal secretary who was jailed
because she seconded some funds from the firm where she worked for so as
to latch onto the elusive leprechaun's (or would that be Fool's?) gold
... There is one born every minute, to be sure.

I am not advocating allowing the 419ers off the hook for their impact on
our mail servers and accounts. I am simply saying that if ever there was
a good reason for people to send out some spam, like in Lagos (or go on
a rampage, like in Baghdad), starvation and oppression are great
motivators, and we should be sensitive to their plight. Let's remove
their motivation! One can donate to the International Committee of the
Red Cross here or CARE here.

Ironic isn't it? A little less hunger in the world, a little less spam.
Yes, I know, the notion of sending cans of spam to Nigeria in lieu of
money crossed my mind too. OK, that works just as well for me - ed.

----------------------------------------------------

http://silicon.com/news/500015/1/4287.html

Thu 22 May 2003 08:51AM BST

It's National Anti-Spam Day - so 'Dump the Junk'
A made up occasion, if ever we heard one but it's no less relevant for
that...

Today is the first Global Anti-Spam Day - dubbed 'Dump the Junk Day' -
which is being run by Yahoo! in the hope of further raising the profile
of the worldwide spam problem.

Estimates suggest spam - or unsolicited bulk email - costs businesses
£5bn per year in lost hours and wasted resources. More than 40 per cent
of all email traffic is now made up of spam and some industry experts
have expressed concerns that the levels may get so high that it becomes
unusable as a communications tool.

And the message appears to be filtering through. Stephen Timms, UK
ecommerce minister, has thrown his weight behind the campaign. In a
statement Timms said: "Nobody wants an inbox full of irrelevant emails
but unfortunately spam is a growing problem the world over. Not only is
it a nuisance but it is also eroding people's trust in using email. We
want consumers to benefit from the advantages of electronic
communications without being bombarded with next-generation junk mail.

"Technology has an important role to play and it is essential that we
educate users on how to stop their inbox clogging up with unwanted
emails. I applaud initiatives such as Yahoo!'s Dump the Junk Day that
aim to do just that."

"Email has revolutionised the way we communicate - spam must not be
allowed to get in the way," he added.

Among the goals of 'Dump the Junk Day' is educating users. Research
released by Yahoo! revealed that 56 per cent of UK email users are
perpetuating the spread of junk mail by replying to it and so clarifying
that their email address, generally targeted on a random basis, is
indeed valid and in use. It is a mistake guaranteed to attract even more
unwanted mail.

Email users are also being encouraged to 'rat on a rat' by reporting the
most prolific spammers to dumpthejunkaward@yahoo.co.uk .

So hat's off to Yahoo! The only black mark against its name remains the
fact that too many spammers are still using Yahoo! addresses to contact
unwitting victims of the spam deluge and little is being done to ward
them off - though of course AOL, Hotmail, Netscape et al aren't
blameless here either.

At least Yahoo! has done its bit in kicking off this campaign, for that
it is to be applauded - let's hope it's a success.

Will Sturgeon

// posted by ante @ 8:07 AM