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But spam is still on the rise

This week MySpace.com announced it had filed a lawsuit against Scott Richter, also known as the "Spam King." MySpace.com claimed that Richter had sent out millions of e-mails to MySpace members. Richter is being sued under the CAN-SPAM Act. MySpace also said that Richter illegally gained access to millions of MySpace user accounts by using phishing schemes that exploited certain flaws in MySpace's website architecture.

Richter's run-in with tech companies isn't something out of the ordinary and MySpace is definitely not his first. In 2003, Microsoft took Richter to court, in which he was ordered to hand over $100,000 USD for damages caused by e-mail spam. After failing to pay the fines, Richter was ordered to pay $7-million USD.

Law enforcement agencies and IT companies are strengthening their fight against spam in all forms. DailyTech recently reported that Jeffery Goodin became the first person in the U.S. convicted of a criminal offense for spam. Goodin is facing prison sentence on July 1st of this year and could face up to 101 years in a federal prison. Goodin was also prosecuted under the CAN-SPAM Act.

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$?
By Scabies on 1/23/2007 11:54:50 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Richter's run in with tech companies isn't something out of the ordinary and MySpace is definitely not his first. In 2003, Microsoft took Richter to court, in which he was ordered to hand over $100,000 USD for damages caused by e-mail spam. After failing to pay the fines, Richter was ordered to pay $7-million USD.


I have to wonder who was the beneficiary of these damages, aside from the lawyers involved... I got spam before '03, and I havent been issued a cent in compensation.

"OMG CHECK OUT THIS VIDEO" password scams... all my myspace contacts have been fooled by this. Die, Scott, Die!




RE: $?
By discussion on 1/23/07, Rating: -1
RE: $?
By AxemanFU on 1/23/2007 2:39:05 PM , Rating: 5
Are you out of your mind? Hurts noone? You think it doesn't cost each of us some expense to pay our ISP's to filter out the masses of this useless waste and garbage flying around the web? All the wasted time, all the man hours of work, all the programming time, all the wasted electricity to run all the network equipment all over the world to transport, process, and store trillions of usless, unnecessary waste emails? All the extra infrastructure built just to handle the massive bandwidth and storage requirements for a bunch of junk and crap? You tell me it's not costing ALL of us money/time wasted to subsidize spamming and other nefarious web related behaviors? My life is either my time, or my time traded for money, and any less time these blood sucking spammers take out of my life while I try to search through and filter out their junk and uesless crap is better for me, and for everyone else I suspect. More time for me, my family and friends, for busieness, entertainment. More use I can get out of email as a means of communication.

SCREW spammers and their parasitic ilk. We can all only hope punishing them harshly for wasting hundreds of millions of poeple's time and money will get a message across...


RE: $?
By virginia on 1/23/07, Rating: -1
RE: $?
By NaughtyGeek on 1/23/2007 3:58:58 PM , Rating: 3
People pay to put their junk in the USPS therefore it's not costing us any money. No comparison.

The fact that it doesn't cost these parasites any money is the reason the problem has become so widespread. If these folks can make money off of 1% of the SPAM they send, they are bound to make a fortune at our expense with no risk to them without these SPAM laws. Too bad they can't torture the pukes before they send them off to jail.


RE: $?
By cochy on 1/23/2007 5:51:11 PM , Rating: 2
Agreed and I believe I read some where that in some short amount of time spam email will be more common then legitimate email. So obviously something needs to be done. The stiff penalties are to set precedence and scare people from breaking the same laws after the precedence has been set.


RE: $?
By oTAL (blog) on 1/30/2007 3:55:41 PM , Rating: 2
I believe that in absolute number, the amount of junk mail (including malware such as spread by mail viruses and the sort) is already superior to the amount of legit e-mails. Don't forget that a single infected computer can spew tens of thousands of e-mails every hour.
I don't have any sources, but I believe I've read it somewhere credible.


RE: $?
By Chernobyl68 on 1/23/2007 7:00:34 PM , Rating: 2
I'd challenge that assumption based on how much the price of a stamp has increased in recent years. I believe one of the reasons cited for the increase was to pay for upgrades to sorting equipment to handle the increasing volume of mail. how much would it cost if we weren't sent 10 credit card applications, student loan consolidation, or mortgage refinance (I live in an apartment!!!) letters every month.


RE: $?
By Grast on 1/23/2007 7:09:51 PM , Rating: 2
I agree. but the day it costs me a dollar to send a letter through the mail is the day I stop using the postal service.


RE: $?
By Scabies on 1/23/2007 2:42:20 PM , Rating: 2
relax. We call this exaggerated sarcasm. Spare us the moral crusade. I know I do not have the right to pass a sentance on Scott Richter, and I realize that as I joke about what punishment he should receive. Do note that a recent spam offender faces up to 101 years in prison (life, essentially,) which is a great margin above the default murder sentance.
I would readily categorize spammers with pirates, in fact I would rank them as worse than pirates. Pirates give the shaft to holders of copyrights to supply (illegally) the public. Spammers help no one but themselves and the advertising groups and companies they are hired by, unless you are interested in recieving discounted v!@g@r@.


RE: $?
By masher2 (blog) on 1/23/2007 10:20:46 PM , Rating: 2
> "Do note that a recent spam offender faces up to 101 years in prison (life, essentially,) which is a great margin above the default murder sentance."

In most states, First Degree Murder is a life sentence or, in the states that permit it, the death penalty. That's for a single offense.

Under CAN-SPAM sentencing guidelines, however, a single offense is one year in jail. Five years if the spam was sent in order to facilitate some other felony crime. That is, compared to a life sentence, a fairly light penalty, wouldn't you say?

Goodin is facing 101 years in jail for multiple offenses. Rather like a serial killer can easily face a 1,000 year sentence. However, its important to note that Goodin has not yet been sentenced. Odds are he'll receive a far shorter sentence in actuality.


RE: $?
By nschor on 1/23/2007 2:50:10 PM , Rating: 3
I agree that levity should be given to small time spammers on a case by case basis, but this guy STEALS lists using high tech methods, and is not averse to scheming and cheating people, who maybe aren't as saavy as you, out of every penny they have. He is a criminal and should be treated as such. He has to PAY the price if for no other reason, to be made an example, and maybe protect thousands of innocent people from being ripped off. Given the opportunity, this guy would steal your SSN and sell it to the highest bidder. I'm ashamed of you for being so narrow minded. Think before you blog!


RE: $?
By discussion on 1/23/07, Rating: -1
RE: $?
By nschor on 1/23/2007 3:25:46 PM , Rating: 3
Oh man, are you serious?!? Playing the sympathy card on a completely unrelated issue. Thanks for your scrifice -- I too am a veteran, but you should get sympathy for missing a brain, not a leg. How was anyone supposed to know you're missing a leg anyhow? Did you limp into this BLOG? BTW, look at the reaction your initial comment is getting - case closed!


RE: $?
By throughhyperspace on 1/23/2007 3:59:41 PM , Rating: 2
I have the utmost respect for your service in the defense of our country. That is, however, no reason not to disagree with your stated opinion on this matter.

While, I too, feel the fight against malware is something to be expected while on the internet with a PC, that does not mean those who propagate such software should not be held accountable. The vast majority of spammers are not innocent advertizers. They use doubious methods to collect email addresses and as stated above, have no qualms about phishing and other identity scams. This is the case on myspace. The are either pushing webcam girls, video ipods, ect or attmpting to steal the password to your other email accounts. This costs MySpace millions in attempting to combat this scourge and that cost inevitably gets passed onto consumers(as is the case with ISPs, antivirus companies, ect). While myspace is currently free, will it be forever? Or will they increase the amount of adviews people must bear? Or perhaps they will not be able to broaden their services because they have too many resources tied up in security.

I do believe that punishing the worst of the perpatrators will be a deterrent to others considering such schemes and as such, have no problem with them recieving relatively harsh sentances for a nonviolent crime. 5-10 for those involved in large scale more nucience spamming up to 25+ for those involved in serious identiy theft scams.


RE: $?
By OrSin on 1/23/2007 4:08:59 PM , Rating: 1
I with the 1 legged guy. Sorry its a hassal and he shoud be fined. The big dogs like them maybe even a a year or 2 in cake walk prison. But 101 years for spamming is crazy. Now if you can prove he stole things (money, accouts names) or anything like that them hit him hard. But All they got him for right now is spamming. When emailing gets you 101 and double murder get you 13 years its insane. And yes i know someone that served 13 years (had got 22)for killing 2 people and they had witnesses.

Its funny how the entitled lose it over suck small things.



RE: $?
By nschor on 1/23/2007 4:37:16 PM , Rating: 2
I say no less than ten years for serious offenders -- One or two for small fries. Anything less than ten years would not deter a serious offender. As a matter of fact, they'd probably keep doing it from the computer in the prison library.


RE: $?
By Chernobyl68 on 1/23/2007 7:04:44 PM , Rating: 2
Sorry, butI fail to see the connection between showing respect to vets (I am one also) and this spam king.
101 years? not enough I say. I want him to spend an equal amout of time in jail for the sum of the individual lost time of all the people he spammed...



RE: $?
By rudy on 1/23/2007 3:35:46 PM , Rating: 3
You are obviously a spammer yourself otherwise I see no reason anyone would not support reasonable measures to reduce this junk. A harsh penalty like a couple years in jail for wasting the time of millions of people seems reasonable to me. And lets not forget many of these guys (probably all that are convicted) are phishing and stealing real monetary things such as money. That is nothing more then a new version of fraud. They also spoof peoples email addresses. In the US if you claim to be someone you are not you can and should be punished. That is why we in the US have a booming internet economy because we actually punish people for making the internet an insecure place unlike other countries who just don't give a shit or worse are corrupt like china and turn a blind eye to the large numbers of hackers and spammers they harbor so long as they don't say anything bad about their country and help stimulate their server companies which provide safe off shore web servers to pollute the internet with spam. As time goes on each country will realize the only way they can advance their internet potential is to create some sort of security for the honest average people using the internet. That means if you phish, spam, or steal you need to be held accountable.


Off with his head!