On Wednesday, August 28, 2002, at 04:38  PM, Daniel Quinlan wrote:
> Just a few notes:
>
>  - It will be difficult to find, prosecute, and win money from someone
>    in various non-friendly countries where spam originates (China is a
>    good example) even if they do officially "respect" copyright law.
A lot of spam which *appears* to originate from China, and even
a lot which advertises websites hosted there, is sent by, and is
done for the benefit of, companies based in the US.  The spam
often appears to originate there because it's coming from open
http, or squid proxy servers.  It's hosted there because these
spammers are now persona-non-grata on all US ISPs.  One hardly
needs to involve the Chinese government in a case where a US
citizen is violating US law.
>  - Law suits take time. Between now and conclusion of the first court
>    case, we could have years of spam in our mail boxes!
The first court cases were actually concluded years ago. These
include many legal precedents which are used to protect the
rights of ISPs to block mail, and to terminate service to
spammers.
>  - Contact information can change: phone numbers, PO boxes, stolen
>    cell phones, temporary email addresses, etc.
Surprising then, how much information you can find on the
current whereabouts of long-time spammers like Alan Ralksy of
Detroit, Michigan.  Ralsky is a guy who even gives interviews to
the news media.  If you can connect a specific corpus of spam to
him, his street address is well known. Ralsky is a prime
candidate for lawsuits in any state with an anti-spam law.
Thomas Cowles is another long-time spammer, but last I heard
he'd been jailed for stealing computer equipment from his
business partner, Eddy Marin (also a long time spammer (You've
heard of PopLaunch, right?)
>  - Spammers do not always remember to include contact information!  I
>    don't understand it either, but nobody said they were bright.  Also,
>    some spam is non-commercial or sent by a third-party (for example,
>    "pump and dump" stock scams), so contact information is not strictly
>    required for the spammer to get their way.
Back when I was working at MAPS, there was a flap over a
pump-and-dump spammer, Rodona Garst.  Seems she had an open
file-share on her laptop, and when she forged the wrong domain,
the real owner hacked in and posted all her private information
on a website. Oh, look, it's still there, including the nude
photos:
http://belps.freewebsites.com/
I recall this well, because the SEC was VERY interested in
confirming the validity of the information found online.  There
were some "interesting" conversations. This summer, the SEC
released the following:
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/33-8113.htm
Yes, the investigation took two years, but the financial penalty
for operating a pump-and-dump scam isn't small.  The wheels of
government grind slow, but the grind very fine indeed.
--B
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