Missouri Puts Spam Back In Can New law getting first test Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon has filed the first lawsuits under the state's most recent anti-spam legislation.. The new measures, enacted in August of this year, hold offenders "subject to an injunction prohibiting their conduct and a civil penalty of up to $5,000 for each violation, not to exceed $25,000 per day. Violators also may be subject to penalties for any fraudulent spam." Missouri's newest legislation toughens penalties and shores up existing spam laws passed in 2000 and 2002. "Spam is the unwanted cyber-salesman with its foot in your e-mail door," Nixon says. "These lawsuits to enforce Missouri’s new law are a way to close that door."
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  twitterRawwwwrrrPremium
join:2002-06-07
Lexington, KY | nice... i wish other states would step up and pass some laws against spam... Missouri gets a 
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underachievement: because the tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the lawn mower. | |
|  |  nozeroEschew ObfuscationPremium,MVM,ExMod 2003-06
join:1999-12-29
InnerSanctum
kudos:3 | Re: nice... I'll second that , but I will not make any expectations... | |
| |  KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| That's an EXCELLENT law, especially the requirements alerting you as to an "Adv:" or Adult.
Right, I do agree it's hard to enforce, but it's the right direction to go.
It means people can and will start to have a means to hit back at spammers and force them to clean up their act!
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"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) | |
| | |  koitsuPremium,MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
kudos:13
| Re: nice... We have the ADV: law in California, and it simply doesn't work. Our law declares that any unsolicited advertisements **ORIGINATING** from California must contain that subject prefix -- so spammers push their spam through open relays in other countries or other states: problem solved.
Of course, open relays are becoming few and far between these days -- the more common tactic is to team up with IRC DDoS kiddies (my guess is that they're the spammers to begin with) and gain access to compromised boxes that can do their dirty work.
Spammers do not abide by laws and they likely never will. We can pass all sorts-of legislation, it won't stop them from continuing their efforts, illegal or otherwise. So far, all efforts deployed have gone in one ear and out the other -- or have simply caused spammers to change their methodology (see above). The latest method deployed is definitely bound to piss off a myriad of folks who rely on SpamAssassin.
I don't rely on SpamAssassin for three reasons: it's a broken implementation / badly implemented (case in point), relies heavily on perl (major bottleneck for mail delivery), and doesn't assist bandwidth-conscious administrators (the incoming DATA portion of the SMTP transaction is still accepted rather than denied at earlier stages of the SMTP handshake).
If any legislation is to be passed, it needs to contain a clause that states how the definition of law applies is based upon where the **recipient** is located, *NOT* where the spam originated from.
As for my own opinion? The only legislation that'd be effective would be to propose death by injection/gas/electric chair/hanging when violated. I'd _gladly_ vote for that.
You know what gets me? These guys aren't making sh** for money. You could effectively relocate to a tech-prone region and get a full-time job making more money than these folks. It's not about money, it's about laziness. Oh how I'm so proud to be an American... pardon me while I go toss up.
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Making life hard for others since 1977.
[text was edited by author 2003-10-11 17:30:56] | |
| | | | KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK Reviews:
·AT&T DSL Service
| Re: nice... said by koitsu:
We have the ADV: law in California, and it simply doesn't work. Our law declares that any unsolicited advertisements **ORIGINATING** from California must contain that subject prefix -- so spammers push their spam through open relays in other countries or other states: problem solved.
The Missouri law is cooler, because it states that spam *received* must be "ADV:" so that means any SPAM that comes in from anywhere that DOESN'T do so is in violation. Sure, it's still hard to enforce, but at least it provides the motivation and financial incentive to try.... 
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"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) | |
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| | | So does that mean they can only enforce their penalties if the spammer is in Missouri?
I can't imagine they'd be able to do much if a Missouri resident receives spam. | |
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| Re: nice... It applies to all spammers who sent to Missouri residents I believe, no matter where they are located. They are suing people in Florida.
..."The lawsuits, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in St. Louis, charge Phillip Nixon of Palm Beach, Fla., and proprietors of the Web site Fundetective.com, of Boca Raton, Fla., with violating the law."...
[text was edited by author 2003-10-11 20:39:49] | |
| | | | | Nixon slapped down Miss Clio not long ago. Most of the fifty states have legal agreements allowing them to cooperate with each other in these kinds of things. | |
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| | | Laws are nice, as long as someone enforces them. Oklahoma has the "ADV:" law but our AG won't do anything. You can go here and see the spam I get, take note of how many have "ADV:" in the headers.
»www.intruder1500.com/spammed | |
| | | KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK Reviews:
·AT&T DSL Service
| Re: nice... said by wae75:
You can go here and see the spam I get, take note of how many have "ADV:" in the headers.
»www.intruder1500.com/spammed
Hey cool, how did you set up that SPAM report? | |
| | | | | | Re: nice... I wrote a program to grab the headers off my POP3 account, drop them in a database and then upload them to my website where a 2nd program decodes them and displays the pages.
This explains in a little more detail:
»www.intruder1500.com/spammed/how···ks.shtml
Obviously I need a life. | |
| | | | | koitsuPremium,MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
kudos:13 | Re: nice... Two thumbs up. That's incredibly awesome, and a lot of fun. Very cool that the world still has a few people out there that write nifty stuff -- just because they can.
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Making life hard for others since 1977. | |
| | | | | | | | Re: nice... said by koitsu:
Two thumbs up.... That's incredibly awesome, and a lot of fun.
Thanks for the kind words. I still enjoy programming occasionally, especially when there is no real purpose. You might like the 'spam story' I just created. A little shot at humor using the current spam stats that shows just how ridiculous the problem is:
»www.intruder1500.com/spammed/ | |
| | | | | | | koitsuPremium,MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
kudos:13 | Re: nice... I'll read it in a bit (messing with PCs right now). If you want ridiculous, try these stats (I work over at Hotmail, by the way) -- if drinking/eating anything, please remove from mouth/finish swallowing prior to reading the below paragraph.
We received 3.5 billion Emails a day at Hotmail. On average, 93% are determined to be spam. Therefore, about 7% of all Email on the 'net at this point is "legitimate."
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Making life hard for others since 1977. | |
| | | | | | | | | | Re: nice... Oh I have no trouble believing that at all. Mine runs about the same percentage wise but certainly not that high of a number. Right now 94% of what I get is junk mail.
For me it's gone way past irritating and has now reached the point of just being ridiculous.
»intruder1500.com/spammed | |
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 frankenfeet934 is 10-8Premium
join:2001-10-14
Smiths Grove, KY
| Good news but... I think it's good news that states are enacting these kinds of laws. How can a person collect this money, when most of the spammers do things like hide their IP address, send spam via proxy, and other fraudulent things. The money would be great, but I'd like to see jail time after three times or something similar. How about a 5 year minimum jail time for repeat spammers.
[text was edited by author 2003-10-11 11:15:15] | |
| mwf
join:2000-11-26
Granite Quarry, NC | Musical Chairs? You work your way backwards. Find the server the e-mails came from, they either tell you where they got them or they pay the fine. Eventually you will find the person sending them. Of course this only works when the servers are in the United States which most aren't. | |
| |  devrandomI got a pot, full of random stuff herePremium
join:2003-06-28 | Re: Musical Chairs? Half the time the machines are compromised boxes used to route e-mail, so its no use. But the law is a first step.
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If it can be smoked, its prolly not going to be good for you. | |
| | | jsouthJsouth
join:2000-12-12
Wichita, KS |  Re: Musical Chairs?
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| devrandomI got a pot, full of random stuff herePremium
join:2003-06-28 | Yeah, but when you have a chain of 3,000+ boxes that are compromised, and the owners are regular internet folk (Internet IQ negative), its doubtful that you'll get any results.
Add in the geographic factor, and physical limitations, and you get a spammer's dream...
Basically want needs to be done is a rebuild of the internet's underlying concepts at its core, which has already started, but being slowly adopted.
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If it can be smoked, its prolly not going to be good for you. | |
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JPCass
join:2001-01-23
Denver, CO | AT least someone's trying
I wonder if the states will at least push the advertisers and spammers who are not out-and-out crooks, to comply with the ADV: subject requirements. That would help me to weed out what I don't want to be bothered with. | |
| | KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK Reviews:
·AT&T DSL Service
| Re: AT least someone's trying Also, *I think* that if a certain number of States pass laws on the same issue, then under uniform commercial codes, by law, a kind of "universal" version goes into effect nationwide (To aid standardization and commerce) anyway.
That was my understanding, anyway.... So, let's say Congress won't act, but 38 states pass anti-spam legislation, I think then the laws are kinda hammered out into a "one size fits all" and it becomes federal law in all 50 states.
Or maybe not. Generally, however, usually Congress will act when the will of the people becomes VERY clear.
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"Regulatory capitalism is when companies invest in lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, instead of plant, people, and customer service." - former FCC Chairman William Kennard (A real FCC Chairman, unlike the current Corporate Spokesperson in the job!) | |
| | | | said by JPCass:
I wonder if the states...ADV: subject requirements. That would help me to weed out what I don't want to be bothered with.
We have the ADV law here, and I have yet to recieve a single spam that actually *has* that in the header and I doubt any will comply. They already go to great lengths to avoid keywords, example:
»www.intruder1500.com/spammed/deception.shtml | |
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| |  winkyTurn Left At The Moon
join:2001-02-11
Saint Louis, MO | Re: Jay is cool! You got that right. He's not all talk either..He Collects (theoretically) Big Time. So far he's gotten $1,075,500 in judgments against telemarketers, we'll have to wait and see how well he does against spammers. To top it off he's a Democrat, who would'a guessed? | |
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| | Yup And I thought living here was useless! I guess this state is worth something afterall.
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Super Vegita and Super Son Gokou+fusion earrings=Vegetto, the super fusion. | |
| | |  Charged by the MB
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| | abrody
join:2000-07-20
Silver Spring, MD | Re: Charged by the MB That's one reason I don't do wireless. Last thing I want is my airtime being billed because somebody else places a call into my system. Sure, pay phones cost more, but they don't force you to pay anything you aren't using. | |
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