Spammer Sues List Broker 351
BuckMulligan writes: "This article describes a lawsuit brought by a spam company against a list brokerage warehouse for selling e-mail addresses of persons who didn't opt-in. What this means is that those marketing lists created by data brokers aren't even accurate enough for sending spam."
I dont wonder (Score:1, Informative)
Mindset Interactive? (Score:3, Informative)
And your telling me that their email list gathering methods might be unethical? Who'd have thunk it?
rOD.
Spamming For Dumbasses (Score:1, Informative)
About 2 months ago I had the chance to take a road trip with one of my best buds to go see his father down in bakersfield. For those that don't know what bakersfield is, it's a shithole of a dirty little town somewhere between Sacramento and LA on the I5.
Now if it's a shithole of a little town, why would I in my right mind want to go there, sleep on a floor for 3 days, and eat crappy food. Well, my friends dad *supposidly* had a T1 line going into his apartment and was running spam operations from that. I told my friend that's bullshit, Ma bell don't run T1's to anything but businesses, i've ordered enough of them to know.
We got down there, I was expecing to walk in, and find a wirespeed DSL modem or something. Upon closer inspection I found a CSU/DSU and a cisco 2500 router. Holy shit this guy really did have a T1 line. I started talking to him about the legal/social ramifications of his business. After about 30 minutes of talking to him I could tell, he got a hair up his butt one day thinking spam was going to be a big money maker for him, paid someone to set him up and that was it. Not only did he not have a clue that hijacking someones SMTP server is bad, but he said SMTP servers that don't run open relays are interferring with his ability to do business and started screaming "ITS MY RIGHT TO SPAM AND ANYONE WHO TRIES TO STOP ME IS INTRUDING ON MY AMERICAN RIGHTS TO RUN A BUSINESS"
I stopped talking to him after that. He just would not accept that using someone elses server without their permission is just plain wrong. Anyways...
He started trying to talk me and my friend into getting into the business with him. I told him it would be a conflict of interest for me because I am a sysadmin of course, but I would be more than happy to watch him work to learn for myself.
His network consisted of 6 win98 machines, 1 BSD box that he had no idea what it did. They ran some windows GUI based tool called SMTPscan. Basically it had 2 boxes to input your IP range into, it would scan that range and report back usable servers. I can't remember the actual name of the program he used to send the mail with, but I remember him pasting that list from SMTP scan into it.
Also to note was his lack of a true list management system. His remove e-mails pointed back to a hotmail account so his main server would be isolated from any attacks. He would manually go into his hotmail account. These removes did nothing though, let me explain it from his point of view.
Basically when your remove yourself from a spam list, it's just for that spam. The spammer still has a list for some new product that he hasn't sent out yet, if he hasn't sent it out how can you be removed?
So this guy maintains a list of 4,000,000 e-mails and ALLWAYS spams to all of them. Legally he's found a loophole to cover his ass and can happily spam the same list as long as he's selling something different.
I just wanted to post this so everyone would know, spammers aren't really the most technically minded people. To them it's
1. Spam
2. ****
3. Profit
While to us it's
1.Spam
2.Flood someone elses server, slander some legit company by relaying pr0n spam. Eat Bandwidth
3. Profit
I hope you enjoyed this post, please mod accordingly if you did.
--toq
Re:Um.... (Score:3, Informative)
During the installation there is a "Special Offers" section. The first four (Which, not coincidentally are the only ones that show up in the little box) are unchecked by default, but scrolling down reveals that the other 15 options are checked.
Remember when the web used to be free, of ads, that is?
Earlier article at bizjournals.com (Score:3, Informative)
"Officials at Inurv could not be reached for comment."
Re:I Google therefore I am (Score:4, Informative)
Sometimes that means you've found a spammer.
Other times, it just means you've found a Mail Boxes, Etc. type of place. (Non-US folks: Sorta like a post office, but run by private companies. People can rent mailboxes with them, and collect their snail-mail there. Most of their customers are legit, but many aren't.)
(Sometimes, of course, the same spammer will use the same mailbox/dropbox provider for more than one scam. Figuring out the difference by looking for similarities in writing styles, etc. is more an art than a science...)
Re:I Google therefore I kick some serious butt :) (Score:3, Informative)
Posted somewhere down the page, I listed a link found on Google to a earlier article by bizjournal.com. In that article, they list Inurv Inc from Glendale, CA. No searches of general business directories for Glendale CA turned anything up, but this [ca.gov] tells us a whole lot more... Of course, the Secretary of State should have some good info
I'll post the general info here in case Sec State website are susceptible to
Corporation
INURV, INC.
Number: C2381410
Date Filed: 9/28/2001
Status: active
Jurisdiction: California
Mailing Address
210 N. CENTRAL AVENUE #210
GLENDALE, CA 91203
Agent for Service of Process
GEORGI KARAYACOUBIAN
1443 ROCKGLEN AVENUE #4
GLENDALE, CA 91205
Re:I Google therefore I am (Score:4, Informative)
Or, you could try the California Corporations database [ca.gov] to find Inurv, Inc. or their parent, Nash Business Services [ca.gov]:
Nash Business Services, (818) 243-1977, 210 N Central Ave, Glendale, CA 91203
Re:Spamming For Dumbasses (Score:4, Informative)
I'll pay for moderation - and look at the banner ads
Re:Um.... (Score:3, Informative)
I had JUST moved into my apartment, and JUST gotten my phone activated. First one ever, so I didn't have any past relationships, etc. I started getting calls two days later. At least two a day.
Then I signed up with the AGO's office for being put on the "no-call" list. Since then, I've gotten a couple of calls from phone companies (who are exempt from the law) and two other companies who I had business relationships with.. I didn't opt in, but they made the call legally, so I didn't complain too much.
If you're in Missouri, <a href="http://ago.state.mo.us/">I strong suggest checking it out.</a> It's at http://ago.state.mo.us/ for those link paranoid. You can even sign up online- you'll get a packet in the mail a week or so later explaining everything.. it's really pretty neat, clear English, whole 9 yards. They only reissue out the "no-call" list every six months, so you could have to wait a few months, but once it's done and you're out there, people have to quit calling. Else, you get to have fun with 'em.
.
Re:Banners (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I dont wonder (Score:3, Informative)
I'll assume the OP was using the english alphabet of 26 letters. There are 26**16 different possible combinations, if a spammer is capable of trying one billion addresses per second (which he isn't, not even close) it would take nearly 1.4 million years to try every 16 character address. So, given that hotmail has existed for significantly less than 1.4 million years, no, I don't think that someone used a dictionary technique (which won't work for a random address) or another technique. It is possible, however, that an admin for hotmail sells the addresses without Microsoft's consent (which still doesn't make Microsoft blameless).
If they don't mail to people who don't opt-in... (Score:3, Informative)
If it's for people who have genuinely opted-in to a bulk mailing service then the mail is solicited, isn't it?
Surely spam is still defined as unwanted, unsolicited mail.
Even if some spammers do blatantly lie, telling me I've opted in for their mailing 'services'.
Re:Um.... (Score:2, Informative)