Judge In e360 Vs. Comcast Rules e360 a Spammer 156
Brielle Bruns writes "Yesterday, Judge James B. Zagel dismissed claims against Comcast by e360. In the decision, the judge says: 'Plaintiff e360Insight, LLC is a marketer. It refers to itself as an Internet marketing company. Some, perhaps even a majority of people in this country, would call it a spammer.' This clears the path for Comcast's counter-suit." e360 is the spammer that got a default judgement against Spamhaus, as we have discussed on numerous occasions.
CvE (Score:5, Insightful)
Comcast vs. e360Insight: Whoever loses, we win.
e360 vs Comcast? Yuck (Score:1, Insightful)
This is like 4chan vs. The Church of Scientolog (except that in that case I have to clarify that it's 4chan I dislike, not the people joining their campaign as "Anonymous", and the Church of Scientology I dislike, not the people who simply believe in the underlying religious philosophy).
Btw, why is it that spammers ever appear in court? Why haven't vigilantes already made it a practice to terrorize anyone who publicly acts in furtherance of spamming?
Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? (Score:5, Insightful)
The spammer shares the costs with the recipient's ISP, and ultimately the recipient (through increased ISP costs). The cost of any one individual spam is very low, but taken together they quickly become noticable.
The junk snail mailer pays for all of the mailing costs, but each piece of junk mail he sends must be recycled or thrown away, creating a small effect on the cost of garbage for each individual user. The cost of any individual junk mail is very low, but taken together, they do have an appreciable effect on the cost of trash collection.
Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? (Score:4, Insightful)
Spammers, on the other hand, force their carrier -- Internet mail servers -- to bear 100% of the cost while receiving no compensation. Thanks to this, mail administrators are now forced to spend an enormous amount of time worrying about keeping spammers out, instead of making sure that the mail of legitimate users gets delivered. When I want to e-mail someone, I am less likely to be able to do so successfully since it's possible to get caught up in the antispam measures that have been set up on the mail server, as well as the recipient's mail client.
In sum: junk mailers pay their carriers, and contribute to the maintenance of the service. Spammers pay nothing to the mail servers, and are a significant detriment to the service.
They're both annoying as shit to the recipient, though.
Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? (Score:4, Insightful)
-Rick
Re:e360 vs Comcast? Yuck (Score:5, Insightful)
The spammers fought back so hard, they knocked the nation of Israel off the internet (where their offices/server was), for a few days.
The lesson? Spamming is big business.
Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's sort of like paying $5 for a car and making somebody else pay the rest of the sticker cost for a luxury car. Yes technically they're both paying, but even street people around here can get their hands on $5 without too much trouble.
Trying to fight spam with legislation doesn't have a chance without global cooperation, and the Russians in particular just don't care, as do a few other nations. It's difficult to deal with places like the US where most of the spam originating from here is doing so from compromised computers.
Technical deterrents are difficult to get right, and while they do allow for some help, it's impossible to really fix it. It makes a difference, but with the current net architecture it's a challenge to stop spam and have anonymity as well.
Ultimately what things come down to is making it less rewarding. What we really need is the ability to fine companies that are paying spammers to advertise for them. Admittedly it would be nice to see spammers drawn and quartered, but realistically, it's far easier to find Target, Walmart, Bestbuy and the other companies I've seen advertised than it is to find a cyber criminal that may or may not be located somewhere in southeast Asia. It's just so much easier to follow the money than it is to try and follow the spam.
Of course that's going to be fought tooth and nail, and I'm sure there are other problems with it. But it's a far easier solution to the problem than the others are. Of course, that isn't a license to ignore the other parts.
Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? (Score:5, Insightful)
SPAM on the otherhand is advertising without the good. They dont support services that we want they are a burden on ISPs even the company who chooses to Spam reputation (albiet I havent seen a legit product being sold in years) will be shot. It really is a take-take indrustry that gives nothing back. At least tobaco comanies keep generations of farmers in business. SPAM operations run cheap make money without any benefit they are not a positive impact on the economy, they do no good.
Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? (Score:1, Insightful)
If you do this (1) the sender has to bear the postage cost of the returned item, (2) they have to dispose of the returned item, (3) you get taken off their list since they have no easy way to determine if you really have gone away or not.
Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok, so, let's see. The less customers USPS have, the lower the price for stamps?
If everyone sent 50 letters/day, the stamp price would be so high, it would be unthinkable?
Apparently I fail to follow this logic.
Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? (Score:1, Insightful)
No they don't. Not at all. Not even in the middle of the day.
Do you really think that the few cents they charge per letter would fully cover the cost of snail mail?
Yes. [usps.com] And why the "few cents" exaggeration? IS that the only way you can hope to make your point?
Re:What's the distinguishing characteristic? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:CvE (Score:2, Insightful)
Or is that:
Comcast vs. e360Insight: Whoever wins, we lose.
I guess it depends on if you are a "glass half full" or "glass half empty" kind of person.
Re:"positive business"? What are you smoking? (Score:4, Insightful)
Contrast that to e360, who provide a "service" that nobody wants at all. nobody wants e360 gone so that they can get service from a a different spammer, they want them gone because they don't want to be harassed by any spammers at all. Comparatively speaking, Comcast are saints.
To use a non-vehicular analogy, Comcast is a shitty hospital that provides poor service to the community but is operated and staffed by people with huge community interests and friends in high places, while e360 is a group of frat boys who are paid to steal stop signs so that (outstandingly) sleazy injury litigators can stir up more business in the area.
This is simple folks (Score:2, Insightful)
Why make this so complicated? It's very, very simple folks:
1. Email spam comes from hijacked computers
2. The only practical way to end spam is to either charge for sending too many emails, or to recognize hijacked computers sending too many emails and take them off the net until their behavior stops or is validated as legitimate. If the low level ISP fails to take action, the next ISP up the chain must cut them off.
3. The solution in #2 will cost ISPs money and upset their customers so they won't do it unless they have to
4. ISPs have a tremendous amount of money and power and will prevent #2 from being mandated
5. Therefore, spam is going to continue indefinitely