Facebook Vs. Spammers, Round Two 57
An anonymous reader writes "Three months after being awarded $873 million in a lawsuit against Atlantis Blue Capital for violating the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, Facebook earlier this week filed a federal complaint against 'Spam King' Sanford Wallace in San Jose District Court. Las Vegas night club manager Adam Arzoomanian and Scott Shaw are also named as defendants in the suit."
These filings do not mark the first time Wallace has faced legal action; last May, MySpace won a $230 million judgment against him.
You spell like a moron (Score:1, Insightful)
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I no what you mean.
Judgement-proof (Score:5, Insightful)
Usually these spammers insulate themselves from the effect of negative verdicts against them by moving all their assets to offshore accounts where the fed can't touch them and neither can lawyers looking to claim their $x million in damages.
If only we could literally take the shirts off their backs in partial fulfillment of their obligations we might start to make some headway against the spam kings. Any other suggestions?
Re:Judgement-proof (Score:5, Insightful)
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Freeze their future assets and prevent them from ever leaving the country? "Well, we can't get your accounts in the caymans, but the moment a cent tries to go back to your credit card so you can use your money domestically, well... you won't be buying much in the future."
They'll be forced to become either a) a Mennonite or b) a cloistered monk, medieval style.
Re:Judgement-proof (Score:5, Informative)
If the courts have good evidence that the defendant has hidden funds, there are ways to pressure disclosure. I imagine this would particularly be the case for a habitual offender. Here's an article about some of the more severe uses of such power: civil contempt [wsj.com]
Imprisonment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Rich man or poor man, they all have only about 70+ years or so on average, max maybe twice that.
A rich man that's sent to prison for 5 years loses out more than a poor man who has nothing.
It's not like a poor man is going to be missing out on party cruises to the Bahamas, and all that.
Re:Imprisonment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes I am stupid, but where did I say that poor people didn't enjoy their freedom?
Go look up the term "opportunity cost".
If you do not understand a simple fact that a rich spammer is likely to enjoy his freedom a lot more than some poor, cold and hungry homeless person in the street, then perhaps I'm the wrong person to explain stuff to you - I'm stupid after all.
My stupid guess is you probably don't have an idea of what it really means to be poor.
Sure, the poor can be very content and happy when they have their basic needs met. As Euripides said, "When a man's stomach is full it makes no difference whether he is rich or poor".
Unfortunately for the really poor, that doesn't happen regularly enough.
As for your last paragraph see:
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Homeless-Man-Smashes-Cruiser-to-go-to-Jail.html [nbcwashington.com]
Unlike Robert Jenifer, the filthy rich aren't going to be intentionally smashing police cruisers just to get themselves in jail for free food and shelter.
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If you're in a situation where you spend all your time in a constant struggle to find food and shelter, prison can provide freedom from that. Of course you sacrifice mobility in the process, but that's a bit higher up Maslow's hierarchy.
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Yes I am stupid
Glad we got that sorted out.
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Quite frankly, being poor sucks so much that rich people ought to simply put them out of their misery? Right? I mean, they're poor: they have nothing to lose, right?
No, the poor people need to work to keep the rich people rich.
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Usually these spammers insulate themselves from the effect of negative verdicts against them by moving all their assets to offshore accounts where the fed can't touch them and neither can lawyers looking to claim their $x million in damages.
If only we could literally take the shirts off their backs in partial fulfillment of their obligations we might start to make some headway against the spam kings. Any other suggestions?
Don't underestimate the ability of the feds to get at accounts; the most powerful being imprisoning them on contempt charges.
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Re:Judgement-proof (Score:5, Insightful)
If it wasn't for viruses, there wouldn't be antivirus vendors. If it wasn't for online scam artists, there wouldn't be any cyber-crimes divisions in law enforcement.
Broken-window economics don't work, of course. If people weren't employed in these professions, they'd be doing something else.
If the government really wanted to shut down SPAM, it can easily do it by making up bullshit laws and detaining people indefinitely.
Your post advocates a
( ) technical (X) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work....
Need I go on?
The most obvious reason is, it's too profitable for them, too hard to track them down, and there are too many countries for them to hide.
in this case there should be a legislative sol'n (Score:2)
I agree that there isn't a good legislative solution to spam in general, but here we're talking about someone whose identity and whereabout are known, living openly in the United States, who has repeatedly been found to be violating federal law. If there's anything legal systems are supposed to be good at doing, it's keeping people whose identities and whereabouts are known from repeatedly and openly violating the law.
With Sanford, it seems that there ought to be a way to make subsequent judgments against h
'War on SPAM' (Score:3, Insightful)
If the government really wanted to shut down SPAM, it can easily do it by making up bullshit laws and detaining people indefinitely.
Yea, that's worked so very well with the 'war on drugs'.
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Are you sure you want to "literally take the shirts off their backs"? These are generally not good looking people we're talking about
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And how are the spammers going to pay if they get caught?
stolen credit cards.
Spammers are assholes and will not pay a dime, at least out of their own pocket.
The feds need to make it a federal offense to, without a warrant, spoof or forge an email header. That step by itself will chill a good part of sporgery, since except for law enforcement/under cover work (which a warrant can take care of), there is absolutely NO good reason to forge a header.
Once spoofed domains are taken care of, then only real spam w
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How much do you want to bet that they collect less than their legal costs, never mind "PROFIT!"
This is for deterrence. Not that it will really deter spammers, because in Soviet Russia, spammers still facebook YOU!
thats a lot of spare cash.. (Score:2, Insightful)
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It also provides closure for other cases. What if a lifetime sentence was really that long. If someone was accused of multiple crimes that carried that sentence and you are a victim (or family member of the victim) would you necessarily want the prosecution to stop after the first case and go "we got all we can get, why even bother proving the other cases anyway?"
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Only a lawyer (Score:2)
People get insane amounts of life sentences because many places still define life as 20-25 years, which with good time and parole can get pretty low. With multiple life sentences the judge insures that the convict stays in prison for life.
Only a lawyer would use a phrase like "life sentence" and have it mean anything other than "incarcerated for the rest of their life".
Facebook allows spammers (Score:2)
http://gawker.com/5160659/facebooks-get+rich+quick-scheme [gawker.com]
(Read the links in TFA)
And here's a website that purports to have the e-mail from facebook outlining what is acceptable.
http://www.toomuchvodka.com/facebook-lifts-its-advertising-restrictions-a-lot.html [toomuchvodka.com]
IQ Tests - including offers where user has to enter mobile #
Work from home and other Biz Ops - be careful with re-occurring billing
Quizzes - including offers where user has to enter mobile #
Free Offers - "Get your FREE laptop by filling out two sponsored offers"
Dating Ads - no longer need to be targeted at one sex or "interested in" unless it is targeted at a specific sexuality i.e. "looking for a girlfriend" must be targeted at people interested in women. User still has to be listed as single.
Ringtone Downloads - There are restrictions around this that will be posted to the advertising site shortly.
Allowing advertisers to essentially shit in the pool just smacks of desperation.
Oh, the irony. (Score:1)
Opt-in spammers collecting from no-opt spammers. Kind of like that whole programs hacking programs thing from the Matrix.
Facebook use DKIM like paypal (Score:1)
hi
how do you tell the difference between messages that Facebook send out and messages that spammers send out ?
you can
They implemented DKIM http://www.dkim.org [dkim.org] You Can !
paypal and ebay both do this and now facebook...
Please simply ask your admin to implement DKIM !
regards
John Jones
http://www.johnjones.me.uk [johnjones.me.uk]
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Business Model - Profit! (Score:1)
Bullets! (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, I'm not a cruel man. At heart, I can't really support the death penalty for anyone.
But if I read tomorrow that Sanford Wallace was found dead with a bullet in his brain, I would have a hard time suppressing a loud cheer. Fucking deadbeat doesn't deserve the life he's wasted on crime.
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It is funny the animosity we feel towards these people, I mean he has what, wasted a few seconds out of your day at most, for the majority. Yet we have people who really affect peoples lives, murders, theifs, and the same sort of ill feelings is not felt for them, except by the victims.
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You'd think so, wouldn't you?
However, I work for an ISP. We spend roughly $5M/year on hardware, software, and man-hours in dealing with spam. Guess who pays for it--the customers, ultimately. That's one of the reasons people hate spammers--because they're ALL victims.
Secondly, there's the virus aspect (spam and viruses often go hand in hand, and Sanford certainly hasn't declined to get his hands dirty in that realm). Now we're talking about vandalism on a massive scale--again, vandalism of YOUR computer and
reminds me of a quote (Score:5, Funny)
In a perfect world... spammers would get caught, go to jail, and share a cell with many men who have enlarged their penisses, taken Viagra and are looking for a new relationship.
http://bash.org/?203815 [bash.org]
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Ok, we have a winner! Please come forward and collect your prize. Today you have your choice between fake Viagra, a penis pump, or a date with the she-male of your dreams!
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Why? (Score:4, Funny)
As a non-American, I think I speak for the majority of the rest of the planet when I say "Why the shuddering f*** haven't you lived this guy up yet?"
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Grr, curse this auto correcting! Of course I meant "locked" not "lived" in the parent post.
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Probably because there are so many of them [wikipedia.org] that it's hard to keep track. (Some of them have, indeed, been sent to the pen.