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Spam The Almighty Buck Your Rights Online

The Economics Of Spamming 641

Posted by timothy from the will-build-a-better-idiot dept.
Shardleton writes "What kind of an idiot would buy penis-enlargement pills? Even more idiotic, who would buy them from a spammer? Apparently LOTS of people, according to this article at Wired. The operators of a spamvertised order site left their customer logs exposed. There were 6,000 orders for the pills since July 4. Sayeth Wired: "Do the math and you begin to understand why spammers are willing to put up with the wrath of spam recipients, Internet service providers and federal regulators.""
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The Economics Of Spamming More

The Economics Of Spamming

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  • Another interesting viewpoint can be found in this article [washtimes.com] which points out that spammers don't even have to sell anything to make money. They mention a number of schemes:

    Offering e-mail recipients "free pornography" if they download a software program. The program often provides the pornography, but only after the user's computer dials a 1-900 number to an overseas location, racking up hundreds of dollars in phone charges.

    "Pump and dump" stock schemes, in which a spammer sends e-mails touting a certain stock and encourages people to buy it. The stock's value goes up, and spammers sell it at a profit.

    Accepting payment for an item without sending it. Spammers bet that someone buying Viagra or pills for the enlargement of body parts would be too embarrassed to call the police or Better Business Bureau.

    Of course, if there was ever need for proof that there's a sucker born every minute, just check out this quote from the Wired article:

    There was a picture on the top of the page that said, 'As Seen on TV,' and I guess that made me think it was legit.

    John.

    • Re:And they don't even have to sell anything (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:31PM (#6628258)
      even more amazing is a coherent FP

    • Re:And they don't even have to sell anything (Score:4, Funny)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:39PM (#6628341) Journal
      Accepting payment for an item without sending it. Spammers bet that someone buying Viagra or pills for the enlargement of body parts would be too embarrassed to call the police or Better Business Bureau.

      The last reminds me of a scheme a friend and I cooked up in high school, which seemed completely legal to us.

      Sell through magazine ads (ok no internet then, just modify for the times) a subscription/package of some pornos, nothing special, maybe just your usual college-girls-gone-wild stuff, for a lower-than-usual price, like 5 or 10 bucks.

      Now, you collect a ton of money, then to everyone who sent you cash, you mail them back a letter, explaining that for (whatever reason) you cannot send them the porno they ordered, and you enclose a refund cheque for the full amount.

      The catch is, you name you company "Scat-Fetish-Jizz-Gobbler Corporation", or something really sick and embarassing.

      You bank on the fact that most people wouldnt suffer the embarassment of facing the bank teller for 5 or 10 bucks.

      But you're in the clear - after all you did refund their money.

      This was back before ubiquitous ATMs and online payments and all that jazz.
      • Wow! And you and your friend cooked this up [snopes.com] all on your own in high school?

        -T

        • If you read the latest issue of Wired they have an article about the sex.com guy and he says that he advertises for a bestiality site now because the site is fake and people are too embarassed to report it to their credit card companies for a charge-back.

        • Re:And they don't even have to sell anything (Score:5, Funny)

          by Zork the Almighty ( 599344 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @07:00PM (#6629474) Journal
          "Homer, that was an episode of Happy Days!"

      • Lame info schemes (Score:4, Interesting)

        by swb ( 14022 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @05:31PM (#6628819)
        A friend and I actually DID go through with a make money fast scheme. Back in '92 when the Internet was really starting to get buzz, we put an add in Popular Science promsing "Valuable information on the Internet just $10" or something similarly hyped. What they got was some photocopied BS we downloaded ourselves; we even reduced it and double-side copied it to keep our costs down.

        We figured it was totally legit since, if you read our ad carefully, we did provide exactly what we promised.

        I think we got about 10 requests, which we fulfilled, and we ended up basically breaking even or even losing money.

      • My new business plan! (Score:5, Funny)

        by DaveAtFraud ( 460127 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @05:41PM (#6628917) Homepage Journal
        Variation: subscription service for intelligence improvement pills. Charge $9.95 for a month's supply. When you get smart enough to stop sending me $9.95 a month for sugar pills I have proof that they obviously worked.

        • Re:My new business plan! (Score:4, Funny)

          by Jay L ( 74152 ) <jay+slash&jay,fm> on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @10:18PM (#6630978) Homepage
          When you get smart enough to stop sending me $9.95 a month for sugar pills I have proof that they obviously worked.

          That's an ancient Jewish joke...

          On a train in czarist Russia, a Jew is eating a whitefish wrapped in paper. A man sitting across the aisle begins to taunt him. Finally, he asks: What makes you Jews so smart?" "All right," replies the Jew. "I guess I'll have to tell you. It's because we eat the heads of whitefish." "Well if that's the secret," the man says, then I can be as smart as you are." "That's right," says the Jew, "and in fact I have an extra whitefish head with me. You can have it for five kopecks." The man pays for the fish head and begins to eat it.

          An hour later, the train stops at a station for a few minutes. The man leaves the train and then comes back. "Listen, " he says, "you sold me that whitefish head for five kopecks but I just saw a wholewhitefish at the market for three kopecks." "See," replies the Jew, "you're getting smarter already."

      • Re:And they don't even have to sell anything (Score:4, Interesting)

        by camusflage ( 65105 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @05:46PM (#6628959)
        Courtesy of IMDB, from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels [imdb.com]:
        Listen to this one then; you open a company called the Arse Tickler's Faggot Fan Club. You take an advert in the back page of some gay mag, advertising the latest in arse-intruding dildos, sell it a bit with, er . . . I dunno, "does what no other dildo can do until now", latest and greatest in sexual technology. Guaranteed results or money back, all that bollocks. These dills cost twenty-five each; a snip for all the pleasure they are going to give the recipients. They send a cheque to the company name, nothing offensive, er, Bobbie's Bits or something, for twenty-five. You put these in the bank for two weeks and let them clear. Now this is the clever bit. Then you send back the cheques for twenty-five pounds from the real company name, Arse Tickler's Faggot Fan Club, saying sorry, we couldn't get the supply from America, they have sold out. Now you see how many of the people cash those cheques; not a single soul, because who wants his bank manager to know he tickles arses when he is not paying in cheques!
    • My quesiton is, where's the FTC/FBI in all this? Why aren't these people going to jail for operating a fradulent enterprise? Do we not (or did we ever?) put people in jail for that? Or do we just put them on the cover of Business Week and call them "Corporate Executives"?

      Sorry of the cynacism, but it strikes me that in the spam problem arena the money trail is the one thing that can be followed (vs. forged header, hijacked .cn servers, etc), and if people started going to jail for internet fraud (yes, t
    • I wonder how many of those alleged 6,000 are real orders. It would certainly be simple enough to clog these bastards right back again with bogus orders.

      Come to think of it, what a nifty idea. To bad I don't have access to a server I could perform such a feat from. ;-)

    • Forget the embarressment factor, just put the money in a bank account, and collect interest until they cash the check. Of course you need to cover overhead (stamp at 35 cents, check and envelope at 25, plus your time) but that is where you should plan on the most money.

      I've even heard of a guy doing that. Advertised Texas Oil well, money back if no oil in 5 years. Took the money, put it in a bank CD, sent it back 5 years latter, but kept the interest himself. Was legal because he had rights to oil o

  • a guess (Score:3, Funny)

    by matt4077 ( 581118 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:29PM (#6628244) Homepage
    Maybe they work?

  • Uh-oh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ominous Coward ( 106252 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:29PM (#6628246)
    There's now going to be about 6,000 very embarrassed men if these logs remain accessible.

  • Always wondered... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) * on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:29PM (#6628249) Homepage Journal
    ... I had always wondered if anyone would actually buy from a spammer.

    Any chance the spammer did a media honeypot? Released fake records to make marketers *think* he was successful?

  • Public Disgrace!! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sklivvz ( 167003 ) * <`marco.cecconi' `at' `gmail.com'> on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:29PM (#6628250) Homepage Journal
    Ok, reading the article and following a couple links - here's the penis pill spammer!

    Braden Bournival
    561 Montgomery. St, Manchester, NH 03102
    Tel. #: (603) 669-7422
    Email: frappe_boy@yahoo.com

    Do whatever you want with this info but don't blame ME!!!

    • And one from Canada (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:34PM (#6628301)
      Tim Campbell
      1235 George Ave.
      Windsor, Ontario
      Canada
      N8Y 2X6
      TEL#:(519) 948-9208

  • Ooh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Sir Haxalot ( 693401 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:30PM (#6628251)
    What kind of an idiot would buy penis-enlargement pills?
    Meeeeeeeeeee :(

  • The problem that just won't go away. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sheetrock ( 152993 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:31PM (#6628261) Homepage Journal
    My Hotmail account has been filling up regularly with spam like this for years, and I always wondered not only who the hell would buy something like this from someone they didn't know but also why people who are dumping hundreds of thousands of messages an hour through a network aren't having their connections terminated. You know the drill; everybody's got an abuse policy, but apparently abuse@whatever.com is routed to the Recycle Bin.

    Despite my vehement loathing of spam, a recent incident is making me question how we go about dealing with it. Recently, Something Awful has been having issues with the SPEWS list, a popular spam blacklister, who according [somethingawful.com] to Something Awful [somethingawful.com] blacklisted a whole chunk of IP addresses that happened to include their own unabused server without offering recourse or explanation simply because it had the misfortune of sharing address space unknowingly and unwillingly. I'd call that overkill, and more offensive than the perceived problem of spam itself if truth be told. Bayesian filters [python.net] work, so why do we need to continue inadvertently censoring netizens who have nothing to do with spamming?

    I tell you, folks, after reading this article and hearing about what anti-spam proponents have come up with for solutions, I'm starting to have second thoughts about the whole deal. For me it comes down to to the freedom of speech issue -- I've always been told that if you can't handle free speech you don't agree with you obviously can't handle free speech -- and I suppose just because something irritates me doesn't mean that the greater good would be served by silencing that something.

    Another perspective is that the amount of money being pumped back into the economy by so-called unsolicited commercial e-mail is nothing to scoff at, and perhaps legislating it in some tolerable form such as limiting a company to one commercial message per person per day would create a new legitimate business method in this country. It's something to think about, certainly. I'd hate to think we're going to lose another revenue stream to outsourcing before we've even had a chance to give it a go locally, and this may be a way for us to recapture some of those IT jobs that have been lost and generate a whole new crop of successful entrepeneurships.

    • Re:The problem that just won't go away. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MImeKillEr ( 445828 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:39PM (#6628340) Homepage Journal
      For me it comes down to to the freedom of speech issue -- I've always been told that if you can't handle free speech you don't agree with you obviously can't handle free speech -- and I suppose just because something irritates me doesn't mean that the greater good would be served by silencing that something.

      Admittedly, I didn't RTFA.. But, as someone who is vehement about free speech myself I can tell you that I don't consider SPAM as free speech. It's not free speech if you have no way to avoid it. Sure, if I don't like what someone's saying on TV, I can change the channel. I don't have the option of 'changing the channel' on a spammer.

      I agree, everyone should have the right to speak their mind, no matter how unpopular or controversial. However, no one has the right to force anyone else to read, listen to, or otherwise hold captive an audience - and thats exactly what spammers are doing.

      And don't tell me I can simply hit the delete button - thats not something I should have to do. Just like if someone's making harassing phonecalls to me, I can call the police and press charges. There needs to be a similar mechanism for SPAM, preferrably something involving rope, stakes, honey and a mound of Texas fireants.

      • Logic is fleeting (Score:4, Insightful)

        by stomv ( 80392 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @05:07PM (#6628615) Homepage
        In principle, I agree with you. But, on the one hand, you argue that

        if I don't like what someone's saying on TV, I can change the channel

        implying that speech on television is "free speech" (since you have a way to avoid it). However, when refering to email, you write

        don't tell me I can simply hit the delete button - thats not something I should have to do.

        Does this imply that you shouldn't have to pick up the remote control and change the channel -- that the television should just read your mind? After all, in both cases (watching television and reading email) you are choosing to do so, and you are choosing to focus on a single instance (channel or particular email). If you don't like that particular instance, you either (a) change instances by using the remote control or the next/delete button, or (b) change mediums by turning the television or the email application off.

        What's the difference again? Like I said, I agree with you in principle, but your logical argument here on what constitutes "free speech" is weak.
      • But the problem is nobody has a good way to stop the spam without hurting innocent parties in the process. This is what the somethingawful anecdote was about. Regardless of whether you think it is right to ban spam, it is still wrong to ban people whose only crime is having an IP address in the same block as a spammer's address.
    • Despite my vehement loathing of spam, a recent incident is making me question how we go about dealing with it.

      Execute the spammers? :-)

    • Re:The problem that just won't go away. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WNight ( 23683 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:45PM (#6628401) Homepage
      First, the "money pumped back into the economy" statement. You think that the customers would have burnt that, or put it in their matress if they hadn't bought swedish-made penis pumps? I doubt it. They'd have bought the next product advertised on the shopping network, or sold at the checkout at Walmart.

      Second, the "free speech" issue. If you lie to my employees to get them to stamp your mail with my bulk-mailing code it's not free speech, it's fraud. I won't shut you down because of what your mail says, but because you want me to foot the bill for it. Also, your right to free speech doesn't obligate me to listen. If you have to lie about the subject and sender to get people to listen, it's likely they don't want to hear you.

    • Re:The problem that just won't go away. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by heli0 ( 659560 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:45PM (#6628405)
      SA uses CogentCo to host their servers. CogentCo is a cesspool of spammers. Anyone that does business with CogentCo deserves to have all of their email blocked by every router on the internet. The fact that CogentCo allows spammers to operate freely on their network and does ZERO to stop them is reason enough to blacklist CogentCo. SPEW has blacklisted thousands of spammers hosted at CogentCo, some of them dozens of times using different IPs. CogentCo gives these spammers new IPs every time. The only way to combat this is to blacklist CogentCo's entire block.

      "For me it comes down to to the freedom of speech issue -"
      You can say whatever the fuck you want, but not in a manner in which I have to pay for it.
      • When we're talking about Napster or Kazaa a miniscule percentage of legal use is sufficient to argue that the entire network should be preserved, but when we're talking about spam blocks we're just supposed to ignore the legal use and go on with the jihad? You can't have it both ways.
    • but of my sites, only one [mathaddicts.org] has any members from AOL.

      I called them, and reached an agreement whereby they would allow email from my server if I agreed to put my name, address, and phone number on nonexistant mass emails. I have never done mass emailing. Needless to say, they didn't follow the agreement. Email still doesn't get to AOL users, and I have to give them their passwords manually through AIM.

    • Re:The problem that just won't go away. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by salmacis2 ( 643788 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:47PM (#6628419)
      Sorry, Sheetrock, you're completely wrong with your solution to spam. It's not a freedom of speech issue any more than shouting "fire!" in a crowded theatre is a freedom of speech issue. How about the freedom to not have to listen? If you were to restrict each spmmer to one spam per person per day, you'd still end up with an inbox full of spam. There are 6 billion people on this planet. If only a 1000 of them were spammers - that's still 1000 items of spam a day.

      The Bayesian filter is only a stopgap as well. The spam still gets sent, clogging up mail servers and a whole load of bandwidth. The only long term solution is to stop spam at source, and I don't really have an answer how to do that.

      There are a few suggestions:
      1) Dump SMTP. Replace it with a secure version that doesn't allow spammers to hide behind an anonymous address.
      2) Make spamming illegal, punishable by large fines, and *enforce it*
      3) Authorities need to recognise spam as a seriousproblem and deal with it. If someone sent out a destructive virus, it would take the FBI about 2 days to track them down. The same approach needs to be taken with spam.
      4) Make it an offence to *buy* from a spammer. Call it an accessory to a crime, or something.

    • Re:The problem that just won't go away. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ebh ( 116526 ) * <ed.horch@org> on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:49PM (#6628444) Journal
      Your right to free speech does not obligate me, as a private citizen, to provide you a forum in which to exercise that right.

      Thus, a spammer's free speech rights have no bearing on my inbox.
    • My company was also in an IP range that
      was blocked by SPEWS because of another
      companies actions in the same class C
      IP range.

      This problem is really with the way SPEWS
      operates. Other blackhole lists are much
      more reasonable and only block by an IP
      per IP basis.

      The problem is exacerbated by the fact
      that administrators just og out to
      places like orisoft and subscribe to
      every blackhole list that exists without
      reading about how the blackhole lists
      are made.
      • This problem is really with the way SPEWS operates. Other blackhole lists are much more reasonable and only block by an IP per IP basis.

        It was tried. It failed. Spam-supporting ISPs would swap the spammers to another IP block, and swap a legit client in and ask for it to be unblocked. This game of whack-a-mole went on for years. SPEWS does start blocking a single IP or small range. Only when the ISP doesn't do anything about it do they expand it.

        SPEWS is certainly not a perfect solution, but it seem to b

    • Bayesian filters [python.net] work

      Ok, first of all, I do agree... they work pretty well given the content.

      But, here's my problem. It involves my parents. Their email address gets lots of spam. They are on a dialup connection. The problem is, if I set them up with some kind of bayesian filtering (or even other spam filtering) they still must download all the spam in order for it to be filtered. Most people don't run their own mail servers and can't install a server-side filtering program. Mail hosts and I

    • Recently, Something Awful has been having issues with the SPEWS list, a popular spam blacklister, who according to Something Awful blacklisted a whole chunk of IP addresses that happened to include their own unabused server without offering recourse or explanation simply because it had the misfortune of sharing address space unknowingly and unwillingly.

      And what did the administrators of SomethingAwful do? Did they contact their ISP, whose support of spammers led to its netblocks being boycotted far and

  • Lesser of two evils (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DeathPenguin ( 449875 ) * on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:31PM (#6628264)
    Suddenly, telemarketing doesn't seem so bad. At least my household never got phone calls from perverts offering pics of underaged teens, unlicensed pharmacy ads, etc. And to top it off, telemarketing is a manpower intensive operation whereas one guy can send out a billion e-mail letters on his own. At least telemarketing provides jobs.

  • Forget the pills (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mothra the III ( 631161 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:32PM (#6628271)
    The penis enlargement lotions work much better. Send me your email and I will tell you how to take advantage of this great offer!

  • ON spam... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by quandrum ( 652868 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:33PM (#6628285)
    More and more I've been getting spam that advertises various unscrupulous things, usually the offer of pornographic pictures, but offers no links and has a bad return email address. There is literally no way to contact the the sender without email header hackery.

    What is the point? They can't gain anything from this and leaves me completely baffled..

  • women customers? (Score:5, Funny)

    by civilengineer ( 669209 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:34PM (#6628293) Homepage Journal
    Other customers included the head of a credit-repair firm, a chiropractor, a veterinarian, a landscaper and several people from the military. Numerous women also were evidently among Amazing Internet's customers

    Talk about salesmanship!

    • Re:women customers? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mph ( 7675 ) <mph@freebsd.org> on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:52PM (#6628475)
      Numerous women also were evidently among Amazing Internet's customers
      That reminds me. A couple of years ago, I was wondering how easy it was to get prescription drugs on the Internet without seeing a doctor. I went to a web site that sold birth control pills.

      To get the pills, I had to fill out a questionnaire with my medical history.

      No, there was no possibility that I was pregnant.

      No, I had no history of reproductive illness.

      No, I am not a smoker.

      Yes, I understand that the pill does not prevent the transmission of STDs.

      And so forth.

      I submitted my answers, and it proudly announced that I met their criteria and could go on the pill. They were all set to send them to me. I didn't go through with it, though, because of one little thing they didn't bother to ask about... I'm male.

  • Get your story straight Wired. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Chess_the_cat ( 653159 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:35PM (#6628305) Homepage
    This goes against an older article on Wired [wired.com] that said that spammers aren't interested in actually selling anything at all other than e-mail addresses to each other.

  • You! Outta the Gene Pool! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Garg ( 35772 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:37PM (#6628326) Homepage
    Tiny dicks AND no brains? Hopefully a side effect of these pills is sterilization...

    Garg

  • E-mail Addresses needed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bull999999 ( 652264 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:41PM (#6628361) Journal
    Where can I get the E-mail addresses of those 6,000 people who ordered the pills? I'm a classmate of a roomate who's sister's boyfriend's father's 3rd cousin is a banker in Nigeria who's looking for someone to help him get 300 million dollars out of Nigeria for a cut.

  • spammers are dumb (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Trailer Trash ( 60756 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:42PM (#6628375) Homepage
    If you read about most spammers (i.e. Ralsky, Hardigree, etc.) the one thing that sticks out about all of them is that they're generally not very intelligent. Their choice is to spam and live in the million dollar house, or go back to McDonald's and the trailer park. Obviously, they're not going back to the trailer park without a fight.

    It's obvious that they're making money; how else is Ralsky going to afford his house?

  • Mathematics 101 with DLS! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:43PM (#6628380) Journal

    Okay, sooo... 6000 orders in a 4 week period?

    52 weeks in a standard year (big surprise there for some of you!) so 52 / 4 = 13, thus 13 * 6000 = 78000 sales in one year. For a rough estimate of world population right now I'll take 6.100.000.000 people, but that includes by average 52% women. Thus ( 6.100.000.000 / 100 ) * 48 = 2.928.000.000 and 2.928.000.000 / 78000 ~= 37538 years before every male on this planet has a huge penis and the spam will FINALLY stop!

    I suggest lynching spammers, much faster.

  • fucking naive (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gfody ( 514448 ) * on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:44PM (#6628396)
    The president of a California firm that sells airplane parts and is active in the local Rotary Club gave out his American Express card number...

    you really believe these people purchased this shit? these people's credit cards were stolen! ever get emails that resemble ebay's account page or aol's billing or some other fake bullshit thats trying to snatch your credit card numbers.. those things fool a lot more people than "make your penis huge" sells penis pills

    what do you think gets done with all those stolen cc's.. the bastard turns around and signs them up for penis pills, porno sitesm, etc whatever gets the comission. sending out a buttload of spam to the same people that your stealing ccs from just obfuscates things to help cover your tracks. this is the real shady shit thats going on with spam.. not penis mail that people are actually buying, people are getting ripped off!

  • I bought the pills (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hayzeus ( 596826 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:46PM (#6628415) Homepage
    I alone am responsible for all 6000 orders. Soon, very soon, my penis will be the size of North America, and the world will quake in fear.

  • let's break this down (Score:3, Funny)

    by painehope ( 580569 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:48PM (#6628438)
    Other customers included the head of a credit-repair firm :
    heh...a scammer getting scammed...
    a chiropractor :
    well, maybe he wanted to straighten out more than his patients' backs...
    a veterinarian :
    maybe he felt insecure after working around horses?
    a landscaper :
    Well, according to Hustler, these guys get loads of poontang from horny housewives and their nubile 18 year old daughters, so maybe he just needed it to keep up w/ business.
    and several people from the military :
    Private Johnson, don't ask, don't tell.
    Numerous women also :
    I guess penis pumps just aren't cutting it anymore...

  • Child endangerment (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sean80 ( 567340 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:48PM (#6628440)
    I wonder how long it will be until a parent sues a spammer purely within the framework of existing laws. IANAL, but I can't imagine it's legal to walk down the street and try to sell pornography to minors, for example. How can it be any different for spam?

    Perhaps all you'd need to do is prove that the primary user of an email address was a minor, and wham, bham, thank you for the million bucks.

    At the least it might stop people just randomly hitting yahoo.com or hotmail.com email addresses. On the other hand, if you give your email address to a porn site in the first place, some people might argue that you deserve what you get, quite frankly.

  • Proposed Solution (Score:3, Funny)

    by barryfandango ( 627554 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:49PM (#6628445)
    Sell pills to people (via spam) that actually causes sterility instead of the virility the label promises. Once we take these mouth-breathers out of the gene pool spammers will have to call it quits.

  • SPAMNAZI (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ryanw ( 131814 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:52PM (#6628469)
    I created a website a month or so ago to address this issue. I believe this will be the ONLY solution to getting rid of spam.

    http://www.spamnazi.org [spamnazi.org]

  • How many of the 6000 responses bogus? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GGardner ( 97375 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:53PM (#6628482)
    So, the log has 6000 responses, with credit card info. I wonder how many of those 6000 are real, and how many are bogus or stolen credit card numbers from pissed-off spamees?

  • Free alternative to pills (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jonboy X ( 319895 ) <jonathan.oexner@ ... u ['lum' in gap]> on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:55PM (#6628501) Journal
    Wanna grow your schlong? Do what I do: View pornography! Millions of satisfied customers report a dramatic increase in length, girth and firmness in just minutes, using this ancient time-tested technique.

    Disclaimer: Results may not last more than 5-10 minutes.

  • What I don't understand... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Puk ( 80503 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @04:55PM (#6628505)
    ...is why I get so much spam which is gibberish. I'm not talking about Portugese (about 1/2 my spam originates from Brazil), I mean actual nonsense, often without links, images, or attachments.

    What does someone hope to gain from this? Is it some secret code that will give me a giant viagra-enhanced penis and hot schoolgirls to go with it if I can figure it out? At least for normal spam I can see the motivation.

    example: I got mail today with the title "rmw oejectivity" and the body "cwdb". Why?!

    -puk

    • Re:What I don't understand... (Score:4, Informative)

      by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @05:03PM (#6628570) Homepage
      Some of those are simple "pings" - if the message is not bounced then the address is valid and ripe for more spamming. This is a less sophisticated version of the image bug technique. That's why it's important to have a way to fake bouncing spam from your domain, although nowadays more ISPs are blocking that kind of thing.

      I read an article once (in Salon or Wired, I forget) about how some spammers simply feed on each other and rely on the fact that the message is sent, but not necessarily read or even (stupidly, as in this case) used to buy something. Some spams contain links to crap that doesn't even exist, and I don't mean the opt-out or anything - the website or telephone number or address are bogus, so even if you wanted to you can't actually buy anything from them.

      Weird.

      • Interesting points - I will try to find that article - but I'm pretty sure that most of the illegible spams that I get aren't simply "pings" or spammers ripping off third parties "clients". One of my own theories for this kind of spam is that most spammers aren't just dumb -- they're really, really, really dumb (and/or really, really, really, and probably clinically, nuts).

        Although this article appears to indicate an exception, I've always assumed that most of the money made in spamming is by those that s
        • I've started seeing things like [%LASTNAME] in what little spam gets looked at.

          if you think you have a tech support horror story, imagine trying to support the illiterate incompetent trying to figure out your spamware !

  • Are they real orders? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by taustin ( 171655 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @05:04PM (#6628583) Homepage Journal
    There are a number of scripts (going by such names as "Formfucker") foating around to generate random (and totally bogus) orders by filling in spammers' forms.

    Can't help but wonder if this is the case here.

  • Real Life Slashdotting (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @05:05PM (#6628592) Homepage
    Someone already posted this guys address, so hopefully he will be receiving several tons of mail a day now. But the information I would REALLY like to get my hands on is the 6000 people on that list. I would like to conduct interviews with them to figure out the exact reasons (aside from small dicks) they bought, and why the typical spammer tricks didn't set off warning sirens.

    Once I have this information, I would like to give it to Spamhaus or some other organization, preferably one with an advertising budget, and have them do a spot on tv explaining the dangers of spam.

    Maybe the government should do a public service announcement about it. You see, the majority of people who buy this crap are not internet savvy, but you better believe they are television savvy.

    I think the FTC would be much better off spending its money to educate potential victims of spam than it would going after the actual spammers.

  • Is it April again already? (Score:5, Funny)

    by meeotch ( 524339 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @05:21PM (#6628723) Homepage
    For once, it's actually worth R'ing the FA:
    Bournival refused repeated requests for interviews about his business. When approached for comment at a chess tournament in Merrimack, New Hampshire, last month, Bournival, who is a national-master-caliber player, ran away from a Wired News reporter.
    An investigation (registration to Salon.com required) last month revealed that Bournival's mentor and business partner is Davis Wolfgang Hawke, a chess expert and former neo-Nazi leader who turned to the spam business in 1999 after it became public that his father was Jewish.

    You can't make this stuff up.

    mitch

  • Understanding the economics of direct marketing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MichaelCrawford ( 610140 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @05:28PM (#6628781) Homepage Journal
    You can begin to get an idea of the terrible challenge that spam presents us if you consider the economics of direct mail marketing - that is, sending advertisements in printed letters via snail mail.

    I used to work for a small software company [working.com] where most of our sales were made through direct mail. I think our gross sales peaked at about $2 million one year while I was working there in the mid-90's.

    Each direct mail piece sent to a prospect costs hard cash to send, for printing, postage, labor and mailing list rental. Yet it was our experience that a response rate of 0.5% was sufficient to yield a profit.

    Once you have identified a profitable offer and a mailing list that's rich with customers who respond to direct mail, you have a license to print money. That's why you probably each of you reading this receive two or three pieces of direct mail every day.

    The following two comments I posted at Kuro5hin discuss this in great detail:

    Now, if you consider that the cost of sending spam is insignificant when the spammer can hijack an open relay, you will understand that spam will never stop until purchasers stop responding to spam.

    Simply installing filters on your own machine won't help. The people who purchase sexual enhancement products over the Internet don't know from spam filters.

    I think the end to spam will come only when every ISP and mail hosting service installs filters that are enabled by default. Only then will the response rate of spam be reduced to the point that it's no longer economical to send it.

    I think it's likely the day will come when ISPs will be forced to install filters that cannot be disabled. Possibly this will be ordered by various national governments.

  • The New War on Drugs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tabdelgawad ( 590061 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @05:49PM (#6628994)
    Did the writeup on this story remind anyone else of the expensive, ongoing, and utterly ineffective war on drugs?

    The war on drugs in the US deals with the problem almost entirely as a 'supply' issue. Decades of failure should convince anyone that you can't solve what is essentially a 'demand' issue by stifling 'supply'. It seems that spam is no different ...

    The question is, do you go with a 'just-say-no' campaign to educate email consumers about spam, or do you accept spam as a (legitimate) fact of life, and work on (government and self) regulations to make it manageable?

  • The Freedom of Speech Issue (Score:5, Informative)

    by gbulmash ( 688770 ) <semi_famous@yah o o . c om> on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @07:03PM (#6629488) Homepage Journal
    Some here have brought up the freedom of speech issue in defense of spam.

    Freedom of speech is not absolute, and the "yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater" example is only one of the most simplistic restrictions.

    Let's take a quick look at prohibitions of Freedom of Speech that have been upheld by the courts.

    Noise Ordinances: Yes, the Nazis must be allowed to march through Skokie, but not down a residential street at 2 a.m. on a school night. Courts have consistently upheld that protected speech can be limited to specific places at specific times so as not to constitute an undue burden of noise or disruption on the public.

    Property Rights: Your right to be heard does not include a right to come on my property, against my wishes, to speak to me. A good example is when ACT UP! invaded a church during services and started shouting "you're killing us" as part of a protest against the Catholic Church's policies. Had they kept it on the sidewalk in front of the church, it would have remained a legal, protected protest. When they entered the church, they became criminals and were arrested for trespass.

    Unsolicited Advertising: Opt-out is very supported by the courts. After one telephone call or junk postal mail, if I provide you with proper notification, you may not make another unsolicited call or send me another unsolicited advertisement by post. If you do, I may sue you. The law gets even more restrictive regarding unsolicited advertising by fax, requiring opt-in.

    Violence: Incitement to riot is not protected. Advocating the violent overthrow of the government is not protected. Using speech intended to goad someone into a physical altercation is not protected. To take the shouting "fire" in a movie theater example a step further... shouting "what are ya, some kinda faggot" in a crowded redneck bar is not protected speech.

    Fraud: Speech intended to defraud me out of services, property, or money is not protected.

    Slander & Libel: Slanderous or libelous speech is not protected.

    Protection of Children: It is illegal to sell pornography to children. Though it is protected speech, its distribution can be restricted to a certain age group.

    Commercial Speech: You can be forced to warn people your product is dangerous, tell people how much fat or sodium it contains, etc. Commercial speech is MUCH more restricted and burdened with rules and regulations than political, religious, or artistic speech.

    Broadcast Censorship: Ever seen hardcore porn during prime time on the networks? Of course not. The Supreme Court ruled that since radio/television waves enter your home unbidden, they can be regulated much more restrictively than print media.

    CONCLUSION

    This isn't a comprehensive list of the legal restrictions on free speech. It's just some of the major ones. There are little ones (remember that DeCSS was found not to be protected speech), and even coersions (*legally* withholding funds or licenses from groups that exercise their first amendment rights in a manner the government does not like).

    So don't argue that spam is an exercise of free speech. Spam is commercial, it violates the property rights of its recipients, and is subject at bare minimum to the same restrictions set on phone and postal solicitations.

    Of course my favorite quote on free speech is from Hubert Humphrey: "The right to be heard does not include the right to be taken seriously." - Greg

  • In Soviet Russia... (Score:3, Informative)

    by DaveTibet ( 692252 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @08:28PM (#6630181)
    I had once stumbled upon an interview with the guy in charge of Demetrius Software, a russian spamming company. He genuinely believed he was doing the right thing, and, indeed, helping his clients achieve their business goals.

    He illustrated the effectiveness of spamming thusly. My services cost $500 (can't remember the actual figure, but it was something to that effect), he said, for sending messages out to a list of 4 million addresses. However, I had more than once been approached by people starting small businesses and not having even $100 in their budget for advertising, asking to, like, send their spam to 400,000 people for $70. I never refused, he said, and guess what - all of them were repeat customers coming back in a short while and ordering full-scale mailings for the full price.

    This would only mean, he reasoned, that spamming boosted their business well enough.

  • What kind of idiot would Swallow Spammer's Pills? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TPFH ( 92944 ) on Wednesday August 06, 2003 @09:27PM (#6630642) Homepage Journal
    "What kind of an idiot would buy penis-enlargement pills?"

    I say, what kind of idiot would swallow a Spammers penis-enlargement pills?

    While I appeciate the humor in this article (especially the Penis Man outfit) I have to wonder, did the author actually buy the pills, and take them?

    I mean we all have guesses at the ethics some of these spammers possess. It wouldn't suprise any of us for a spammer to just take the money and run. Is it that far a stretch to imagine some psychopath spammer sending out poison as penis enlargment pills? (Also, I think some of the traditional aphrodisiacs are in fact mild poisons.) (I'm getting distracted.)

    It's gotten so bad that I sometimes think about sending out spam myself, but as a parody, something to the effect of "Fuck you! Give me Money!" and an explanation that this is what spammers are really saying. I would never actually do this because as Faith said when she took over Buffy's body "It would be Wrong."

    I was thinking of these things while reading the comments and got another idea. What if there was spam sent out warning people that spammers selling penis enlargment pills are actually selling poison. Or better than poison, but a poison that renders you completely impotent for life? (For the irony.)

    And then I thought that it wouldn't even be neccessary to send it via spam. You could just write up an urband legend "Forward this to Everyone you know! Won't Someone please think of the Children!" type of email a la Good Times warning people of the danger of Spammers Penis Enlargment Pills. Just put a fake quote in there about the FDA or other government organization (OHS?) and the clueless idiots would do the rest.

    The Urband Legends websites could write an explanation that it was a hoax meant to point out the fact that you shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet and you should never trust a spammer and anyone who buys from a spammer should have the shit beat out of them (or at least people think about it, even normally non-violent people).

    Hopefully it wouldn't quote me because then people would be out to beat the shit out of me. That's the problem with these hoaxes, once they get started they get completely out of control.

    So in conclusion, this post is just something that is nice to think about. You should not actually do it because it would be wrong. Not to mention that I don't want to get the shit beat out of me repeatedly for starting yet another forward this to everyone you know email hoax.

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