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Spam

Copyrighted Haiku Delivers Spam Through Filters 362

An anonymous reader writes "Remember that antispam company that includes a copyrighted haiku (which I can't quote here due to copyright reasons...) in emails vouching for their nonspaminess and thus bypassing spamfilters? The idea is that a spammer using said haiku to get through spamfilters can be prosecuted under the more stringent copyright laws instead of the weaker antispam ones. Well it seems said haiku has lately been figuring in a large spam run trying to pitch the usual medical remedies for various unfortunate ailments. What do you think? Is it time to start filtering for haikus or will Habeas succeed in thwarting the spam attack?" We mentioned this brilliant anti-spam scheme last April.
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Copyrighted Haiku Delivers Spam Through Filters

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:10AM (#8019016)

    Train of slick spam (a heller mail than mine), now corpus on third rail - Bill Bailey

    art science and law forged together into one synchronicity - Justin S. Houk

    Like oceans of wind Habeas SWE clears Email server jams. - Barbara Kane Pilliod

    As Habeas shows that spam email can be banned with lawsuits at hand - Stanislaus Jaworski

    Messages pile up. Unauthorized, unwanted. Now undelivered. - John H. Lee

    Habeas striving to rid my inbox of spam. Hope it will succeed. - Steve Wilhelm

    Hasty limerick My gift to all Habeas An honor for me. -Sandy Bumgarner

    Habeas Web Page Elegant as your concept Navigating joy. -Sandy Bumgarner

    Incorporeal Dear old friends send mail. As do incorporeal robot pretenders. -James Kobielus

    Too much spam today Sender Warranted Email Spam-free tomorrow -Stacey Irvine

    email said hello, email police jumped on it, now, no one writes me . . . . -Michael Siwinski

    I get no email, any day that ends in y, fixed spam problem though . . . . -Michael Siwinski

    I lost my baby, I lost my bathwater too, might be my filter? -Michael Siwinski

    Awesome find today.. One expanded header full.. Hinted things to come! -Cindy Sue Causey

    Habeas info.. In a header full of Shtuff.. Brought new hope at last! -Cindy Sue Causey

    I built a new soul Using the remaining pieces Of my Habeas -Anthony Oertel

    habeas makes herring out of yucky spam happy penguin -Philipp Droessler

    spam free mail inbox clean like the first spring rain thanks to habeas -Philipp Droessler

    unwanted porn ads and get rich quick nevermore thank you habeas -Philipp Droessler

  • by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:10AM (#8019018) Homepage
    Which would have taken any semi-literate reporter or editor ten second to find on their site [habeas.com]. I guess that would have spoiled the illusion of a breaking story though.
  • Interesting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Urkki ( 668283 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:12AM (#8019025)
    It's an interesting idea, I really hope it'll work too.

    Unfortunately I think they might need to make it so that they couple it with a white-list, ie *all* mail with their signature that is *not* on their whitelist is assumed to be spam... Otherwise there will just be too much spam specifically intended to make their service useless, actually harmful to their customers... There'll even be fake spam designed to be hard to track, just to force people to filter out any mail with their delivery and thus forcing them out of business :-/
    • by devphil ( 51341 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @12:36PM (#8021641) Homepage


      ...is not haiku or any other kind of rearrangment of normal speech. What's pouring right through my filters are messages consisting of just a half-dozen lines of random English words. No sentences, no advertisements, no links, nothing but everyday words.

      It's a fairly clever attempt to poison the Bayesian filters. Either I associate these words with spam and risk losing legit email, or I loosen things up and let more real spam slide through. It's frustrating because there's absolutely nothing I can do about it.

      [insert long ranting call for vigilante bullet-to-the-head-style action here]

      • by xant ( 99438 )
        It doesn't really "poison" the filters, because there are just wayyyyyy too many posible words for this to work. Bayesian filters assign a huge probability of spamminess to every word in a spam email and an exceedingly low prbability of spamminess to every word in a non-spam email during training. If a word appears in both, it just averages out. Over time a given word will appear only once in a spam email with a bunch of random words, and many times in non-spam emails, and therefore after some time (or e
  • by Ckwop ( 707653 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:14AM (#8019033) Homepage
    Darwinian Selection is the governing rule of spam.. If appending a Haiku makes a message 'fitter' it will survive the slaughter more readily and therefore make it into your inbox more often.. until some realises what's going on and combats it with a new filter.. and then the process starts all over again.. :) For this reason, I think we're going to be fighting spam for a long time to come :) Simon.
    • And that makes you smile?
    • by AoT ( 107216 )
      The only way to stop spam is to "affect" the merchants whom outsource to spammers. This will stop the competition between Western merchants and make spamming unprofitable. Everyone! stop the merchants!!!!!
      • by swb ( 14022 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @10:43AM (#8020580)
        I'm not sure how serious you are, but since even a stopped clock is right twice a day I'll have to agree at least with the literal interpretation of your posting.

        If law enforcement generally were applied to the sellers of spamvertised products, spam would become far less of a menace. Most spamvertised products are prima faciae illegal (ie, you can't get prescription medications without a prescription), false advertising (a sugar pill won't give you a 12" penis) or are actually just fraud schemes to take money and not deliver a product.

        Tracking down email senders is extremely difficult due to header forgery and the use of zombies and other kinds of compromised systems. But just about all spam will take a credit card, which should enable tracking of a financial trail to the sellers. If the Feds would make a RICO case out of it, they could ensnare just about anyone with their finger in the pie, including the spammers, who I'm sure would be fingered by sellers caught in the net.

        A few RICO cases that put the squeeze on ISPs, banks handling their financial transactions, spammers, and most importantly, sellers and suppliers of these products would have a pretty significant effect on the whole "scam 'n' spam" business environment. I think there's probably some otherwise legitimate players (ISPs, banks) participating in this field behind the scenes, and some negative exposure in a few of these cases could close the door to a lot of "operators" who need access to the legitimate economy in order to operate.

        It's pretty clear that nobody likes spam, but the fact that there have been no high-profile FBI/Treasury/Commerce investigations into some of these things really puzzles me. It may be that the investigations have been done but this angle was deemed not fruitful (doubtful), resources aren't available due to the war on terror (more likely, but not entirely credible), or political pressure has been applied by heavy corporate players to keep their shady business segments viable (somewhat conspiratorial, but believable) -- yet even these theories don't explain the lack of credible, visible efforts on the part of Federal law enforcment to crack down on internet fraud.
  • by visualight ( 468005 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:14AM (#8019035) Homepage
    This is the first i've heard of this company. I've been to their website, googled a bit and I don't think I like them.

    Is there a filter for "warranted email" from habeas? It seems to me that any email that needs to be warranted must be spam.
  • by product byproduct ( 628318 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:14AM (#8019036)
    Unbelievable.
  • As long as the spammers catch hell for their actions, I'm happy!
  • I've gotten a few (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ghettoboy22 ( 723339 ) * <scott.a.johnson@gmail.com> on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:14AM (#8019038) Homepage
    About 5 in the past couple days. I noticed the unusual X-headers and finally remembered what it was. Increased the SA score yesterday and now I get none! woot!

    I can see this company being semi-successful in taking spammers to court under copyright lawsuits, however like the article says the latest rash is (not suprisingly) zombied broadband hosts, making their chances of finding someone to sue almost nil.
    • by Tripster ( 23407 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @06:04AM (#8019193) Homepage
      making their chances of finding someone to sue almost nil

      Not quite, the spams are selling a product at some point, someone is somehow receiving payment for doing the advertising and there is where you get them, whether it be the actual spammer or the company being advertised.

      If the spammer is paid per lead there you have them, if they are paid per sale same thing, somehow the money gets to the spammer and there will be a trail to it. Even if they use false aliases they just add fraud to the list, they still have to pick up the money at some point.

      The choice for the companies involved should be disclose the information for the spammer you hired or you get fined or criminally charged instead.

      The spammers could flood the world with false spam runs targetting innocent companies, hiding their true money making runs, but I think those would stand out as the ones selling Viagra/Penis Patches/etc. as they do now.

      We need something and soon, it's a losing battle on the mailservers, I tend to a local dialup ISPs incoming scanning server, they have slowly been losing clients over the years as broadband has taken hold and yet the mail server resource requirements continues to grow at an alarming rate, we turn away 80% of the SMTP connections that come in as it is and still a large percentage of what comes in is still spam. His customers are demanding a solution and the sad thing is the stuff that gets past all the RBL/SpamAssassin checks is the freaking adult stuff most people want rid of the most, especially parents.

    • If they're found, they'll be lucky if they only get sued.

      Thought -- Imagine if they end up in jail; considering how many inmates' only contact with the outside world is via the Internet, what would be the inside lifespan of a convicted spammer?

  • bayesian filters (Score:5, Informative)

    by ddent ( 166525 ) * on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:16AM (#8019042) Homepage
    I just checked through the mail I've received in the last while, and there is only one newsletter I am on using Habeas -- other than that, I have only received Habeas headers in spam.

    Guess what my bayesian filter is going to start thinking of those headers soon... this could prove to be a problem for them if they don't get things fixed ASAP.
    • by silentbozo ( 542534 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:48AM (#8019146) Journal
      I've already manually kicked the SpamAssassin score for Habeas to -.5. If things don't get better, I may help out the bayes filter by turning Habeas scoring off (set to 0). Habeas should be spitting brass tacks PRwise - every day that goes by without a peep from them just enboldens other spammers thinking about trying the same stunt.

      After all, Habeas was whitelisted because they promised legal action against spammers infringing on their copyrights... well, the spammers are infringing. Where are those spam-eating lawyers we were promised?
    • Guess what my bayesian filter is going to start thinking of those headers soon... this could prove to be a problem for them if they don't get things fixed ASAP.

      My bogofilter database seems to consider the Habeas headers to be rather neutral. Of course it'll adapt but as far as I can tell, the Habeas headers are not a good indicator of spamminess of a message.

      $ bogoutil -w ~/.bogofilter/wordlist.db head:X-Habeas-SWE-{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9} head:{winter,into,spring,brightly,anticipated,like ,Habeas,SWE}

      • The Habeas Infringers List seems to be effective and well updated. I've received a total of 13 spams with the Habeas headers, and 11 of them scored +4 for spam like so:

        HABEAS_HIL (4.0 points) RBL: Sender is on www.habeas.com Habeas Infringer List

        The problem is that not enough legitimate mail contains the warranty. More commercial licensors would give Habeas greater resources to track infringers and would also make the Habeas mark a much better indicator of spam.
  • Winter into spring
    brightly anticipated
    like Habeas SWE (tm)


    Either this is not a haiku, or "anticipated" now has six syllables and the product is pronounced "Habees swee".
    • You don't pronounce the stuff in parenthesis in any of their haikus.

      "Like Ha-Be-Us Swee"
    • Re:Fair Use (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sircus ( 16869 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:35AM (#8019101) Homepage
      bright-ly an-tic-i-pa-ted

      5 syllables in anticipated, for a total of 7 on the line, making it (assuming you pronounce SWE as Swee and ignore the tm) 5-7-5, with a mention of seasons. Seems valid to me...
    • Re:Fair Use (Score:3, Informative)

      by Derkec ( 463377 )
      Proper haiku is defined by the number of Japanese characters involved. The whole 5-7-5 concept is a rough approximation that they give to secondary school teachers who enforce it to teach students discipline. If you're writing in English, you can drop the 5-7-5 nonsense, try to approximate that a bit and write some poetry. More important to haiku is the use of nature imagery used to discuss the human condition. That being rather tough, and difficult to grade, it's not a big focus for most jr. high or high s
  • by DrPepper ( 23664 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:16AM (#8019045)
    In theory the Habeas scheme is very clever. It's difficult to get spammers under any anti-spam law (where they exist), so change the ballgame so that you can prosecute under copyright law instead.

    Unfortunately though, I suspect it's going to be difficult to track these people down, and even when Habeas do, they will need to mount a prosecution in another country - wherever that happens to be. The spammers may even win given that each country enforces copyright laws differently.

    According to the statement [habeas.com] given, the latest version of SpamAssassin should be able to filter these out. We're running what I think is the latest (2.61) and it still seems to be letting them through - thanks to the Habeas mark. I'm beginning to think I should just disable the Habeas rules completely and let these get scorded normally.
    • by MForster ( 145691 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:36AM (#8019106)

      Note that using the Habeas Headers to filter out such mail may be a copyright infringement, too.

      See also the following Paragraph of the "HABEAS WHITELIST LICENSING AGREEMENT":

      Use of the Habeas Whitelist, or the data contained in the Habeas Whitelist, for the purpose of blocking, rejecting, or otherwise failing to deliver email coming from IP addresses listed on the Habeas Whitelist is expressly prohibited.
      • Note that using the Habeas Headers to filter out such mail may be a copyright infringement, too.

        I never remember what I read about copyright laws (too boring!), but wouldn't the copyright only come into play if you are publishing the haiku? Using the haiku for filtering should be equivalent to mumbling it to yourself, and surely that is not illegal (yet)?

      • That passage was related to the Habeas Whitelist and not the Habeas Haiku . It is a License Agreement and has nothing to do with copyright infringment . Furthermore, it only specifically covers situations where people attempt to blacklist sites on Habeas' whitelist ; somthing no sane admin would ever want to do.

        Please tell me you just made a mistake, and aren't smoking some really, really, really strong crack.
    • by Anonymous Coward
      According to the statement given, the latest version of SpamAssassin should be able to filter these out. We're running what I think is the latest (2.61) and it still seems to be letting them through - thanks to the Habeas mark.

      You have to enable network checks to filter these. Then when someone sends you an email with the Habeas mark, Spamassassin will check to see if the originating IP is on the infringer's list. If it is, then they don't get the credit for using the hiaku.

      This assumes that Habeas ha
    • Stupid construct (Score:2, Interesting)

      by peope ( 584706 )
      The haikus do not have any real creative value. They exist for a purpose I do not believe the legislators in most countries had in mind when they wrote the laws.

      People are not interested in the value of the haikus. People are just using it as a key to check for clean mail.

      Using copyright law in this context is imho pervertion of the law.

      Purpose might or might not be an issue for the law depending on country.

      Just give the spammers jailtime for spamming.
  • by ControlFreal ( 661231 ) <niek AT bergboer DOT net> on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:18AM (#8019049) Journal

    Looking at my spam-box, I find the usual stuff:

    From ukKimble@mailthat.net Tue Jan 13 00:43:36 2004

    X-Habeas-SWE-1: winter into spring

    X-Habeas-SWE-2: brightly anticipated

    X-Habeas-SWE-3: like Habeas SWE (tm)

    X-Habeas-SWE-4: Copyright 2002 Habeas (tm)

    X-Habeas-SWE-5: Sender Warranted Email (SWE)

    (tm). The sender of this

    X-Habeas-SWE-6: email in exchange for a license for this Habeas

    X-Habeas-SWE-7: warrant mark warrants that this is a Habeas Compliant

    X-Habeas-SWE-8: Message (HCM) and not spam. Please report use of this

    X-Habeas-SWE-9: mark in spam to .

    Subject: Fwd: V|@gra, Vali(u)m, X(a)n@x. Prescribed Online and Shipped

    ... and finally, the real information as far as I'm concerned in in the last header:

    X-Spambayes-Classification: spam; 1.00

    So whether the spam is "legitimate" (is there anything like that?) or not, SpamBayes [spambayes.org] doesn't seem to have much trouble with it.

  • Easy to defeat.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SirFozzie ( 442268 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:22AM (#8019058)
    Joe-Jobs are made to order... Just send a bunch of mail through a rooted proxy, advertising the competition's stuff, and watch Habeas sic the lawyer dogs of war on your competition. You'd laugh all the way to the bank.

    Same type of thing if enough spammers use this trick, the lawyers will be too busy.

    Did Habeas actually think this was going to work? I mean, spammers are willing to do ANYTHING to make sure Joe Public reads their garbage. Constantly changing tactics to evade filters, to write viruses specifically to generate more open proxies to send their garbage through, to Denial of Service attacks against those who try to filter out this stuff, to garbage lawsuits. This is nothing compared to those..

  • by ArcticPuppy ( 592282 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:22AM (#8019059) Journal
    Seems they were hacked [valuepointmeds.biz]
  • Can't wait (Score:3, Funny)

    by darnok ( 650458 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:24AM (#8019066)
    Norton Spam Filter 2004, now with haiku filtering! Guaranteed to filter 100% of spam, as long as the Internet doesn't resort to copyright infringement...

    You know I really tried, but I just can't weave a SCO comment into this message...

  • by JimBobJoe ( 2758 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:24AM (#8019070)
    The idea is that a spammer using said haiku to get through spamfilters can be prosecuted under the more stringent copyright laws instead of the weaker antispam ones.

    Which should read:

    The idea is that a spammer using said haiku to get through spamfilters can be prosecuted under the more stringent laws that are difficult to enforce instead of the weaker laws which have proven so hard to enforce.

    I'm amused by the idea, but it seems to me that if you couldn't get (find) them under anti-spam laws (especially the newest ones) then how could you get them on copyright laws? Are the new anti-spam laws so lacking in punishment that they pale in comparison to copyright laws?

    • Are the new anti-spam laws so lacking in punishment that they pale in comparison to copyright laws?

      In short, yes. CAN-SPAM, for the most part, weakened our ability to go after spammers, rather than strengthening it. It takes precedence over existing spam laws, and removes the power from individuals to go after spammers, even if a state law would have allowed them to. Copyright laws give the power back to the people, as it were.

      • Copyright laws give the power back to the people, as it were.

        No they don't.

        The flaw with this scheme is that while it tries to stop you from being spammed, you have no recourse if you are spammed. The only party that can act is this essentially uninvolved third party which holds the copyright.

        In other words, it has exactly the same problem you've (correctly) identified in CAN-SPAM.

        Secondly, when it succeeds it's a bad precedent. It eats away at the principle of "reverse engineering for compatibility

  • Rule #1. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by valentyn ( 248783 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:26AM (#8019078) Homepage
    The Habeas mark is just a way of making money, it has nothing to do with opt-in or responsible e-mailing. I've tried to contact Habeas in the past about a company that used their mark, while they did not correctly verify their opt-in mailadresses. There was no reply (and IIRC, their web form didn't work at all at the time).
    • If this is true then Habeas is really screwing themselves. The only thing Habeas has got going for it is its reputation, and if it does not aggressively address complaints about its customers who violate their policy, it's reputation will become ruined. Let's see - there's your report, there are the spammers they are currently pursuing, and there is the worrisome "Easy to defeat...." earlier post by DrPepper about Joe-Jobs (now that's clever; I wonder if some spammer will patent it). More and more it see
  • by mutant mouse ( 732279 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:34AM (#8019097) Homepage
    Next time Alan Ralsky will use copyrighted spam to bypass anti-spam filters. He will sue anti-spam companies and blacklists for including his copyrighted fake sender addresses, and also special characteristics and words like 5p4m or V14gr4.
  • by mehu ( 92260 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:34AM (#8019099)
    My roommate told me he was getting a bunch of spam last night that was going through SA. I noted that I hadn't. Of course, I got 2 today, and while looking through w/ -t to check everything (it should've been quite obvious), noticed the Habeas X-Headers in there, & found their little notice [habeas.com] about this rash of spams. So, rather than just add a score of 0 for HABEAS_SWE, I figured I'd give them a chance & added the following to my ~/.spamassassin/user_prefs, which takes care of the current rash:
    body PHARMAWHAREHOUSE /pharmawharehouse.biz/
    describe PHARMAWHAREHOUSE Link to pharmawharehouse.biz

    body PHARMACOURT /pharmacourt.biz/
    describe PHARMACOURT Link to pharmacourt.biz

    body VALUEPOINTMEDS /valuepointmeds.biz/
    describe VALUEPOINTMEDS Link to valuepointmeds.biz

    score PHARMAWHAREHOUSE 10
    score PHARMACOURT 10
    score VALUEPOINTMEDS 10
    Looking through my mail, it turns out some of my valid mail actually does contain those headers (would never have noticed them), and a few spams, even w/ the haiku headers, have been blocked by HABEAS_VIOLATOR (RBL: Has Habeas warrant mark and on Infringer List), so the company does appear to be doing its job..
  • by ]ix[ ( 32472 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:36AM (#8019107)
    Ok, so spammers are using haiku. If we only could convince them that harikiri is a spamfilter prevention technique....

  • Scaling Up? (Score:3, Funny)

    by windside ( 112784 ) <pmjboyle@@@gmail...com> on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:38AM (#8019111)
    If they want to up the ante, maybe they should consider using some of the Emperor's Waka Poetry [japantimes.co.jp] (more syllables == more boring).
    • Great--then Alan Ralsky wouldn't just have the FBI, CAUCE, Habeas' Lawyers, the FCC, and five hundred thousand magazine subscriptions and pepperoni pizza home deliveries to contend with, but he'd also be pursued by hordes upon hordes of the Emperor's deadly ninja assassin squad [ninja-weapons.com] on his ass.
  • Disable habeas rule (Score:5, Informative)

    by mattiv ( 219855 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:39AM (#8019113)
    To disable the Habeas rule, edit file $HOME/.spamassassin/user_prefs
    add line

    score HABEAS_SWE 0

  • It's time that we started executing email spammers, and anyone who contracts email spammers.

    Spammers are sociopaths. They don't care that their efforts are always, without exception, criminal. They don't care that people don't want their junk. The best thing to do is to kill them and remove them from society.

    Hopefully someone will soon snap and put a bullet in Alan Ralsky's head, signaling the start of the true anti-spam revolution and doing a great favour to the world.
    • Amen brother! This is the reason I run my own mail server, if Alan Ralsky sends me an e-mail I just block the entire domain and only pass wanted e-mail addresses. Spammers are shit, will always be shit and will be nothing better than shit. If there were anyting lower than child molesters, animal abusers and spammers would fit the bill...
    • Haiku (Score:3, Funny)

      by eclectro ( 227083 )

      You beat the filter
      You have viagra for sale
      Now taste the bullet
    • Good idea. I vote we start a fun raiser (ala PayPal, but something less crooked) which people can annoymously donate to.

      When we raise enough we can hire a contract killer to do the hit (either from a usenet group like alt.contract.killers or from an ad in Solider of Fortune magazine).

      [ HHOS! ]
  • by Schlemphfer ( 556732 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:44AM (#8019137) Homepage
    they stole my haiku
    my moment of sartori [freeserve.co.uk]
    sold fake viagra
  • huh? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm confused by all of this. How is Habeus forcing spammers to use their haiku when sending spam so that they can in turn sue those spammers?!

    I mean, if I'm going to use haiku to get past spam filters, I'll just write my own instead of a copyrighted one. They take all of 30 seconds to write a decent haiku. Am I missing something here?

    More, uh... why would a spammer say "Hey, I'm going to use this COPYRIGHTED HAIKU THAT SPECIFICALLY IS OWNED BY AN ANTI-SPAMMING OUTFIT TO SUE ME OVER" rather than write thei
  • by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:53AM (#8019159)
    Any /. geeks with basic poetry 'programming' skills here? I have a question:
    How exactly does the haiku verse form go?
    Like this?:

    ^_ ^_ _
    _ _ _^^_ _
    _ ^^_ ^_

    Please correct me if I'm wrong.
    Additional info
    Here the copyrighted Haiku - I believe the (tm) is part of it. :

    Winter into spring
    brightly anticipated
    like Habeas SWE (tm)
  • It just illustrates the lengths the spammers will go to, including taking on Habeas' proven legal capabilities, to distribute their spam.
    It is interesting that they tout their proven legal capabilities rather than "proven" technology. Will it be enough to stop the Attack of Haiku-Resistant Killer Spam. RIAA and SCO are trail blazers in using the legal system to stop ....
    Our patent-pending Sender Warranted Email(TM) service vets messages for legitimacy, guaranteeing that they're not spam.
    Guaranteeing? Sounds like a pretty tall claim now. Not to say what should happen to the pending-patent - a review of the claims perhaps ?
    Adding the IP addresses to the HIL (aka Habeas Blacklist) should not impact the legitimate mailing activities of the owners of the compromised PCs.
    It would be nice if it works well, but I am curious as to how they are going to distinguish from a single IP address whether the email was sent from the compromised PC when it was "alert" or when it was in a "zombie" state.
    Your reporting here of spam you've received with the Habeas Warrant Mark will help us track down and prosecute the responsible parties.
    Habeas - Welcome to the Party. In addition to the call for rounding up a posse, if you need some help from the Feds, write in to the FTC at uce@ftc.gov. Despite having the Federal powers to kick a**, I am not really sure how successful they have been.
    What Can I Do With the Spam in my In-Box? [ftc.gov] Report it to the Federal Trade Commission. Send a copy of unwanted or deceptive messages to uce@ftc.gov. The FTC uses the unsolicited emails stored in this database to pursue law enforcement actions against people who send deceptive spam email.

    Hey, and I forgot - What happened to the CAN-SPAM ? [slashdot.org] How long before we have Attacks of the CAN-SPAM-Resistant Killer Spam.

  • Copyrighted Haiku (Score:3, Insightful)

    by perly-king-69 ( 580000 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @05:55AM (#8019165)
    Every work created by you is copyrighted. The act of creating something gives you copyright. For instance, I own the copyright on this post.
  • by p2sam ( 139950 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @06:00AM (#8019179)
    http://pharmacourt.biz/about.html
    http://pharmaco urt.biz/contact.html
    • The main page is still up. The proper way to handle it would be to delete EVERYTHING from the webserver.
      • don't at me ... I didn't do it ...
      • No, no, no...

        The *proper* way to do it is to delete everything from the server *except* for their customer's credit card and any other personal details. Those you put into the index.html file for the entire world to see and use as they see fit. It kills two birds with one stone you see; the spammer gets bitten, but more importantly a whole bunch of people might think twice before responding to a spam which is likely to be far more effective in the long run.

  • by p2sam ( 139950 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @06:04AM (#8019197)
    Since they will add the offender's on to the blacklist, make sure you report that spam at http://www.habeas.com/report. That way the next unfortunate receiver of that spam would have adjust their score accordingly.

    See: http://www.habeas.com/supportBlackList.html
  • Legally dubious (Score:2, Informative)

    by Mammothrept ( 588717 )
    OK, I hate spam as much as the next homicidally enraged Slashdot reading spamee. Habeas' business plan though is legally dubious at least with respect to copyright law. The trademark thing, though, just might fly.

    The purpose of copyright law is to protect original works of expression. There are also built in limitations the most notable of which is fair use. There is no bright line definition of fair use but quoting a few lines of Haiku hardly seems unfair. The attempt by a private party to turn c
  • by MROD ( 101561 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @06:56AM (#8019361) Homepage
    Now, we've seen spammers use a copyrighted poem in their spam headers. I'd like to know how much they're worried about being taken to court about this. After all, they're not exactly on the right side of the law already...

    (1) They subvert other people's computers to relay spam: illegal in most juristictions.
    (2) They send out viruses and worms to break into other people's computers: illegal in most juristictions.

    So, if they're already doing two illegal things, why should they worry about a third?
    • by WuphonsReach ( 684551 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @07:45AM (#8019491)
      Agreed... and it's something that I think a lot of folks miss. Creating yet another law will not stop X, but it might make it easier to prosecute once X has happened. However, whenever you create a new law to prosecute X, there's a high chance of the system being subverted to also allow Y and Z to be prosecuted, or weirdness where X doesn't get addressed at all.

      Spam, in particular, is a combination of technical (SMTP is too trusting), economic (receiver pays the majority of the costs), and social (willing to do anything, don't care about existing laws).

      On the technical side, there's small rays of hope. Reverse-MX proposals (SPF, LMAP) or Yahoo!'s domain-keys are trying to eliminate the Mack-truck sized loophole that allows domains to be forged and companies to be joe-job'd. This should also put a dent in the e-mail worm/spam problem or at least force those machines to route e-mail through a (likely) better-administered SMTP server. Bayesian seems to be working well still and has a bit of life left (multi-word / markov bayesian is probably next). Whitelisting of domains gets easier once the forging issue is taken care of. IP blacklists are still around (don't care for them personally, like hunting flies with a shotgun). We may even see e-mail get as far as requiring public-key signatures along with web-of-trust. I'd say that all e-mail will be required to be encrypted to each recipient's private key, but gov'ts would probably nix that. Individually, none of these technical proposals make much of an impact, but each one closes up yet another loophole.

      Social-side I'm not sure of what is going to make a difference. Too many countries involved with different social mores or laws (or lack thereof).

      Economic sanction is possible, but currently it's easy-as-sin to joe-job your competition - so there's a high risk of false-accusations. Plus, it's easy to move the stuff off-shore and out of reach of authorities. However, as some of the technical means come into mainstream it will hopefully drive spammer costs up (having to register new domains all the time, etc.).
  • by stevenp ( 610846 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @07:08AM (#8019392)
    Has someone of the slashdotters already hacked the pharmacourt.biz site?
    This is what I find at their products page [pharmacourt.biz]: We are some stupid spammers!!
    • If you had read the thread from the beginning, you might have noticed this reaction [slashdot.org]. Also the contents of the about- and contact-pages have been altered.

      BTW, as you are implying, this does not necissarily mean that one of the Slashdot-readers is responsible.

  • by mabu ( 178417 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @07:14AM (#8019402)
    The Habeas plan
    Most ineffective effort
    Ever to stop spam

    (c) 2004 Mabu
    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED!

  • Spam and AI (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gbulmash ( 688770 ) <semi_famous@yah o o . c om> on Monday January 19, 2004 @07:46AM (#8019501) Homepage Journal
    A bunch of neat scientific advances came out of the space program (Mercury / Apollo) because necessity is the mother of invention. There were very specific problems that needed to be solved and inordinate amounts of brainpower were thrown at solving them.

    Now comes the spam wars... Once again, a specific problem that must be solved: "How do we develop a method of letting legitimate mail get to us while filtering out spam with a minimum of error?" We don't have the government throwing billions at it, but because it affects the general public, there's an inordinate amount of businesses, academics, and hobbyists throwing brainpower at it.

    Despite all the talk about keys and legal threats, verifications and warrants, they just provide hurdles to be overcome, not true barriers to spamming.

    But you could train a person to screen your mail with a better level of efficiency than any spam filter on the market today. And that person could catch new spam tricks before they ever got through to you.

    As we continuously try to develop better and better filtering systems, I believe that the war against spam could well be be our most prolific source of advances in artificial intelligence. Spammers will throw (purchased) brainpower at coming up with ways to defeat filters and filters will have to get smarter in response.

    I know, I know... You could say that I'm looking for the silver lining in this hailstorm of unsolicited pitches. But really, am I so far off? We've got a problem, we're throwing resources at solving it... like the space race, like the arms race, technologies will come out of the spam race that will have amazing implications for our lives.

    I hate spam. I would love to be left alone in a room with a spammer, a car battery, and some jumper cables. But at the same time, it's sort of neat to be watching this battle progress.

    Greg

  • by chuckw ( 15728 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @08:04AM (#8019547) Homepage Journal
    It would be foolish to turn off the habeas checking in spamassassin, or otherwise filter out based on the habeas mark for 2 reasons:

    1) Habeas has shown a commitment to actually *EXPEND* The resources to go after spammers. If you dimish the value of the habeas mark by filtering out email with their mark in it, then they have nothing to protect. I personally don't have time to go after spammers. Anyone who has a proven track record of winning against spammers (which habeas has) should be encouraged!

    2) There is a large number of users who have added the habeas mark to their e-mail headers based on the assumption that it was a protected mark that would ensure their mail *WASN'T* filtered out. If you start filtering on that mark you *WILL* falsely filter out a lot of legitimate mail.

    A previous poster named Mehu, posted an excellent solution to the problem if you're using spamassassin:

    "So, rather than just add a score of 0 for HABEAS_SWE, I figured I'd give them a chance & added the following to my ~/.spamassassin/user_prefs, which takes care of the current rash:

    body PHARMAWHAREHOUSE /pharmawharehouse.biz/
    describe PHARMAWHAREHOUSE Link to pharmawharehouse.biz

    body PHARMACOURT /pharmacourt.biz/
    describe PHARMACOURT Link to pharmacourt.biz

    body VALUEPOINTMEDS /valuepointmeds.biz/
    describe VALUEPOINTMEDS Link to valuepointmeds.biz

    score PHARMAWHAREHOUSE 10
    score PHARMACOURT 10
    score VALUEPOINTMEDS 10

    Looking through my mail, it turns out some of my valid mail actually does contain those headers (would never have noticed them), and a few spams, even w/ the haiku headers, have been blocked by HABEAS_VIOLATOR (RBL: Has Habeas warrant mark and on Infringer List), so the company does appear to be doing its job.."


    -Chuck
    • by kindbud ( 90044 )
      If you start filtering on that mark you *WILL* falsely filter out a lot of legitimate mail.

      Incorrect. This spam was the first to reach my site bearing any Habeas mark. The Habeas mark, to my knowledge, has not kept any spam out of my co-worker's inboxes, nor has it made sure that any wanted mails made it through the filters. Our sole experience with the Habeas mark has been this infringing spammers using it to bypass our filter. We bounce 400 spams/minute with scores over 10, just to give you an idea
  • by Epistax ( 544591 ) <<moc.liamg> <ta> <xatsipe>> on Monday January 19, 2004 @08:41AM (#8019716) Journal
    I decided to actually read a spam yesterday. What I found was amazing: Almost every other word was not spelled correctly. Random characters seemed to be inserted throughout. Now I need to ask myself, why wasn't this picked up by spam filters? How much more obvious can you get?

    1) is the subject matter adult? yes
    2) is it written like a five year old? yes

    This doesn't seem that hard to me.
    • If you're using spamassassin, check out a really neat set of rules called "Popcorn, Backhair & Weeds" written by one Jennifer Wheeler. Various versions are available on Chris' SA Rules Emporium [merchantsoverseas.com]. She's got a new one out called ChickenPox that seems to do a similar thing with punctuation.

      You RegEx fans should check it out... it's a masterpiece!

      --D

      p.s. Define for me (in terms a computer can follow), what it means to write like a 5 year old.
  • by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @01:51PM (#8022433) Homepage
    The FTC's study of false claims in spam [ftc.gov] has already established that most spam is legally actionable under current law. Adding a copyrighted haiku doesn't help much.

    Under the CAN-SPAM act, ISPs can sue. If you read the definition of an "ISP" in the act, it's clear that a mail processing service like SpamCop would qualify. What's needed is a paid service like SpamCop that files at least one high-profile lawsuit a month, increasing to one a week as volume builds up. That would make a dent.

  • Large (Score:4, Interesting)

    by harlows_monkeys ( 106428 ) on Monday January 19, 2004 @01:52PM (#8022446) Homepage
    It's definitely a large spam run. These spams use forged "From" addresses, and one of the domains they are forging is owned by my employer, and all mail to non-existent addresses ends up in a mailbox I handle. It's getting 10000 bounce messages per day from these spams.

    When I checked on net.admin.net-abuse.sightings, there are several hundred of these reported, and NONE of them use our domain. Checking a few at random, it looks like they are using many many many forged domains, so we are just getting the bounces from a tiny fraction of these these.

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