Unplugging spamming PCs

Thu Jun 24 09:54:41 UTC 2004

> And again, much of this comes down to enforcement. When was the last
> time you heard of a spammer's domain being pulled? How about the last
> time you saw a spammer be even remotely bothered by having their
> domain pulled? Do you think they'll really care less about losing a
> mail server when they've got another dozen lined up ready and waiting?

Well, just a couple of days ago I read about a Russian court in
Chelyabinsk that sentenced a spammer to two years in prison. It's
the first conviction under a Russian law that forbids the use
of malicious software and the court felt that the spamming scripts
used by this guy were malicious software.

What he did was to send text messages to mobile phone
subscribers of a single company by means of a web gateway.
I think the main reason he was put on trial was because the
mobile operator whose customers were getting the spam and
whose gateway was being misused, went to the police and
complained. How many ISPs in the USA go to the police and 
register official complaints about spammers? We have lots
of smart people who can track down and identify spammers
but it does no good unless the companies who suffer damage
register an official police complaint.

--Michael Dillon