Class-action suit against major spammer!

[haloblack]

As you can see from my sig, I loathe spam. I've had the same email address for years now, and I refuse to give it up - even with the barrage of spam I get every day. One of the leaders in the fight against spam is SpamCop, which provides filtered email service and also operates a blacklist of the IP addresses of known spammers. SpamCop is currently being sued by Scott Richter and the liars and weasels at OptInRealBig, which is one of the most massive spam operations going.

If you're as tired as I am of spammers, scammers, and thieves, then please - JOIN THE FIGHT!

HillsCap, a sysadmin and user at SpamCop, is currently organising a class-action lawsuit against Scott Richter and OptIn! HillsCap has collected well over a million emails with data tracking it all back to OptIn, and other sysadmins are doing the same. However, the lawsuit can't go ahead without actual complaints to take to the FTC. (Oh yeah, did I mention that HillsCap has contacts?) A show of support is needed, and if you're sick of spam then JOIN THE FIGHT!

There's a thread at SpamCop here that HillsCap is using to gauge support. He's looking for 1,000 names, since that seems to be the magic number that gets the FTC's attention. You don't have to track spam on your own - there are already sysadmins, mail admins, and techs lining up to do the dirty work. All you have to do is stand up and say WE'RE MAD AS HELL, AND WE AREN'T GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE! Sound like fun? JOIN THE FIGHT! Better yet, TELL YOUR FRIENDS! Help the non-tech savvy sign up! All we need is a show of support. Once things are rolling, HillsCap will provide contact info with the FTC and you'll see some serious excitement!

Make the net a better place! Make a spammer look like FulciLives' avatar! Do something good to make up for all that pr0n you've downloaded!

JOIN THE FIGHT!

/end rant.


(ps - I was humming the theme to "Crimson Tide" as I wrote that. Can you tell?)

[curryman]

as much as i loathe spam.
I don't think you will ever eradicate it.
better not to make a fuss about it.
spam senders see a reaction of this kind and obviously it's having an effect.
If terrorists stop you flying, then they have served a purpose

[northcat_8]

I just use mailwasher pro and bounce the email back to them like the address doesn't exist.

mailwasher is pretty cool, you check your email on the server before you receive it and you can bounce what you don't want or delete what you don't want before you actually waste bandwidth and space receiving it.

You can configure several email accounts including hotmail accounts.

I've had the same email address for over 8 years and I may get 1-2 spam emails a week.

[haloblack]

I just use mailwasher pro and bounce the email back to them like the address doesn't exist.

I hate to break it to you, but that doesn't work at all. It took the spammers about a week to realise that valid "reply-to" addresses only meant that we could email them. No spammer has used a legit reply address in the last two years at least. You can use Mailwasher to screen your mail if you want (I use it myself, actually) but bouncing mail is a complete waste of time. At best you're just throwing bits into the wind, and at worst you'll be helping to "joe-job" an innocent party by replying to mail that they never sent to you. Spammers will frequently target competitors, anti-spammers, and random strangers by inserting the target's email address into the headers of a spam run, and then the target is barraged by thousands of responses to mail they didn't send.[/quote]

I've had the same email address for over 8 years and I may get 1-2 spam emails a week.

I was in the exact same boat until a friend gave my name to one of those "give us your friend's email and we'll mail them a joke!" sites. It's been hell ever since...

[haloblack]

as much as i loathe spam.
I don't think you will ever eradicate it.

I'm damned sure going to try!

better not to make a fuss about it.

Never. Those thieves are wasting my time and my money every day, and if you ask them to stop then they just do it more. Letting them operate with impunity is like rolling over and surrendering, which is why this...

If terrorists stop you flying, then they have served a purpose

...makes no sense to me. I'm not stopping anything - I'm just taking a few of the bastards down with me.

[Cobra]

If the terrorist has prevented you going about an activity you used to have no fear of, then he/she/it has won against you. I will live my life normally, and I do not fear terrorists. I'll leave them in the capable hands of the Ministry of Defence. They cannot win against me as long as I do not live in terror.

As for spammers, I have a filter that the university has put in. It's very good. I'm also careful what I do with my e-mail address. My uni one is "clean" and my Hotmail one is "dirty", so if I have to give it out to a site in order to download something like Quicktime then my main account is not insecure.

They can send all the spam they like, and I either don't get it or I just bin it. If everyone did this, instead of falling for it and clicking through on it then I'm sure the spammers would realise they are having no effect and just die away.

curryman's comparison with a terrorist is quite apt.

Cobra

[northcat_8]

I hate to break it to you, but that doesn't work at all. It took the spammers about a week to realise that valid "reply-to" addresses only meant that we could email them. No spammer has used a legit reply address in the last two years at least.

Oh, you're not breaking it to me...and you are right. I mainly use it to screen also. I bounce some stuff but most generally I just delete it.


I personally think they should print out every email that the spammer has sent on a single piece of paper and shove every single one of them up his ass.

[haloblack]

I personally think they should print out every email that the spammer has sent on a single piece of paper and shove every single one of them up his ass.

Now *that* sounds like an effective plan...

[flaninacupboard]

i thought the work-based mail servers were a good idea. don't remember where i saw it, but basic principle, your machine has to do a small work packet and return it before you can send your mail. a three second work packet isn't going to bother legitimate users, but try sending 1,000,000. it'd take 34 days!