A couple days ago, Alexey Tolstokozhev, a Russian spammer was found murdered. The crime scene investigators have ruled it as a probable mob hit (due to the placement of bullets).
Alexey was not just any spammer, as it turns out he may be responsible for up to 30% of all viagra and “enlargement” spam.
While I certainly don’t condone murdering anyone, the money quote is too good to pass up:
“Violent murders is a clear sign that spam becomes a serious criminal activity” – the officials say. “Easy money attracts criminals, which bring their own version of “justice” with them.”
Remember the recent proposal to issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal for Osama bin Laden? This vigilante method certainly adds a new, although, arguably expected twist to it… and it is just slightly more effective than CAN-SPAM.
You see, spammers like Alexey are hardly operating legitimate businesses, as they pay black-hat hackers for access to zombie botnets — which are destructive and harmful to the productivity and well-being of everything connected to the Internet.
For an explanation of botnets, be sure to check out:
Online Criminal Gangs Battle With Botnets
Storm worm botnet more powerful than top supercomputers
The Economics of Malware
What do Botnets and GPGPUs have in common?
The Commercial Malware Industry (pdf)
Update: despite being a popular story on Slashdot and Digg, it appears that this story is actually a hoax/rebranded occurrence of a murder from two years ago. Be sure to check out the above details on botnets.
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James: “If you have a business account and only give it to trusted people who will not share it or spam you then you will never receive spam.”
ROFLMAO. I have opened up email accounts and received spam within 24 hours without sending a single email or otherwise telling a soul.
Unsolicited email is similar to unsolicited house painting, unsolicited housecalls, unsolicited shoe shines, unsolicited graffiti “artwork”, unsolicited phonecalls, etc.
All these acts use scarce physical property without prior permission of the owner.
Is your number listed in the phone book or have you ever given it out? If so, no call is unsolicited.
Or in your view every call is trespass, but then forgiven when it is your wife, relative etc.
As for spam within hours, your spam filter sucks. Try Gmail or Yahoo, I get about 1 or 2 a week and my address is easily found on the internet.
Utilizing email and having the address on the internet one accepts that people will email you without your permission. How is someone going to get your permission without contacting you in the first place?
Having shoes to shine or a wall to paint does not give anyone permission to do those things unsolicited. Having a communication device advertised in a phone book or on a website does provide the assumption that people will indeed attempt to communicate with you.
James: “Having shoes to shine or a wall to paint does not give anyone permission to do those things unsolicited. Having a communication device advertised in a phone book or on a website does provide the assumption that people will indeed attempt to communicate with you.”
Ah, so you’re saying that if I reveal my number or address to others and include that they may call me only under certain conditions, then those conditions do not apply. That is the point we disagree on.
I won’t nitpick your comment, but you asked an interesting question: “How is someone going to get your permission without contacting you in the first place?”
Advertising doesn’t have to consume others’ property without their permission. For instance, cable television comes with commercials. You may not prefer commercials, but you must take them along with the other viewing content that you purchased.
When it comes to TV, you’ve chosen ahead of time to accept the commercials. Now, if someone had somehow “snuck” a commercial into ABC-Family programming, then whose property did they trespass against? I say the network’s AND everyone attached to the network whose TV was used to display the commercial, because they did NOT have permission to use the network’s resources nor your TV.
Another great way to advertise without first using another’s property without permission is..bum ba ba baaa!..The World Wide Web. There is just no excuse for spam.
Back to the telephone, only calls without permission are trespass. Your wife has (or perhaps not) your permission to call you, as probably do your friends. I doubt telemarketers have your permission (/preference), and finally I would bet that you forgive wrong numbers on most days.
If your phone contract states that you agree to accept all calls abiding by the terms of use of AT&T (or whatever) and a telemarketer abides by such terms, then there is no trespass. Simple.
There is no trespass because you make your number available and choose to pick up the phone.
There is no trespass because you voluntarily give out your email address and choose to open the email.
James,
Who cares if my number is listed? That in itself DOESN’T give anyone permission to use my phone, just as listing my address doesn’t give anyone permission to use my house. LOL!
There is a huge difference between calling your publicly available phone number and thinking that listing your address gives someone permission to use your home.
Seriously? That is your argument?
But, I have a simple solution, never pick up your phone.
The saddest part is the consequences of limiting the free flow of information for some supposed trespass that is at best a small nuisance that lasts 1 second to hang up or delete.
Do you really want to pay every time you send an email? Do you really want courts involved to decide if you received an unsolicited email or it was a welcomed one?
One e-mail is de minimus. One thousand (or one million) is not. The legal and moral status of one e-mail is the same as the one million e-mails, even if the practical means by which we deal with them are not.
Merely having an e-mail address is not an invitation to be contacted. That is the same kind of (indefensible) thinking that leads people to believe that owning property inside some arbitrary territory is equivalent to consent to taxes imposed by the government of that territory.
James, the free flow of information should not be stopped for those who wish it to flow freely. I don’t think anyone here is suggesting that.
Of course the state botches the fix by resorting to its handy guns (to a hammer, everything is a nail) to implement do not call lists and other stupidity.
Nobody wants to have to pay every time they send an email – and nobody would have to pay EVERY time. They would only pay if they were a non-authenticated sender, or contacting a mailbox for which they were not on the whitelist (the do-not-pay list).
Anyway, uninvited impact upon your property by someone with no explicit right to do so is trespass. Telemarketing calls qualify. Spam qualifies.
If you give out your email or phone number you have consented to being mailed or phoned.
Whether you pick up the phone or open the email is your voluntary choice. It is a means of communication that you provide for the explicit reason for people to contact you.
How many calls or emails defines spam or telemarketing and how do you define trespass and what do you want the state or a private security firm to do about a small nuisance? Do you really want a court to decide if you consented to an email or phone call?
Kevin B. states that all communication is trespass, but is forgiven afterward or not.
That is a ridiculous position to hold and unenforceable.
George, having an email address AND posting it on the internet does indeed give everyone access. You have to accept that in this age of the free flow of information.
This whole discussion is irrelevant though given the state of spam filters. I get very little spam and it has no impact on my productivity and yet I encourage anyone to email me with any proposition or information as I have willingly put my email on the internet and expect people to use it.
If you give out your email or phone number you have consented to being mailed or phoned. Whether you pick up the phone or open the email is your voluntary choice. It is a means of communication that you provide for the explicit reason for people to contact you.
No, consent to being contacted is consent to being contacted. Your idea of implied consent is a forced, and false, metaphor for actual consent.
How many calls or emails defines spam or telemarketing
One.
how do you define trespass
Infringement of another person’s property, such as interference with another person’s lawful possession of his property.
what do you want the state or a private security firm to do about a small nuisance?
The choice of remedy is not germane to the question of whether there has been a trespass. The remedy may be minimal when the trespass is minimal, but the question of whether there has been a trespass still needs to be answered.
George, having an email address AND posting it on the internet does indeed give everyone access.
Access is not consent. I could leave my door unlocked or open or missing altogether, and yet a person who walks into my house without permission is still a trespasser.
You have to accept that in this age of the free flow of information.
I don’t have to accept anything. Regardless of what “age” you seem to think we are living in, the principles of property and liberty do not change merely because you would like information flow to be “free.”
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