Spam

The Federal Trade Commission today unsealed and announced its action in the U.S. District Court in Arizona against William Dugger (a/k/a Billy Johnson, d/b/a Net Everyone) of Hawaii (with a business address in Phoenix), Angelina Johnson (d/b/a Net Everyone) of Hawaii and/or Phoenix, and John Vitale (d/b/a Net Everyone) of Phoenix for sending CAN-SPAM-violating porn spam using compromised systems of uninvolved third parties. The Temporary Restraining Order announced today freezes their assets and requires their ISPs to disconnect all of their equipment from the Internet and deny them any access to it.

I’ve been using the Firefox plugin from SiteAdvisor.com for a few days, and I think it’s a great idea. They’ve searched the web, downloaded content, and submitted unique email addresses on signup forms everywhere they find them, to see what happens. They then rate each site for malicious content and the extent to which it generates spam in response to a signup. This database is then used by their browser plugin to display icons next to Google and Yahoo search results indicating whether that site is green, yellow, or red regarding the type of content downloaded, the amount of email you can expect to receive from signing up at the site, and whether it links to other sites that are problematic. Their privacy policy is good–they don’t keep a record of who goes to what site. One feature I’d like to see them add is the ability to not make queries for certain domains (such as Intranet web pages–their current design allows them to map out internal corporate web structures which they should not be able to get). Their advisory board includes Avi Rubin, a well-known security researcher at Johns Hopkins University (and formerly at AT&T) who has done significant work on e-voting security, and Ben Edelman, formerly of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, who is well-known for his research on Internet subjects such as domain name usage and China’s web filtering, as well as his lawsuit against web filtering company N2H2 to defend his right to research its blocking list. SiteAdvisor has a blog, too (though as of this moment it doesn’t have a valid RSS feed, according to Thunderbird). ...

As readers of this blog know, I’m no supporter of George W. Bush. I’ve never contributed funds or worked to support the campaign of a Republican. Yet I received this spam email from Jon Kyl, who is apparently concerned about competition from Arizona Democratic Party chairman Jim Pederson in the next election. It’s also interesting that Kyl’s jonkyl.com website is hosted in Canada, and his campaign webservers are hosted in New Jersey. Way to support your home state, Senator. From: “Senator Jon Kyl” [email protected] Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 23:57:14 -0500 Subject: I invite you to join my team… Today I am writing you for two reasons. One is to say thank you for your past support of President Bush and a second is to ask for your help. I am not asking for money. I am simply asking for your time and energy in helping my reelection campaign. First, thank you for your help in the 2004 election. Because of your hard work, we had a huge victory in Arizona. One of the key elements of victory was the organized force of Bush Volunteers who registered voters, made phone calls, walked neighborhoods, placed signs and bumper stickers, and helped get out the vote. It was a record setting year, and you were part of that team. Second, I want to ask for your help. As you may know, I am running for reelection to the U.S. Senate. My opponent is the former Chairman of the Arizona Democrat Party, Jim Pederson. He has personally bankrolled the Democrats’ efforts, including against President Bush, to date he has spent over $5 million on Democrats and their causes. He is a supporter of Howard Dean and Ted Kennedy and was a leader in John Kerry’s failed presidential campaign. Not surprisingly, John Kerry now is Pederson’s biggest contributor. That is why I need your help. Television and radio alone will not win this election. In order to be successful, we will need to replicate the Bush Volunteer program to run our grass roots campaign. We are currently recruiting volunteers from across Arizona to join our campaign as Kyl Captains. As a Kyl Captain you will be integral in our network of individuals who are willing to help on the campaign. Whether you prefer registering voters, working the phones, or just talking with your friends and neighbors, you will be a critical component of my campaign. Because Jim Pederson will spend what it takes on television, it is very important to have a strong and active Arizona Team on the ground, registering and getting voters to the polls. I am convinced it is the key to victory in November 2006. Please take a moment and visit www.jonkyl.com and sign up as a Kyl Captain. Your personal commitment to this campaign will make all the difference. It has been the greatest honor of my life to represent the people of Arizona in the United States Senate. With your help I hope to continue that public service. Again, thank you for your past work on behalf of the President and I look forward to working together in the future. Sincerely, Jon Kyl U.S. Senator P.S. If you have any questions, please feel free to call my office at (602) 840-0306 or visit: www.jonkyl.com P.O. Box 10246 :: Phoenix, AZ 85064 :: [email protected] Paid for by Jon Kyl for U.S. Senate/[email protected] ...

I read (and completed) the following books in 2005. I’ve reviewed most of them at Amazon.com (where the links point): Richard Abanes, One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church Pascal Boyer, Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious ThoughtRachel DeWoskin, Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind the Scenes of a New China Cory Doctorow, Eastern Standard TribeMark Haddon, the curious incident of the dog in the night-timeMichael A. Hiltzik, Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age Peter W. Huber and Mark P. Mills, The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy Penn Jillette, Sock David Cay Johnston, Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich–and Cheat Everybody Else Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything Joel Levy, The Scam Handbook: The Secrets of the Con Artist Richard Marcus, American Roulette: How I Turned the Odds Upside-Down–My Wild Twenty-Five-Year Ride Ripping Off the World’s Casinos John Markoff, What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron Ben Mezrich, Ugly Americans: The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions Kevin D. Mitnick and William L. Simon, The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders & Deceivers Matthew Modine, Full Metal Jacket Diary John Allen Paulos, A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market V.S. Ramachandran, A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness Jon Ronson, The Men Who Stare At Goats Paul Scharbach and John H. Akers, Phoenix: Then and Now Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko, The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy Jim Steinmeyer, Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear Anthony Storr, Feet of Clay: Saints, Sinners, and Madmen: A Study of Gurus Teller, “When I’m Dead, All This Will Be Yours!”–Joe Teller, a portrait by his kid, Teller Vicki Lewis Thompson, Nerd Gone WildIra Winkler, Spies Among Us: How to Stop the Spies, Terrorists, Hackers, and Criminals You Don’t Even Know You Encounter Every Day Richard Yancey, Confessions of a Tax Collector: One Man’s Tour of Duty Inside the IRS I began, but haven’t yet finished: James Bovard, The Bush BetrayalAntonio Damasio, Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling BrainDiego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection Jennifer Michael Hecht, Doubt: A History Olivia Judson, Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All CreationV.S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee, Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind Spammer-X, Inside the Spam Cartel: Trade Secrets from the Dark SideThomas J. Stanley, The Millionaire MindRobert H. Tillman and Michael L. Indergaard, Pump & Dump: The Rancid Rules of the New EconomyJohn Viega and Gary McGraw, Building Secure Software: How to Avoid Security Problems the Right WayAndrew Vladimirov, Konstantin V. Gavrilenko, Andrei A. Mikhailovsky, WI-FOO: The Secrets of Wireless Hacking ...

Charles E. “Chuck” Carlson (not to be confused with convicted Watergate conspirator turned evangelical prison ministry mogul Chuck Colson) runs something called “Strait Gate Ministries” and assorted websites (including one called “Al-Jazeerah”) which seem to focus on arguing that the U.S. should not be supporting Israel. He has a history of advertising these websites by sending unsolicited bulk email, also known as “spam." He has clashed with a number of anti-spammers, which has led to multiple terminations of online services that he’s used–his DSL connection as well as web hosting. He has characterized this as mugging and assault as well as censorship. (Here is a list of some of Carlson’s domains blocked by rhyolite.com for sending spam.) In August, he filed a lawsuit (PDF) in Arizona Superior Court (CV2005-052008) against Robert Poortinga, his own providers who had terminated service, and Missouri Freenet Corporation. In his complaint, he argues that Poortinga and others have defamed him by calling him a “spammer” and accusing him of sending “spam,” on the grounds that his emails do not meet the criteria in the CAN-SPAM Act. “Missouri Freenet Corporation,” named as a defendant in Carlson’s suit, doesn’t actually exist–the person he’s intending to sue is Alif Terranson (on whose site the above lawsuit complaint PDF is hosted), who is a well-known anti-spammer and formerly ran the abuse team at Savvis. Terranson has supplied Carlson with information about how to properly name and serve him. Carlson’s complaint appears to me to be without merit. His argument based on CAN-SPAM fails because that act does not define the term “spam,” which is a well-known term of art in the Internet world, not a legal term. “Spam” originally meant bulk postings to Usenet newsgroups (an action associated with a couple of immigration attorneys also based in Scottsdale, Arizona), but quickly came to mean unsolicited bulk email (UBE)–email that is both (a) not explicitly requested by the recipients and (b) sent to multiple recipients. Although the most common form of UBE is unsolicited commercial email (which is what CAN-SPAM regulates), UBE and “spam” are broader than UCE and can include religious spam, insane spam, etc. Internet RFC 2505 endorses this broader notion of “spam,” as does this definition from Spamhaus. Although there are no legal penalties for spam that falls outside of what is regulated by federal and state laws (or laws in other countries), most online providers have stricter guidelines than what the law requires as part of their Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs). Customers of online providers are contractually bound by those AUPs, and can find their service terminated for violations even if they haven’t violated the law. This has been the case since long before CAN-SPAM went into effect. Another form of social penalty for spam is having one’s email blocked by those who operate mail servers on the Internet–companies, organizations, and individuals have a variety of tools which can be used to block the vast quantities of unwanted email being spewed out daily by compromised machines as well as by those operating in a more aboveboard manner. Included in those tools are the ability to block by domain name or using IP-address-based blocking lists. What Carlson calls censorship is really just the owners of private mail servers setting rules by which their property may be used by others. (The issue is a bit more complicated in the case of an ISP, but so long as the ISP accurately informs its customers of what they’ve signed up for, they can apply filters consistent with their service. In general, ISPs want their customers to receive what the customers want to receive, as blocking wanted email leads to complaints.) I’ll keep tabs on this suit as it progresses (if it does). ...