Spam
10 June 2007
Anti-spam laws in Singapore to take effect next week Sydney Morning Herald
Singapore's Spam Control Act will take effect next week as the city-state seeks to control unsolicited advertising, the government said Friday.
08 June 2007
Will Arrest Stem Tide of Spam? by Bill Nussey Circle ID
Legitimate email marketers, anti-spam groups and beleaguered recipients got a bit of good news with the arrest last week of a man described as one of the world's most prolific spammers. Robert Alan Soloway, 27, dubbed "the Seattle Spammer" by federal officials, was indicted on 35 charges related to fraudulent Internet activities. Soloway pleaded not guilty to all charges at his May 30 arraignment. You can read more here. Although it's always great when a notorious spammer gets put out of business, such actions probably won't result in a drop in the amount of spam that gets sent.
02 June 2007
'Spam King' pleads not guilty to charges in e-mail case International Herald Tribune
The 27-year-old businessman pleaded not guilty in Seattle to charges that he had sent millions of unsolicited junk e-mails.
Arrest of 'spam king' no relief for inboxes The Times
The arrest of one of the world's most persistent spammers has failed to halt the growing deluge of junk e-mail
Spammers' use of AI only just begun InfoWorld
Though security industry experts were openly referring to the death of spam several years ago, the arrival of image-based attacks has resulted in a stunning renaissance in the volumes of unwanted e-mail reaching end-users' inboxes. And while filtering technologies have improved significantly and can thwart the ability of most image spam to force its way onto corporate networks today, some experts believe that the fight against the use of such AI (artificial intelligence) tactics on the part of spammers is only just getting underway.
01 June 2007
us: 'Spam King' arrested IOL Technology
US prosecutors said they captured on Wednesday a nefarious Internet marketer responsible so much junk email they called him "Spam King".
25 May 2007
Study: More Spam but Fewer Complaints PC Magazine
Spam messages are increasingly plaguing e-mail inboxes, but more Americans are accepting them as a fact of life, a new study finds. Thirty-seven percent of U.S. e-mail users say they are getting more junk in their personal e-mail accounts, and 29 percent see an increase in their work accounts. About half say they have not noticed a change, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said in its study, released Wednesday.
Promising antispam technique gets nod ZDNet
A key Internet standards body gave preliminary approval on Tuesday to a powerful technology designed to detect and block fake e-email messages. It's called DomainKeys Identified Mail, and it promises to give Internet users the best chance so far of staunching the seemingly endless flow of fraudulent junk e-mail.
24 May 2007
us: Can-Spam put to the test CNet
The last six months have not been particularly kind to the antispam community.
Late last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit limited the reach of both state and federal spam laws to e-mails that contain "material" falsity or deception. And last week, a federal district court dismissed a Can-Spam claim on the basis that the plaintiff, James Gordon--who was not a traditional ISP--did not suffer the type of injury envisioned by the law, and thus lacked legal standing to sue.
The court also signaled its intention to award attorney's fees. While the decision will likely have minimal effect on claims brought by traditional ISPs, it is sure to take the sails out of the cottage industry built around spam litigation.
22 May 2007
NZ ISP Spam Code of Practice released for public consultation InternetNZ
InternetNZ released the ISP Spam Code of Practice. InternetNZ executive director Keith Davidson says the preparation of the Code is an excellent example of how the industry is working together to fight a common enemy.
01 May 2007
us: Spam Fighters Eye New Target in Fresh Legal Offensive E-Commerce Times
Unspam Technologies, a Utah-based antispam provider, has filed a federal lawsuit against so-called e-mail harvesters -- anonymous parties who collect addresses from Web sites and other lists, which they then sell to spammers. The suit was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia under the federal CAN-SPAM law and the Virginia Computer Crimes Act, which is the state's antispam statute. While there have been many skirmishes between spammers and antispammers over the years, this particular legal action is unusual in a few ways.
27 April 2007
us: Major Anti-Spam Lawsuit to Be Filed in Virginia Washington Post
A company representing Internet users in more than 100 countries is expected to file a lawsuit in Virginia on Thursday seeking the identity of individuals responsible for harvesting millions of e-mail addresses on behalf of spammers.
24 April 2007
us: FTC To Host “Spam Summit: The Next Generation of Threats and Solutions” Federal Trade Commission
The Federal Trade Commission will host a two-day public event, "Spam Summit: The Next Generation of Threats and Solutions," in Washington, DC on July 11 and 12, 2007. The summit will bring together experts from the business, government, and technology sectors, consumer advocates, and academics to explore consumer protection issues surrounding spam, phishing, and malware.
13 April 2007
New Technology Aims to Bore Impatient Spammers Washington Post
MailChannels of Vancouver, Canada, found that by forcing e-mail programs to wait a few seconds before being allowed to communicate with Internet servers handling the recipients' incoming mail, most spammers give up and move on.
11 April 2007
au: Telstra, Google in spam spat Sydney Morning Herald
Telstra slams Google's spam fighting credentials, claiming it is not proactive in monitoring outgoing Gmail spam.
02 April 2007
Comment and Trackback Spam Pollutes Blogs PC World
Blog spammers have found ways to automate inserting their unwanted messages into online conversations, but the few tools available to block them lag woefully behind.
30 March 2007
Spamming under the law of Poland Internet Business Law Services
In Poland, some of the main legal aspects of e-commerce are regulated under the Act of July 18, 2002 on Providing Services by Electronic Means (the "E-Commerce Act.") This Act also contains several provisions addressing the issue of unsolicited commercial communications, often referred to as spamming. Spamming under the law of Poland is regarded as an unfair competition practice.
27 March 2007
Bulk of Asian email is spam - study IOL Technology
Almost 70 percent of all electronic mail from Asia is "spam", or unsolicited advertisements, an anti-virus firm said. The Philippines had the worst record with spam making up 88 percent of all emails, Symantec said in excerpts of its Internet Threat Security Report released here.
20 March 2007
If we can't sort out spam, what hope do we have for tackling global warming? The Guardian
Dave Rand doesn't have the air of an optimist defeated by reality, though one would have thought that someone who set up a company in 1994 with the expectation of purging the internet completely of spam within five or so years might look less happy with how things have turned out.
09 March 2007
'Adult' spam hits all-time low ZDNet
There is still plenty of spam going around, but "adult" spam has been on a steady decline and hit an all-time low in February, according to a new Symantec report.
02 March 2007
nz: Law to tackle unwanted spam passed Stuff
The Government's anti-spam bill was passed last night with a promise it would help stem the avalanche of unwanted e-mails clogging New Zealand in-boxes.
15 February 2007
Spammers face new controls under Singapore bill Sydney Morning Herald
Email spammers will face new controls on their unsolicited advertising under proposed legislation introduced by Singapore.
24 January 2007
MySpace files law suit against 'Spam King' InfoWorld/IDG
MySpace.com has filed a lawsuit against the self-proclaimed "Spam King", Scott Richter, for allegedly blasting the portal with spam through the use of compromised user accounts, the Web site said on Monday.
18 January 2007
Why Spam Won't Go Away Forbes
Spam is filling up the Internet, and it's not going away anytime soon. It's not just e-mail. We have voice-over-IP spam, instant message spam, cellphone text message spam, blog comment spam and Usenet newsgroup spam. And, if you think broadly enough, these computer-network spam delivery mechanisms join the ranks of computer telemarketing (phone spam), junk mail (paper spam), billboards (visual space spam) and cars driving through town with megaphones (audio spam). It's all basically the same thing--unsolicited marketing messages--and only by understanding the problem at this level of generality can we discuss solutions.
09 January 2007
Spam surge drives net crime spree BBC
The tussle between computer security companies trying to protect your PC and the bad guys that try to compromise it is often characterised as an arms race. Sometimes the security companies have the upper hand as they develop and deploy novel techniques to spot and stop malicious software of all stripes. And sometimes, such as in 2006, the bad guys are on top. And nowhere has this been more apparent than in the realm of that old favourite - spam.
