AOL is planning to give away assets seized from spammers in a US sweepstake due to launch Wednesday. A 2003 Hummer H2, $75,000 in cash and $20,000 in gold are up for grabs in a give-away of the illicit gains of junk mailing. It's the second time AOL has given away assets confiscated from a spammer. Last year, AOL raffled a $45,000 Porsche Boxster it seized as part of a settlement against another unnamed junk mail scumbag.
Microsoft Corp. has won a $7 million settlement from a man who was billed as one of the world's most prolific spammers before he cleaned up his act.
The software maker heralded the deal as a major coup in a war that's far from over. It said the money from Scott Richter and his company, OptInRealBig.com, will be used to boost efforts to combat the illegal mass delivery of unsolicited and misleading e-mail, and other computer misuse.
POLITICAL spam group GetUp! has become the target of an investigation to force the internet operation, which is bombarding Coalition senators with email, to prove it is not a front for the Labor Party.
The online operation, which has the support of union boss Bill Shorten, dotcom millionaire Evan Thornley and former Liberal leader John Hewson to raise $1.5 million, flooded Liberal and Nationals senators with email this week.
Russia’s most (in)famous spammer, Vardan Kushnir, 35, had been found dead in his apartment in downtown Moscow on Monday, July 25th. Someone smashed his head with a heavy object, authorities say, and then searched throughout his entire apartment. The authorities have obviously got no clue as to who that someone might have been.
Russia's Interfax news agency reports that notorious spammer Vardan Kushnir was found brutally murdered. His body was discovered in his Moscow apartment on Sunday, showing evidence of repeated blows to the head.
Mr. Kushnir headed English learning centers known for their persistent aggressive spamming. Millions of messages sent by the firms went out each day. Spamming is not presently illegal under Russian law.
DON'T think about blocking spam - imagine instead that you are playing a game against the spammers, with cash at stake. That's how businesses and internet service providers (ISPs) can improve their email filters, according to a new model of online confrontations.
Anti-spam experts believe Scott Richter, the man dubbed the Spam King, has stopped sending junk email.
According to anti-spam campaign group Spamhaus, Richter has been removed from ROKSO - an authoritative list of the world's most notorious spammers - after he decided to go straight earlier this year.
Once the second biggest spammer in the world, Richter, who currently faces lawsuits with Microsoft and the New York State Attorney, is said to be turning his efforts to legitimate opt-in bulk mailing.
The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday said it has filed lawsuits against seven companies for allegedly sending X-rated spam without the required warning meant to protect children and consumers from unwanted pornography.
Four of the companies had already settled with FTC, agreeing to pay a total of $1.2 million in civil penalties. The settlements also bar the companies from sending unlabelled porn spam in the future and requires them to monitor affiliates to ensure that they are also in compliance with federal laws, the agency said.
Escalating the war on spam, a California company wants to let thousands of users collaborate to disable the Web sites spammers use to sell their wares.
A leading anti-spam advocate, however, criticized Blue Security Inc.'s Blue Frog initiative as being no more than a denial-of-service attack, the technique hackers use to effectively shut down a Web site by overwhelming it with fake traffic.
Spammers are using technology designed to prevent phishing to beat spam filters.
A report this week by email security company MX Logic suggests that nearly ten percent of spam emails sent contain SPF records.
SPF and other email authentication methods, such as Sender ID and Domain Keys Internet Mail (DKIM), verify the origin of the email sent. But spammers are using the system to fool users and anti-spam filters into believing their messages are valid.
