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Thread ID: 42504	2004-02-13 01:24:00	News: You think that road rage was bad, check this out!	stu140103 (137)	Press F1

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215107	2004-02-13 01:24:00	There is now Spam Rage! Have a read of this: From usatoday . com Spam rage drives some e-mailers to extremes ( . usatoday . com/tech/news/2004-02-11-spam-cover_x . htm" target="_blank">www . usatoday . com) By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY SAN FRANCISCO — Charles Booher was so mad, he did what others have longed to do: He told a spammer to stop — or else . But the Silicon Valley tech worker went too far, prosecutors say . Last year, he allegedly threatened to shoot and torture an employee of a Canadian company that spammed him, court documents say . He also threatened to send a package "of anthrax spores" to the company unless it removed him from an e-mail list, the documents say . The testicular cancer survivor was especially enraged at spam touting penis enlargements, he says . Booher, 44, was arrested by federal agents in November and charged with eight violations of interstate communications . He acknowledges he "blew his cool" but says he wanted to be left alone . "You're at the mercy of someone controlling your machine," says Booher, who has pleaded not guilty . His case is unusual, law enforcement officials say . Rarely do spammers report such activities because they don't want to invite the law to scrutinize their operations . But spam rage, like road and air rage, has pushed others to extremes in their battle against unwarranted e-mail . Some people spend hours tracking spammers and reporting them to authorities . Others engage in cyberwarfare by shutting down spammers' Web pages or putting spammers' addresses on Web sites . Others sue . A few resort to threats . "This is an invasion of personal space, intrusion with a capital I," says Gilda Carle, a psychotherapist and anger-management expert . There seems to be nowhere to hide from spammers . Though a federal anti-spam law took effect Jan . 1, about 60% of e-mail in January was spam, about the same amount as in December 2003, says Brightmail, a spam-filtering company . Only 3% of unsolicited commercial e-mail complies with the new federal law, says MX Logic, a maker of spam-filtering software . Booher says anti-spam laws don't work . The 6-foot-1, 260-pound programmer, who once worked at Sun Microsystems, lives in a two-story tract home in a tree-lined suburb of Sunnyvale, Calif . , with his elementary-school-teacher wife, two cats and two rabbits . The soft-spoken Booher says he inadvertently downloaded a program from the Internet that barraged his computer with spam and pop-up ads for about two months . Booher says he politely pleaded with the company sending the ads, DM Contact Management, to stop . Doug Mackay, president of DM Contact, told Booher that the Internet advertising company "did not send him any e-mail messages," court documents say . Mackay told an FBI agent that Booher made numerous threatening phone calls and e-mail messages between May and July 2003, court documents say . In November, Booher was arrested at home by several FBI agents . Now free on a $75,000 bond, he faces five years in jail and a $250,000 fine . His attorney expects reduced charges or an out-of-court resolution because Booher does not have a criminal record or own a gun . DM Contact Management and its law firm did not return e-mail messages and phone calls . Assistant U . S . Attorney Shashi Kewalramani, who is prosecuting in San Jose, Calif . , had no comment . Technical attacks Attacks can be technical as well as emotional . Every day, Kenny Tipton, 37, and his wife, Sharon, 52, sit at their PCs in their three-bedroom apartment waiting to pull the plug on Internet porn purveyors and spammers . The couple own Keeping Internet Kids Safe, a non-profit organization in Orlando that works with law-enforcement officials to educate and protect children online . It has shut down about 1,000 Web pages of porn spammers the past two years . Chat rooms of Internet service providers — companies like AOL that sell access to the Internet over telephone lines — have long been havens for pornographers to post links to their Web sites . The Tiptons go to popular chat rooms, looking for cyber come-ons . They trace links to the Web site owners . Then, they file abuse reports with ISPs and companies that power objectionable sites with the aim of shutting down the porn sites . "We decided to clean things up because major Internet service providers aren't doing much" says Kenny, an airline pilot who has a young daughter . Nigel Featherston is active, too . The retired Microsoft programmer put his money where his mouse was . Last year, he won a $250,000 lawsuit against two Ohio residents who broke a Washington law by deluging him with spam . The Dayton, Ohio, residents, Charles Childs and Linda Lightfoot, targeted Featherston, he says, after he publicly reported them for spamming to their ISP and the Federal Trade Commission . They promptly put Featherston's e-mail address in the "from" and "reply to" fields of the messages they sent out . Within a week, Featherston says, he got 58,000 e-mails, many from irate consumers who complained that he spammed them . "I haven't collected a dime in damages, but stopping these people from spamming me was worth it," says Featherston, 57 . He spent $10,000 on an attorney and private investigator . Featherston won a decision when neither of the alleged spammers showed up in court . Then there is Jesse Riddle, a Utah civil lawyer . In the past two years, he says, he has filed nearly 1,000 lawsuits against spammers . "I'm naïve enough to think if someone stepped forward and made spammers financially responsible for their actions, they'd stop," says Riddle, who has collected $80,000 through judgments and settlements . Riddle estimates he stopped dozens of spammers . But it has come at a price for his law firm: An estimated $100,000 in court filing fees, 100 pieces of junk e-mail daily and constant lawsuit threats . The new federal anti-spam law, which carries jail time and multimillion-dollar fines for spammers, isn't expected to help people like Featherston and Riddle . Though it is likely to deter legitimate marketers from dumping unsolicited junk e-mail on consumers, anti-spam experts say it will go largely ignored by the largest spammers, many of whom are outside the USA and use sophisticated software to cover their digital tracks . Anti-spam activists have "outed" some of the biggest spammers by digging up personal information on them and posting it on Web sites . Spamhaus Project routinely runs photos — sometimes lifted from police records — of suspected spammers with their home addresses and phone numbers . Sometimes, spammers snitch on one another, says Spamhaus volunteer John Reid . Spammers fight back Other consumers battle with their wallets . "I refuse to buy from any company that sends me spam," says Mike Nash, 33, a telecommunications program manager in Duluth, Ga . "I canceled AOL last year because of all the spam I was receiving," adds Lisa Carito, 42, of Cincinnati . She got about 25 to 30 junk e-mail messages a day . "I just couldn't take it anymore . " AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham says many subscribers are reporting less spam because of improved anti-spam filters made available last year . Some of the largest spammers feign indifference to the virtual vigilantes . "I let them vent and don't pay attention to what they say," says Alan Ralsky, 58 . His Michigan-based operation pumps out 70 million e-mails a day . He receives death threats daily, he says . A favorite tactic of his tormentors is to send a photo of him in the mail with a target drawn on his head, he says . "What they need to realize is they're not accomplishing anything with threats," adds Scott Richter, 32, president of OptInRealBig . com, whose e-mail marketing company sends mass mailings for Viagra, adult-related products and mortgages . Other spammers, however, have launched cyberattacks against anti-spammers . One victim was Ronald Guilmette, a software designer in Roseville, Calif . Until last summer, he ran a Web site used by ISPs and businesses to weed out unwanted e-mail . A deluge of data In August, his Web site was disabled by a cyberattack, in which spammers deluged his network with data . Later, a spammer unleashed about 1 million e-mails with Guilmette's e-mail address as the sender . Guilmette was flooded with irate calls . By September, he shut down his service . The attacks stopped . "Once the spammers targeted me, that was it," he says . "I underestimated them . " The Tiptons' home and cell phone numbers were included at the bottom of 10,000 spam messages that were not sent by them . In the next few days, they were inundated with calls . They temporarily unplugged their phone . "It's par for the course," Kenny says . Last month, while one spammer called in the middle of the night, "threatening to kick my butt," another offered to donate $1,000 to the Tiptons' business so they wouldn't shut down the spammer's site, Kenny says . He declined . Emboldened spammers haunt online bulletin boards, where they pose as anti-spam fighters . A dumbstruck Roger Matus, CEO of anti-spam software firm Audiotrieve, couldn't believe the comments attributed to him Nov . 10 on Download . com's message board . Someone purporting to be Matus said he was a penis-enlargement spammer and had deceived consumers . Although the message was spiked the next day, it took him a week to "clean up the mess," he says . No end in foreseeable future The escalating electronic warfare isn't likely to end soon . "This battle ultimately will turn into another high-tech video game," Booher says . Sophisticated software tools make it difficult for victims on either side to find the perpetrator . And law-enforcement officials concede they are nearly powerless . "It's like trying to stop hit-and-run incidents without the highway patrol around," says Paul Bresson, a spokesman for the FBI's Cyber Division .	stu140103 (137)
215108	2004-02-13 02:01:00	It would be a good idea to avoid copying a whole article like that. I think USAToday would prefer if people read it on their web page, and since the text is copyrighted they could throw lawyers at you/pcworld.	bmason (508)
215109	2004-02-13 03:24:00	Or they might spam you.:D But yes, you should just give a link to a story. It is very definitely a breach of copyright to copy the whole story.	Graham L (2)
215110	2004-02-13 03:49:00	I fully sympathise with those people who are losing control due to all the spammers who just don't give a damn that they are costing ordinary people time and Money to download their crap . Many times I have found my self wanting to locate these spammers and have to shut down the pc and then go outside and punch a wall or two . I wouldn't bother threatening them though, as they seem to ignore threats, I'd simply do it . but I won't say just what I would do and no it doesn't involve death .	Odin (227)
215111	2004-02-13 03:56:00	the spammers that flood my yahoo email address are such dumb***** they actually put their real email address in the return area i love forwarding all the spam from all 5 of my email addresses them	Megaman (344)
215112	2004-02-13 06:33:00	>>they could throw lawyers at you/pcworld. the book would be lighter :D	Dolby Digital (160)
215113	2004-02-13 10:04:00	> i love forwarding all the spam from all 5 of my email addresses them That's pretty stupid in itself, it sounds like you just reveal all five of your addresses to them in doing such an action. :| But I must admit, yes, the spammers that get through to my Yahoo address say to contact them at a real email address that is provided by a service such as hotpop.com. I have contacted the service providers several times and asked to have accounts removed after receiving spam for Apple products.	agent (30)
215114	2004-02-14 01:15:00	however i can block them from all 5 of my email addresses ;)	Megaman (344)
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