Rodney Fletcher’s Blog

It’s hard to find anyone these days who’ll stand up and say “I’m a fan of Bill” but this week, I think one or two people will be doing just that. It won’t last of course, but while it lasts, you might as well write a Blog about it, I say.

Microsoft have their fare share of criticism, some would argue not enough even and quite a lot of it’s justified. Whether it’s their crappy code landing you n hot water because your apps are haning or your servers vulnerable or whether you don’t like their business practices, most people have something to say about the big M (the one that doesn’t sell burgers).

BUT – if there’s one person nerds and non-nerds alike hate more than poor ol’ Bill it’s Scott Richter. Scott Richter embodies that most evil of the net’s scourges – he’s the SPAM king, CEO of OptInRealBig.com Llc. If you’re after some cheap $0ftw@re or something special to help with the l@di3s, Scott’s your man. Or rather, he was.

Just yesterday, Microsoft settled their suit against Scott for 7 million US dollars (personally, I’m horrified to think that he managed to find enough morons to make that kind of money) and effectively put him out of business. Maybe. Bankrupted him anyway.

Trouble is, as Scott himself points out, you don’t need capital to be a spammer. You pretty much just need a computer and access to a whole host of illegally controlled zombie computers on broadband – something that there’s unfortunately a limitless resource of.

So what does this court case really do? Well for one thing, it gives us all a good laugh and makes Bill a hero for a while. But deep down, it worries me a little. You see, now SPAM is driven that little bit extra under ground and it takes us that little bit closer to the days where zombied PCs are going to be the targets of lawsuits, so your local neighbourhood people, minding their own business on their multi-hacked Windows boxes are going to either be the targets of lawsuits themselves or at least drawn into them indirectly as their ISPs either get sued or start shutting down people’s connections to avoid getting sued. Besides, how do we sue spammers in Russia or China?

So at the end of the day the message stays the same. To stop spam we need a few things. 1. People have to care more about it. It’s costing real money and real resources (and a lot of both) but generally management still treats it like a bit of a joke. 2. People have to start taking care of their equipment. While it’s dead easy to take control of hundreds of people’s home PCs in an hour or so SPAM, Virii, worms, whatever – they’re not going away. And the annoying thing is, they’re not that hard to stop! 3. Finally, The whole structure of SMTP needs to go out the window, but that’s a chat for another day.

So anyway for now, sit back and smile that Scott’s got his come-upance and enjoy the day or so of less SPAM that might result.

Till next time,
Rodney.

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If you’re after a good look at the man and a seriously good laugh, Google the video interview of him that aired on the Weekly Daily Show, in the US. You can currently find it at . Definately worth a few minutes to watch it. (If you haven’t seen it the Weekly Daily Show is a comedy news-style show but the interview’s for real).