Court orders spammers to pay US$236M to Iowa ISP - GoFuckYourself.com

Jens Van Assterdam · 10-09-2008, 02:16 AM

$10 USD per email...

A federal judge has ordered an Arizona couple to pay more than US$236 million for sending millions of spam messages to a small Iowa ISP (Internet service provider).

Henry Perez and his wife Suzanne Bartok were ordered to pay the damages ? amounting to US$10 per bulk email ? following a four-year court case in which the judge found that they had bombarded CIS Internet Services of Clinton, Iowa, over a four-month period in 2003.

According to a ruling by Judge John Jarvey of Iowa federal court, Perez and Bartok used a program called Bulk Mailing 4 Dummies to send millions of emails to CIS servers, forcing the company to undergo an expensive server upgrade and to dedicate three servers to blocking spam.

Starting in 2001, CIS gradually became overwhelmed by unsolicited email that came from a variety of sources, according to company owner Robert Kramer III. By 2003, the company was processing about 500 million spam messages every day.

Kramer thinks that he may have been hit with extra spam because his company's cis.net domain was confusingly similar to the cis.com domain once used by CompuServe, at one time one of the largest ISPs in the US.

The attacks cut into CIS's bandwidth, making it harder for customers to surf the web and ultimately costing Kramer a lot of business. His company's client base dropped from about 5,000 customers in 2001 to just 1,200 by late 2004.

"There were millions of emails being delivered to us for each spam campaign to users that didn't exist on our servers," Kramer said in an interview. "It was do or die: it wasn't just a nuisance for us."

Perez and Bartok had argued that they were not spammers and that the email messages they used were legitimately generated, but the judge didn't buy it, writing in his Sept. 30 order that their explanation was simply "not credible."

"The court simply does not believe Mr. Perez or Ms. Bartok," Jarvey wrote.

Since the dark days of 2003, CIS has filed suit against many spammers and so far it has received about 10 judgments in its favour, Kramer said. Collecting the money has proven to be difficult, however. Many of the spammers have gone out of business, moved their money overseas or simply hidden from sight, he said.

In fact, Kramer was awarded a judgment against Perez and Bartok's company, AMP Dollar Savings, in late 2004, but he has so far been unable to collect.

Spam volumes have dropped significantly over the past five years, Kramer said. Now CIS receives between 10 million and 15 million unwanted messages each day, a more manageable amount.

Kramer said that this drop may be due, in part, to his litigation. "Certainly some of the people we went after would have continued doing it if they hadn't been held accountable."

Source

Paul Markham · 10-09-2008, 02:59 AM

Until emails are paid for we will have spam. Once there is a fee for sending them then spam will drop or even disappear. Let's say you get 1000 free emails per connection every month and 1000 per gig of server space you own. Then people will have to pay for the extra emails for instance $1 per 100. It will mean everyone can use emails for personal and business but spammers will get hit.

There will still be free emails services, but you can opt to receive them or block them.

OK the numbers and principle might need adjusting but this is the only way to stop spam.

CunningStunt · 10-09-2008, 03:05 AM

Good. I hate spam.

I set up a clean gmail account about 3 months ago, haven't used it for anything, and now it's totally unuseable already.

Fuck the spammers.

Net Money · 10-09-2008, 03:30 AM

Since after winning the suit they cant collect the fines it would be better to give stiff Jail time to these bottom feeding scum spammers.

xxweekxx · 10-09-2008, 03:38 AM

winning is one thing... collecting is another..

Paul Markham · 10-09-2008, 03:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xxweekxx

winning is one thing... collecting is another..

Which makes the legal system a joke. These people must of made money and probably have assets like a house, put them on the streets is my answer.

Kick Ass Chat · 10-09-2008, 03:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Net Money

Since after winning the suit they cant collect the fines it would be better to give stiff Jail time to these bottom feeding scum spammers.

Agreed....

Klen · 10-09-2008, 05:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CunningStunt

Good. I hate spam.

I set up a clean gmail account about 3 months ago, haven't used it for anything, and now it's totally unuseable already.

Fuck the spammers.

Using public mail as yahoo,hotmail or gmail is bad idea beacuse spam bots generate list of milllions possible name variations so even if you never used it will still be hitted by spam.

BlackCrayon · 10-09-2008, 05:38 AM

How stupid. The judges in these cases probably have zero to little understanding. Wow, it forced an ISP to have anti spam measures, something they should already have???

Phoenix · 10-09-2008, 05:41 AM

that judge is a moron...how the hell did they win the bench

ladida · 10-09-2008, 06:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Until emails are paid for we will have spam. Once there is a fee for sending them then spam will drop or even disappear. Let's say you get 1000 free emails per connection every month and 1000 per gig of server space you own. Then people will have to pay for the extra emails for instance $1 per 100. It will mean everyone can use emails for personal and business but spammers will get hit.

You don't know much about internet and protocols or you wouldn't suggest something like this.

rowan · 10-09-2008, 06:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackCrayon

How stupid. The judges in these cases probably have zero to little understanding. Wow, it forced an ISP to have anti spam measures, something they should already have???

Trying DoSing someone for a few months and see what happens. They're supposed to have anti-DoS measures, right?

seeandsee · 10-09-2008, 07:11 AM

that's crazy

u-Bob · 10-09-2008, 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Until emails are paid for we will have spam. Once there is a fee for sending them then spam will drop or even disappear. Let's say you get 1000 free emails per connection every month and 1000 per gig of server space you own. Then people will have to pay for the extra emails for instance $1 per 100. It will mean everyone can use emails for personal and business but spammers will get hit.

There will still be free emails services, but you can opt to receive them or block them.

OK the numbers and principle might need adjusting but this is the only way to stop spam.

A system like hashcash would be an option but charging real money to send an email is BS... a technical nightmare that would cost a lot more to implement and keep safe than dealing with spam the way we do now.

Manowar · 10-09-2008, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by u-Bob

A system like hashcash would be an option but charging real money to send an email is BS... a technical nightmare that would cost a lot more to implement and keep safe than dealing with spam the way we do now.

Charging for email would never work, people would never accept it

Bro Media - BANNED FOR LIFE · 10-09-2008, 08:05 AM

Iowa ftw!

BlackCrayon · 10-09-2008, 08:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rowan

Trying DoSing someone for a few months and see what happens. They're supposed to have anti-DoS measures, right?

Its pretty easy to set it up so non existant users don't accept mail.

xmas13 · 10-09-2008, 08:56 AM

Emails are not free...............

Barefootsies · 10-09-2008, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Until emails are paid for we will have spam. Once there is a fee for sending them then spam will drop or even disappear. Let's say you get 1000 free emails per connection every month and 1000 per gig of server space you own. Then people will have to pay for the extra emails for instance $1 per 100. It will mean everyone can use emails for personal and business but spammers will get hit.

There will still be free emails services, but you can opt to receive them or block them.

OK the numbers and principle might need adjusting but this is the only way to stop spam.

pr0 · 10-09-2008, 09:00 AM

"The attacks cut into CIS's bandwidth, making it harder for customers to surf the web and ultimately costing Kramer a lot of business. His company's client base dropped from about 5,000 customers in 2001 to just 1,200 by late 2004."

no people got broadband...wow what an asshat

u-Bob · 10-09-2008, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manowar

Charging for email would never work, people would never accept it

exactly .

beemk · 10-09-2008, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul Markham

Until emails are paid for we will have spam. Once there is a fee for sending them then spam will drop or even disappear. Let's say you get 1000 free emails per connection every month and 1000 per gig of server space you own. Then people will have to pay for the extra emails for instance $1 per 100. It will mean everyone can use emails for personal and business but spammers will get hit.

There will still be free emails services, but you can opt to receive them or block them.

OK the numbers and principle might need adjusting but this is the only way to stop spam.

PornMogul · 10-09-2008, 09:12 AM

I agree charging for mail will never work. There will always be a free mail service. Although sending regular mail is what 38c or something now. An email for 1c would still be a bargain.

rowan · 10-09-2008, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackCrayon

Its pretty easy to set it up so non existant users don't accept mail.

Right, but consider the volume. 500 million attempts per day is 5787 new connections per second, which is certainly excessive for a customer base that size. Handling that level of connections would not be easy for a single server. In addition, if each SMTP transaction uses about 1k of transfer back and forth then you're looking at 5.8Mbytes/sec or an additional 46Mbit/sec worth of bandwidth just to respond to this garbage. In 2003 this level of bandwidth wouldn't have come cheap, particularly considering that the spamming was providing zero value add to the company and its customers.

Back of the envelope calcs...

5000 customers, let's assume they're all dialup
10:1 modem ratio, which means 500 modems @56kbps theoretical max transfer
500 x 56kbps = a mere 28Mbit/sec of MAXIMUM bandwidth used... but the above figure for accepting spams would be AVERAGE...

Now do you see how drastically it could have affected their business? Imagine having to pay 3 times as much for your bw just because one third party asshole decides he's going to mail your customers.

qwe · 10-09-2008, 11:49 AM

"Perez and Bartok used a program called Bulk Mailing 4 Dummies to send millions of emails to CIS servers"

hmmm

czarina · 10-09-2008, 12:47 PM

he deserves it. I hate spam!

Rorschach · 10-09-2008, 01:01 PM

500 million a day is some serious fucking volume...

candyflip · 10-09-2008, 01:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Manowar

Charging for email would never work, people would never accept it

They said the same thing about TV and Radio. Now we have people paying for both. Never say never.

10-09-2008, 02:16 AM	#1
Jens Van Assterdam The Dupre Pimp Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Koh Samui Posts: 6,677	Court orders spammers to pay US$236M to Iowa ISP $10 USD per email... A federal judge has ordered an Arizona couple to pay more than US$236 million for sending millions of spam messages to a small Iowa ISP (Internet service provider). Henry Perez and his wife Suzanne Bartok were ordered to pay the damages ? amounting to US$10 per bulk email ? following a four-year court case in which the judge found that they had bombarded CIS Internet Services of Clinton, Iowa, over a four-month period in 2003. According to a ruling by Judge John Jarvey of Iowa federal court, Perez and Bartok used a program called Bulk Mailing 4 Dummies to send millions of emails to CIS servers, forcing the company to undergo an expensive server upgrade and to dedicate three servers to blocking spam. Starting in 2001, CIS gradually became overwhelmed by unsolicited email that came from a variety of sources, according to company owner Robert Kramer III. By 2003, the company was processing about 500 million spam messages every day. Kramer thinks that he may have been hit with extra spam because his company's cis.net domain was confusingly similar to the cis.com domain once used by CompuServe, at one time one of the largest ISPs in the US. The attacks cut into CIS's bandwidth, making it harder for customers to surf the web and ultimately costing Kramer a lot of business. His company's client base dropped from about 5,000 customers in 2001 to just 1,200 by late 2004. "There were millions of emails being delivered to us for each spam campaign to users that didn't exist on our servers," Kramer said in an interview. "It was do or die: it wasn't just a nuisance for us." Perez and Bartok had argued that they were not spammers and that the email messages they used were legitimately generated, but the judge didn't buy it, writing in his Sept. 30 order that their explanation was simply "not credible." "The court simply does not believe Mr. Perez or Ms. Bartok," Jarvey wrote. Since the dark days of 2003, CIS has filed suit against many spammers and so far it has received about 10 judgments in its favour, Kramer said. Collecting the money has proven to be difficult, however. Many of the spammers have gone out of business, moved their money overseas or simply hidden from sight, he said. In fact, Kramer was awarded a judgment against Perez and Bartok's company, AMP Dollar Savings, in late 2004, but he has so far been unable to collect. Spam volumes have dropped significantly over the past five years, Kramer said. Now CIS receives between 10 million and 15 million unwanted messages each day, a more manageable amount. Kramer said that this drop may be due, in part, to his litigation. "Certainly some of the people we went after would have continued doing it if they hadn't been held accountable." Source __________________ Read TOS for signature rules

10-09-2008, 02:59 AM	#2
Paul Markham Too old to care Industry Role: Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: On the sofa, watching TV or doing my jigsaws. Posts: 52,943	Until emails are paid for we will have spam. Once there is a fee for sending them then spam will drop or even disappear. Let's say you get 1000 free emails per connection every month and 1000 per gig of server space you own. Then people will have to pay for the extra emails for instance $1 per 100. It will mean everyone can use emails for personal and business but spammers will get hit. There will still be free emails services, but you can opt to receive them or block them. OK the numbers and principle might need adjusting but this is the only way to stop spam. __________________ Blowout deal. 880 videos, 2,400 image sets, plus many RAW videos. $500. PM me for a deal. Skype Paulmarkham70

10-09-2008, 03:38 AM	#5
xxweekxx Confirmed User Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 6,780	winning is one thing... collecting is another.. __________________ _________________ I am the best

10-09-2008, 05:38 AM	#9
BlackCrayon Too lazy to set a custom title Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Ottawa Posts: 19,631	How stupid. The judges in these cases probably have zero to little understanding. Wow, it forced an ISP to have anti spam measures, something they should already have??? __________________ you don't know you're wearing a leash if you sit by the peg all day..

10-09-2008, 05:41 AM	#10
Phoenix BACON BACON BACON Industry Role: Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Poems everybody, the laddie fancies himself a poet Posts: 35,462	that judge is a moron...how the hell did they win the bench __________________ Skype Phoenixskype1 Telegram PhoenixBrad https://quantads.io

10-09-2008, 03:05 AM	#3
CunningStunt Confirmed User Industry Role: Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 5,594	Good. I hate spam. I set up a clean gmail account about 3 months ago, haven't used it for anything, and now it's totally unuseable already. Fuck the spammers.

10-09-2008, 03:30 AM	#4
Net Money Confirmed User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 539	Since after winning the suit they cant collect the fines it would be better to give stiff Jail time to these bottom feeding scum spammers.

10-09-2008, 07:11 AM	#13
seeandsee Check SIG! Industry Role: Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Europe (Skype: gojkoas) Posts: 50,945	that's crazy __________________ BUY MY SIG - 50$/Year Contact here

10-09-2008, 08:05 AM	#16
Bro Media - BANNED FOR LIFE MOBILE PORN: IMOBILEPORN Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Tinseltown NL Posts: 16,502	Iowa ftw!

10-09-2008, 08:56 AM	#18
xmas13 Confirmed User Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: GFY Posts: 5,176	Emails are not free............... __________________ ICQ 557504926 Last edited by xmas13; 10-09-2008 at 08:58 AM..

10-09-2008, 09:00 AM	#20
pr0 rockin tha trailerpark Industry Role: Join Date: May 2001 Location: ~Coastal~ Posts: 23,088	"The attacks cut into CIS's bandwidth, making it harder for customers to surf the web and ultimately costing Kramer a lot of business. His company's client base dropped from about 5,000 customers in 2001 to just 1,200 by late 2004." no people got broadband...wow what an asshat __________________ __________ Loadedca$h - get sum! - Revengebucks - mmm rebills! - webair (gotz sErVrz)

10-09-2008, 09:12 AM	#23
PornMogul Confirmed User Join Date: May 2007 Location: LA Posts: 1,495	I agree charging for mail will never work. There will always be a free mail service. Although sending regular mail is what 38c or something now. An email for 1c would still be a bargain.

10-09-2008, 11:49 AM	#25
qwe Confirmed User Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 2,109	"Perez and Bartok used a program called Bulk Mailing 4 Dummies to send millions of emails to CIS servers" hmmm

10-09-2008, 12:47 PM	#26
czarina Webmaster Extraordinaire Industry Role: Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: A beautiful beach... Posts: 10,748	he deserves it. I hate spam!

10-09-2008, 01:01 PM	#27
Rorschach So Fucking Banned Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 5,579	500 million a day is some serious fucking volume...