Prolific spammer jailed for years; SpamHaus takes bite out of Chinese banquet
By Jo Best
Published: 28 May 2004 16:00 GMT
International efforts to halt spam are ramping up this week with the news that the notorious Buffalo Spammer will be spending a few years in the clink and flagship anti-spam organisation SpamHaus has charmed the Chinese government into taking the problem seriously.
The Buffalo Spammer so-called because he operated out of Buffalo, New York has been found guilty of sending more than 825 million spam emails.
The spammer, real name Howard Carmack, will be sentenced to between three and a half and seven years for his crimes. He was convicted on 14 counts of fraud under a recently passed identity theft law.
While the spam community is now one man down, SpamHaus will be taking a different tack to scupper the spammers. Of all junk email landing in users' inboxes, 70 per cent will have come via China. It's a favourite tactic of US spammers, who route their spam through Chinese servers and host sites through the country's sites in order to dodge US spam legislation.
SpamHaus has now set up operations in China to help the government and ISPs stop the tide of junk email that originates from the world's second most prolific spam country.
Steve Linford, founder of SpamHaus, told silicon.com that overcoming cultural issues was one of the largest obstacles. The organisation had found its English language site being blocked due to the government's censorship policies and has now set up a SpamHaus written site in Chinese and hosted in China, with details on acceptable usage policies and contract text on the problem for ISPs.
"For a long time, China didn't know what to do about the problem. We've been talking to the Chinese network and we're finally getting the message across," he said.
China does have laws that ban spam but the commercial weight of the US spammers is often enough to persuade small ISPs to adopt a less-than-responsible attitude. The spammers offer the Chinese service providers about $100 a week more than they usually make in a month to host the sites and ignore the complaints they receive.
China is also adopting broadband at a phenomenal rate it now has more subscribers than Japan - making the country an attractive proposition for bulk mailers.
The next country Linford would like to see on the spam-fighting agenda is Russia. "In China, there's an authority Chinese government, ministers you can speak to. In Russia, it's more like the Wild West there are so many criminals. It's a weird job to figure it out."
Back to The Spam Report Special Report
Virtual worlds under siege from cyber crime
A hiding place for scams, spam and phishing
Spammers switching on to YouTube?
Video spam and PowerPoint slides next on the menu, warns MessageLabs...
Spam surge emanating from the Far East
Made in China...
US court upholds anti-spam law
Junks convicted spammer's appeal...
Spammers dust off their botnet passports
Targeting pastures new...
Stories from around the web...
Beware: You have mail Times Online
The economies of spam Global Politician
Special report: Fighting spam and cyberscams CNET News.com
Spam ain't dead yet PC Magazine
Slaying Spam-Spewing Zombie PCs PC World
Make your voice heard
silicon.com and the Bathwick Group have created an opportunity for business and IT executives to share their experience with each other and thus enhance their knowledge of the IT marketplace.
Join our research panel, and you'll be asked to participate in short surveys - and then will be privy to the answers of all your colleagues, as we send you tailored versions of the results.
Extras include complementary passes to silicon.com events and survey prizes such as iPods. Plus, there are the obvious networking opportunities with your fellow panellists.
For more about the Research Panel and how to join, click here
Copyright © 2008 CBS Interactive Limited. All rights reserved. Top of page