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Frying Phish

Dear Internet Patrol. I keep getting email which appears to be from PayPal, or from eBay, but which really is from some scammer who seems to be trying to get me to give them my password or account number or credit card number, and not from PayPal or eBay at…

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Mind Gold: We Create Spam for You…er…You Send Spam for Us..er..You Pay Us…Argh! I’m So Confused!

From the “what a novel approach to spamming” department, H & H Enterprises of Foxworth, Mississippi is offering “Mind Gold” to “help businesses attract new prospects and gain the loyalty of existing customers”. The gist of the Mind Gold program is that you subscribe to the Mind Gold e-zine, for…

Best Way to Beat Spam with Outlook 2003?
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Best Way to Beat Spam with Outlook 2003?

Outlook 2003 actually contains some fairly nifty built-in anti-spam functions, similar to those found in many of today’s end-user email programs.

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Richter Crows, Eats Crow, as TRO against SpamCop is Rescinded

In perhaps the most content-free press release which Aunty has ever seen, Scott Richter yesterday crowed about the TRO which was issued against SpamCop in the Richter v. SpamCop case, saying: “A Temporary Restraining Order (“TRO”) was issued today by the United States District Court, the Northern District of California,…

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Spam Haven State Gets Anti-Spam Law

As you might imagine, Aunty got lots of calls from reporters today about the OptInRealBig v. SpamCop TRO. However, one call from a reporter in Washington D.C. took Aunty by surprise. They did not want to talk about Mr. Richter and SpamCop. They wanted to get Aunty’s thoughts on this:…

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Court Grants Scott Richter TRO against SpamCop/Ironport

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California today granted Scott Richter and his company, OptInRealBig, a restraining order against SpamCop and their parent company, Ironport Systems. Richter sued SpamCop less than two weeks ago, claiming that the anti-spam service was hurting his business and interfering with…

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Sasser Suspect Arrested

Police in Germany have arrested the person they think to be the perpetrator of the Sasser worm. The 18-year-old German high school student is thought to be the creator of the worm which has so far spread through an estimated 18 million computer systems world wide. Sasser’s primary targets are…

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Anti-Spam Products for Windows Garner Rave Reviews

Windows users suffering from spam-overloaded inboxes can breathe a little easier thanks to next generation anti-spam products which are easier to use, more effective, and more tightly tuned to stop spam while preserving good email. PC World this week released the results of its extensive survey and testing of nine…

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Update on Richter versus World

According to public sources, Scott Richter, who is being sued by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and Microsoft, has stated that he is close to reaching a settlement with Spitzer. On the other hand, he says that talks with Microsoft “haven’t progressed as far”.

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419ing the 419er In Which a Nigerian Scam Artist is Scammed

Is there anyone here who hasn’t been at least a little curious at one time or another – what would happen if someone actually responded to one of the Nigerian 419 scam emails – you know, the ones where the spammer contacts you claiming to represent the fortunes of a…

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Curiouser and curiouser – Scott Richter RejectedRealBig by Ironport’s Bonded Sender Program

From the “things which make you go hmmmm….” department, it turns out that Scott “I am a legitimate businessman who is also the King of Spam” Richter, who is suing Ironport Systems over their listing of his IP addresses in their SpamCop anti-spam database, also applied to participate in Ironport’s…

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Microsoft and Ironport’s Bonded Sender: Good Sense, or Unholy Alliance?

The industry is abuzz with today’s announcement by Microsoft that they are “implementing Ironport’s Bonded Sender program” – whatever that means. For those of you not familiar, Bonded Sender is one of the whitelists out there – bulk email senders can post a bond to guarantee that the email they…

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Dear Internet Patrol: Spam with No Unsubscribe Link – What to Do?

We received a note from a reader who was trying to unsubscribe from a mailing, but it gave no option to unsubscribe. Here’s what to do when that happens.

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Dear Internet Patrol: Love/Hate Relationship with WinXP SP1

Dear Internet Patrol, Time and again I have heard and read that after one installs WinXP SP1, there is a 20% to 40% chance it will damage your computer in one way or another. I did install SP1 in my computer and it crashed. I had to use a floppy…

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New Sasser Virus Worm Attacks Windows Computers

The newest of the sinsister worm types of viruses, Sasser, has attacked Windows-based computers around the world. Even more insidious than its earlier siblings, Sasser scans the Internet for computers with the Microsoft security flaw which allows it to do its dirty work, and then Sasser installs a copy of…