The Internet Patrol

On Friday afternoon the California Federal Court denied a request by King of Spam Scott Richter and his OptInRealBig for an injunction against anti-spam organization SpamCop.

AOL employee Jason Smathers has been arrested for stealing an AOL customer list containing 92 million AOL usernames and selling it to Las Vegas spammer Sean Dunaway. Police say that Dunaway, who was arrested as well, used the list to send spam about his online gambling business, and that he…

Here is a cause you can really back, and it just doesn’t matter what your politics are. And if it does, well, shame on you. We call it “Gmail for GIs”, but the good folks over at Gmail 4 Troops call it a way to help troops who are stationed overseas and their families stay in touch. Gmail for the Troops is the brainchild of Wil Wheaton (yes, that Wil Wheaton) and his friend Drew Olanoff, and is sponsored by our own ISIPP.

The Internet Patrol is a big fan of that section of CAN-SPAM which allows for prosecution of the people who are advertising in spam, in addition to those who are sending the spam. We have long said that going after the advertisers makes a lot of sense, and is one…

The FTC today has announced to Congress and the country that it does not believe that a national “Do Not Email” (“DNE”) list is viable until such time as “a robust email authentication system that would prevent spammers from hiding their tracks” is in place. In other words, email sender…

Users of the “Did They Read It” (“DTRI”) service run their email to you through the DTRI server, where a web bug is embedded in the email. When you open the email to read it, the web bug reports back to DTRI that you have opened the email, and where, geographically, the IP address you are using is located.

An anti-spam DNS blacklist – or DNS blocklist – is typically a list of IP addresses all of which have some trait or traits in common, usually having to do with their association with spam. Here is a more full explanation

Microsoft Corporation has been granted a patent on the “double click”. We kid you not.

Nokia has announced production of a celphone which allows you to project short text messages into the air via a series of LEDs. The Nokia 3220 takes advantage of a known quirk of human vision, which causes us to see rapidly sequenced images as one whole image rather than as…

Here’s an interesting twist on war-driving*: war cycling. [*For those of you not familiar with the term, ‘war-driving’ refers to the act of driving around, wifi-enabled laptop in hand (or on the seat or lap next to you), and finding unsecured wireless access points through which you can send email…

If you are one of the legion who think that Gmail is a privacy nightmare, then just be glad that you don’t live in Zimbabwe. According to a report by BBC News, the government of Zimbabwe has introduced a proposal which would require Zimbabwean ISPs to report email which is…

The question of whether or not to unsubscribe from unwanted email is a tricky one.

The BBC reports today that the California Senate has passed SB 1822, aimed at limiting Google’s ability to scan email coming in to the users of their Gmail system, and also limiting Google’s ability to archive and sell the resulting information. Now, Aunty is old enough to remember some real…

As many of you know, Aunty was one of the people blessed with a Gmail account early on (relatedly, she was also ‘blessed’ with everybody and their brother coming out of the woodwork asking her to please get them a Gmail account, too). After the initial testing, which you can…

In this exclusive interview, The Internet Patrol gets real with notorious spam king Scott Richter