The War on Spam Has Begun!

Several events this week indicate that the war on spam has begun. First, President Bush has signed the "Can Spam" bill which can impose fines of up to $250 per spam message on those that wish to send unsolicited emails. This bill is interesting and of course has several loop holes but I still think it is a good thing. Even if I get 1 less piece of spam a day I'll be happy!

The state of Virginia has indicted two North Carolina men charging them with violating Virginia's antispam laws. Because these guys falsified their identities in the messages, the charges were elevated to felonies. One of these guys is rated the 8th worst spam offender on the Internet. It will be interesting to see what happens.

On Thursday The state of New York and Microsoft files suit against Scott Richter, one of the world's most prolific spammers. Again, the suit is based on the fact that the spam messages use false names as the sender of the message. I don't know about you, but I would be a little nervous if Microsoft was after me! He better have the proper licenses for his software!!

Let's hope this is the beginning of the end of spam. I don't think in the short term that these events will have a major impact. But I do believe it will help. I will be monitoring my spam during 2004 to see if all this legal activity and the spam filters that have been installed on our mail servers and in Outlook 2003 have an effect. What's your bet?

Here is an interesting website devoted to information on spam: The Spamhaus Project

Microsoft Offers $5 Million Reward Money

What to do with all that cash? Wednesday Microsoft announced a $5 Million reserve fund to offer rewards for information leading to the capture of persons responsible for creating various types of cyberproblems (I think I made that word up). The first two targets are the creators of the MSBlaster worm and the SoBig virus. They are offering $250,000 each for information leading to the arrest of the bad guys that created those costly nuisances.

If you think you have information and are interested in getting that $250K you can contact any one of the following:

Any local FBI Office
Interpol [Click Here]
The Internet Fraud Complaint Center [Click Here]

Good Luck!

Solar Flare Could Disrupt Electrical Devices

In case you haven't heard, there has been some solar activity over the last couple of days that has thrown storms of electrical particles at the earth. For the most part although the storms have been notable, they have been relatively harmless. However, a storm was released this morning (10/28) that is the strongest since 1989 and the third strongest on record. In 1989 the storm triggered power outages in Canada. There are some technical variables that may effect how hard we are hit, but the storm is in a direct path to the earth and is expected to hit around noon Wednesday (10/29).

Besides a real colorful sky, satellites and other electrical equipment could be affected. This could include power outages. The storm will last for several hours with the potential for problems decreasing as time passes.

In addition to pulling out the old lead umbrella I would suggest that you be alert for potential issues that could affect your IT equipment. If the power does go out shut equipment that are on UPSs down and power off everything. After the power comes back on I would suggest waiting for a short period before powering everything back up. Many times surges will occur immediately after power is restored that can cause problems.

This should be mostly harmless other than the fact that your cell phone may not work for a while. But it's always better to be prepared! For more information click here.

Fake FBI Site Stealing Information

It starts with an email that appears to come from the FBI. The email message lures the user to a website that has the official FBI look and feel. The site lures the user to enter personal credit information so that it can be checked against a database of stolen credit cards.

The problem: It's all fake. The credit information is actually being stolen.

My question: Why would anyone ......

Do Not Call List Under Fire

The status of the Federal Do Not Call List is up in the air. First a judge decided that the FTC did not have the authority to operate the list. Congress quickly fixed that by clarifying the original law. And now another judge has said that the list prohibits free speech to commercial enterprises because the law excludes charity and political calls and picks on the poor marketing people.

What about the free speech of the 51 million people who have said they do not want these calls? Is no one listening. If 51 million people do not want my product or at least do not want to have it sold to them at 7:30am on a Sunday morning over the phone then I think I would get the hint.

I have an idea. Let's forward all these calls to the judges that are making these ridiculous rulings. At least let's get them all to move to California. I'm sure they could keep themselves busy there and let the 51 million of us that want to eat dinner uninterrupted by sales calls have our way.