New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced with Microsoft Corporation today that illegal spammers Synergy6 Inc had been smashed. Synergy6 Inc was responsible for millions of spam e-mails per day through unsuspecting computer users. Read About the fight by Microsoft for people's rights and privacy below....
Microsoft Corporation announced today that, as a result of a six-month investigation and collaboration with New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the company has filed parallel lawsuits against a New York-based spamming ring allegedly responsible for sending billions of illegal and deceptive e-mail messages.
Spitzer and Microsoft united in legal actions against Synergy6 Inc., an e-mail marketing company based in New York, and Scott Richter, who has been dubbed the world's third-largest spammer by ROKSO, the Register of Known Spam Operations, which is listed on
http://www.spamhaus.org/, an anti-spam and consumer advocacy organization. Authorities allege that Richter and his accomplices in Washington, Texas and New York are responsible for seven illegal spam campaigns, each in violation of consumer protection statutes in New York and Washington. These campaigns used common spam techniques such as forged sender names, false subject lines, fake server names, inaccurate and misrepresented sender addresses, or obscured transmission paths. The lawsuits charge Richter and his accomplices with responsibility for sending illegal spam through 514 compromised Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in 35 countries spanning six continents. In addition to the lawsuit Microsoft filed in tandem with Spitzer, the company filed an additional five lawsuits against other spammers who allegedly used the same transmission path in New York that originally led investigators to Richter and the spam network.
Brad Smith, senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Microsoft, joined Spitzer at his New York office to announce the filing of today's lawsuits.
"Deceptive and illegal spam, like the kind we're attacking today, is overwhelming legitimate e-mail and threatening the promise and potential of the Internet for all of us," Smith said. "We appreciate the attorney general's leadership on what is arguably the biggest technology menace consumers are facing. Together we are stepping up efforts to help consumers take control of their inboxes again."
Investigation of the Illicit Spam Network
Investigators at Microsoft discovered a high volume of spam e-mail originating from a compromised IP address in New York and tracing back to an e-mail marketing company also based in New York, Synergy6, the lawsuits allege. With cooperation from Microsoft, the New York Attorney General's Office tracked these e-mail messages to identify separate marketing campaigns that passed through 514 IP addresses around the world. The investigation identified Richter in Colorado and his partners in Washington, Texas and New York as responsible for the campaigns.
They also determined that the e-mail messages were developed and sent in violation of the law. Some appeared to come from a foreign government's defense ministry, others from a hospital, and still more from elementary and high schools. According to the lawsuits, those spam e-mail messages used other people's sender names, false subject lines, fake server names, inaccurate and misrepresented sender addresses, or obscured transmission paths, all in violation of New York and Washington state law.
This is an example of people's rights and privacies being violated and Microsoft coming to the rescue. People insult Microsoft on forums. People still sour from the fall of Communist Russia. Maybe they should ask themselves what operating system their using. If they want an alternative, they should get an apple macintosh or better still - write their own operating system. (I could)
Spitzer and Microsoft united in legal actions against Synergy6 Inc., an e-mail marketing company based in New York, and Scott Richter, who has been dubbed the world's third-largest spammer by ROKSO, the Register of Known Spam Operations, which is listed on
http://www.spamhaus.org/, an anti-spam and consumer advocacy organization. Authorities allege that Richter and his accomplices in Washington, Texas and New York are responsible for seven illegal spam campaigns, each in violation of consumer protection statutes in New York and Washington. These campaigns used common spam techniques such as forged sender names, false subject lines, fake server names, inaccurate and misrepresented sender addresses, or obscured transmission paths. The lawsuits charge Richter and his accomplices with responsibility for sending illegal spam through 514 compromised Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in 35 countries spanning six continents. In addition to the lawsuit Microsoft filed in tandem with Spitzer, the company filed an additional five lawsuits against other spammers who allegedly used the same transmission path in New York that originally led investigators to Richter and the spam network. Brad Smith, senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Microsoft, joined Spitzer at his New York office to announce the filing of today's lawsuits.
"Deceptive and illegal spam, like the kind we're attacking today, is overwhelming legitimate e-mail and threatening the promise and potential of the Internet for all of us," Smith said. "We appreciate the attorney general's leadership on what is arguably the biggest technology menace consumers are facing. Together we are stepping up efforts to help consumers take control of their inboxes again."
Investigation of the Illicit Spam Network
Investigators at Microsoft discovered a high volume of spam e-mail originating from a compromised IP address in New York and tracing back to an e-mail marketing company also based in New York, Synergy6, the lawsuits allege. With cooperation from Microsoft, the New York Attorney General's Office tracked these e-mail messages to identify separate marketing campaigns that passed through 514 IP addresses around the world. The investigation identified Richter in Colorado and his partners in Washington, Texas and New York as responsible for the campaigns.
They also determined that the e-mail messages were developed and sent in violation of the law. Some appeared to come from a foreign government's defense ministry, others from a hospital, and still more from elementary and high schools. According to the lawsuits, those spam e-mail messages used other people's sender names, false subject lines, fake server names, inaccurate and misrepresented sender addresses, or obscured transmission paths, all in violation of New York and Washington state law.
This is an example of people's rights and privacies being violated and Microsoft coming to the rescue. People insult Microsoft on forums. People still sour from the fall of Communist Russia. Maybe they should ask themselves what operating system their using. If they want an alternative, they should get an apple macintosh or better still - write their own operating system. (I could)
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fffffhhhhhrrrtttttttts
09.01.2004 00:56
>Read About the fight by Microsoft for people's rights and privacy below...
Yep, good ole Microsoft fighting for the rights and privacy of others....my arse.
bubba
Pathetic PR stunt
09.01.2004 14:22
Yeah, we insult Microsoft because we're all "sour from the fall of Communist Russia".
Or maybe because they constantly talk about how much they're doing about security and spam, then go off and do fuck all, apart from add new, insecure features to their bloated, overpriced products.
If MS really cared about spam, maybe they could "come to the rescue" on their own products first. Hotmail has the second-worst spam filtering I've ever seen. Go start a free account in Hotmail right now, and don't use it for a week. Watch the spam come pouring in, unless you set the filters to block everything apart from addresses in your address book. Pile of shit.
Now go do the same thing on Yahoo.com. Notice the difference?
I called Hotmail's spam filtering the second worst, because the very worst of all is to be found in what MS calls their "state-of-the-art" spam filtering in the new Outlook. You have to see it to believe it.
>Maybe they should ask themselves what operating system their using.
>If they want an alternative, they should get an apple macintosh or
>better still - write their own operating system. (I could)
>e-mail:
Or simply use Linux, which is secure, stable and free, unlike Microsoft's shite OS. And yeah, we all believe that someone clueless enough to sign with an AOL address could write their own operating system. :-)
Steve