NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: MICHAEL OSTERMAN ON MESSAGING
11/23/04
Today's focus:  Spammer goes to the slammer

Dear [EMAIL PROTECTED],

In this issue:

* First spammer in the U.S. convicted of a felony
* Links related to Messaging
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus:  Spammer goes to the slammer

By Michael Osterman

Jeremy Jaynes will forevermore be known as the first spammer in 
the U.S. to be convicted of a felony.

Earlier this month, Jaynes was convicted of violating Virginia's 
anti-spam law, and he could face up to nine years in prison when 
he is sentenced in February. What came out at trial with regard 
to Jaynes' operation, which by all accounts was not the most 
sophisticated operation of its kind, yields some interesting 
insights into the world of spamming.

For example, Jaynes' response rate to his spam was on the order 
of only one sale per several tens of thousands of e-mail 
messages sent - yet his monthly income was as high as $750,000 
in some months. When Jaynes registered Web sites, he used false 
information and he falsified message headers in his spam in an 
attempt to defeat spam-blocking systems, something many spammers 
do. Jaynes sent about 10 million e-mail messages every day, and 
all of the e-mail was sent from a single location in North 
Carolina, not through a network of zombie PCs that some spammers 
use to send their stuff. Interestingly, Jaynes began his career 
sending junk mail.

What landed Jaynes in so much trouble was actually not spamming 
per se, since the Virginia law under which Jaynes was convicted 
is similar to the CAN-SPAM Act that allows large-scale broadcast 
of e-mail. However, the fact that Jaynes used false headers and 
was in possession of names that were stolen from AOL helped to 
seal his fate. Also, the fact that AOL is located in Virginia 
probably gave state prosecutors some additional motivation to go 
after Jaynes.

While I am not a proponent of laws to stop spamming since I 
don't believe they're all that effective, I think that where 
they are useful is in taking out the most egregious, high-volume 
spammers and, possibly, dissuading others from spamming. If 
that's all they end up doing, perhaps they will serve a useful 
purpose after all. As noted on a poster entitled "Mistakes" 
published by Despair, Inc.: "It could be that the purpose of 
your life is only to serve as a warning to others."

RELATED EDITORIAL LINKS

First felony spam convictions handed down
Layer 8, 11/04/04
http://www.nwfusion.com/weblogs/layer8/006666.html
_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Michael Osterman

Michael D. Osterman is the principal of Osterman Research 
<http://www.ostermanresearch.com/>, a market research firm that 
helps organizations understand the markets for messaging, 
directory and related products and services. He can be reached 
by clicking here <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by Intel 
IT Productivity; Increasing ROI 

Learn how to effectively measure employee productivity, manage 
IT investments and reduce the Total Cost of Ownership in 
enterprise data management.  Visit Intel's IT Productivity 
center.  Click here to download white papers, books and IDC 
Research. 
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=88585
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ARCHIVE LINKS

Archive of the Messaging newsletter:
http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/gwm/index.html
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Bandwidth or latency? How to solve application performance 
issues 

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