Recently in Spam Category

It's been discovered that bitacle.org has been stealing the entire content of some blogs, repackaging it, crediting it as their own, relicensing it under Creative Commons and offering it on their own site which is filled with adverts. This is a method of banning these idiots.

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Podz has been jumping though hoops trying to help someone over on the WordPress.com support forums but the guy has a Challenge and Response system to protect him from spam. Usually these systems also protect you from getting your email as well since I, for one, and many others won't be bothered with having to jump through hoops like that. Here's one post that pretty much sums up my feeling about the issue as well as a list of other information on the topic. I just wanted to share. :)

Had a 167 of them over on my old blog. It took a few minutes to delete them all.

From here:

CANTON, Mass. -- Dunkin' Donuts is warning customers about a gift card scam.

The coffee giant said e-mail messages are promising a free $25 gift card.

The company said, "Dunkin' Donuts is not affiliated with these offers, does not sponsor nor endorse this activity and is unable to fulfill these offers."

A company spokesman told the Boston Herald the offers are "clearly fraudulent."

The company has sent cease-and-desist orders to USA Research Forums, the Florida firm that Dunkin' Donuts said is behind the phony gift card offer.

Dunkin' spokesman Andrew Mastrangelo said that the company wants to "make sure our customers are protected."

Podz points us to the Stat tracker over at Aksimet. Looks like spam is on the rise recently.

Matt and crew over at Automattic have release a new version of the Akismet Plugin for WordPress. This new version, 1.15, adds a link to the post where the spam was posted to. I've got to admit that this is the feature that I like the most as sometimes you have to sit there and decide if a comment is a spam or not. Knowing if the comment relates to the post or not will be a big help. Grab a copy today if you're running WordPress today. edit: Just noticed that the Spam Counter was missing from the footer of the theme. I went in and added it to the sidebar.

Swipped from here

WhenU's Legal Affairs and Compliance Department is seeking an individual with an interest in technology, privacy and the law. This person will be a critical member of the company's efforts to monitor how its products are detected and treated by various anti-spyware vendors. This individual will run a wide range of anti-spyware products and document the treatment of WhenU's products as well as its competitors. The ideal candidate will be extremely familiar with anti-spyware products and downloadable software. S/he will have excellent attention to detail and the ability to work independently. S/he will also possess excellent written and oral communication skills.

All for $12 an hour. :)

Think maybe they're finally admitting that their product is spyware?

From here

Jeanson James Ancheta, 21, from the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, profited by installing adware on a network of innocent third-party compromised computers. According to prosecutors, some of the computers attacked were at the Weapons Division of the US Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, California and at the US Department of Defense.

Ancheta admitted advertising his botnets online via an IRC channel entitled #botz4sale, selling access to software that could remotely control computers to deliver spam and launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against websites. Websites hit by a DDoS attack could then be blackmailed into paying large sums of money to have the public's access to the websites restored.

From here

A startup whose aggressive antispam measures drew a blistering counterattack from spammers two weeks ago that brought down the company's servers along with a wide swath of the internet is shuttering its program targeting junk e-mailers.

In an interview with Wired News, Blue Security CEO Eran Reshef said the Israel-based company was closing its service Wednesday. He did not want to be responsible for an ever-escalating war that could bring down internet service providers and websites around the world and subject its users to denial-of-service attacks from a well-organized group controlling a massive army of computer drones."

"aggressive antispam" Could have sworn that they were one of the spammers.

From here:

The US is close to losing its place as the top spam sending nation on Earth.

Statistics from security firm Sophos show that China is fast catching up the US as a source of junk e-mail.

...

Graham Cluley, Sophos senior technology consultant, said that in 2004 more than half of all the spam in the world was coming from the US. This has dropped, he said, because the US was making efforts to find and fine prolific spammers in its orders.