Spammers for Ron Paul

This is an ugly development. Some Ron Paul supporters apparently thought that upgrading from comment spam to actual spam was a good idea.

From the University of Alabama at Birmingham

UAB Spam Team Spots First Presidential Campaign Spam
Anti-spam researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) noted a disturbing new trend following Sunday's Republican Candidates Presidential debate. One of the candidates has a new spam campaign dedicated to proclaiming him victorious in the debate and extolling his virtues as the future president.

There is no reason to believe the current spam campaign is actually endorsed by Ron Paul or his official campaign engine, according to Gary Warner, UAB Director of Research in Computer Forensics.
...
The new messages have headlines such as:

Ron Paul Wins GOP Debate!
Ron Paul Eliminates the IRS!
Ron Paul Stops Iraq War!
Vote Ron Paul 2008!
Iraq Scam Exposed, Ron Paul
Government Wasteful Spending Eliminated By Ron Paul

Warner says, "We've seen many previous emails reported as spam from other campaigns or parties, but when we've investigated them, they all were sent from the legitimate parties." The important distinction between the new emails and previous emails, Warner says, is the fraudulent nature of the message. Legitimate messages tell who they are from, and provide a means of "unsubscribing" from future messages from the same source.

I've previously mentioned that if Ron Paul supporters want their candidate to be taken seriously they are going to have to start policing their own. Illegal and annoying tactics like this are counterproductive. If the community of Ron Paul supporters doesn't start taking steps to decry those that perform such actions your silence might be viewed as tacit approval and ultimately end up hurting Ron Paul.

King of Spam Canned

Finally a great victory in the war everyone supports.

Longtime 'Spam King' Charged With Fraud

By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 1, 2007; A01

From his 17th-floor Seattle apartment overlooking Puget Sound, Robert A. Soloway allegedly ran an illicit network of computers around the world, secretly commandeering the machines of thousands of unsuspecting bystanders. Prosecutors say Internet users who clicked on infected e-mails and Web sites inadvertently took part in his criminal endeavor: spam.

Soloway, 27, used his empire of hijacked "zombie" computers to send tens of millions of unsolicited e-mail messages over the past four years, prosecutors allege. Described as a spammer since he was a teenager, he allegedly covered his digital tracks using Chinese servers, fabricated Web sites and the purloined identities of hundreds of Internet users whose names and e-mail addresses were slapped on the bulk mailings. He opened and closed bank accounts faster than creditors could track them, prosecutors said.

But federal authorities caught up this week with the man prosecutors call the "spam king" and arrested him on 35 charges of fraud, identity theft and money laundering, casting a light on the byzantine, highly lucrative underworld of mass e-mail marketing. Soloway pleaded not guilty.

"He is one of the bad ones. He's one of the longest-running and uses criminal methods all the time," said John Reid, an investigator with Spamhaus, a European organization that fights spam. "Anyone on the Web for a while would have received one of Soloway's spams."

Spamhaus had included him on its list of the 10 worst spammers until last year, when he was overtaken by more-sophisticated operators, primarily in Russia and Ukraine, Reid said.

A lawyer for Soloway could not be reached for comment. more

New Strategy in The War Against Spam

Hey, at least its a war that everyone can support.

From the BBC:
Backing for tool to battle spam

The DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) system is a method of validating the identity of the sender of an e-mail.

Spammers hide their identity by using a false, or spoofed, address in the millions of messages they send out.

DKIM uses encrypted digital signatures to prove a message's origin and a draft standard has been accepted by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

The IETF is the umbrella group representing firms such as Yahoo, Cisco, Sendmail and PGP Corporation.

The firms have pledged to work with ISPs, businesses and financial institutions to roll out the technology as soon as possible.

Protecting e-mail users from scams was a top priority, said Mark Delany, lead architect for Yahoo Mail and author of DomainKeys.

"DomainKeys Identified Mail is positioned to become the pre-eminent standard for e-mail authentication," he said.

Key consideration

Although 90 to 99% of e-mail comes from senders known to the recipient, establishing the identity of a sender remains a key consideration in the protection against spam.

Spammers get away with sending spoofed e-mails because mail servers only check if a domain mentioned in these spoofed addresses - such as @madeupmailname.com - is known to be used by spammers.

DKIM lets honest e-mail senders prove they sent a message by encrypting a two-part signature, or key, in a selected part of the mail.

The e-mail provider, such as Yahoo, puts an encrypted private key into the e-mail when it is sent.

It is linked to a public key held by the internet's domain name system - the phonebook of the internet.

The mail server which receives the e-mail checks to ensure that the private and public keys match, proving that the message has come from a genuine sender.

But in order for the technology to work, both the sender and recipient need their mail services to be signed up to DKIM.

"DKIM is an example of major players coming together to do the right thing, sacrificing short term competitive edge to ensure safety, security and trust on the internet," said Eric Allman, co-founder of messaging service Sendmail.

Since a huge amount of the resources of the net are used to transport spam this could potentially save the web from death by spam traffic, save ISPs tons of money in bandwidth costs, and prevent financial loss from phishing emails. Its a win win situation for everyone.

May 15th Gas Boycott Doomed

The last time I talked to my mom she asked me to blog about this and I neither agreed or argued because I knew that a one day boycott is as useless as disagreeing with mom.

From MSNBC courtesy of The Rite Wing Technopagan (God luv 'em)

"The real problem with this idea is that — as some versions of this e-mail helpfully suggest —these "boycotters" simply top off their tanks May 14 or wait to fill them up May 16. All that does is shift sales from one day to another. Any money “lost” from lower gasoline sales on May 15 will be made up with higher sales on the days before and after the “boycott.”"

The only way to affect gas prices is to reduce consumption. As this has a side effect of reducing funds to countries that support terrorism and improving air quality it's an effort that is highly worthwhile.

Since the coffee is still brewing I'm just going to copy and paste a post I made elsewhere on how to reduce gas consumption painlessly:

gasbuddy.com tracks prices all over America on a station by station basis. They have websites for most major cities
(insert city name)gasprices.com so for me its sanantoniogasprices.com

Also make sure your tires are properly inflated normally thats 35 on the little meter thingy for most cars and light trucks. Under inflated tires can cost ya 2 mpg.

Remove any dead bodies from your trunk, move that dashboard altar inside, and limit yourself to 1 gun and 2 magazines per car. 100 pounds = 1 mpg

Time for that tune up and/or oil change that you've been putting off = up to 5 mpg (if you're bad about maintenance, request platinum plugs, they last for 3 years)

Other maintenance Air Filter (you CAN do this yourself in 5 minutes), PVC valve (costs 5$ and is as easy to change as an air filter), Fuel filter (these suckers vary wildly in price and ease of installation ask your mechanic about it when you get your tune up)

And ya may wanna run a gas treatment through your car next fill up.

Sam's Club and Costco have the cheapest gas in town if you already have a membership. But don't go buying a 35 to 50$ membership just to save a dime per gallon on gas. However if you start buying you're gas, potty paper, trash bags, water filters, pet food, laundry detergent and Vaseline there you'll save money in the long run. (Note: Costco is usually cheaper than Sam's. Costco caps its profit margin at 20% Sam's doesn't AND Costco's often have liquor stores in them.)

Plus in the event we are ever besieged by Zombies having to pull over to forage for gas as little as possible becomes really important.