ISP Wins An Uncollectable Billion Dollars From Spammers
from the with-a-b dept
One ISP owner in Iowa received a nice holiday present when a judge awarded him over $1 billion from various spammers. He sued them under an Iowa law that allowed him to ask for $10 per spam, so that was quite a bit of spam he was dealing with. Of course, just about no one expects him to collect very much money from the spammers in question. At this point, he's just hoping to recover his legal costs. What that means, then, is that it's unlikely to have much of a real impact on spam, though we can all hope that it will at least make one or two spammers think twice before continuing their operations. The unfortunate reality, of course, is that most won't care at all and will just keep on spamming.
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Preventive Maintenance
Some prankster poured an irritant chemical on a Tokyo subway last night which sent a few people to the hospital. He is unlikely to be caught, but this way the system gets real-world practice in dealing with these incidents, for when a really big attack happens.
http://www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/shakai/jiken/news/20041220k0000m040106000c.html
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