# First Virginia Spam Prosecution **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 11, 2003, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-virginia-spam-prosecution/218435 "2003-12-11T20:54:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-virginia-spam-prosecution/218435/1 "2003-12-11T20:54:14Z")
[So here we go…into the abyss…](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56209-2003Dec11.html) It’s from the Washington Post and may require registration…be warned. So what do y’all think? Will anti-spam laws have a significant impact on the practice? Or will the overseas spammers just gain more market share? ---
**Author:** ![carimwc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ac8455/32.png) [@carimwc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carimwc)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-virginia-spam-prosecution/218435/2 "2003-12-11T21:05:27Z")
I sure hope so. My law firm is currently working on a porn spam case. It’s interesting. They’re definitely in the wrong too. I get to help with a lot of the printouts and things 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Molson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Molson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Molson)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-virginia-spam-prosecution/218435/3 "2003-12-11T21:38:27Z")
First California one: [http://tinyurl.com/yty5](http://tinyurl.com/yty5) Spam suit nets $2 million Date: October 25, 2003 Publication: Oakland Tribune, The (CA) Attorney General Bill Lockyer Friday announced that a Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge William F. Martin has ordered a Southern California marketing firm to pay $2 million in penalties in an anti-spam lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed by Lockyer in September 2002, is the first ever under California’s 1998 anti-spam law. The suit was filed against Southern California firm PW Marketing and owners Paul Willis and Claudia Griffin. California residents who have received spam are encouraged to file a complaint. Complaints can be filed online at [http://www.ag.ca.gov/consumers/mailform.htm](http://www.ag.ca.gov/consumers/mailform.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Naz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e99b99/32.png) [@Naz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Naz)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-virginia-spam-prosecution/218435/4 "2003-12-12T01:46:43Z")
It’s things like this that make me proud to be from Virginia… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Call\_me\_Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Call\_me\_Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Call_me_Frank)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-virginia-spam-prosecution/218435/5 "2003-12-12T02:32:16Z")
Hey **Naz** , I’m from PA and I’m _glad_ that VA is prosecuting spammers! I read about this on Yahoo! and their article said that AOL was blocking 2.4 **b** illion spam emails a day, that’s over 8 spams per every man, woman, and child in the US…and those are just the ones that _AOL_ is managing to block…and anyone who has a free Yahoo! or Hotmail account can tell you that blocking spam is only partially affective…so you can get an idea of the number of spam emails being sent on a daily basis. So _any_ effort to curb polluting the internet with spam is better than none. I don’t think anti-spam laws will stop spam entirely, but they will at least demand consequences of some spammers…I find a little sadistic catharsis in that 🙂 As for more spams coming from external sources, yeah that’s probable…but it’s still nice to know that we can arrest _somebody_ who’s guilty of contributing to this annoying problem! ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-virginia-spam-prosecution/218435/6 "2003-12-12T02:50:53Z")
Well, I used to work in the NOC at AOL and there was an anti-spam team there. The NOC was, due to it’s nature, very secritive. (SP???) I was dating a girl who worked on the anti-spam team, known as SETI, and she wouldn’t tell me what she was doing. I mean I had sex with this girl and she wouldn’t tell me what she did for AOL. I had access to everything else. Hell, I had root to all the machines (Think 30,000 servers in production) This is my guess on how they blocked the spam. I think that they, SETI, watched the email boxes and killed any email that a)went to a kajillion boxes and b)came from one IP address. However, the spammers can change tactics and spoof IPs. So Seti, and this is a guess, started looking at the headers and figured out how to kill spam from the headers. I don’t know how they did it but they did a reasonable job. They killed about 1/4th of the incoming spam. It isn’t anywhere near perfect but it was better than nothing. Slee ---
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-virginia-spam-prosecution/218435/7 "2003-12-12T03:07:57Z")
I love Virginia Spam, I don’t know why anyone would want to outlaw it. It’s so yummy and salty and meaty and chewy and smoky. And it makes the most wonderful redeye gravy when you fry it up in slices. Sure it looks nasty hanging in the store, but just scrape off the mold and soak it for a few days, changing the water every… … What? What! … Oh. Never mind. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-virginia-spam-prosecution/218435/8 "2003-12-12T13:52:49Z")
Everyone pass out **bughunter’s** email to every site you visit! ---
**Author:** ![Binarydrone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3da27b/32.png) [@Binarydrone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Binarydrone)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-virginia-spam-prosecution/218435/9 "2003-12-12T19:36:43Z")
Plea bargain idea: What if we don’t send these guys to jail if they agree to give the names of other spammers and as a condition of parole can never ever in their entire lives come within 100 feet of a computer? ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2003, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-virginia-spam-prosecution/218435/10 "2003-12-12T19:48:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by sleestak \* > **I mean I had sex with this girl and she wouldn’t tell me what she did for AOL. I had access to everything else.** **Sleestak** , you lucky bastard!