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In the USA, that infamous and unrepentant spammer Sanford Wallace has been hit with a US$4m fine for sending out malware via spam. It seems that the malware alerted users to the fact that their PCs were infected so that Sanford's associates could then sell them anti-spyware for $30 a pop.

I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

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Elsewhere on the Net, spammers have been fighting back against "do not spam" lists.

It seems that at least one spammer managed to get his hands on such a list and promptly turned around and spammed all those on it.

Aren't spammers lovely people?

Closer to home, Telecom has showed its true (and none too pleasant) colours again when it criticised the government's proposed anti-spam legislation. Although they reportedly support the aim of the bill, they said there was a lack of clarity.

And, wouldn't you know, National's IT-idiot Maurice Williamson was in there spouting BS. According to a report published by Stuff, the MP labeled the legislation as "cosmetic" and called it "onerous for local businesses" because they'd have to obtain customers' permission before sending them commercial email.

Williamson is (and always has been) a complete idiot when it comes to IT and the Net.

NatRad listeners heard him spouting off about how unbunlding the local loop was unnecessary because *he'd* been to the UK and seen Vodafone demonstrating wireless broadband over their GSM network.

Well "duh!" Maurice! We know that Telecom and Vodafone can deliver broadband via their 3G mobile networks -- but have you seen the price???

Back to spam -- in submissions to a parliamentary committee, politicians were told that one company estimated the cost of "washing" existing email lists to ensure that permission was obtained would be around $350,000.

Good grief! Do they have Telecom doing their list-management or what?

Even at the highest commercial rates it would cost just a tiny fraction of that to send out an email that required users to reply in the affirmative or visit a web-page to confirm their desire to remain subscribed. Someone's telling porkies here or getting badly gouged.

Lighten Up
After the good news this week I doubt many readers will need "lightening-up" but if you're suffering a champagne hangover, this might help.

Why not put the boot in while she's down? Sorry Theresa but it had to be done :-)

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Those who have already made enquiries about sponsoring Aardvark should hear back from me this week - and anyone else who might like to do so should drop me a line ASAP.

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