Working for one of the largest ISP's in North America, we have received our share of complaints regarding this message from the attorney on behalf of Samsung. I have also contacted the attorney and was told that they did not send the message and that they are investigating. All I know, is that this message has caused alot of problems.
Date: Tue, 12 Aug 1997 15:18:44 -0400 From: dhudes@graphnet.com (Dana Hudes) Organization: Graphnet Inc. X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01 [en] (Win95; U) To: khskllp@aol.com CC: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Samsung Sender: owner-nanog@merit.edu
Sir: Spamming as normally practiced involves the theft of services through the use of one or more third party's mail servers to send the spam on behalf of the spammer. Should Graphnet, an FCC-licensed carrier, in reviewing its message logs from months of spamming which we have finally ended through technical means, find that your clients have directly or through the contracted services of a third-party bulk e-mail service used our systems without permission we will most assuredly seek heavy damages as permitted under laws of Interstate Commerce and also to ask the FCC to sanction Samsung and its subsidiaries.
As any first-year law student knows, the First Amendment does not cover illegal acts. One cannot yell 'fire' in a crowded theater nor can one incite to riot. Use of one's own mail system to individually deliver unsolicited commercial messages to e-mail boxes is arguable; hijacking systems that don't belong to one, is theft of services. Impersonating the system you are stealing services from, over Interstate telephone lines (which as all know is what the Internet runs over) is wire fraud.
Every criminal is entitled to counsel. That is the basis of the American system of Jurisprudence. Threatening the operators of the Internet is not a smart move, it just raises the profile of your client and ensures its bad name. You have, with your letter, lumped Samsung in with the sleaziest of pornographers. They should discharge you for incompetence.
Dana Hudes Manager, Internet Engineering Graphnet p.s. Samsung is officially on my black-list as of this moment. As you can imagine, Graphnet buys lots and lots of electronic gear. No more Samsung for us.