Anti-spammer fined $60K for DNS lookup 'hack'

Whois also ruled dodgy by North Dakota court

She had to looks at Ritz day after day, and Ritz own lawyers did not want to recess because of the difficulty getting Ritz outside.

John LeydenThu 17 Jan 2008 // 19:05 UTC
David Ritz, the veteran American spam-fighter, has been hit by $60,000 in fines plus lawyers fees after losing a civil suit that accused him of illegal hacking.

He posted data which does not belong to him. He is a trespasser and a hacker.


Sierra Corporate Design, a North Dakota business run by alleged former spammer Jerry Reynolds, sued Ritz for hacking and trespass offences. Ritz was accused of conducting unauthorized whois and DNS lookups. Edward Falk, another anti-spam campaigner and
operator of the "Spam Tracking Page", was named as co-defendant.

Alleged? David and Falk failed to provide proof. Ignored court orders.. this is Americans

The complaint alleged that Ritz "hacked" servers owned by Sierra (which describes itself as a specialist web hosting and internet services firm), obtaining confidential internal network configuration data (using a zone transfer, host -l command) and
domain name information (using whois) before publishing that data on the net. It was alleged that Falk assisted Ritz by republishing his findings. The case was originally filed in May 2005. An injunction, which allowed Sierra's lawyers to ask Google to
purge its Usenet archives of "offending material" was issued in August 2005.

David had no authority to publish


In October 2006, the North Dakota court ruled that it did not have jurisdiction over Falk, a Californian resident, dismissing the suit against him. The case against Ritz proceeded.

Jurisdiction?
Why not?
Hearings in Fargo last October before Judge Cynthia Rothe-Seeger resulted in a surprise 11 January ruling (PDF, transcript with commentary) against Ritz. He was ordered to pay $53,000 in damages, a $10,000 fine for contempt against breaching an
injunction and lawyers' fees, which could run into tens of thousands.
I read the transcript and have a copy of it, but this link is now borked. David was identified using many aliases and he identified many names of the backbone cabal.

It's unclear if Ritz intends to appeal. His problems don't stop there because he faces possible criminal prosecution over the same supposed offences.

Criminal hackers face criminal charges.. David had to face Jerry Reynolds in court.

The case has sparked concern and support from the anti-spam community. "He [Ritz] got prosecuted for using the same Unix tools that the rest of us use all the time to troubleshoot problems, admin our systems, and track spammers," notes Reg reader Mark.

David published data/. He thought he would squeeze the toothpaste but David is blind and could not see what was inside. David a lawsuit was inside the tube.
Supporters are urged to donate to a legal defense fund, set up to defend anti-spam activists against so-called SLAPP lawsuits (getting sued for speaking out on a matter of public concern).
This is the funny part, Ed could not raise enough money to even pay for the book, he was donating.


In a separate case Reynolds sued Falk unsuccessfully for defamation for calling him a porn spammer.

The anti spammers watch more porn than JEERY


Falk had accused Reynolds of involvement with Netzilla, for a time the single largest source of spam on Usenet. The published allegations led to the unsuccessful "John Doe" lawsuit against Falk in Reynolds' home town of Fargo, ND.

FARGO, is a famous setting for a tv show about mafias. Marg is one of my all time favorite characters.. “okee dokee, then”

More background on the history of legal antagonism between Falk and Reynolds can be found at Falk's site here and elsewhere. ®

Ed, spam won the internet. David was exposed as a hacker and horrible father and an outcast brother.
The abortion clinic asked him to leave.
Usenet is all David has
It’s too difficult for him to go outside…

Cynthia, thank you from the bottom of my heart, for seeing the truth.

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