[gcraig]

I've heard this line before, linked to how difficult these people are to trace, and I've never quite understood it. Some one has to hire these companies to fire off the spam in the first place.

Not exactly. I used to host web sites on a server that I built. I located the server in Tulsa, at my friend's shop. I administered and installed IMAIL and Exchange Server 2000 to satisfy the email requirements of customers. Both email systems were hi-jacked. Script kiddies are relentless. It became impossible to keep up with the software patches, so I gave up. There are alot of servers out there that didn't give up. Those servers are still being hi-jacked.

[goldstategop]

Part of the spammers' strategy to take over the Net is to hijack legitimate servers to make sure their malware and spyware gets through. The joke has it if every one stopped coming online tomorrow, cyberspace would filled with nothing but spam.

[agarrett]

  gcraig,

  Thanks for your response, but it's not quite what I'd meant. You have dealt with this, apparently, so maybe you understand the difficulties that I'm missing - so please, try to explain it to me.

  Why can't we ignore the e-mail address. Don't try to trace this stuff through cyberspace - ignore all that. Each actual letter is advertising a product or a web site. The people selling the product, or running the web site, paid some one to send out those messages. Why can't we ask, or subpoena, the information from them - who did they pay? Then we can trace that back to find out who the spammers are.

  Now, in your e-mail you mentioned that "script kiddies are relentless." That may be the key part - but I don't know what a script kiddie is. Could you explain?

  Thanks for your time,

Drew Garrett