NewsDay is giving us a new category of spam, as if we weren't already overtaxing the poor word: brain spam. Evidently, brain spam is that stuff that is just clogging your mental capabilities and keeping your memory from operating at peak capacity. Brain spam includes things you said you'd do but never had time to (delete); thank-you notes you should have written (delete); dumb things you've said (delete); items you've lost irretrievably (delete). An interesting concept - that I don't think I have the capacity to try! Who can consciously delete things from their brain (even spam)? Anyone?

I think this is the most generous definition ever of "300 or 400" unwanted email messages: an "online cocktail party." That's what occurred (according to Editor and Publisher magazine) when the Univ. of Maryland's Casey Journalism Center accidentally invited a list that included hundreds of journalists to the university's "Casey Medals" awards. When recipients replied to the email, they replied to the entire list, prompting hundreds of unwanted emails for some - and entertaining "chit-chatting back and forth" for others. One enterprising freelance photographer took the opportunity to publicize his work - turning the cocktail party into actual spam. The error was reversed within several hours.

Blue Security Inc. has announced its so-called Blue Frog initiative, a honeypot-style program designed to send complaints to companies who harvest emails off the web. Blue Frog creates honeypots (additional email addresses used only to attract address harvesters) and, when companies send spam to the honeypots, the user's computer will send emails complaining to the company whose wares are advertised on the email. If thousands of users are sending complaints together, Blue Frog may act like a denial-of-service attack and take down the spammers' web sites.

Critics, of course, say that this program is the "worst kind of vigilante approach" and will be chucked as a bad idea just like Lycos' spam-fighting screen saver. I think it's kind of cute and I'd be happy to be involved. What do you think?

"Isn't that illegal?" my husband asks as I avert my eyes from the explicit photos in the preview pane, of yet another piece of porn spam. Of course it is - it's just not very often successfully limited by the officials who've made it so. The FTC is claiming that porn spam will significantly decrease (or, at least, be marked "Sexually Explicit" in the subject line) now that five porn companies have agreed to pay cumulative $1.16 million in fines to the FTC. These companies didn't send the emails themselves, but hired others to do so.

The biggest fine, $650,000, was levied on Florida's BangBros.com. Which seems right somehow, given that the company dreamed up a name that sounds like the fake name they would be given were they thinly disguised in an episode of Law & Order.

Scott Richter, who long reigned as the self-proclaimed Spam King of the 'net, has turned in his crown for a (gasp!) opt-in mailing list. He's been trumpeting his reformation for months now, but his claims were finally given credence after he was dropped from the Register of Known Spam Operations, Spamhaus' list of hard-core spammers. In order to get off the list, he had to go without spam complaints for six months.

Evidently, the goal of the ROKSO list is to encourage reform among the most notorious spammers - this seems to be an indication that the encouragement is working. Will Richter be followed by others of his spam brethren onto the path of straight and narrow?

Firefox developer Asa Dotzler says that it doesn't appear as if user names, passwords, email addresses and other personal information for over 100,000 Firefox users was accessed during a hack attack this weekend. However, as it was clear that was the hacker's purpose, the Spreadfirefox.com site managers are suggesting that all users log in and change their passwords. The would-be spammers took advantage of a weakness in the Drupal CMS used to run the site to hack their way in. Spreadfirefox.com is famous for having raised $200,000 to market the Firefox browser in The New York Times last winter.

Yesterday, BloggingBaby (another Weblogs, Inc. site for which I write) and a number of other WIN sites were taken down by hackers for a few hours. We mentioned it in a posting on our blog, prompting some criticism from readers who thought we shouldn't even discuss it - because that's what the hackers want us to do. As notoriety is their chief goal, a commenter suggested, every last bit of press just gives them more of what they work for - and more reasons to keep on hacking. What do you all think? Should we mention our quick response, or simply ignore the hacking behavior with the hopes it will go away (just like those temper tantrums we also write about on Blogging Baby)?

In general, I consider anything that's mis-spelled and random in the comments to be spam - we get a lot of them when we post about celebrity baby news on Blogging Baby. 'Britney is greatest singer EVER! and i luv her!' etc. Ampersand wrote in to tell us about a similar problem, part of what may be a new form of comment spam. One of his readers commented, "I dont even remember how i reached your site but it doesnt matter, cause i'm so happy i found it, it really made me think, keep up the good work." Just makes you all warm and fuzzy inside, right?

Well, not so much. Ampersand theorizes that the spammers (who left dozens of comments like this) are trying to set themselves up for future link-heavy comments. Evidently, the WordPress 1.5 system asks a blogger to approve the first comment left by an anonymous user; all future comments from the same person are considered safe and are posted without approval. He believes that these spammers' "goal is to get me to approve a few of these anonymous, adoring comments; and then in a month or two hit me with hundreds of Texas hold'em spam or whatever."

Sounds insidious, and likely. Has anyone else had this experience?

I don't believe it. But I like it. The Australian government is about to release a new spam reporting tool called SpamMatters to the public. They've been running trials with one ISP's customers and they've been going well.

The tool lets internet users submit spam complaints directly from their email client, rather than going through the Australian Communications and Media Authority web site. There's no official release date yet, but it's coming "soon."

Hey! Party at your house this weekend! That's right, it's a spam fest. I, myself, won't be celebrating the occasion, rumored on a web site dedicated to IT professionals earlier this week. The anonymous message offered to rent out hijacked personal computers to spammers.

If your PC is one of the unlucky infected "zombie" machines, not only may your email inbox be the host to dozens of uninvited spam messages, you may also be sending out spam fest notifications to thousands of other inboxes around the 'net.

There's no real info on how much spam you might receive this weekend, or if the spam fest warning is any more than hot air. Experts advise this: don't open your unwanted emails. And if you're reading this blog, you probably already know that.

Bush signed the "Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005" into law this weekend with little fanfare. The bill, introduced by Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon, purports to be small-business friendly but has a clause that protects most fax advertising.

The bill doesn't change existing laws that prohibit unsolicited fax advertising (the "Blast Fax" days are numbered). It does, however, exempt fax advertising from businesses with which the receiver already has a business relationship. Critics say this will open the floodgates of fax advertising, as any business who has ever sold a product to you could be considered as having a "relationship" with you. However, in the days of eFax and ever-cheaper ink and paper, I wonder: is the interest being protected great enough to prohibit the speech here?

I hate spam! Really I do. But some of these spam sting operations - I have to be honest - seem funny to me. For instance, the case of the Rizler, a.k.a. Christopher Smith. He'd been operating illegal prescription drug sites in the Dominican Republic since a federal judge shut down Burnsville Internet and Xpress Pharmacy Direct. Authorities had seized his assets (along the lines of $4.2 million) and shut down his 85-employee company in May. He escaped to the D.R. with a falsified passport and help from both his wife and his girlfriend (yeah, it does get better and better!).

Federal documents accuse the Rizler of setting up new spam operations in the Dominican Republic and collecting as much as $18 million. Then he made his fatal error: he tried to come home (to his girlfriend, I presume). Federal agents arrested him in a "midnight operation" as soon as he stepped off the plane in Minneapolis.

Here's why it's funny: in a world where most of our TV and movie villians are evil masterminds with guns and their own airplanes, the spam "supremos," if that's the name we're using now, attack with henchmen like "Lapp H. Appearance" and "qjl 1000s a day." Their most insidious weapons are adware and yucky .jpg files. It's a little funny, right?

The thing about Utah's version of the Child Protection Registry laws: it's so vague, just about anyone could be in violation. The registry, which works similarly to the no-call registry, gives parents and educators the ability to add children's email addresses (and eventually, screen names, IM identities, and telephone numbers) into a no-mail registry. Once the registries are established, email marketers will be required to check their lists against the registry before sending email which includes adult content. While Michigan's law only prohibits commercial speech of an adult nature, Utah's law prohibits all adults-only speech.

According to experts, Utah's law "could technically trap someone sending a dirty joke to an unmoderated mailing list with a registered minor on it." And penalties include fines as well as jail time - up to three years. While enforcement is a long way off, it's more likely that a private citizen sending out jokes, or even links to inappropriate web sites by accident (for instance, many mainstream ".org" web sites have terrifically offensive porn under the ".com" version of the name), could be caught than a commercial spammer, who is likely to be off-shore.

It would seem, then, that these new laws will cost the good guys money without having much teeth to go after the truly bad guys - more useless, costly legislation. Well, that's par for the course in spam regulation, isn't it?

While your kids were sleeping last week, two no-email registries went into effect. And barely anyone in the commercial email industry is paying any more attention than the children the laws intend to protect.

Both Michigan and Utah's voters approved laws a year ago requiring both states to create a no-email registry for children similar to the no-call registry. These registries are just for children's emails but can also include any email a child has access to (i.e. family email addresses) and can include entire blocks of school addresses.

These laws cover all commercial email that includes either an advertisement, or a link to an advertisement, "for a product or service that a minor is otherwise legally prohibited from accessing, such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, prescription drugs, or adult-rated material." Punishments include imprisonment of up to three years, or a fine of $30,000, or both.

According to Anne P. Mitchell, a professor of Internet law, "These registries are going into affect next week, and absolutely nobody realizes it. We've talked with several top tier email marketing firms, and email service providers, and they were all just stunned to learn that they need to start scrubbing their mailing lists against these registries next month or face criminal sanctions!"

Are you passionate about spam, viruses, worms, and all things unsolicited and electronic? Do you keep files of all your spam subject lines so you can create haikus to amuse your friends? Do you wish you could make a little money off your obsessions?

If you answered yes to all these questions, and you have a way with the English language, you may have found your calling. The Spam Weblog is seeking qualified bloggers to join the Weblogs, Inc. team writing for this category. (OK, even if you don't write spam haiku.)

Want to be considered? Submit two original post samples (100-400 words) to the "tips" link. Please include your blog URL, if you have one.