  | Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of
Religion and Medicineby Dr. Richard P. Sloan, PhD Blockbuster New Book tackling the thorny issues about religion, prayer and medicine. If you've been told that you have an incurable illness, and that prayer will help --- think again. This book will open your eyes. Dr. Sloan is a professor at the Columbia University School of Medicine and he introduces us to the major players in this new area of Christian evangelism. The studies purporting to show any health benefits from going to church or "being religious" are all so flawed as to render them useless. Using his epidemiological knowledge, Sloan carefully shows the reader how one should analyze claims from the media and claims in journals that purport to show a connection between religious behavior and improved health.
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Report Spammers, Spoofers, & Phishers
- Spamcop.net - to report individual spams.
- Spamlinks.net - an extensive list of resources for all sorts of spam and phishing from around the world.
CAN-SPAM Act
- The CAN-SPAM Act: Requirements for Commercial Emailers - The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) establishes requirements for those who send commercial email, spells out penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam if they violate the law, and gives consumers the right to ask emailers to stop spamming them.
The law, which became effective January 1, 2004, covers email whose primary purpose is advertising or promoting a commercial product or service, including content on a Web site. A "transactional or relationship message" Ð email that facilitates an agreed-upon transaction or updates a customer in an existing business relationship Ð may not contain false or misleading routing information, but otherwise is exempt from most provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act.
FTC - U.S. Federal Trade Commission
- FTC Spam page
- FTC Rules and Acts
- CAN-SPAM informant reward system - This is a 74 page Adobe .pdf file. It's a proposed whistle-blower system that will encourage reporting of spam by insiders and individuals.
- How Not to Get Hooked by a "Phishing" Scam - Internet scammers casting about for peopleÕs financial information have a new way to lure unsuspecting victims: They go "phishing."
Phishing is a high-tech scam that uses spam or pop-up messages to deceive you into disclosing your credit card numbers, bank account information, Social Security number, passwords, or other sensitive information.
Canadian agencies for reporting spam and illegal activities
- RECOL.CA - You can report Internet fraud directly to the RCMP by using its Reporting Economic Crime Online (RECOL) site at www.recol.ca, or use their toll-free phone line: 1-888-495-8501. Remember to keep any evidence related to your complaint.
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The Head family of Kitchener, Ontario was charged again at the end of September 2004 by Amazon and Microsoft. After they paid out over six-figures in damages just a few months ago, this family is again in the news. Of course they deny all charges that they "spoofed" Amazon or Microsoft. Their lawyer is from California, and he is not talking.
Search Newstrove.com for Spam Lawsuit
Google News for Yahoo spam lawsuit
Yahoo News for Yahoo spam lawsuit
Check SpamLaws.com for regulations where you live
Google search for Canadian anti-spam laws
Local Spam draws fire again - The Record - Phil Jalsevac
Internet giants target company
A Kitchener company is facing the wrath of Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com, who have filed a joint anti-spam lawsuit that has the potential to lead to millions of dollars in penalties.
It's the second time Gold Disk Canada Inc. has faced such legal action, although it settled out of court when sued by Yahoo Inc. earlier this year.
The messages were alleged to have been sent using thousands of Microsoft Hotmail accounts established with fictitious names and directing recipients to websites where the products and services could be ordered.
The complaint also alleges some of the e-mails were designed to appear to have been sent from Amazon.com and incorporated the company's registered trademark name. The complaint against Gold Disk seeks a permanent injunction against the Heads to cease their allegedly illegal activities and asks for damages to be determined at trial by jury.
Selling 10 million names for $1600
The original story about Dr. Polevoy in Paul Waldie's article in the Globe and Mail - March 12, 2004 - page B-1. Big picture in print edition, but not on their web site. Click here for pics taken by Andrew Wallace.
Marketers of penis pills, and other illegal drugs were targeted by AOL, Yahoo, Earthlink and Microsoft, not because of what they were marketing, but of how they did it.
The lawsuits reached the bustling city of Kitchener, Ontario about one hour west of Toronto. It's where my office is located. Barry Head and sons Eric and Matthew were accused of sending more than 94-million unwanted e-mails in January 2004 alone to users of Yahoo's e-mail service.
They have operated numerous web sites since 1998 that marketed specialized software that would harvest e-mail addresses from Yahoo, and other ISPs. Besides selling software to others to do the same thing, they also sold lists of millions of names to other spammers. According to evidence uncovered by HealthWatcher.net by simply looking through archive.org's huge record base, Dr. Polevoy was able locate some of their early attempts to sell their products. In fact their own form enabled them to collect secure information about those clients who purchased software or names from them.
Polevoy was told that one of the children actually dropped out of high school during grade 12 because he was making so much money that he didn't need to go to school.
The Head's web site claimed that their software would enable the user to harvest over two million names per day. If their operation has been up and running since 1998, where did all the money go? And, why has the Canadian government allowed them to operate untouched. This whole entire fiasco sound all too familiar. Canada is the haven for scammers and spammers.
Why did it take a lawsuit filed in the U.S. by Yahoo and others to shut them down.
The three members of the Head family live in adjacent houses at 27 and 31 Oliver Court. The two younger Heads attended Forest Heights Collegiate Institute, and one of them is studying communications at Conestoga College. The family according to a Globe and Mail article is in the "security business". Well I'll be damned, the "security business". Another source, The Record, our local newspaper reported on March 12, 2004 that the family was actually in the fire alarm business.
Here is a link to Matthew Head that was posted in July 2001 that gives his address, and phone number. It is actually listed on the Infospace Canadian internet phone directory: 519-571-8446. Their phone numbers as listed in the new phone book here in Kitchener are 519-743-9379 or 519-743-5180.
More links to his phone number on google groups:
This one gives instructions on how to buy software that would extract
e-mail addresses from ISPs:
This one is from 1998 and it gives their fax number 519-741-9082
This one indicates that they might be involved with illegal pharmaceutical sales:
Someone identified them in 1998:
Their web site archives are still on the internet. You can check the
prices
they wanted for mailing lists, and for software that would extract
e-mail
addresses as far back as 1998. At the time, one of the Head family was just 14 years old.
You can see that they harvested credit card and even
bank
routing information on their form.
This 1999 link has their site registration information: -
They were hosted at ICOM.COM.
The AOL lawsuit involves a Davis Wolfgang Hawke, a former neo-Nazi penis pill vendor.
What a bloody awful combination, eh? Where in the world were our Mounties when we needed them to put a stop to this? If I could find their archives going back over five years, in just five minutes, and if they had been identified years ago by the ISPs, what the hell took them so long to file charges? The software that they were marketing should have been outlawed by international law. Canada has let the world down, and they have done it over and over again. For years, Dr. Terry Polevoy has helped to identify scores of fraudulent health products and devices that are sold by Canadian companies. Most of them are still on the market because the government of Canada is too lazy to do anything about it as long as it doesn't involve Canadian citizens being ripped off. Well, it took the combined actions of AOL, Yahoo, Earthlink and Microsoft to lay charges in these cases, and believe it or not, there was only one charge in Canada.
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