Tracking Down a Spammer

From time to time a spammer will annoy me enough to track them down and call them at home to let them know how I feel about their spam. Today's story is about tracking down a spammer at home.

I am constantly receiving image spam for an online pharmacy called RXCart.org. This is the story of how I tracked down the man responsible.

1. It used to be that when you placed an order at RXCart.org you were directed to hsnsecure.com. It so happens that this is an SSL-enabled site complete with Versign certificate. Immediately after this blog posting rxcart.org was changed to point to a new processor.

2. Using Firefox I examined the SSL certificate for hsnsecure.com and find that it's issued to a "Health Solutions Network, LLC" with an address in Washington state. From research conducted on the Internet, it seems as though HSN is a company that specializes in processing orders for all kinds of people hawking their prescription medication sites.

3. I got to the Washington Secretary of State's Web site and look up this corporation. I see who it is registered to. Turns out he's in Snohomish, WA (he's probably one of the pricks threatening the boy who was almost killed by the cannon too).

4. I take this information over to zabasearch.com and find his home address and phone number.

So, you see, it can be very easy to track a spammer down if you know which tools to use.

EDIT: I changed this post to remove direct references to the actual individual on the advice of counsel. The information remains accessible via the methods described.

Perceptions

I can't tell you how many times in my life I have found some particular noise to be annoying, or some particular thing to be slightly off in a photograph, print, or other visual medium, only to be told by others that they can't see or hear what I am talking about, or that I'm way too picky. While responding to a post a reader at dpreview.com had made asking about the noise the image stabilization motor in his lens was making it dawned on me: it may not be a matter of being "anal", or picky, but rather it might be a physiological difference.

In psychology it is well known that people filter out the irrelevant stimuli around them -- it is called "stimulus selection." It's what allows you to listen to a conversation in the car without processing the roar of the motor as clearly as the person talking, or what allows you to watch a baseball game without being distracted every second by what each person sitting in front of you is doing. In other words, you filter stuff out. It's how the human brain works. It occured to me that, as with anything related to the brain, people's abilities will differ. Some people will filter things out more strongly than others, or some people will be more sensitive to stimuli, depending on how you want to look at it. Either way, it may not be possible for us "picky" people to be less picky, or for less picky people to see or hear things the way we do. It may be a fundamental difference in the way our brains process what our senses feed us.