Slashdot Mirror
Politicians Seek Spam Loophole
Steve B writes "An article in the Mercury News by Mike McCurry and Larry Purpuro (respectively heading an "advocacy management and communications software company" and a "political e-marketing firm") wraps the case for political spam in all the usual Mom-Flag-&-Apple-Pie cliches. They conclude with a cynical appeal for a special exemption, while condescendingly instructing anti-spammers that their efforts are "better focused on commercial e-mail" and painting spammer Bill Jones as a victim who made a few trifling mistakes."
Bah... Loopholes dont work...
I Can't understand what you're saying.
Is it just me or does what they are saying really just boil down to, "Everyone elses Spam is bad but ours..."
Very similar to the old cliche that some people really believe that their shit don't stink.
yes i run a goth/punk/emo porn site.
First we'll have exceptions for candidates for public office.
Then we'll have demands for party affiliates and candidate support groups to have their own equivalent exceptions added, since they speak on behalf of the candidates (purely nonprofit, of course).
Then we'll have demands from the lobbyists to have their exceptions added, since they push the issues that the candidates deal with on a daily basis, and if a candidate is, say, pro-life, why shouldn't the pro-choice lobbyists get equal say?
And finally, since many lobbyists are on corporate payroll, the corporations can just take the gloves off and ask for their own exemptions, since they might want to support a particular candidate, and as a legal "individual" (without voting rights, of course), they are entitled to endorse a particular candidate in means outside of the normal campaign contributions.
But, of course, once they get their hands on the e-mail lists of a certain group of constituents, you can bet that it will accidentally fall into the wrong hands, along with the demographic/geographic data that accompanies it.
Marketer heaven. And, before long...Spammer heaven.
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
The good thing about political spam is that it is really easy to trace - at least so far. All the political spam I've received has been straight-up about who sent it (usually their campaign office). That makes it real easy to let them know what idiots they are and how much damage they've done to their campaign. They'll read the email you send and may even respond so that *you* know you got a live one. If you are in a pissy mood it sure helps to go off on a campaign-office numbnut.
Now, as soon as the politicians discover that they can send attack-ads as anonymous spam then it won't be so easy to exact vengence, but until then they sure make it easy to beat them up for spamming.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
If this is the bone we need to throw to Congress to finally get some laws passed banning commercial spam without opt-out lists being honored, so be it. Besides, if spam is as irritating as we think it is, it's going to backfire as a PR tool even if it isn't illegal to use.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
eWeek has a slightly interesting article here about a company putting together a bonded sender program, where people who receive unwanted mail from such a sender would be able to charge against the bond.
Interesting, though it won't work of course. As the article points out, legitimate mass emailers are less likely to have large scale complaints compared with unbonded/unwanted mass mailers, but personally I wouldn't mind being able to charge for each Viagra, HGH, mortgage, and credit repair email I've gotten just today.
eWeek has a couple of articles on spam (see the homepage), and Spam is the cover banner on the hardcopy magezine this week.
Just a logical progression, really. They already get information (phone, mailing address) from various organizations (I once got mailers from the NRA and ACLU in one day...how's that for political diversity?); now they'll ask for the e-mail addresses too.
:-)
I will say this, though. While I'll tolerate political spam, I will never vote for a candidate who buys popup ads.
I love how he repeatedly says how the candidate saved money. Not once mentioning that it actually costs ISPs money to deliver these things. Like he thinks by pushing the send button, the magical internet fairies come and deliver each email by hand. But then again, politicians were always good at spending other peoples money.
...would this be considered "news."
Cheers
-b
Once political spam becomes mainstream, you'll soon see some dirty tactics.
It's an old trick for a candidate's staff to canvas for votes for the OTHER guy -- at 3AM. No better way to piss people off and get them to vote for you instead of them. Print up campaign stickers for the other guy, and paste 'em on people's car bumpers. Make sure they're the sort that don't come off without special chemicals. There are several variations on this theme that have been used before and will be used again.
So when your mailbox gets bombed with 100 spams, all asking you to vote for someone, and all infected with Klez -- don't assume they actually came from the candidate.
How exactly would someone tell the difference between "commercial email" and "unsolicited mail?" You create an exception, you also have to create a standard against which all those accused are compared.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Who modded this as a troll? Personally, I TRY to think of the Internet as a bastion for quasi-rational thought. Well, some of it, anyway. And I'd do the same, anyway.
Danish != nationality
I agree. I think a more acurate description of this piece would be as an opinion piece. Oh wait, it's in the Opinion section of the Mercury. Calling it anything else lends this piece more credibility than it deserves.
Hi, I'm Bob Robertson, and I'd like to tell you a little bit about my campaign for --insert your state here--'s senatorial seat in 2002.
Over the years, my competitor, Mike Jones, has fucked a lot of whores and raised taxes by an astoundingly high 0.00001%. He's also poisoned our well water, seceded our state from the United States on two seperate occasions, and invited several known child molesters to his fundraising banquets, during which he has served dead puppies as the main course. In short, he's a scumbag, and he's evil.
Don't vote for him. Vote for me. Because he sucks.
Paid for by the Friends of Bob Robertson, who absolutely fucking hate that bastard Mike Jones. Burn in Hell, Mike.
I can't wait to see, hear, and read this shit not only on my TV, on my radio, in front of people's houses, on the subway, in my mail, in front of schools, in front of public buildings, at every public event in every town in the state, AND on my computer! I just can't get enough of hearing about how the politician that has less money and can't run as many commercials is the antichrist!
An alternative would be for the government should create opt-in mailing lists (or web forums) in the spirit of equal-time laws, that allow posting by all registered candidates, that anybody may subscribe to. This would enhance public debate on issues (as candidates would be able to counter their opponents claims in the same forum), without forcing those debates upon those who have no interest.
The comfort you demanded is now mandatory - Jello Biafra
H.R. Bill 6969 - Admendments to the National Anti-SPAM Law
...
"The Law" shall be amdeded as follows to include the following excemtions to the law:
(a) Sending of Unsolicited Mass E-Mail for the Purposes of:
(a)(1) Governmental Communications
(a)(2) Communications Originating by an Elected Official
(a)(3) Communications Originating by a person or persons seeking Elected Ofice
(a)(4) Communications regarding Laws, Governmental Regulations, Policies or activities
(a)(6) Communications by a non-governmental entity for the puroses of selling a product or service
(a)(7) Any Communication with the word "the" in it.
In reading the piece, "Internet can level the political playing field" by Mike McCurry and Larry Purpuro, I felt the overwhelming need to stress a single point that seems to have been completely missed by the writers. They utterly failed to realize that e-mail costs the recipient of the e-mail message time and money. Be it the 3 seconds wasted downloading the message from their mail server, or the cost of the phone call for the internet access, or the usage of total monthly bandwidth that some ISP's allot to users, e-mail costs the receiving party money. This is the very heart of the problem with ANY unsolicited e-mail. Television, radio, and print ads all do not cost the recipient of the advertisement money. If it wasn't an ad for a politician, it would be an ad for some product or service; in any case, the recipient would still receive an ad. But e-mail is a very cheap way to mass sent advertisements to others while making them pay for the "privilege" of receiving the message. This is the very reason why people are not allowed to fax unsolicited ads to other fax machines. The cost is a lot more dramatic in the case of a fax machine, but the cost is still there even in e-mail. It should not matter whether it cost you $.10 because of paper and ink in the case of the fax machine or the $.01 it can cost for the bandwidth, memory needs, and time it can cost for an e-mail.
Here is a simple question that I would like answered. Should we, as consumers, have to pay every time someone sends an advertisement for their product to us? If we did we would all be broke very quickly. The people promoting and advertising products, services, or political campaigns are the ones who should foot the bill of spreading their information.
Unsolicited e-mail is like sending something cash on delivery without a way of refusing to receive the item. Any person or group of persons should be held accountable for any and all monetary charges they force upon others. Unsolicited e-mail in any form should be dealt with in the harshest manor available to the recipient. There is no such thing as unharmful unsolicited e-mail, if it costs anyone other then the sender money, then it is causing harm.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
The dogcow says "Moof!"
See, if this happens, then we'll start to see massive political donations by viagra vendors, multi-level marketers, Nigerian political refugees, and animal porn sites.
Can I mod this article -1, Flamebait, please?
All we have is a spammer apologist claiming that 'spam is only as bad as as direct-mail, telemarketers, or TV ads!'
Well, guess what? People hate telemarketers, but that's not the point. The point is that all three of those are (say it together, now) PAID FOR BY THE ADVERTISER.
Spam isn't. It gets paid for by the recepient, like postage-due junk mail.
And you don't even get the choice of refusing it.
If spammers were willing to pay all the costs of sending spam (not just the cost to click the 'Send' button), I think there'd be a lot less concern.
I know I'd be more willing to 'just delete it' in that case...as well as set up a bulk mail filter (I just depend on Sneakemail right now).
I mod down anyone who uses M$ in their posts. I like to live on the edge.
Vote for Bob Smith, not only is he a great leader that will carry this country into a bright future, but your penis will also increase by *THREE* inches!
Make the right choice.
http://www.xpurple.com
Just wait until these bozos start getting tons of "political" e-mail from nut cases like McElwaine. I suspect that then they'll start saying "Oh, political spam is only OK if it comes from a legitimate candidate."
There's no hope, though. The junk-fax laws and the anti-telemarketing laws already exempt political appeals. Never mind that a ban would be perfectly constitutional (under the time, manner, and place doctrine). There's no way the politicians are going to write a law that makes it harder for them to "communicate with their constituents".
Fortunately for me, DCC is apolitical. It doesn't give a hoot what the content is, as long is it's unsolicited and bulk.
Is what the guy really did that bad? Yes, it was an unsolicited email, but don't you want to know about who's attempting to be be elected to the highest government office in the state? This wasn't exactly an ad for penis enlargment or girlie porn, but an example of free speech.
This man is attempting to gain a seat of enormous power over Californians and they they don't care about that, they care about what was likely a text message with a link or two. ---Speculation of course, but I've seen no presentation that it was otherwise.
If this practice does become more widespread, I wonder if voter turnout would be affected, beyond the possible minority that would attempt to vote out the evil, malign spammer. It does make a good point about leveling the playing field a little bit. I would think that this would lend a little bit more democracy to the process of elections and government, rather than how elections are often won now, with money.
No one ever said that a government of the people, for the people, and by the people was supposed to be easy.
If any spam legislation does come about, the politicians should have a loophole.The process would likely self regulate itself. If a politician sends out a spam, and if either his presentation or content prove unpopular, they get knocked out of the race. Most importantly, these are messages that in essence say,"I'm one of the guys trying to control some heavy aspects of your life." To not listen to those messages could be a tremendous folly.
We not only need more voters in the US, we need informed ones.
I'm all for loopholes, as long as they're tightly shut.
It would be worth it to me to have political spam exempted if it meant that Congress would pass an anti-spam law that actually did something about the rest of the spam.
But that's not going to happen. They'll pass a law exempting political spam, sure, but then structure the law so that large corporations can spam, spam, spam until the cows come home, and only the minor players will be at risk for some spam penalty.
Four weeks ago, I won a court case about an injuction against a spammer here in Germany. It was the first time I took a spammer to court and to my surprise, it was easy. Lucky that German law is crystal clear about unolicited advertisement that costs the receiver's money.
.com addresses and .com addresses. Hell, I expect that there will be US candidates spamming .de addresses.
The first political spam from a German candidate in my mailbox and my lawyer will have a field day.
Trouble is: I expect that my first political spam will be from a US candidate who doesn't know the difference between
If not, could you use a certain... enlargement? Couldn't we all... after all, SHE will enjoy you more if...
What? You're insulted?
Hey man, just because you don't like my politics, don't claim I'm some "spammer."
----
Just one possible outcome if this stuff goes any further in this direction.
Gotta love the "Everyone else is wrong... except for us!" route.
"PC Load Letter? What the $@#% does that mean?!"
This is a little OT and some might not agree. In any case, I think elections in the U.S. would be much better if TV campaign ads were banned altogether. I could live without donation limits or overall campaign spending limits if only TV ads were banned. I don't think it's a free speech issue. Nothing guarantees my right to go on TV and spout off about my piss-me-off-du-jour complaints. The politicos and their henchmen argue that I could do that - if I had the money to do it. Let's face it, a big chunk of campaign money goes to TV and cable operators.
Get their self-serving, bashing, slime-hurling, pseudo-factual (and sometimes outright dishonest) ads off the air at election time altogether. Let the voter who wishes to be informed to READ about the candidates and issues rather than having (dis)information spoon-fed to them through the boob tube. The cost of campaigns would decline dramatically.
Ah, what the fuck. The problem of spamming politicians pales in comparison to the damage being done via political ads on TV. This country is doomed because the vast majority of the people in it are fucking stupid. Who was it that said "Nobody ever went broke under-estimating the intelligence of the American public"? At one time in this country reasonable people had a good shot at educating/informing/persuading the masses as to what was "the right thing". TV, and to a lesser extent other forms of media, have turned Americans' brains to mush.
most candidates are crooks anyway, I don't see wether it makes a difference if them sending spam is legal or not. They commit and get away with enough crimes as it is.
god bless america!
So my question is where do the polititians get the addresses to spam? Since it's opt-out (but not the bad kind of opt-out of course) they don't ask people for their emails, so they must get them from a list from somewhere. Is there some sort of listing of email addresses and their geographic areas? I assume that sending email to say, canada to ask for votes for the sacramento east riding isn't going to do much good... Do they just purchase a list from a spamhaus and go to it or what?
:)
I almost wish I didn't have spamassassin running so I could see if I get any, and offer my opinions
BTW, there is a good presentation on Mail::Audit and Mail::Spamassassin linked over at http://igor.penguinsinthenight.com/spamtalk/ with a PPT at this site.
Free speech cuts both ways - it protects crypto code publication and it also protects political SPAM. That's the point about the 1st ammendment it's there to protect unpopular speech because the popular variety doesn't need protection!
That said I've been involved in a couple of campaigns and we only used email to keep in touch with our people and to see what the other side was saying to theirs (on the internet nobody knows you're a Democrat :-)
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck load of tapes
...this makes way too much sense. Perhaps I'm just being too cynical, but as wonderful as your suggestion is, I just don't see it happening, for three reasons.
1) The vast majority of the voting populace is stupid. Too many of them couldn't distinguish a good public debate from an old episode of Flying Circus. (Frankly, given some of the candidates lately, I'm not sure I can either.) Now I'd hope and expect this to be less true of the subset of the public that regularly uses the Internet, but sometimes, I'm just not too sure about that.
2) Most politicians don't want real public debate on issues. That takes thought and preparation and may require an admission that they were wrong about something or perhaps don't know enough about the issue to form an opinion. As long as there are only a few debates, they're televised, and they're short, the politicians can focus on just a few tried-and-true issues, avoid the tough questions, sling a little mud, distort a few statistics, and just be done with it already. Much less effort, and to the vast stupid swaths of population, much more convincing.
3) Most politicians don't want the playing field too level. Incumbents have more money. They like that more money means significantly better chances. And the Democrats and Republicans like that the television debate format doesn't scale well with increasing numbers of candidates. They'd like us to believe that really only two candidates can comfortably fit on a half-hour televised debate. Anything that brings third-party candidates into debates and lends them any air of legitimacy is bad to them, and to be avoided.
Again, this is my cynical side speaking here. My idealistic side is saying the exact same thing you are. Unfortunately, in the world of politics, and especially American politics, my cynical side tends to be closer to right much more often.
-----Chaz
To some extent they do have a good point, although the article did come accross as "we should to be excepted from the rules, but no one else should be"... I think maybe political spam should be allowed as long as it is regulated, ie with a real op-out, a valid return address, etc., only from someone who they can actully vote for and who will represent them, and with no irrelivent content (like ads). It is true that the charges to the recever set email appart from most other mediums, but if we always worry about cost, soon everyone will be wanting to be be refunded for all email receved, and that situation might be just as bad as the spam problem. In any case, surely the costs for sending and the costs for receving balance out to some extent? I'm not saying that the article is right, just that it is worth thinking about.
The politician who chose to go this route is going to have to waste time and effort defending which e-mail is his *real* spam and his fake spam. Maybe they'll eventually give up on this ridiculous crap. If they want to use a cheaper medium like the internet, instead of spam, they should get a good website together and have pre-poll websites run by the election boards to house links to all of the candidates. Even better would be to then include links to the Women Voters' questionnaire answers and other information from the campaigning period (editorials, interviews, etc).
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
Specific problems I see in their article:
(1)My definition: bulk email from a stranger. This definition catches damaging email, although not all annoying email. I think definitions that include content (i.e. "commercial" alone is bad), non-bulk email, or email from a pre-existing business relationship aren't good because laws based on them won't be upheld.
Oh dear - did I just accidentally type a certain two email addresses into a porn spam 'please remove me' box? After all if you dont want spam you just unsubscribe and it stops doesn't it. Everyone knows that. Spammers are the most honest and trustworthy people on the net. They ALWAYS honour unsubscribe requests. Everyone knows that too.
When a political candidate sends a voter an e-mail, that recipient can choose to delete the message without opening it, unsubscribe from the list, read it or even reply and engage the sender. That choice should belong to the voter -- not to anti-spam advocates whose efforts are better focused on commercial e-mail.
You want to know what choice I think should belong to the voter? The choice to say "No, don't send me unsolicited email of ANY KIND!"
If they won't listen to us, why should we have to listen to their tripe?
It's very simple. If someone wants to opt-in on a political list, that's fine. But the moment I receive an unsolicited email (I never opt-in), that candidate is screwed.
Just ideas.
...I am just hoping he Purrpurrrs to send me spam. I am looking for new business partners :)
Oh come on. Spam is going to level the political playing field about as much as the Internet leveled the business playing field. Do people buy more books from amazon.com or from Wobberly's ? If an underdog mounts an email campaign, an overdog mounts a bigger email campaign. Duh!
People still cling to the quaint vision of democracy in America rising from the ashes because of some magic ring that can only be worn by the good guys. There's no such thing!
America is governed by lobbyists and PACs who have successfully cracked the system. The only way I can think of to win is not to play the game. Instead of competing make money irrelevant, for example by making Congress sort of like a priesthood, wherein elected officials relinquish all material goods for the rest of their lives and live on a modest stipend. Something like that might work. Yeah, like it would ever happen.
Its interesting that the article doesn't address the cost picked up by the reciever and the ISP. Its also interesting that they note:
Just think. He spent 2 cents a message to get a torrent of negative press. This is supposed to be a good example? Heck. Hire me. I can top that campaign easily.
Hold a press conference... it'll be free (minus the cost of coffee or whatever one traditionally spends on keeping the press happy to be there). Once assembled, make the following statements:
There. Done. Your words will be repeated amoung an untold number of general and specific interest news sources, far outpacing the number of people reached by any SPAM campaign. And you'll have done far more damage to your campaign for much less money than any SPAM campaign and "email marketing" company could ever do.
Now, if your intent is not to damage your campaign, you probably don't want to follow this strategy. But then... you probably shouldn't use SPAM either.
A political priesthood is a monumentally bad idea.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck load of tapes
Someone should build a better email protocol that prevents spam. I'm thinking it would have the following features:
First, public-key signatures would be built into the protocol. Everyone would have a public-key. This would be their ID.
Second, all messages would have to be signed. This would prevent forged return addresses. There goes the most annoying of the spam...
Third, only messages from recognized IDs are accepted. Think of it as a buddy-list, and only your buddys get to send you email. No more unsolicited email.
Fourth, since that is a little restrictive, expand it a little. Say that anyone trusted by one of your buddys is allowed to send you email. Now your friends and your friend's friends can send you email.
Finally, since there are many kinds of legitimate unsolicited email (think webmaster@yourdomain.com), rejected messages would be returned with a challange that must be answered before the email is accepted. Perhaps the challange has a key that must be returned. Too easy for spammers to automatically get through? Send back a challange asking for a certain key from your webpage (ala hotline servers...) Still to easy? Send a picture with the challange, and ask something like "What is this a picture of? a) cow b) truck c) cloud d) cowboy neal". Now, any person who really wants to can contact you, but they will have to put a little effort into it. Suddenly, spam is no longer cheap for the spammer...
I would switch to this system in a second, and force all my friends to switch too...
Dear sir or madam
You are receiving this unsolicited email because your politicians have sold out. They've not only bent over backwards to make it easy and legal for corporations to sell your personal data, but they've also made it hard for you to stop them.
But they haven't stopped there. Now they want in on the action too.
Until you tell your local politicians that you are tired of receiving junk mail, unsolicited phone calls and spam other people will continue to make money wasting your time and violating your privacy. And they will continue to give some of that money to your politicians to preserve the status quo.
If you wish to stop receiving these emails you can either opt-out, or fight your politicians to make opt-in only the law. Let them know that they can either quit selling out, or get voted out.
You can either delete this, or send it to your politicians. Go ahead, spam them. Include an opt-out mechanism. It's ok to make it a really ridiculous opt-out mechanism like the one on this email. That's the law. They made it that way to help their buddies make money off of your personal information.
Fight back. Spam your congressman.
To opt-out of receiving these messages, please take a 6.34 cm by 4.82 cm piece of paper and with a red crayola crown write opt-out in all capitals. Then on the back using macaroni, spell your email address. Put glitter on the top of every other letter, and paint every other-other letter black.
Sign it with your thumb print. Be sure to include your phone number, address, social security number, licens plate numbers, driver license number, last four digits of your bank account, first 5 digits of your bank account, your maiden name, your locker combination, the number of songs you've downloaded off the internet, whether or not you've ever left the room during a commercial, your mom's credit card number and your favorite color. This is required for proper identification. I reserve the right to sell any of this information to the highest bidder. If you refuse to submit the proper identification, I will not be able to remove you from this list, because you may be impersonating someone who wishes to receive this information.
Had Jones chosen direct mail, radio or TV, that communication would have been equally ``unsolicited,'' as defined in the e-mail world. Few voters would have ``opted in'' to receive campaign information from Jones through any of those channels.
- For all of these methods, the advertiser pays the cost of delivering the message.
- Radio and television users 'opt-in' by turning on said radio or television.
No one likes commercial spam. It is irrelevant and untargeted and can be highly intrusive and even offensive. But as a sophisticated society, it's time to differentiate commercial spam from very different unsolicited e-mail sent by political candidates to voters.
Why? Is it any less expensive - with respect to time, money, or bandwidth - for the recipient of an unwanted political message versus the recipient of an unwanted commercial message?
A simple link in good e-mail campaigns allows recipients to opt out of future mailings.
And where do I click to be reimbursed for my time and resources, which you just wasted?
Direct mail takes at least a phone call or stamp to be taken off a list,
Or, I can throw it in the trash on the way in the door, and you've just wasted your postage.
and viewers must repeatedly endure TV ads.
No, Skippy. Not 'must'. 'Can'. If I don't want to see the ads, I can turn the television off.
That choice should belong to the voter -- not to anti-spam advocates whose efforts are better focused on commercial e-mail.
Commercial email is email that's trying to sell me something. You're trying to sell me a candidate. How is your product any different than a penis enlarger or a hot teen?
You're selling something. I'm not buying. Go away.
Like he thinks by pushing the send button, the magical internet fairies come and deliver each email by hand.
That must be the solution to spam! We have got to kill those magical internet fairies!
Quote:
When a political candidate sends a voter an e-mail, that recipient can choose to delete the message without opening it, unsubscribe from the list, read it or even reply and engage the sender. That choice should belong to the voter -- not to anti-spam advocates
And the authors of this are:
(1) president of a political e-marketing firm
(2) CEO of a communications software company
So, the above should really read - "Don't you anti-spam advocates mess with our business, it's very different from spam. Spam is all about Viagra, while we offer you politicians !"
I like my outfit, it's inexpensive, but cool -- April Ryan
In return, I'll feel free to think you suck, and to never vote for you.
Do you really want to alientate the people you're trying to get to vote for you?
The US congress and states create laws that make it easy to rationalize SPAM. The users abhore spam. So this leads to products that provide great spam killing abilities.
This shows the power of lobbies in this arena. An annoyance will always be an annoyance no matter what the lawyers have to say.
I say make all spam legal.....My filters will just get tighter....
From: government.people@usa.gov
Subject: SPEWS removal request
Our email is compliant with Senate bill 1618, and therefore cannot be considered spam. Please remove our spews listing.
The whores get mad when the sluts give it away for free.
Spam: Bulk email from a stranger. Solved mostly with technology and a little bit by laws. By emphasizing method (bulk), not content, we can use technology to block spam and courts are likely to uphold our rights to do so. Blocks or bans on content (1), non-bulk email (2), or email from a pre-existing business relationship (3) are likely to fail and could make the problem much worse.
Non-bulk email, or email from entities who aren't strangers: not spam, however annoying. Generally solved with boycotts, public ridicule, and questions about ethics "Would you accept 'technically I didn't lie' from an employee? Then why should we the public accept it?" (As for 'friendly' email, replies of "By forwarding this email to me you give me permission to think you're an idiot. There is no virus. Timmy hates postcards. You can't send angelic blessings as an attachment, and if I wanted that joke I'd go to rec.humor.funny-the-1st-time-20-repetitions-ago." might work.)
Laws: Even on spam not a good idea- ineffective at best. Dishonest spam & spammers (forged headers, etc.) don't care about existing US laws- they break laws on contracts ('no spamming' ISP contracts), theft (stolen credit cards to pay for accounts), identity fraud, spam (California requires "ADV," in the subject line...), and more already. And domestic laws can't stop a fundamentally international problem. Even worse, if US laws only ban dishonest spam then honest (think DMA) spam is legitimized. And banning commercial speech alone won't make it because of the Constitution. It protects commercial speech much more than some people might think. Thus, it is bad to focus on...
(1) Content: Political or religious messages can still be spam, and any speech, commercial or not, has to be really, really bad before the Supreme Court will even start to think about unprotecting it. You'd have to prove Spam-speech is equivalent to "'fire!' in a crowded theater" or "riot right now" speech. Unlikely. Instead, focus on...
(2) "Bulk" because bulk is what causes damage. One bounced email: no problem. 100,000: big problem. Courts are likely to find that individually written emails, however annoying, aren't going to cause the damages of bulk - people just can't write that many in a day. Courts won't like punishing a person who wrote one letter ("Hi, I saw an article about you, you might be interested in my software..." is an unsolicited commercial email. Laws that ban it won't last very long.). "Bulk" makes a better brightline. If a spammer is caught breaking an ISP's contract, and claims the emails weren't bulk, easy perjury... Judge: "4 emails with boilerplate text after the first sentence. This isn't bulk?" Exceptionally stupid Spammer: "No."
(3) "From a stranger" for two reasons. One- its easier to prove that bulk email from strangers is inherently a burden. Email from all 200 businesses and 10 candidates you do know: irritating but not impossible to deal with, maybe not worth curbing speech. Email from all 29.9998 million businesses and ten thousand candidates you don't know (opt-outable or not): impossible. Two- if you voluntarily gave your email address out, courts might rule that caveat emptor trumps "punish them because their email annoys me."
Why does this suddenly want to make me spraypaint "This painted message is spam" on their buildings?
Hell, let them clean it up.
"No one likes commercial spam. It is irrelevant and untargeted and can be highly intrusive and even offensive. But as a sophisticated society, it's time to differentiate commercial spam from very different unsolicited e-mail sent by political candidates to voters."
1 spray can, 3 words. "Vote for me."
Use bogofilter - it uses Beyesian statistics to filter spam it's it very good. See also A plan for SPAM by Paul Graham.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck load of tapes
*Every* reply. Candidate A sends you spam? Reply detailing why Candidate B is better. Candidate J tells you how he's tough on crime? Reply talking about how J's daughter was repeatedly given a slap on the wrist after crimes for which other people are sent to federal prison. An RIAA shell candidate sends you spam? Reply with an MP3 as an attachment. Attach goatse! Attach the plans to the secret death ray! Attach your vacation photos and free up some of your own webspace! Reply grinding your own personal political axes.
Read through the archive and reply pointing out how 90% of the responses offered are merely a form letter.
Read through the archive and reply pointing out how the other 10% of actual responses with content make contradictory arguments.
And the spamming candidate has to pay to host all of this.
It would still be cheaper than TV/Cable advertising, though.
Simple Machines in Higher Dimensions
There is a freedom of speech issue here. If "political" spam - which is UE, not UCE, is exempted that is one less way for the authorities to crack down on dissent.
But do I hate spammers. I reckon 75% of email I receive on my main address is spam. This is what happens if you've had the same address for 8 years.
The real problem is how the e-mail address list was obtained - either through sites that didn't warn users that their e-mail will be used for marketing or through ones that tricked people with checkboxes set by default. Not too many people go to buy something on the web and agree to get political messages.
I think the real solution is to encourage people to fill in their e-mail address when they register to vote. If they do, they agree to recieve a limited number of e-mail messages (let's say, 3 per candidate for a given election). There will be a convinient way for candidates to check the database so that they can save money by not sending a dead-tree flyer to these people. Candidates will be publically ostricized for not checking the database and wasting government/donation money or for exceeding the limit on the number of messages.
One problem with spam is that different people define spam in different ways.
If I used your definition (bulk email from a stranger) then it could prevent me getting emails I am interested in.
For example, if a new company I had never heard of had developed a new programming tool then I would not object to an email from a real person at the company advertising the product, who had found my email address from my web site and so knew I was a software developer. Your definition would also prevent me as a software developer from sending out emails to selected development managers at potential clients to make an initial contact.
What I define as spam is email from unknown people doing any of the following:
- faking the email headers
- using open mail servers
- advertising illegal products (child pornography, Nigerian scam, network marketting scams)
- advertising products that I can not possibly be interested in (e.g. financial services in countries I don't live in).
I think that just stopping the ones with faked headers, open proxies and illegal content would block the majority... then other bulk mailings from real companies would be easily traceable and should have an opt-out policy.
So it should be illegal to advertise illegal products (presumably it already is in most countries!)... and it should be illegal to deliberately fake email headers, use proxy servers or use other techniques to mislead the recipient about who has sent the email.
I copied this sig from someone else (but where did they get it from?)
For not placing or enforcing policies when people started complaining about Spam.
The reality is, using e-mail to get the word out about canidates, policies, civic issues would be a great use of the Internet.
But so many spammers have left such a bad taste in consumers mouths that if and when a politician does it, it could only spell disaster for their campaign.
It reminds me last election. I hadn't really looked at the local canidates, but it's a pretty small city, and your vote does count. I received a phone call one evening, during dinner, with a chatty person on the other end asking me if I would vote for canidate X.
I said 'hold on, let me get a pen', and asked him to repeat her name. Then I informed him that I don't, or ever will solicit or support any telemarketer, and would make sure that I did not vote for that canidate. I then politly said goodbye.
She lost.
The truth is, I really don't know if she was a good person, or would have done a good job. All I know is, I'm steadfast to equate telemarketers with scum, and have the same feelings for spam.
Any unsolicited email--email that I didn't ask for--from a politician will ensure they will not get my vote.
The Internet is generally stupid
Heh... welcome to Slashdot.
That does it. I'm adding "the" to my list of filter words. I always knew it was the only way to really avoid spam in my inbox.
In the USA, the odds are about even that any political spam you get was at least partially funded by an RIAA/MPAA member.
It gives you a reason to vote for the opponent of whoever's sending it.
For a politician with a clue (yes, there are a very few), it's also useful. If a political consultant proposes it, he knows to fire the imbecile and hopefully, the consultant will go to work for the opponent. . . sinking the guy's campaign.
So political spam indeed serves a useful purpose. It tells you that the politician it promotes is an idiot without having to do the ordinary work required to get the candidate's position on the issues that matter to you.
A spammer politician is not going to be proposing or voting for a repeal of the DMCA.
Tech Public Policy stuff
If they are so in favor of spam, then I'll just send them mine. I wonder how they would like receiving over 100 peices of shit every day. These guys act as if it's no issue to constantly be deleting hundreds crap e-mail just to get to a few of the ones that are legitimate.
I wonder how they would like their mail boxes flooding with crap?
PGA
Let me get this strait, they're defending the person who sent out an unsolicited mass email to every email address they could get their hands on that might have been in california -- with such brilliant tactics as assuming any email address ending in .ca was from california. (.ca.us perhaps, but I've never met anyone who uses one)
I think I'll read my sample ballot and look for their web page if I'm interested, when I'm insterested.
...to kill politicians : the Gods of Spam made me do it !
:)
Good thing I don't live in the US, I'd already have the SWAT surrounding my house for posting this
You will possibly still have Chinese spam, but have hardly any useful mail (assuming that you speak english).
(a)(4) Communications regarding Laws, Governmental Regulations, Policies or activities.
You don't really need any more clauses. As written this is a giant loophole, simply mention a law, regulation, policy, etc and you can then say whatevert you like.
So, a politician distributing his campaign through unsolicited e-mail wants to be cut a little slack - after all, it's not commercial.
But what's the difference between "Buy this!" and "Vote for me"? Both are asking you to do something which benefits them. And whilst this may not be 'commercial' in the truest sense of the word, it is certainly the case that he wants you to do something for him.
The only solution is to say no to any form of unsolicited mail. I'm not surprised (and I am glad) that a politician was lambasted for 'spamming' voters. Though I'm not sure I approve of the use of 'spam' here - to me, spam has always meant 'unsolicited commercial e-mail', it doesn't mean that it's right.
Can we expect the same people who: -Can vote themselves a raise any time they want -Have "special" health care the general public envies, but can never obtain -Take buckets full of money from the same interests they are legislating for/against -Are holier than thou when it comes to anyone ELSE'S indiscretions, while working feverishly to cover up their own ...to actually legislate themselves out of ANY possible political advantage, one-ups-manship, double-standard policy that comes across their desk???
I think not.
Later, I started getting compaints from several at the college I work at. He was spamming all employees. I sent him another e-mail asking him to voluntarily stop sending the messages to everyone in the college. I told him if he continued, I'd be forced to esclate the issue to my superiors for action and that would make this a real political mess.
So he writes back to me and the college's attorney and threatens us with legal action. I never threatened to block his e-mails, yet he felt a need to send the following:
I was basically told to back off by our legal council, and I did, despite my personal feelings about the issue. Some other techs that report to me got his spam and tried to educate him how to use the Internet as an effective communication vehicle for his campaign, one which wouldn't piss off everyone. He refused to listen to them. So right away, before he's even near being elected, he refuses to listen to his potential constituency and rejects expert advice. Just what we need, another narrow-minded lawyer in the U.S. Congress. His e-mail also stated:
Thank you so much for the valuable advice. Every chance I get, I'm doing just that. Now I get to post to slashdot about it -- and even remain on topic!
So, if you live in Delaware and are a Democrat, I encourage you to go to the state primaries on September 7. I'm going to cast my vote to hopefully help ensure that he doesn't get past the primary. If you'd like to hear his side of the story, his website address is bienerforcongress.com and his e-mail address is stevebiener@aol.com.
I got several copies of the infamous Bill Jones political spam even though I live in Florida and use a mailserver located in Virginia. And those spams came to me through an open relay in the Far East, not from an address identifiable as one associated with the Bill Jones campaign. I have since received polispam (nice new word, eh?) from several ultra-right Republican candidates in the midwest. They used honest "reply to" addresses, but I am nowhere near these candidatates' districts, so the only good they did by sending me spam was create potential donations -- for their opponents.
The only legitimate way I can see to send bulk political email right now is to buy lists of registered users from *local* TV station, newspaper, and other media Web sites. This way, almost all recipients would a) Either live in or be interested in the area in question; b) Be more interested in news than the average person, and therefore more likely to vote; and c) might have a fighting chance of already knowing about some of the local issues, which would mean *informative* polispam sent to them would probably not irritate them very much -- unless they strongly disagreed with positions held by the sending candidate, and in that case they would not view his or her polispam either more or less favorably than they'd view his or her brochures, TV spots or direct (postal) mail.
Careful targeting is the key to efffective polispam. Right now, for all I know, half the Korean language spam I get is "vote for me" messages. I also have a horrible vision of 1000+ candidates for the ~435 U.S. Congress/Senate seats all spamming the whole world constantly. Add in the many special interest groups (and even ordinary interest groups) that always have something to say about a campaign, and you'd have email pipes all over the world clogged with polispam for months before every U.S. election.
Now imagine a democratized China.
Scary.
- Robin
If this happens, expect viagra vendors, multi-level marketers, Nigerian political refugees and horny animals to start _running_for_office_. Bingo!
It's like they believe spam lists are some big list hanging in the supermarket window that you can walk by and cross your email address off of. Are they honestly so clueless they think people that subscribed are the ones that are complaining? If people subscribe to spam, it isn't spam, it's a mailing list and even if it accidentally gets red flagged, you can white flag it with any decent filtering software.
And that isn't even covering the you can delete it without opening it ignorance. Look up POP3 sometime. Maybe people don't want to pay your connection costs to access their email. Some people pay alot, even voters to access their email from hotel phones, wireless PDA services, overseas phone lines. Excellent way to anger consituents.
Never confuse volume with power.
So why not make a parody web site of his web site, but called something like bienerforspammer.com or bienerisaspammer.com or some such name. Of course, buy commercial hosting to run it and only access it from home, not work.
And be sure when you talk to people about his actions, you make sure they understand that free speech is fine and all that, but theft to accomplish it is still a crime. Do I get to steal a printing press just to put my message out? No. And so, I do not get to hijack a server, or a mailbox, which is intended for other things. Note my signature.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Isn't it ironic that the story does not give the email addresses of the authors? Is it that they don't want to receive unsolicited email?
Also, I tried the link to the LA Times posted earlier, but it required registration. That usually doesn't bother me, but the registration REQUIRES disclosing my annual household income and my phone number. To me, that is too much.
And one more thing. Could you perhaps post the Received: headers of the spam he sent, so we can see the backtrace of it? Some of us might want to pre-emptively block a known spammer.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I tried telling him something along those lines as well. His response to that attempt at reasoning was:
I guess, using that logic, I should be able to check out a state car from our fleet services and use it to spread my own political message, since it was paid for with state taxes and I helped pay for it.
His argument is weak in my opinion, because much of the computing infrastructure we have was paid for out of private grant money from businesses in the state and not taxpayer money. Other portions was purchased via tuition money and technology fees from students. Yes, some was paid for out of state general funds, but certainly not 100% of it. And even if it was, I, as a citizen of this state, can't just walk into a state building and start using things, like copier machines and computer equipment, for my own political speech.
But IANAL and he is, so obviously his interpretation must be the correct one.
Bill him for the bandwidth he's stolen and the hassles caused in handling it.
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
I know this post comes late in the game, but I haven't seen this point made in the above, so I'm going to shoot, FWIW.
The article opines that
Mike McCurry's and Larry Purpuro's point is that since we don't mind carrier mail spam we should be open to email spam.
The problem, thouhg, is that many of us do mind carrier mail spam, and we mind it very much
Email hasn't been around for all that long, and until recently (about 1998), email was not a venue for mass marketers. Email was a sanctuary from spam, a place where we could get away from advertising. Many of us resent commercial intrusion into our email because we are sick near to death of the rampant advertising in every other aspect of our lives.
The way that quote should be read is that people are sick of most mass marketing. We don't want email spam and, God only knows, we don't want carrier mail spam, either.
mistersquid
blog
not manor. A manor is where Bruce Wayne lives. ;)
the other clauses are there as a buffer so that no one bothers to read all the way down to #7.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
I like the new word, but think it might be missing something, like maybe a "t". How about "politspam"?
Another point that the article fails to mention is that, for the most part, every politician who sends political spam is going to piss off far more voters than he will win over. At this point it becomes another example of nature weeding out the stupid. Assuming they run the rest of their campaign the way they run the email portion, they will lose and we won't get any more email from those jerks. That's the difference between the two--commercial spam pays, political spam doesn't.
If the only input from potential candidates to political office is a "mass e-mailed" request for votes, I'm sorry to say that only demonstrates how much effort said candidate will put in for the people the represent.
While their SPAM may cut their campaigning costs, a candidate who doesn't put enough effort into meeting their voters should never represent them.
>> "all the usual Mom-Flag-&-Apple-Pie cliches...cynical...condescendingly..."
Next time someone claims that Slashdot is a news site and practices journalism, take a look at this biased, unsubstantiated intro. At least the staff is smart enough to actually quote the submitter so they can defend themselves against libel and slander. Since this is a filtered site, though, my assumption is that this piece represents the opinion of Slashdot and OSDN.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
- I am not sure what type of action you are threatening, but you should be aware that, under Title 42, Section 1983 of the United States Code, any person in a position such as yours who deprives a citizen of the United States of any right secured by the United States Constitution is subject to liability in legal actions.
Does anyone know of such a law that exists in Canada? I am in a similar role as the original poster's (network admin/postmaster for a university) and I routinely blacklist addresses and sometimes entire domains that spam us. Am I breaking any laws?Cheers,
Jason.
(Some wank modded the earlier version as "overrated" when it didn't even have a rating, so I'll risk it again.)
The article opines that We believe e-mail is no more intrusive than direct mail, telemarketing or TV advertising when it comes to politicians seeking to reach voters.
Mike McCurry's and Larry Purpuro's point is that since we don't mind carrier mail spam we should be open to email spam.
The problem, though, is that many of us do mind carrier mail spam, and we mind it very much
Email hasn't been around for all that long, and until recently (about 1998), email was not a venue for mass marketers. Email was a sanctuary from spam, a place where we could get away from advertising. Many of us resent commercial intrusion into our email because we are sick near to death of the rampant advertising in every other aspect of our lives.
The way that quote should be read is that people are sick of most mass marketing. We don't want email spam and, God only knows, we don't want carrier mail spam, either.
blog
With politicians getting into the computer spirit, how long until we hear something like this during a debate?
"I knew Linus Torvalds. Linus Torvalds was a friend of mine. And, Senator, you're no Linus Torvalds."
These two authors, no matter their prior credentials, are obviously naive or simply inept, IMHO. Why do they think a political exemption would be with a candidate alone? As soon as that exemption is granted, then every supposed 'grassroots organization' (including parties of one though more often funded by anonymous groups with political agenda's) would necessarily have to be provided the same exemption to present their view. And each would have their own 'opt out' requirement, meaning it'd never end. Each candidate, spam email and their opt-out. Each organization that has a poticital view, more spam and each with their own opt-out. After all, with the cost of email, as stated, being so low, it won't only be the highly funded 'special interest' groups that present contrarian view or those funded with 'soft money'. To stop policital email to candidates ONLY would obviously be frowned upon by the Supremes. These guys, IMHO, can't see the forest for the trees, are just too naive and midguided, OR, simply working for their political benefit and don't give a damn about the end result, as long as they get their little 'exemption'. (I won't give my opinion on that one, but I sure have one. I don't think they're rocket scientists.)
You don't fool us.
The piece is clearly labeled as "Opinion", unlike /.'s intro to this thread.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Slashdot is a commercial enterprise. A glorified BBS that preaches to the geek choir to increase its revenue. A very few people publish a very few pieces submitted to them. it's in OSDN's financial interest to deliberately fan the flames among this crowd.
/.'s own editorial stance because the site lacks the courage to created Slashdot editorials.
We have know nothing -- but can infer a great deal -- about
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
If someone can put a dollar figure on how much it cost them to receive the mail - then potentially, since this was not paid by the candidate it could be considered a donation - and what type of donation is it? Since each candidate has to account for every donation this would be a logistical nightmare.
...
Are political donations tax deductible - it would be nice to claim a tax break to cover received spam
If Bill Jones is a victim that only made a few mistakes then Ted Bundy is also a victim that only made a few mistakes.
Politics are complicated. It takes a lot of effort to be an informed voter in the US right now. If we could set up some kind of central government site that has listings for upcoming elections and a small section for each candidate, and maybe links to some good political comentary, it would make being an informed voter that much easier. And it would change the current "buying the votes" situation a tiny bit.
But I have to agree with the cynical guy above. It's just too good to be true. It's something that would greatly help the voters and the underdogs, two things that no politician wants, because he wants an easy re-election, not a fair contest.
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
After the presidential elections in 2000, I tried to get my name off the mailing list at "echampions2000.com," where I had subscribed just to be entered for some sweepstakes. However, none of the "you will be removed if you do this" URLs or email addresses worked, over a couple of months.
Finally, in October of last year, I sent email out to gopteamleader@gopteamleader.com, dns@rnchq.org, ipadmin@gblx.net, abuse@rnchq.org, abuse@gopteamleader.com, abuse@gblx.net, abuse@rncmail.org, abuse@verio.net, postmaster@rnchq.org, postmaster@gopteamleader.com, postmaster@rncmail.org, abuse@onr.com, abuse@texasgop.org, postmaster@texasgop.org, and some individuals and consultants who I found through SOA searches and whois records, complaining about the situation, and asking each company hosting servers or IP for these guys to look into this.
I did finally get a message back from one of the webmasters, who promised me that my name would be removed. He was from the Texas GOP site, though, so I wondered if he really could remove me after the fact from the national organizations he had shared my name with. None of the carriers, of course, bothered to answer; having seen from the ISP side how these complaints get handled, I added them only to show the spammers I meant business.
Everything was fine until March or April, when I started getting spam again. I've been Spamcopping it since then, though now that I'm playing with SpamNet, I'll probably just filter and forget, until the point I kill the account to which they are sending, anyway.
Get off my launchpad!
Make Money Fast with Herbal Viagra Printer Cartridges from Nigeria Now!
Pursuant to Bill HR69, this email conforms with Bill HR69 by mentioning Bill HR69.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
By this reasoning, it should be illegal to filter any spam. Score one for the penis enlargement lobby!
I encourage you to exercise your First Amendment rights in speaking out against my e-mails. Write letters to your newspaper, send an e-mail to your colleagues, but do not try to act as a censor for the entire college community. It is violative of my First Amendment rights. It is also a disservice to those in the college community who do not object to receiving my e-mails and who want to participate in the marketplace of ideas.
Now, combine this with the first statement and you could have some fun. Cut off any spam filtering you have in place and be sure to let everyone know that you have taken this action because Steve Biener warned you that there could be legal consequences if you "act as a censor for the entire college community" and prevent people from receiving this "marketplace of ideas" that he has associated himself with. Be sure to suggest that they let him know how grateful they are that he helped you see the error of your ways.
his e-mail address is stevebiener@aol.com.
Since Steve likes spam so much, I just reconfigured spamassassin to forward everything with a rating of 15 or higher directly to him.
Thanks, Mr. Biener!
I recently had some Steve Biener guy spam me with his election pitch.
Who is his leading opponent? I'd like to send a check for $20 to him/her and send Mr. Biener a nice e-mail explaining what I did and why. I don't live in Delaware, but this is worth a Jackson.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I'm glad he sent the spam. It made it that much easier to vote for Bill Simon in the primary.
"Before you take any action that interferes with my First Amendment rights, please consult with counsel for the college."
IANAL, but if I remember correctly, the right to free speech is the right to say/express your opinions without fear of being censored. It makes no guarantees of being heard, nor does have any provisions for making others to distribute your opinions for you.
What always amuses and confuses me is that there is a huge outcry against e-mail spam, but not against paper advertising.
Personally, I don't like either(I don't know of anyone who does), but I find paper advertising a whole lot more annoying than e-mail spam. With e-mail spam, I can normally tell with certainty its spam before I read it, if I'm not certain all I have to do is click on the e-mail and I get the preview. If it is spam, one touch of my delete key and its gone. I can also set filters on my e-mail client fairly easily to trash a lot of the truly obvious spam without me ever seeing it and to highlight the obviously important messages.
I don't have any of these with paper, physical marketing. Sometimes I can tell its obviously marketing without opening the envelope, but not always, so I often have to physically open the envelope. Then if it is trash, physically put it in my waste paper basket and eventually physically empty the trash.
I hate e-mail spam, but I can tolerate it more easily than I tolerate physical ads in my mail.
Ironic that the article was trying to advacate someone getting unwanted email as being acceptable because you can just delete, but when I close the window to the article I get a very in-your face banner ad.
You should send complaints to the ISP hosting his website. Do so in an 'unofficial' manner.
Your university's council is ill-advised. Steve Biener hasn't a legal leg to stand on even if you do block his IP at the router, because 'free speech' does not entail the right to force yourself to be heard. Tell him that, complain to his ISP and get his website shut down.
I'm currently waging a battle against http://www.praise-jesus.tv/. They seem to think that the First Amendment prevents their ISP (a non-government agency) from terminating them for theft of service and trespass to chattel (citing a court case that made no such decision). I am going to send a deluge of complaints to qwest.net until that website is a smoking crater.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
The hole in that argument is that it actually is illegal in most places to post campaign signs on pubic property. Roadside signs must be placed on private property by the owners of that property. Part of the reason for this is that public property is paid for by the public, and using public property to advocate any single candidate violates the right of some members of the public not to advocate that candidate.
In any case, it looks like Mr Biener's campaign is as clueless as he is. 3 weeks to the election, and his "website" is still not finished. Not to mention the hit counter standing at 900 or so.
Mr. Biener,
One of your constituents, a Mr. Weaverling, recently posted a message on Slashdot (http://www.slashdot.org), a technology news and discussion forum, in which he described your use of unsolicited e-mail communication to disseminate your political views, and his unsuccessful attempts to explain why your actions are unwise.
I'm writing you to support Mr. Weaverling's position and arguments, and to offer some suggestions on ways to minimize the offensiveness of your spam, if you insist on sending it. I also want to describe the action I intend to take to support your opponents.
I have been a heavy user of e-mail for over a decade, and I'm very concerned by the recent surge in unsolicited commercial e-mail, and the even more recent appearance of unsolicited political e-mail. Like many people who've had a stable e-mail address for a period of time, I now receive dozens of unwanted messages every day, and have had to resort to all sorts of automated and manual filtering processes to avoid being buried in unwanted and irrelevant e-mail.
What makes spam attractive for both commerce and politics is that it appears to have very low cost. In fact, it does have very low cost -- for the non-selective sender. This is because the recipient bears most of the burden, a situation which almost begs for a Tragedy of the Commons effect. The nature of the spam (political or commercial) does not change this fact.
I looked at your web site and while your message is somewhat interesting, if the cost of lowering political dependence on campaign contributions is yet another massive influx of unsolicited e-mail, then I'd prefer to make campaign contributions. You may see this as an unreasonable position, particularly since you yourself probably don't send out huge numbers of messages, but keep in mind that you are not alone. If this becomes a popular method of spreading a political message, every city councilman, sheriff, assessor, congressman and senator will being burying us in messages we don't care about.
I would prefer that political spam not be eschewed completely, if you insist on sending it I would recommend that you follow these guidelines:
1. Please mark your spam as such in the subject line. I recommend something like "UNSOLICITED E-MAIL: ". This makes filtering much easier.
2. Please ensure accurate targeting. This places a much larger burden on you, but spam which has some relevance to the recipient is less offensive.
3. Make it very, very easy for someone to opt out of your mailing list.
One final note: I am going to find out who your primary opponents are and send a small donation to each of their campaigns. Further, I have also posted a message on Slashdot (read by some 300,000 people daily) and recommended that they do the same. Those of us who will suffer most from spam must do what we can to discourage it.
Thank you,
Shawn Willden.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Since he using a protect first admendment right to send email to all the college community you be so advised that you are depriving, hundreds if not thousands of other individuals, companies, pron artists, and p*nis enlargements their first admendment rights. So to comply with the the god given rights of every american you must not only allow any and all email in you have to give us their email. If you don't it is like you are blocking these citzens from hearing our voice. So do the right thing, the american thing and please post you and all your fellow employees emails on the home page for all to see, thank you and god please america!
If anything, ban unsolicited automated email, not unsolicited commercial email.
So if I want to advocate a particular political candidate, I should send out particularly annoying spam for his opponent.
Sounds good to me!
Jason, as far as I can tell you are in no danger. 42 USC 1983, the "civil action for deprivation of rights" section (I think it is part of the famous Civil Right Act... I'm not a U.S. lawyer) seems to have no parallel in Canada, notably none in our provincial human rights codes. Of course, since we don't actually have much free speech in Canada, it doesn't matter anyway.
Your university will probably have a human rights code which you should be aware of; it may deal with speech issues which as a network admin you may need to be aware of... Canadian law is particularly draconian in dealing with situations where someone is told something they think is hurtful.
Biener is being typically lawyerly and attempting to intimidate weave. The idea that Biener could sue him, or his college, for spamblocking and win is utterly ridiculous, any more so than that he could sue and win if he were thrown out of a college cafeteria for screaming his campaign slogans in people's faces.
As has been pointed out above, parties and even state entities are perfectly allowed to make reasonable regulation of the *manner* of speech employed within their purview. There is no content regulation going on here; this is regulation of manner.
Sure. I saw 'malda@slashdot.org' in the header, along with someone @eff.org.
Also, you might want to block all traffic coming from RedHat.com and the various mailing list servers the kernal developers use.
Becauz I'll forge that up for you as soon as you give me the opportunity.
His leading opponent would then have an additional $20 to pay the boiler-room operatives who he's obviously employing to spam people in the name of his opponent.
Thanks, guy.
So right away, before he's even near being elected, he refuses to listen to his potential constituency and rejects expert advice.
Expert advice? *laughs* Expert at what? Eating jelly roll doughnuts while trawling Slashdot??
Mike McCurry, former press secretary for President Clinton, is CEO of an advocacy management and communications software company. Larry Purpuro, the former Republican National Committee deputy chief of staff, is founder and president of a political e-marketing firm. This was written for the Los Angeles Times.
... it's in their best interest. However, spammin me will not help you secure my vote.
Consider the source of this commentary: two former political aides. Of course they want exemption from spam laws
To make matters worse, at least had he sent dead tree media in a nice white #10 envelope to my mailbox, i could recycle it. But what in the hell am i supposed to do with this trash folder?
The most striking indication that these fools have not done their homework is that they do not seem to grasp that spam is a method, not content. Their entire argument hinges on the concept that what makes e-mail "spam" is merely what it says, not how it was sent, or how it unfairly transfers costs. This is absolutely not the way things work, and the reason why I (as an NSP abuse team lead) have taken every action possible against any political or non-profit spammers on our backbone. Spam is an unacceptable means - what you happen to say with it is irrelevant to me.
Actually, reading the thread gave me an idea. If we send attack emails in the next campaign those public officials will have a much different view on spam!
The standard law -- spammers must honor opt-out requests, with penalties (civil or criminal) for those who continue to send spam to people who have opted out -- would surely hold up, but who among us wants to opt-out with each and every current and potential candidate for political office (not just in the USA, but around the world)?
And there is also a long tradition in support of anonymous political speech in the USA, which naturally presents a new set of issues for those who choose to distribute attack ads, slate cards, or whatever, anonymously via spam.
I've actually thought since 1995 that the internet provides a unique and wonderful opportunity for effective political campaigning, at least for candidates who have more substance than fluff (perhaps that answers my question -- very few candidates really want close scrutiny).
And most intriguing here, apart from the notion of anonymous attack ads, is the common practice of "political dirty tricks." Imagine if a supporter of the Republican candidate sent a broadcast-spam purporting to favor the Democratic candidate, in order to generate negative responses? What if the same fellow goes one step further, launching an "obvious" forged spam on behalf of the Republican candidate, in order to make people think that the Democrat is a dirty trickster?
And the dirty tricks are almost limitless. One common technique is the "election-eve attack" in which false (often ridiculous) rumors or reports are circulated, with the hope that the person who hears it will not hear any rebuttal. Imagine a flood of emails on the evening before, and the day of, an election campaign.
Wow.
A mostly-unrelated story: I once got a brochure in my BankAmerica statement, urging me to vote against an anti-ATM-fee ordinance in San Francisco (I don't live there and can't vote there). The brochure contained false statements -- among them, a false claim that BofA doesn't get any fee from other banks when customers of other banks use its ATMs, apart from the surcharge fee (in fact, there is a system of compensation and fees, and of course there are banks like Washington Mutual which are satisfied with those inter-bank fees and don't charge any surcharge to other banks' customers using its ATMs). I called the SF election office, and was told that no action can be taken, even against clearly false campaign statements like this one. In other words, lying is actually okay!
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
'Cuz ALL those are trivially filterable with /.*ADV\s+.*/i /ADV\s+.*/i would be easier on the machinery, I suppose.
Though
This could maybe even be done at the ISP level?
Has anybody ever tried a class-action suit against a spammer?
What if _everyone_ sued Empire Towers, for a dollar each?
Millions of plaintiffs could probably be found.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
No one likes commercial spam. It is irrelevant and untargeted and can be highly intrusive and even offensive.
...and political spam (especially from a right wing fundamentalist zealot like Bill Jones) isn't irrelevant, untargeted, and highly intrusive?
True, we can just hit the delete key, set up a spam filter, etc...but the fact that spam is cheap is exactly what makes it untargeted, and the sheer volume makes it highly intrusive. And I pay for that internet service, damnit.
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
Just like being able to DoS peering networks trading in illegal music, I'd like the law to open up to allow me to DoS spamming networks. That way when the Republican Party's mail server goes down in flames they won't beable to toss my ass in jail.
This will happen, political and religous speech has always enjoyed 'special' privliges. Rightly so, IMHO.
With that in mind, we should write our representitives and try to get them to lay som,e ground rules, I recommend the following:
1)It can only be sent from a campaign office.
2)it can only be an 'ad' for the canadate that office represents.
3)it must have a clear identifier i.e. "this is a political email for x"
4)it must have a valid return address.
5)it can only go to people within the canadates area. i.e. govenor can only send email to the state he wants to governs.
number 5 is a tough one, And I would give it up as part of a comprimise, but the others are a must.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
SPAM me with you political campaign and I won't vote for you. If I opt-in to you campaign then send me all the email you want.
It's the votes they want. *shrug* That, so far, is still your choice. Even if all the choice sometimes really suck.
I just thought I'd chime in about this sort of spam. If I get one or two of these all the rest will be history. Why? Well, I wrote my own Bayesian filtering program in Java for IMail after seeing the article on it 2 weeks ago. It works amazing, better than I expected, my whole company gets no spam, and we were 4 people who got about 200 spams/email viruses a day (yeah the progrma can filter email viruses too). Anyway, Bayesian filtering is the way of the future, spam would go away overnight if everyone's client or server did this.
He has a point. You are trying to quash his first amendment rights. Just becuase it's an email system doesn't make it better.
Spammers already overgraze the email commons, but somehow these guys think that because political spam is a different beast, it will all work out.
The internet is not a commons. It is privately owned by the ISPs.
The paper/station charges what they need to run their business. With spam the spammers creates costs that they don't have to pay.
Spammers do pay, they pay their ISP. You don't complain about the fact that the newspaper advertisers don't pay for the extra gas that they cause the truck drivers who deliver the newspapers to pay, do you?
I pay for cable, does that mean I should get spam, often referred to as 'commercials'?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
newspaper advertisers don't pay for the extra gas that they cause the truck drivers who deliver the newspapers to pay
Sure they do. Newspapers pay for the delivery and therefor pay for the gas. The newspapers factor all their costs into their advertizing rates. Spammers do NOT in any way pay for my connection delivering the spam to my computer.
It's like saying that in order to get paper mail from Aunt Amy I have to pay 50% postage due on all the junk mail I get.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
sure, if everybody was you, that is how it would work
most people i.e. most voters, either don't relize the costs involved, or the costs there ISP charge them include overhead costs, such as bandwidth issues caused by spam.
so to them, Its a good thing.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I do this type of work as a side-line (campaign consultant, mostly on technical issues). I don't allow campaigns that I work with to send out mass email, but I do provide for an opt-in list for people who want to be informed.
Political campaigns sending spam is about the same as unsuspecting businesses sending spam: they are mostly so technically inept that they don't even know it's a bad thing. It's up to people like me to advise them agains this practice, and it won't hurt if the rest of you register your disapproval with polispam whenever you receive it.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
be sure to send everybody at your college a way to block his email, should they chose to exercise it. also ask anybody who doesn't like wasting there time to email this guy tell him to stop sending them his email. ;)
If that doesn't work, contact aol, and report him as a spam abuser.
also post his email on public site...oh wait
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Sure they do. Newspapers pay for the delivery and therefor pay for the gas. The newspapers factor all their costs into their advertizing rates. Spammers do NOT in any way pay for my connection delivering the spam to my computer.
Sure they do. The ISPs factor all their costs when allowing spammers to connnect to their networks.
It's like saying that in order to get paper mail from Aunt Amy I have to pay 50% postage due on all the junk mail I get.
No it's not. There is no postage due on email. There are incidental costs to the ISP, just like there are incidental costs to Mailboxes Etc. when you send junk mail to someone who has a mailbox there.
the other clauses are there as a buffer so that no one bothers to read all the way down to #7.
And, of course, no one bothers to note that there is no #5 either. But I'm being too picky...
This is not my sig.
spam people in the name of his opponent.
Nope. He admits that they are his e-mails. He's trying to run a campaign without accepting donations. Spam is his cheapo means of advertizing. He's just another spammer who thinks what he's doing is ok.
With payments and spam, there are significant externalities- costs which don't go to the people benefiting. With newspapers most costs are internalized. With spam, most costs are externalities. If a factory is spewing its waste directly into a river, the fact that it pays its workers doesn't mean it is paying for that pollution. Spammers pay for their connectivity (although many scammer spammers do not- they use stolen credit cards), but the don't pay for the costs of floods of bounces, etc.
THANK YOU!
Almost every post here is about the Spam angle and not the original angle: the author "is founder and president of a political e-marketing firm" .
Very few seem to apply any scrutiny anymore. I missed it.
Well done!
This is not my sig.
The candidate/spammer the article discussed got his ass kicked. By everybody. People didn't appreciate his "vote for me" any more than they appreciate "herbal viagra" spam.
Tech Public Policy stuff
A good set of essays on the costs of spam, and possible non-law-based solutions, can be found here. A list of costs is found in 7. Why spam is evil.
The "Viagra" advertised in spam does NOT work. You either get nothing for your money, or you get a fake immitation. You also land on sucker lists, both snail and electronic. When will people learn that spam = scam.
While we're at it why not make graffiti legal
for political campaigns also? It's not like it
costs a building or home owner anything to have
graffiti on his building unless he's such a fuss
that he wants to remove it. And in that case how
much does a little paint-remover and a rag cost
anyhow???
If everyone who received spam (political or otherwise) didn't just delete it, rather cut&paste the originators web page into a browser (being sure to remove any identifying code), went to the spammers web site, found a "Subscribe to email" box and, once there, placed the email address of their congressmen, governors, mayors, etc. in the boxes...
I wonder how longer it would take the politicians to enact decent anti-spam legislature...?
(On a side note: If media companys can attack Joe Blow Kazaa user, does this mean I can attack spammers? Oh, Pretty Please?!?)
I don't think that congress is familiar enough with the subject to make a accurate assessment.
Therefore I encourage everyone to create a auto forward rule for any unsolicited email to their local representation in DC or a mailing list that covers both houses. I think once the politicians are fully aware of the issue they will change their viewpoint.
What you'll get in your email is not informative messages, you'll only get party propaganda. You need to find a source of information that is [mostly] unbiased if you wish to make decisions at the polls.
Californians: http://www.calvoter.org/
Michiganders: http://www.michiganvotersguide.org/
For some somewhat biased information there is always:
USA: http://www.aclu.org/
USA: http://www.voteenvironment.org/
Vermont: http://www.vacv.org/
New York: http://www.nylcv.org/
You can use a search engine to find more information. Some of these groups are funded by the state, some receive private funding. As with all political things, it's good to follow the money. (calvoter.org is good because they emphasize who gets money from whom and how much).
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
There is a feedback area for this article... The article is crap, so tell the editor why don't you?
The ISPs factor all their costs when allowing spammers to connnect to their networks.
That's why I said 50% postage due. The ISP connecting the spammer to the network is only HALF the trip. And what about MY ISP? They are still billing ME for carrying the spam the other half of the trip.
So yes, e-mail does come with 50% postage due. No matter how you do the math, even if I pay for flat rate monthly service, my ISP passes these costs on to me.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
...that just about every spammer, and many Internet users, tend to forget.
(1): Contrary to popular belief, the Internet is not now, nor has it been since its inception, truly "public domain." It remains today, as it was in its beginning, a vast network of privately-owned systems, data lines, network hardware, etc., the owners of which are gracious enough to allow others to use in exchange for monthly fees appropriate for the specific type of access in question.
(2): The ability to send E-mail is a PRIVILEGE, just like driving. It is not in any way a right, as many (mostly spammers) seem to believe. This privilege is subject to revocation, by ANY SysAdmin who chooses not to receive or pass E-mail traffic from any given sender for any reason.
(3): In the context of spamming, the content is 101% IRRELEVANT. The keyword is CONSENT. I don't care how much spin the political parties put on their spam; They're still selling something (themselves, specifically), and asking for your "payment" in terms of your vote, unless you explicitly asked them, in advance and with foreknowledge of what you were getting into, to receive their spew.
As others have pointed out, any "exceptions" made for political spam will likely set an awful precedent that could legitimize that which is illegitimate to begin with.
Oh, and I will add that any political party that tries to spam me will lose both my vote AND further access to my mail systems. Permanently.
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
And what about MY ISP?
They get the benefit of a peering agreement with the spamming ISP. Besides, if you're not smart enough to hook up with an ISP which profits off spam, that's your problem.
No matter how you do the math, even if I pay for flat rate monthly service, my ISP passes these costs on to me.
I disagree. If the benefits of a peering arrangement exceeds the cost of the spam being sent from that arrangement, the ISP will not enter into the agreement.
the burden of providing bandwidth for all of the trash political email which will come out of these campaigns will tax us all.
Lawyers are just dumb about technology. Here is some evidence of that. In this article a lawyer turned technology writer who runs a server still has no clue about how a mail server can be an open relay, and even how the law applies (e.g. he gave permission to test and that implies using standard and conventional methods).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Here is another example about how a lawyer (turned technology writer) can still be totally clueless, not only about the technology (e.g. any spammer can forge his domain to use his mail server), but even how the law applies (he gave permission to test for open relay, and it is common and standard practice for such tests to perform, in a non-malicious way, every known technique that a spammer might perform). By the way, I wrote that guy a long and detailed letter, in a non-threatening and non-abusive way, simply describing to him all the details of how it all works. To date I have not received a reply. But it's probably because his mail server is still an open relay, and still listed in one of the DNSbls I use.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
charge them 1000 bucks per spam and their elections are doomed...he he exactly as it follows: Legal Notification: C/C: Federal Trade commission, Regarding unsolicited commercial e. mail From the following E. Mail Address: your mail account@your e. mail provider.com I do not want to receive uninvited solicitations by email (``Junk Email''). I am unwilling to receive Junk Email freely because it costs me time and money. If you send me any Junk Email other than on the terms of the offer set out in the following nine points, I will take this to mean that you plan to use what I offered you without paying for it. If you ever try to do this I reserve my right to take any action available to me without further reference to you. Actions available to me include taking proceedings against you for negligence or breach of contract, which may result in substantial damages being awarded against you by a court. The unauthorized use of my computing facilities may even be a crime. 1. I offer to receive all further email from you on the terms set out below. If you send me any solicitation by email without my express prior written consent this will be taken as your acceptance of this offer. 2. For the purposes of points 3 and 4, you will be taken to have sent any email sent by any entity apparently associated with you for the purpose of sending email solicitations. 3. You must pay one thousand (1000.00) US dollars for each such item of email that you send me. 4. You must pay me one thousand (1000.00) US dollars for each copy of each email solicitation that you send to anybody or any email address referred to below, even if you don't send a copy to me. You may also have to pay other persons as well if they have sent you a similar offer. 5. I may join with any of those persons for the purpose of efficiently collecting your payments. 6. You must mail payment by certified check to me within five working days of the transmission of the email. If you do not know where to send payment, you must state this in the email and give me an easy way to tell you. 7. Each email item must be uniquely identified, and each payment must clearly identify the relevant item or items. 8. You must tell me your name and full business and residential addresses in each email message. 9. I may vary the terms of or terminate this offer at any time (even after you have accepted it). Any new terms will apply to all email you send after you have been notified of a variation. your name The copyright of the above text is held by Junkbusters Corporation and is used here in accordance with the GNU General Public License, copies of which are available at www.junkbusters.com or from the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA kill economically the spammers
"Pandora" is a codeword for the doomsday weapon to be unleashed when spam is legalized and filtering is outlawed. The idea is that email will be destroyed for commercial, as well as personal purposes. The reaction from commercial interests will be to go back to the previous status quo as soon as possible, just to get their email abilities back.
I'm not a US resident, although that won't necessarily protect me from American political spam. A few questions...
- What is the law on write-in candidates ?
- Are they considered equal under the law ?
- Is every adult US citizen allowed to run in their state ?
Now for the killer question... what would happen if several thousand "fringe candidates" started *MASSIVE* email campaigns, and concentrated on just the mailservers used by the main candidates ? How long before they waved the white flag ?
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
The cost of any internet communication is split between the two parties. One pays to carry the data from his computer to the internet, the other pays the get the data from the internet to his computer. The spammer is forcing anyone who connects to the internet to pay half of the costs of carrying his spam.
Actually spammers pay less than half the cost. A large percentage of spam is sent to invalid addresses, has invalid headers, or otherwise fails. This creates load on the target domain and more load on the internet backbone than if it had been delivered. These costs are not paid by the spammer, they are spread out across everyone who uses the internet as increased overhead and prices.
They get the benefit of a peering agreement with the spamming ISP.
Chuckle, I'd consider a peering agreement with a spamming ISP a rather dubious "benefit". Most ISP's actively try to block sources of spam from their networks. Secondly there is no peering agreement with the spamming ISP, or are you going to claim AcmeISP has an agreement with every ISP in the world?
Besides, if you're not smart enough to hook up with an ISP which profits off spam
LOL. Resorting to calling me stupid? Why would I want to use an ISP that would only make the problem worse? My e-mail is already swamped with about a dozzen spams for every legitimate e-mail, and I've been very careful to keep my address private. I have reason to believe spammers first hit on it through a brute force attack on every letter combination@mydomain. Yes, that means many millions of bogus e-mail attempts. Not only that, but I don't want my outgoing e-mail getting bounced by other ISPs because there's spam coming from my domain. (Happened briefly until my ISP killed the spammer or open relay.)
If the benefits of a peering arrangement exceeds the cost of the spam being sent from that arrangement, the ISP will not enter into the agreement.
An ISP by definition must have a connection to the internet somewhere. Connect to the internet anywhere and the spam will route to you. Your argument boils down to "the value of the internet" is higher than the cost of the spam. That's like saying oxygen has more benefit than the the cost of breathing pollution, so quit complaining about the cyanide I'm dumping into the air and into your lungs.
The biggest problem is really the time consumed. Lets assume that it takes one second on average to spot that an e-mail is spam and delete it. One million spams take the recipients a combined ELEVEN AND A HALF DAYS to delete. Spammers spend a few hours setting up bulk mailers that send out a COUPLE OF MILLION SPAMS PER DAY. A single spammer in his spare time can easily consume the cumulative equivilant of an entire lifetime of other people's lives just deleting it. That is a major cost of spam that the spammer doesn't have to pay. I don't want to pay that cost.
And don't try to compare it to other ads. When I see a TV commercial it is because I initiate contact by choosing to view that TV channel, and the ad pays for the show I want to watch. Same goes for magazines, newspapers, and websites with ads. Spam does not pay for any part of my internet connection, it makes it more expensive.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
These costs are not paid by the spammer, they are spread out across everyone who uses the internet as increased overhead and prices.
I see no reason to believe that. If your network carries a lot of spam, it's simply not going to be worth as much to peer with.
Chuckle, I'd consider a peering agreement with a spamming ISP a rather dubious "benefit".
Then why do ISPs do it? I'm not going to question the wisdom of an ISP which voluntarily peers with a spammer. If they choose to enter into such an agreement, that's their liability, and no one else's.
Most ISP's actively try to block sources of spam from their networks.
Unless those sources are bringing in income.
Secondly there is no peering agreement with the spamming ISP, or are you going to claim AcmeISP has an agreement with every ISP in the world?
AcmeISP is buying service from SpamFriendlyISP, which is in turn buying service from SpamFriendlyFriendlySuperISP, which is in turn selling service to YourParentISP, which is selling service to YourISP.
LOL. Resorting to calling me stupid?
I didn't mean it personally.
Why would I want to use an ISP that would only make the problem worse?
I fail to see how using a spam-friendly ISP such as Verio would make your problem worse.
An ISP by definition must have a connection to the internet somewhere.
Right, and they are paying for that connection.
Your argument boils down to "the value of the internet" is higher than the cost of the spam.
Not exactly. I'm saying that the cost of the spam is a factor of the peering agreement between the spammers ISP and the "parent" ISP. If you allow a spammer to connect to your ISP, you have to factor in not only the increased bandwidth for yourself, but also the degraded reputation you will have for your parent ISP, and in turn the peer to that ISP, etc., all the way to the spam recipient. No one is required to accept your spam-ridden bandwidth, regardless of whether or not you are the one actually sending the spam.
That's like saying oxygen has more benefit than the the cost of breathing pollution, so quit complaining about the cyanide I'm dumping into the air and into your lungs.
No, it's not, because oxygen is a common good for all, it is not a privately owned and contracted for resource. Another major difference is that pollution kills people, whereas spam merely annoys them. Again, I think a better analogy is someone who has a Mailboxes Etc. account and receives junk mail. The junk mail sender is not paying Mailboxes Etc. directly, but they are subsidising the entire mail system by paying a partner of Mailboxes Etc., the USPS.
The biggest problem is really the time consumed.
I agree that the detriment assigned to the time consumed vastly overshadows any detriment in terms of bandwidth used. I just don't think it's appropriate to blame the time consumed on reading spam any more than it is to blame the time consumed on reading stupid slashdot posts, or watching television commercials, or reading newspaper ads. ISPs clearly profit off spammers. If they wouldn't they would have tougher policies against spam.
And don't try to compare it to other ads. When I see a TV commercial it is because I initiate contact by choosing to view that TV channel, and the ad pays for the show I want to watch.
When you download a spam it is because you initiate contact by choosing to download that spam, and the ad pays for the internet connection you are using to download the spam. Every single individual step in the spam's delivery is a voluntarily entered into contractual arrangement. The fundamental assumption of capitalism is that people will only enter into contractual arrangements which benefit them. If at each step there is a mutual benefit, then how can there be an end-to-end detriment?
Spam does not pay for any part of my internet connection, it makes it more expensive.
That's where you and I disagree. If spam made your connection more expensive, then ISPs wouldn't allow spammers (or spam-friendly ISPs) on their networks. Further, there would be ISPs out there which do not offer email at all, which would therefore not incur this spam-carrying surcharge.
"Spammers do pay, they pay their ISP. " And then overuse the shared subnets which exist between them and the recipient. Subnets which are owned by others and for which the owner is not compensated proportionally. The "commons" here refers to the internet as a whole, not the ISP's pipe into it.
Good to know the guys w/ guns are anti spammers ...
http://www.sgtstryker.com/weblog/archives/week_200 2_02_24.html#000498
And then overuse the shared subnets which exist between them and the recipient. Subnets which are owned by others and for which the owner is not compensated proportionally. The "commons" here refers to the internet as a whole, not the ISP's pipe into it.
First of all, the internet is not a "commons". A "commons" belongs to the public, and anyone in the public is free to use it as they see fit. In order to use the internet, you need to pay someone money.
You could argue that your email mailbox is a commons, because anyone is free to put email into your mailbox. But your mailbox is only a commons because you choose to make it so. You can't have it both ways. If you want your mailbox to be a commons, then you will suffer the tragedy of the commons. If you don't want your mailbox to be a commons, then you need to restrict access to it. That's pretty simple, really, just have a simple sign-up form for access to your email mailbox. Have them "sign" an electronic contract not to spam you, and give them a unique address to contact you at. Have fun.
Mailbox Etc: The costs of creating and sending a piece of mail far exceed the costs of recieving and disposing of a piece of unwanted mail. This places the primary burden on the sender where it belongs and keeps the burden on the reciever solidly in check. Not to mention the fact that Mailbox Etc rests upon a well functioning system where 99.99% of all mail arrives at your doorstep free.
You keep equating no spam with no e-mail, or no internet connection. As far as I can tell just about all your arguments are equally (valid/invalid) for junk faxes. Junk faxes are ok, otherwise people wouldn't have fax machines and telephones. FAX.COM has a contract with a phone company, you have a contract with a phone company, the phone companies have contracts with eachother, therefore you requested junk faxes.
I just don't think it's appropriate to blame the time consumed on reading spam
I never said READING the spam. I said one second to spot and delete it. Barely time to see the subject and sender. If you work on the assumption that the spam gets read then a single spammer with a single week's worth of spam could consume something like an entire lifetime of other people's time. All for what? Maybe $1500 if he does well? Is a lifetime worth $1500? The cost to other people far outweigh his profits, therefore society has a valid interest in preventing it.
It's the same reasoning that makes fax-spam illegal. The costs that the recipient incurs actually exceed what it cost to send. The benefit to society of any resulting economic transactions is out weighed by the costs imposed on society. Expecially since those costs are distributed unfairly.
The issue is that automated generation of millions of messages is dirt cheap yet generates crushing costs to deal with it manually. Imagine a spammer on mere dialup sends all his messages to one person. He spends a few hours setting it up, then goes on vacation in Las Vegas. The results are obvious. The spammer pays for and saturates his connection which saturates the target's connection. Finding any legitimate mail requires several employees to man the computer in shifts, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week doing nothing but spotting and deleting spam at 1 per second. The target paid for his connection, but the spammer consumed 100% of it. Spreading the spam across a million targets instead of one actually increases the cumulative costs of dealing with it because it can't be dealt with as efficently.
download a spam it is because you initiate contact by choosing to download that spam
The spammer is initiating the connection to my address. He wants to reach me. Try applying your logic to junk faxes, did I initiate the contact by paying the phone company to deliver calls to my number?
the ad pays for the internet connection you are using to download the spam.
Bullshit. Ummm, can I say "bullshit" without it sounding like a flame? How about "that statement is 100% false and I can prove it"?
The money paid for the spammer's connection does not magicly follow the spam to pay for delivery at the target address. Proof: Spammer grabs the cheapest connection he can find. Maybe he finds a spam friendly ISP, maybe he plays wack-a-mole with cheap dial-up, maybe he abuses an open relay. In any case his cost-per-meg is the same or lower than a typical home connection. Now, lets assume today's random target domain is a mailserver for a scientific team in a remote area of africa. Their internet access is going to be quite costly per meg. The cost of the spam delivery can easily be many times higher than what the spammer paid to send it. No matter what faultly logic you try to use though chains of contracts and reputation costs, the simple fact is that the delivery cost was more than the spammer paid, therefore the spammer could not possibly have paid it.
Spammers like to look at TV advertizing and think that they are exactly the same, TV comercials are unpopular but they are OK, so spam is OK too. You completely ignored or failed to grasp the difference between ad supported content and spam. TV comercials pay for the creation of the show and they pay the show's broadcast costs. Spammers have no relation to the value content in e-mail. They do not pay my friends to write my valued e-mail, nor do they pay for my friends' connections to send me valued e-mail.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
With spammers, N becomes N+1,000,000. One spammer uses up the resources of a thousand non-spammers without paying for it. Again, the shoplifting analogy: all the costs of shoplifting are internalized at some point, *but not by the person doing the shoplifting.*
Actually, a commons, as studied extensively after TOTC was written, can be owned by a family, a village, a neighborhood, or a nation. The important point is the change that occurs when N users become N+1, and the commons cannot sustain itself.
That's just not how the internet works, though. In a commons there is no limit to how much a single person can take from the whole. In the interenet, there are many limits. Spam is illegal under many contractual agreements. Bandwidth is commonly charged for, or at least limited. These are the solutions to the tragedy of the commons, and we are already implementing them. Yes, more pressure should be put on ISPs to refuse to allow spam on their networks, and to enforce contracts which state that. Major ISPs should insist that smaller ISPs keep their networks spam free, and insist upon insurance bonds to pay for the damages of spam. That'll get them to really quickly limit the amount of email that can be sent from bulk emailers or get a security deposit from those who do legitimate bulk emailing.
Most of this is already being done. The rest is not because people have come to accept spam, and aren't demanding more from their ISPs. Meanwhile, the ISPs are profiting off of spam, as the service contracts they give to spammers and others who profit off spam (such as referral programs) fetch them a lot of money, money which they commonly are forced to pay to their parent ISP, and their parent's parent ISP, etc, to the peering arrangement with the two megaISPs, both of which profit off spam in this manner.
What most certainly shouldn't be done is for anyone outside of the group of people sharing the commons to get involved, other than to enforce contracts.
The costs of creating and sending a piece of mail far exceed the costs of recieving and disposing of a piece of unwanted mail.
But that cost isn't paid to the person receiving and disposing of the piece of unwanted mail. Are you suggesting that we should raise the price to send email? To a large extent I think this is already done, actually. Bandwidth prices for spammers are already very high.
You keep equating no spam with no e-mail, or no internet connection. As far as I can tell just about all your arguments are equally (valid/invalid) for junk faxes.
There are two major differences with junk faxes. First of all, there are actual costs of receiving a junk fax - paper, toner, etc. Further, at the time of the junk fax law, the phone company had a government granted monopoly on phone service. Now that this is not the case I think we should gradually move to eliminate government intervention in the phone system.
I never said READING the spam. I said one second to spot and delete it.
I would contend that it takes a lot less than one second to spot and delete spam. But still, I don't think you can factor that cost in. It's too incidental.
The money paid for the spammer's connection does not magicly follow the spam to pay for delivery at the target address. Proof: Spammer grabs the cheapest connection he can find. Maybe he finds a spam friendly ISP, maybe he plays wack-a-mole with cheap dial-up, maybe he abuses an open relay. In any case his cost-per-meg is the same or lower than a typical home connection.
I certainly don't condone breaking your contract with an ISP or abusing an open relay. In the first case, the reputation of the ISP will go down, and its costs to the parent ISP will go up. The ISP is then free to sue the spammer in court to recover those damages and punitive damages on top of that. In the latter case, the spammer could probably go to jail, in addition to a civil suit by the person running the open relay.
As for a spam-friendly ISP with a cost per meg anywhere near that of a typical home connection, I don't believe such a thing exists. If it does that spam-friendly ISP will surely go out of business very quickly, and if they breached the contract with their parent ISP (which they almost surely did), the parent ISP can sue them.
Now, lets assume today's random target domain is a mailserver for a scientific team in a remote area of africa. Their internet access is going to be quite costly per meg.
They shouldn't be accepting emails from random anonymous internet users.
They do not pay my friends to write my valued e-mail, nor do they pay for my friends' connections to send me valued e-mail.
They almost certainly do, because somewhere along the chain, either your friend's ISP, or the parent of your friend's ISP, or the parent of that ISP, etc. Somewhere along the chain there is an ISP which is profiting off of spam, and in turn that ISP is able to lower the costs to its non-spamming sibling ISPs, and so on down the chain.
You seem to be saying that the fact that spammers shift the costs away from themselves isn't that important, because the costs get accounted for somewhere. But the original design of the internet (I maintain my end, you maintain yours, it'll all work out) wasn't designed to account for spammers.
And, of course, no one bothers to note that there is no #5 either.
:)
I'd like to say that was intentional to let the 'conspiracy advo^H^H^H nuts' have some fun...
But then again, if I did that I would just as full of $hit as most politicians. I guess you can leave it as "I just can't count".
But that cost isn't paid to the person receiving and disposing of the piece of unwanted mail.
Repost the rest of my paragraph: This places the primary burden on the sender where it belongs and keeps the burden on the reciever solidly in check. Not to mention the fact that Mailbox Etc rests upon a well functioning system where 99.99% of all mail arrives at your doorstep free.
If that wasn't clear enough: in postal mail the vast majority of the burden is on the sender, therefore the sender cannot cause substantial harm without bankrupting himself and ending the problem. With E-mail the vast majority of the burden is on the receiver. The sender can cause unlimited harm with profits of 1/100th of a cent per e-mail.
Are you suggesting that we should raise the price to send email?
No, but to look at your suggestion, 1/2 cent per e-mail should solve the problem. The real costs aren't that high, meaning it would have to be an imposed fee. Bad solution.
Ahh, but half that rate is adaquate if it is credited to the receiver. I'm certainly willing to give my friends a 1/4 cent with each e-mail I send. Now that *is* a good solution. We just need an internet micropayment system in place first. I'd be facinated to hear you oppinion on this plan. Be careful to note that it applies to everyone equally, not just spammers. A global opt-in system. Anyone using the system would either bounce or silently drop any e-mail without a micropayment attached.
There are two major differences with junk faxes. First of all, there are actual costs of receiving a junk fax - paper, toner, etc. Further, at the time of the junk fax law, the phone company had a government granted monopoly on phone service.
It doesn't matter if the data is carried by carrier pigeons and regulated by the Pope. The the problem is a sender using automated generation of huge numbers of messages and placing the burden on the receiver. I don't care how it gets there, floods of crap to my fax machine is a problem.
As to actual costs to the reciever: My e-mail trash folder currently has 99 spams in it. Average spam size: 5.39k. This article quotes a spammer as sending up to 50 million spams per week. 5.39k * 50 million is 257 gigabytes. Most of the people who get spam are on dialup. You are looking at thousands in real cash costs.
The federal government saw fit to assess a $1500 fine per junk fax. (All fax spam is indeed a willfull violation unless you made an honest mistake such as mis-dialing.) Would you be happy setting the fine for spam at 1/100th that? $15 per e-mail?
I think we should gradually move to eliminate government intervention in the phone system.
I read that as an indirect request to repeal the law against junk faxes. Perhaps you think they are going to pay my phone bill for me?
I would contend that it takes a lot less than one second to spot and delete spam.
Seperating spam without losing legitimate mail is non-trivial. Spammers want you to open the mail and try to make them look legitimate. The average is easily 1 second, expecially if you have to open any to check.
But still, I don't think you can factor that cost in. It's too incidental.
That is nothing short of willfull blindness.
1 second per spam at minimum wage is over $50,000 in labor costs just to delete one spammer's batch-of-the-week. Plus the cost(harm) of any legitimate mail accidentally deleted because of it. Seperating spam is a mentally intensive task, not something you hand to a minimum wage employee if you expect any accuracy.
per meg anywhere near that of a typical home connection
Do you have a price quote on spammer bandwith?
If you saturate dialup I calculate 0.2 cents per meg. But they are priced based on average usage, maybe 100 meg per month? $20 for 100 meg is 5 cents per meg. Anyone who saturates a home connection either gets cut off, or inflates the rate for everyone else. For commercial connections you *are* paying for the full pipe. Unless you're paying over $800,000 a month for a T3, or over $25,000 for a T1, you are paying less to send it on a commercial connection than people pay downloading it.
I certainly don't condone breaking your contract
Even if we assumed every spammer suddenly stopped using "dirty tricks", the internet is still a single pooled resource, GLOBALLY. You keep talking about contracts, well, for data entering the internet the only restriction would be the weakest contract in the world. Then it goes anywhere.
They shouldn't be accepting emails from random anonymous internet users.
Sounds like you conceed my proof that there is no convievable way the spammer paid for this spam to be delivered. Now to refute your reply:
#1 They don't know who who sent it until they receive it.
#2 Just because someone else pays more for service than you do doesn't give you the right to say they can't use E-mail.
#3 I maintain ALL mail delivery is paid for by the receiver. This case just makes it blatantly impossible that the spammer is paying it.
>do they pay for my friends' connections to send me valued e-mail.
They almost certainly do
For starters they would have to pay double normal comercial rates just to cover the spam delvery. Ten add the ISP's increased costs associated with hosting spammers (see below). Then add every company along the chain would pocket a little more profit. Then anything above that could go towards lowering other peoples rates. But if everyone else's rates are subsidized as you claim, the spammer would have had to pay MORE than double the commercial rate back in the first step to reflect the un-subsidized rate of delivery.
You seem focused on "spammers pay more". Did you ever consider that they pay more because the ISP has higher costs and headaches for hosting spammers? For starters they are going to pocket a bigger profit themselves, just because they can. Spamming is virtually the only task that will genuinely saturate a connection. They spend more on laywers. They may have to play wack-a-mole with their parent providers. They often have to change address ranges and domains. They get more complaints. They are a hacker/DOS target. Other ISP's often block their data. And, perhaps most of all, they loose their non-spammer customers. And who know what other costs, I'm not in the bussiness. It is also likely their parent ISP will have many of the same inflated costs as well.
Somewhere along the chain there is an ISP which is profiting off of spam
Yeah, someone makes a buck. It's a self-serving fantacy to think that that money goes to the people who get the spam. I think I've shown that home connections cost more than the spammer's connection, and I've definitly shown that the "incidental cost" is more than the spammer paid.
If this fantacy were true then no network would try to block incoming spam because it brings profit with it and lets them lower rates. Top level ISP's would have to charge higher rates to any ISP that blocked in-bound spam. LOL.
You also seem to have ignored my example to the spammer sending millions of spams to one machine. The effects are blatant when you consolidate them like that. The example is not unreasonable either. It isn't unusual for a spammer to send an entire batch to different names@somedomain.com, either names scraped from the web, or a dictionary attack, or even brute forcing names. It's quite possible that somedomain is one machine.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I read that as an indirect request to repeal the law against junk faxes.
Yes, I think the law against junk faxes should be repealed. I think the repeal should take place in 5 years, over which time the phone companies may come up with technical and contractual solutions to the problem.
Perhaps you think they are going to pay my phone bill for me?
That's certainly one possible solution.
Sounds like you conceed my proof that there is no convievable way the spammer paid for this spam to be delivered.
Clearly the spammer paid, unless s/he stole the connection. Was the amount s/he paid for the connection times the number of bits in the message divided by the number of bits s/he sent during the billing period equal to the amount that the person on the receiving end paid for the connection times the number of bits in the spam divided by the number of bits received by the receiver during the billing period? Maybe not. But there's likewise plenty of U.S. Mail which is sent from or to difficult to reach U.S. locations which costs a lot more than $.32 to deliver.
#1 They don't know who who sent it until they receive it.
Really? I know who sent all my solicited hotmail before I receive it.
#2 Just because someone else pays more for service than you do doesn't give you the right to say they can't use E-mail.
They can do anything they want. But they clearly have to pay more for it.
#3 I maintain ALL mail delivery is paid for by the receiver. This case just makes it blatantly impossible that the spammer is paying it.
At this point I've completely lost your point. What if I read slashdot from my $15 billion per bit internet connection? What if I read a slashdot post which is stupid? Is the person who posted it somehow responsible for ther $379 trillion that I paid to read his stupid post?
What if my email account is hooked up to a device which explodes whenever it receives spam? Is the spammer now guilty of murder?
We seem to be arguing in circles here. Instead of cutting up my statements maybe you should try forming a complete argument.
My complete argument is simple. Spam is not forced upon anyone. You voluntarily set up a system to accept email from random strangers. Therefore, unless the spammer has specific knowledge that you do not want to receive the spam, s/he hasn't done anything wrong.
His work e-mail is sbiener@cozen.com
>Sounds like you conceed my proof that there is no convievable way the spammer paid for this spam to be delivered.
Clearly the spammer paid
WTF? The only non-flame response I can make is that maybe you didn't read what I wrote very carefully. He only paid the cost to get it to the internet. There is no convievable way the spammer paid for this spam to be delivered. (The delivery cost more than the spammer paid his ISP.)
At this point I've completely lost your point.
You claimed that spammers pay the full cost of transporting the spam. Actually your claim went beyond that, saying that he was actually subsidizing everyone's service. My point was to prove it false.
My complete argument is simple. Spam is not forced upon anyone.
Right, spam is only forced on everyone with an e-mail address. Junk faxes are only forced on everyone with a fax. Pollution is only forced on everyone who breathes.
unless the spammer has specific knowledge that you do not want to receive the spam, s/he hasn't done anything wrong.
That's amusing. Spammers don't have specific knowledge that anyone doesn't want spam, but they have certain knowledge that 99+% of people don't want it, so it's ok? And any suggestion how I'm supposed to give every spammer in the world certain knowledge that I don't want spam? And do you have any doubt that basicly everyone else would do the same, killing the spam bussiness overnight? That is, unless they do something which, of course, you don't condone?
maybe you should try forming a complete argument.
How about I simply restate things I think you either ignored or failed to refute?
Spam is not like TV commercials - it provides no benefit to anyone except the spammer and to the ISP that serves him.
The problem is that automated generation of millions of messages is dirt cheap yet generates crushing costs to deal with it manually.
Spam comes with 50% postage due (or more).
I gave an example of a single week mailing from a single spammer being in the ballpark of a quarter terrabyte. The download costs of that are large.
I calculated that single mailing to consume $50,000 of minimum wage labor just to delete it.
The benefit to society of any resulting economic transactions is far out weighed by the various costs imposed on society. Society therefore has a valid interest in preventing it. Expecially since those costs are distributed unfairly.
I asked if you could quote how much spammer bandwidth costs.
You twice ignored my comments examining the situation where an entire batch of spam is received by one person. It makes the costs of spam obvious.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Spammers don't have specific knowledge that anyone doesn't want spam, but they have certain knowledge that 99+% of people don't want it, so it's ok?
Yep.
>they have certain knowledge that 99+% of people don't want it, so it's ok?
Yep.
Bzzzt. Wrong answer.
IANAL, But you might want to check out the legal term "willful ignorance" or "willful blindness".
As I understand it, it means that if you reasonably believe something is wrong and you intentially avoid the specific factual knowledge, you do not avoid the guilt.
There's currently no federal law against sending spam to people that you know don't want it, but if there were, that would be end of story.
I still perffer a technical solution (such as attaching micropayments to all e-mail) to a legal one because spammers would just send it in from outside the country.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
There's currently no federal law against sending spam to people that you know don't want it
No, but there is a law in every state against it, it's called harassment.
but if there were, that would be end of story.