Lessig Wagers His Job On Anti-Spam Theory

kien writes "Lawrence Lessig is betting his position at Stanford on his anti-spam legislative recommendations. From his blog:'First the analysis: Philip Jacob has a great piece about spam and RBLs. The essay not only identifies the many problems with RBLs, but it nicely maps a mix of strategies that could be considered in their place. But, alas, missing from the list is one I've pushed: A law requiring simple labeling, and a bounty for anyone who tracks down spammers violating the law. Here goes: So (a) if a law like the one I propose is passed on a national level, and (b) it does not substantially reduce the level of spam, then (c) I will resign my job. I get to decide whether (a) is true; Declan can decide whether (b) is true. If (a) and (b) are both true, then I'll do (c) at the end of the following academic year.' The Declan referred to in point (b) is Declan McCullagh." Update: 01/07 02:45 GMT by T : Speaking of whom, here is Declan's acceptance of Larry's bet.

Comments

First problem with this solution:

[swordboy]

Lawrence Lessig is betting his position at Stanford on his anti-spam legislative recommendations.

Umm...

You *don't* need LEGISLATION to fix this problem (isn't that what technology is for?). Fix the technology (or lack thereof), and you've fixed the problem. There are several very good ideas floating around out there that don't require an office of homeland spam in the whitehouse.

Stupid lawyers...

Re:First problem with this solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Name one technological measure which has a zero false-positive rate, a low false-negative rate, and a snowball's chance in hell of being adopted. The problem should address spam at the server side, since it's already wasting space by the time it's allowed onto a client machine.

Re:First problem with this solution:

[Mike the Mac Geek]

Yes, but the laws give it teeth. Software can cut spam, but more will come, in a never ending cycle. If we make it financially hurt people to send out pure spam, then we don't need to have software that could possible filter out vald mail at a prohibitive cost.

Re:First problem with this solution:

[GigsVT]

Show me one technological solution that will stop spam, that doesn't involve a constant cat-and-mouse game.

Re:First problem with this solution:

[Guppy06]

"There are several very good ideas floating around out there that don't require an office of homeland spam in the whitehouse."

What amazing reflexes you have in your knee-jerk reactions. You could have a future in television news. Just because there is a federal law passed on something doesn't mean there will have to be federal enforcement of that law.

Consider federal anti-junk-fax laws. If you get an unsolicited advertisement on your fax machine, the sender owes you $500, collectable through your local small claims court/justice of the peace/etc (if need be). Essentially, all this law does is explicitly spell out the rights of the owner of the receiving equipment and make it easier for the recipient to claim damages without having to carefully explain how junk faxing is essentially trespassing each and every time.

The FCC doesn't enforce this law. The FBI doesn't enforce this law. You enforce this law.

I personally think the idea of expanding the existing junk fax law to include spam would be easier to enact (add three or four words to existing law) and easier to enforce (track down spammers for a guranteed $500 instead of just a chance at $10,000), but I'm obviously biased.

Now calm down before you shatter your kneecap.

Re:First problem with this solution:

[swordboy]

Consider federal anti-junk-fax laws. If you get an unsolicited advertisement on your fax machine, the sender owes you $500.

If long distance faxing did not cost anything to the sender, then we'd all be getting spam via fax from China. US laws mean nothing to spammers.

Hell, there is nary a US provider that will carry a major spammer. How is a law going to fix that?

Re:First problem with this solution:

[arb]

On one overly spammed account, 23 people are on the white list, I get no spam.

And how do you expect to receive a surprise email from a college buddy you lost touch with 10 years ago? White lists only work if you have a clearly defined set of people who you wish to receive email from - they do not allow the possibility that someone will legitimately send you an email without you having added that person's email address to your list.

Re:First problem with this solution:

[sfe_software]

Name one technological measure which has a zero false-positive rate

Bayessian Classification

a low false-negative rate

Bayessian Classification

and a snowball's chance in hell of being adopted.

Mozilla has (very preliminary) Bayessian classification. So far, that part works great - not a single false-positive in weeks of use (I've been using it since 1.3a was released), and once they add the ability to auto-mark-as-read and move/delete SPAM, I'm all set.

The problem should address spam at the server side, since it's already wasting space by the time it's allowed onto a client machine.

I'm not sure if you are referring to the origin server, or the receiving server (in which case it has already wasted space/bandwidth), but the receiving server could easily implement Bayessian filtering as well. It would take some work on the part of the clients to make it work (or perhaps simply forward junk mail to a local address that classifies it as SPAM?)...

I personally am okay with doing this in the client, as long as the Mozilla team continues to improve this feature. Currently I'm still interrupted and must mark the messages as "read", but eventually I won't have to ever see SPAM.

I'm normally not all that fanatic about software or software-ideas, but Bayessian filtering just plain works. If some implementation were to add common word-groups instead of just word occurrances, it might even be more rock-solid, but even as it stands in Mozilla's implementation, it has serious promise.

Implemented as a Perl script on the server-side, one could easily eliminate the problem all together for each user (since everyone has a different idea of what constitutes SPAM).

A classic example of this: Yahoo mail uses a more global approach to SPAM classification (BrightMail I believe). Unfortunately the RedHat Eratta mails fall into the Junk folder, since apparently many Yahoo users consider it SPAM. Similarly, I still get "notification@mailsweeps.com" SPAM in my inbox, no matter how many times I report it as SPAM.

This is where Bayessian filtering, which works on individual users, solves the problem.

Anyway, if it isn't obvious, I'm all for using technology to solve the problem, especially now that a very promising technology is currently available. Legislation won't help, unless it's globally enforced, and even then it still won't help much. Bayessian lets the user define what he or she considers SPAM, which will vary from user to user, making it the most logical approach IMO.

Re:First problem with this solution:

[Sheetrock]

A decent idea I've seen along these lines (barring your third criterion -- but I remind you we're still waiting for things as important as IPv6 to be deployed) has to do with requiring the sender of an e-mail to generate a computationally-expensive hash collision, dubbed 'hashcash', of the message that is computationally-inexpensive to verify by the systems forwarding the message to its destination. In a nutshell, a computer sending e-mail can be required to spend an arbitrary amount of time to generate this data, as the alternative would be to have the mail discarded by any mail server/relay implementing a check for the data.

There are more details here. Obviously, there's more to creating a workable system than this, because such an atmosphere would make it impossible to run a large-distribution mailing list, but it should be possible to get around such problems with a little ingeniuity, such as allowing the recipient of such mail to exempt certain IP addresses at the mail server from having to generate hashcash. My favorite part of this scheme is that, implemented properly, it could stop spam before it leaves the originating ISP.

Re:First problem with this solution:

[Mr Bill]

If a SPAM doesn't appear in my inbox, was it ever sent?

By the time the SPAM gets filtered by your mail reader it has already done lots of damage. SPAM costs ISPs money in time, bandwidth, and storage space. Where do you think that extra cost is heading. Right back to the end user.

There are many solutions out there that can limit the amount of SPAM that appears in your inbox (like bayessian filters), but that isn't enough to stop the SPAM problem. It just puts a band-aid over it...

Re:First problem with this solution:

[SpaceLifeForm]

It is a band-aid if few people use it.
However, if enough people (and ISPs) use it, then the effectiveness of spam will be reduced, possibly to the point that many of the spammers give up. It's too soon to dismiss a possible solution.

Re:First problem with this solution:

[Guppy06]

"Hell, there is nary a US provider that will carry a major spammer."

Then explain to me how this guy manages to make all his money. Or is Louisiana no longer part of the US?

Just because spam comes through off-shore relays doesn't mean it originated off-shore.

Re:First problem with this solution:

[Mr Bill]

Do you think that the .002% of the morons that actually click through on these SPAMs are actually going to setup and maintain a filter? You have a higher regard for their intelligence than I do...

The uptake of SPAM is so incredibly small, and yet it is still profitable for these pricks. End user implemented solutions will only help reduce the annoyance of SPAM for that user, but I don't believe it will ever eliminate SPAM.

No spammer has ever made any money by spamming me yet, so do you think they will make less money if I filter their emails and never look at them?

Re:First problem with this solution:

[sfe_software]

If a SPAM doesn't appear in my inbox, was it ever sent?

In my opinion? No.

See, my bandwidth isn't much of an issue. I have DSL that goes largely unused. My server sits on a DS3 that, again, goes largely unused.

So for me personally, and all 300+ clients on my servers, the biggest problem with SPAM is the time spent manually classifying it, and deleting it. And being interrupted in the middle of something when the 'new mail' notification sounds.

So for me personally, Bayessian filtering offers enough of a solution to eliminate the problem as I see it.

I don't think we will ever fix the problem any further than that. Stopping SPAM will only happen when everything is controlled and regulated -- and I don't want to see that happen. I don't what "white lists", and I don't want to approve each sender, and I don't want to have to "sign" emails through a trusted authority.

I want to decide what I personally want in my Inbox and what I don't, and let my client sort it out from there.

Band-Aid(TM)? Perhaps. But anything further can potentially take away freedoms we currently have (like being able to send an email to an address found on a web site to ask a question or propose a business opportunity, without fear of being labeled a SPAMMER).

Re:First problem with this solution:

[sfe_software]

Just as an aside it's "Bayesian".

Crap, I've made quite a few posts with the double-S up to now... ugh! Gotta love Google Suggestions though :)

...the success of Bayesian Filtering is because it is rare:...

I'm not sure about this. The success of Bayesian filtering (rather, Classification) is that it learns what you, the end-user, considers SPAM. How does a SPAMmer learn what you, personally, don't consider to be SPAM?

Currently I get a TON of SPAM with "jm4n" in the subject (my most common email username), and often it sounds like a reply to a personal email ("thanks for your email! Look at my web site and see me naked!").

But the point is, since it learns, and it's completely based on individuals (rather than some generic description of what constitutes SPAM), it works rather well -- better than you might imagine. I suspect this will work in the future.

I also mentioned:

If some implementation were to add common word-groups instead of just word occurrances, it might even be more rock-solid

Currently Bayesian classification is extremely simplistic. It classifies word-counts, and figures if the word "Viagra" never appears in "real" mail, and often appears in "Junk" mail, then this is a key indicator that this is SPAM.

If this were extended to word groups (say, groups of words that appear together frequently, like "penis enlargement" or "work from home"), it could even be more effective. I'm tempted to work on some Perl scripts to implement this even further than what Mozilla does (and, being on the server-side, stop wasting bandwidth on my DSL; not to mention multiple-client compatibility)...

Re:First problem with this solution:

[ergo98]

I had a long winded reply regarding false positives and what they represent to even the best filtration (i.e. what happens when your filter is attuned to emails between you and your buddies, and suddenly a proposal comes in from an employer, or a partner, or a customer? This single lost email could be incredibly damaging) when I noticed this page that says it eloquently and thoroughly.

Re:First problem with this solution:

[sfe_software]

...what happens when your filter is attuned to emails between you and your buddies, and suddenly a proposal comes in from an employer, or a partner, or a customer? This single lost email could be incredibly damaging...

Personally, I will always at least review the subjects of the 'junk mail' periodically. Currently the Mozilla implementation doesn't treat Junk any differently, other than setting the flag. When it's able to "Move to Junk Folder" I'll still double-check.

The difference is, I can do that once per day. A quick scan of subject lines will rule out the vast majority at a glance (mentions of Viagra, Toner Cartridges, etc) and the questionable ones will get opened for further examination. I estimate about two minutes out of my day, on my own time, to make sure no false positives are in the Junk bin.

Beyond that, Junk mail coming in won't interrupt me while I'm working. I do occasionally receive important mail that needs immediate attention, and the absolute worst case scenerio (in my plan) is that an important message will be marked as SPAM, and only be seen by me at the end of the day.

In practice this would be very rare. So far, I've only had a couple false positives in the early beginning, and these were mailing lists I'd agreed to receive messages from that otherwise may have sounded like SPAM. Now these are getting through no problem.

So, end result -- I don't think Bayesian filtering is the end-all solution, but to be able to classify email upon arrival, and later double-check its work, is the best solution I've seen yet. Sure, some users will end up "trusting" it and might get burned, but that's their fault for putting too much trust into Bayesian (or any) filtering.

Re:First problem with this solution:

[casio282]

Hmm, would you mind sending me this post in an email? Never mind, don't bother. You mention "mortgages", "penis enlargement", and "Nigeria". It will never get past my Bayesian spam filter.

Thank goodness /. isn't a mailing list!

Re:First problem with this solution:

[WatertonMan]

I believe that Apple's spam filter in their default client is Bayesian. I've written a lot of Bayesian and vector space categorizers in my time. Yet I'm still amazed at how well Apple eliminates the spam. Thus far I've not had one mistake. The difference between using my Mac at home and using Outlook on my PC at work is night and day. I have hundreds of pieces of spam that get through Outlook's spam filters. (Rule based I believe)

Re:First problem with this solution:

[WatertonMan]

I pointed out Apple's Mail as an excellent example earlier as well. One point I should make. Unlike Bayesian filters that go through your POP server before you do, the fact Apple's is integrated into the Mail client makes all the difference. You can go into the spam folder and if there is a message that isn't spam, you tell the program and it updates the Bayesian tables. If you find one that Mail missed, you just right click and tell it that it is junk mail.

Apple has it set up in a very friendly way. It prompts you initially for mail it thinks is spam. At that point it has preliminary training from Apple plus whatever you give it. At a certain point it figures it is accurate enough and goes off on its own automatically.

As I mentioned, after a little training myself, it has yet to make a mistake. It is amazing what that does to your workflow!

Don't get me wrong. OSX Mail isn't a perfect mail client. It isn't aware of the blockquote HTML tag, for instance. And I hate how it uses a drawer that isn't resizable for its folders. Unlike the old Claris Mail it doesn't have scriptable triggers for certain mail events either. (Of course neither do most mail clients, especially on other platforms) But other than that it really is very, very impressive.

Re:First problem with this solution:

[mesocyclone]

I suspect Bayesian filter will only work for a while. Spammers have a lot of money, and they can use it to hire a lot of creativity. If Bayesian filters get very popular, spammers will engage in counter-counter measures, just like a lot of them have already done to other techniques (return address filtering, IP filtering, and these days, simple keyword filtering).

I would bet that it is relatively easy to make a bit of spam that would pass most peoples' Bayesian filters... since most people are fairly alike in their email - or at least there are large subsets worth going after.

Ultimately it will be sort of a Turing challenge - my spam filter vs. your spam trying to emulate any person (not every person) that I might ever want to get email from. Doesn't sound too hard to me!

As many have pointed out, the real problem with Spam is that it as is an economic activity where people other than the spammer pay most of the costs (externalitites). The cost of mass email is only going to get cheaper unless some pretty stern measures are taken. I like Lessig's approach. Make the bastards pay. They are stealing resources!

Of course, we should do the same thing to telephone spammers, but so far nothing has been done there. It is a lot easier to propose legislation than to get it passed.

BTW... I got one of those TeleZapper things (disclaimer: I have not finanical interest in the product). It really does reduce telephone spam. Unfortunately, like most technological solutions, it also has false positives. When the library computer calls up to let me know a book is available, TeleZapper freaks it out before it delivers a message (I know this from watching caller ID). [another aside, the Phoenix, Arizona public library is so primitive that it still can't send you *email* notifications!]

Re:First problem with this solution:

[Lozzer]

Would legislation cost me any less?

Re:First problem with this solution:

[poot_rootbeer]

No spammer has ever made any money by spamming me yet, so do you think they will make less money if I filter their emails and never look at them?

No, but they WILL send out more emails so they can continue making the same profit with the reduced response rates due to increased filtering.

Filtering is a band-aid, no matter how accurate or how transparent it is. The only real solution is to stop spam at the source. And while legislation is itself another band-aid (at least until a better mail system, one that's not susceptible to spammers' tricks, is developed and universally implemented), it'll at least reduce the bleeding.

something missed

[neildogg]

They missed the link to his idea

Since sentiment, but...

[Chester K]

While I appreciate Lessig's intentions here, it usually takes a bit more than a wager to get Congress to pass a law. Perhaps if he backed it up with some cash, Capitol Hill might pay attention.

First problem with your suggestion:

[achurch]

Fix the technology (or lack thereof), and you've fixed the problem.

Right up until someone comes up with new technology to get around your technology.

He's no fool... international?

[angst_ridden_hipster]

Because he knows that the legislation won't pass.

But if it *did*, he'd be majorly screwed, since a large percentage of the spam I receive, for example, comes from regions outside of the jurisdiction of U.S. National Legislation.

The spammers who are U.S.-based would merely move offshore. (Just think of the headlines -- evil legislation driving away lucrative American internet jobs ... joke, joke).

Re:He's no fool... international?

[JoeBuck]

Even today, a large fraction spam that appears to come from China, that arrives in Americans' email boxes, really comes from the US. It's US spammers bouncing it off of open relays in China.

Under Lessig's bill these US spammers can still be prosecuted.

Re:He's no fool... international?

[smallpaul]

The spammers who are U.S.-based would merely move offshore.

It isn't the person pulling the trigger on the spam that matters. It is the business sponsoring it. For most of these marginally profitable businesses, (penis extenders?) it would be easier to do something else rather than move offshore. Plus, the money has to get from US consumers to the people offshore. There may be legislative ways to make this difficult.

NATIONAL law will stop third-world spammers?

[BigBlockMopar]

You *don't* need LEGISLATION to fix this problem (isn't that what technology is for?).

Especially since the legislation will do nothing.

Here goes: So (a) if a law like the one I propose is passed on a national level, and (b) it does not substantially reduce the level of spam, then (c) I will resign my job.

The problem is it's being addressed on a national level. That won't stop the African scam artists "whose money is tied up" - hopefully their oppressors will beat them in the face with a rusty camshaft - or the Chinese wishes of good fortune and prosperity that I was continually getting from some shitty company selling latex products until I finally decided to blackhole China from my mailserver.

This might keep the Florida 21-year-old unwed mother of 6 children from spamming me from her dial-up ISP of the week. But the funny thing about national laws is that they don't apply outside the nation...

A Fairly Safe Bet...

[Greyfox]

I'd say that's a safe bet since Congress has shown no inclination to legislate anything about spam. Even if they did, they would undoubtedly go for some half assed bill with no teeth which would not qualify as anything he suggested. And even if they did, the next day every spammer on the planet would relocate to china.

A cute gesture, true, but ultimately pointless.

Rubbish

[CaptainSuperBoy]

Those are the same tired old complaints against blacklists, but now it looks like a 'visionary' has blessed them so everyone's going to ooh and aah all over again - "Now I get it, blacklists are bad!" Except they're not, and all the arguments he presents against them have been refuted in the past.

The point is, receiving mail is voluntary and blacklists are voluntary. If I'm an ISP, I damn well have a right to block all e-mail from China and Argentina and it has nothing to do with "geopolitics and democracy." Gimme a break! He's saying that developed countries are actually preventing more troubled countries from entering the democratic utopia that's supposed to be the Internet. Because 99% of the e-mail coming from those countries happens to be spam. The way he puts it, RBLs might as well be responsible for all the poverty and oppression in the world - how can we blame people, after all we took away their God-given right to send e-mail!

Listen to him complain about collateral damage - collateral damage is the point of blackhole lists! Damaging a rogue ISP's users is the solution, not the problem. If we didnt' punish these ignorant subscribers they would continue supporting spammers. Every subscriber to a spam-friendly ISP is voting with their dollars - for spam. Rogue ISPs have proven that they will not act against spammers until they are financially threatened, and the only way to do that is to damage their user base to the point that they start losing subscribers. Collateral damage IS the point of blacklists - otherwise they're useless.

He also exhibits a fundamental misunderstanding of blackhole lists, lumping them in with open relay lists. SPEWS doesn't list open relays, and this entire rant is tainted by the fact that he seems to think all blackhole lists do is block open relays. Relays are just one small source of spam. Spam-friendly ISPs are a greater threat to the well-being of e-mail, by far.

Answer me this Mr. Jacob, where will our utopian "geopolitics" be when the entire e-mail system is destroyed by spam? Hey, at least we didn't silence any of the poor starving people in third-world countries who were just dying to send their democratic message of hope and peace. Oh, what was that inspirational message from that wide-eyed Argentinian eager to join the global village? The message is "CUM-GUZZLING SLUTS LOVE THESE HORSES."

Re:Rubbish

[PMuse]

Listen to him complain about collateral damage - collateral damage is the point of blackhole lists! Damaging a rogue ISP's users is the solution, not the problem. If we didnt' punish these ignorant subscribers they would continue supporting spammers. . . . Rogue ISPs have proven that they will not act against spammers until they are financially threatened, and the only way to do that is to damage their user base to the point that they start losing subscribers. Collateral damage IS the point of blacklists - otherwise they're useless.

How is the collateral damage caused by blacklisting any better than what the RIAA proposed to do under Berman-Coble? If we're the good guys, we have to do it right.

We condemn the government when it punishes innocent people because of whom they associate with. We condemn our neighbors when they deride people solely because of where they live or shop. We do not punish the innocent for the actions of the guilty just because the innocent are easier to find and hurt.

Collateral damage is a poor justification for blacklists. Do we evict tenants who rent from slum-lords because the slum-lords are slum-lords? Do we burn down the apartments and cast the tenants out on the street hoping they'll exercise better judgment in choosing a landlord next time?

Of course not. We write laws guaranting tenants rights and do our darndest to see them enforced as often as possible. Spamming ISPs should be required to behave or face a the usual penalty -- fines or jail. If the fines are too low, raise them. If the (net)cops are too slow, set a bounty for private enforcement. Are there no geeks who will turn bounty hunter? I'll bet some of those who maintain blacklists would be just as happy with the business model of suing spammers for $500 /message. Collateral damage is NOT the only way to "financially threaten" spammers. If we can find a way to bomb them out of business and not explode so many civilians, isn't that a good thing?

Re:Rubbish

[Guppy06]

"Listen to him complain about collateral damage - collateral damage is the point of blackhole lists!"

And this is a good thing?

Let me modify a few of the nouns in your rant and see if you still agree with it.

Killing US citizens is the solution, not the problem. If we didn't punish these ignorant civilians they would continue supporting Israel. Every citizen of an Israel-friendly country is voting with their silence - for persecution. The US government has proven that they will not act against Israel until they are threatened, and the only way to do that is to kill civillians to the point that they start losing votes. Collateral damage IS the point of terrorism - otherwise its useless.

The ends do not justify the means. Innocent until proven guilty unless spam is involved? No thanks.

(Do I think RBLs are a form of terrorism? No. But I do not accept the idea that collateral damage is OK.)

Re:Rubbish

[sfe_software]

If I'm an ISP, I damn well have a right to block all e-mail from China and Argentina and it has nothing to do with "geopolitics and democracy."

And if I'm your customer, do I have a right to disable this blocking? I sell shareware and a lot of support email (and, though infrequently, legit registrations) come from these countries.

This is why I'm all for Bayesian filtering, since it's customized to each individual user. Not all customers of any ISP, no matter how small, will have the exact same idea of what constitutes SPAM... I don't want my email blocked because it comes from an RBL or a particular country.

Re:Rubbish

[djmurdoch]

And if I'm your customer, do I have a right to disable this blocking?

Of course not. But you do have the right to take your business elsewhere, if they don't give you that option.

Re:Rubbish

[sfe_software]

And if I'm your customer, do I have a right to disable this blocking?

Of course not. But you do have the right to take your business elsewhere, if they don't give you that option.

This is why I like Yahoo mail's method. Though it uses BrightMail, which isn't perfect, mail classified as "Junk" goes in the Bulk folder. I can then scan the subject lines or, if warranted, the email itself, to see if I agree with the classification.

But if I found that my ISP were doing some sort of filtering, keeping me from seeing email sent to me, I'd be furious (luckily I run my own servers so this isn't an issue). It's more like censorship in my opinion.

At the very least it should be *optional* and opt-in. Simply rejecting mail coming from a particular country is rediculous (what if I have friends/relatives there?).

Anyway, I certainly hope this practice is clearly disclosed upon signup for Internet service... and not buried in an EULA-type of document.

Do Bounties Actually Work

[CptnKirk]

Did bounties do anything to curb crime in the Wild West? Significantly? Plus way back then people only cared if the bounty was high. $100, $500, $1000 was a boatload of money back then. Heck if I could make that much now per message I'd be happy. But it won't happen.

We already have $50 per message laws on the books (at least in CA) and with the exception of a hand full of publicized cases, there has been little uptake.

In a world where one should be able to retire off the earnings of a family AOL account, it's a wonder existing laws aren't enough. It's simply too much work for too little return. It's too time consuming to plow through the forged headers, sue Yahoo for account information for user 123jlk213lkj and then still get nowhere.

If there was a tough national anti-spam law I'd support it. But for the love of God, give it teeth. Include a sliding scale for infractions ($500 for first, $5000 second, $50000 third). Include jail time for forged headers, and force persons operating under the "business relationship" clause to offer proof of such relationship in the message (at least a link one can follow to verify the relationship as well as request that the relationship be terminated). Require that the transfer of such a relationship be opt-in.

If this type of bounty system was put into place, the war on spam may actually be effective. Otherwise, good luck.

Re:On a *national* level?

[brain159]

I'll answer that in one word:

Ralsky.

Sting the bastards into oblivion

[Black Copter Control]

Some time ago I found that spammers had managed to hijack the Windows proxy set up by one company that I worked for. When I found it, they were essentially using the full 1.5Megabit pipe to pump spam into the universe. Given that they were hijacking the computers for financial benefit, this was clearly illegal -- both in Canada (where I live) and in the US (where they were doing most of their business).

This leaves me thinking: shouldn't it be possible to use the ham-fisted anti-hacking laws against these bastares??? Not for spamming, but for hijacking peoples' computers to do the spamming with. I'd love to treat these bastards to 6-10 behind bars. Far better than a $100K fine that would be little more than a locense fee.

I tried to get an agreement with the company for the right to sue on their behalf in return for me helping to lock down their systems... They didn't go for it. My alternative approach is that I'd like to set up a similar system, wait for them to hack into it, and then do a hunt for the bastards running the scam. Any holes in this plan? (other than the probable difficulty in properly trackingg these people down?)

Re:Sting the bastards into oblivion

[ryanvm]

Did they exploit the proxy or was it merely open?

I would contend that if someone configures a machine to provide services to the Internet than that person shouldn't be surprised if people start using it - invited or not.

I don't want to see legislation that turns a typo in your web browser into a federal crime.

Re:Sting the bastards into oblivion

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who hypothetically works at a Tier-1 provider who hypothetically has many spammers buying bandwidth, I can tell you that any spammers relaying off a 1.5 Mbps pipe are small fish. Most big fish spammers purchase 10-100 Mbps of pipe to the core at a time and use all of it. They don't bum bandwidth off other people's relays.

Of course, this highlights another point I think most people are not aware of. For network providers, spammers can be big business. Many of the bigger spammers purchase fatter pipes than many of the big technology-centric companies out there. As much as ISPs despise the headaches spammers bring them, spammers are also among their biggest clients. Spammers consume backbone bandwidth at rates that few other businesses do and this is translated into profits at a time when the ISP business is pretty rough. Since most ISPs require spammers to pay upfront for their bandwidth, this is a welcome addition to the bottom line. Obviously there are people sending spammers money or they wouldn't be able to afford these network pipes.

Sounds like this guy is going to be out of a job.

[theLOUDroom]

that is, even if the law was ever passed.

How can this guy forget that the internet is not contained entirely within the jurusduction of the US?

It's nor like the spammers need to move elsewhere anyways, all they need is some non-logging proxy outside US borders and they can post with impunity.

Let's not forget the number of spammers already located outside of the US, either.

The internet just does not work the way this guy thinks it does: there is never going to be a day when everyone just follows the rules and plays fair

The way to handle spam is not with laws, it's with technology. Legislative bodies move too slowly and don't understand the technology, nor the scope of the internet.

What needs to be used is a combination of many different technologies: filtering, blacklists, whitelist, etc.

The internet is a huge shared network. So big, that prentending that you can trust every node on it is moronic. Software needs to be designed to recognize when a node is misbehaving and deal with it as well as possible. This goes for not just spam but other types of internet abuse, such as DOS attacks, trying 100 passwords in a row, etc. If a computer is going to be connected to an untrusted network it needs to be able to properly handle all kinds of unwanted data. To me that's just common sense.

Fraud laws don't stop me from getting Nigerian scam emails, do they?

The best way to fight spam is to develop software that isn't vulnerable to it, just like we fix other vulnerabilities. The reason we have spam is because our software isn't good enough.

Think of an unfiltered email systen as accepting input from a web form without doing any checking on the data it's recieving. It leaves you open to tons of really easy attacks. (If someone puts a meg of text in a field and submits it, your cgi scripts are probably going to go apeshit.) It's just bad design and it's about time we fixed it.

Re:Please resign now

[argoff]

Right. So all your medical record will be free. And how many times you had a wank last week will be freely posted on Slashdot and be modded up or down. And any military or security information will be available for download. For Christ's sake, get a clue.

yes they will be once they're out there - it's something that can't even be helped now. your argument is a good one for using digital certificates rather than imposed centralized record keeping, but not a good one for copyrights. sorry.

IP has a more prominent place in the information age, not less. Without it there would be no information age. It's central to running an economy. Having cheap knock-offs of your designs or technology made by China or whoever is fine for consumers, but who put up the money to create the technology in the first place?

if I loose a million in IP rights but gain a trillion worth if IP from everywhere else in the world then that is not a net loss. ps necessity is the mother of all inovations not IP.

Even something like Linux is merly a knockoff of technology created by large corporations who rely on IP to make a profit.

you mean like how MS innovates by using all the FreeBSD code?

And no, the next big breakthrough will most likely not be created by some lone geek in his bedroom, but by groups of researchers being paid for what they do.

Uhh 90% of the utilities in your kitchen or anywhere else were not invented by a big corporation. not even 1% of the new innovation in music.

Re:Please resign now

[tfoss]

And how many times you had a wank last week will be freely posted on Slashdot and be modded up or down.

um, 24. Do I get modded up or down?

-Ted

I'm surprised!

[Helpadingoatemybaby]

That there's so much negative reaction to this. The posts fall into two categories:

1) The internet is international, so you can't have a US law.

2) A technological fix will fix everything.

These are silly arguments and here's why:

1) The US contains a large quantity of pc's and internet connections (if not most internet connections anymore). A law in the US alone will reduce the flow of spam massively, as these 300 million people use the internet disproportionately. Remember: he's just betting on reducing the flow, no eliminating it.

2) The second argument is a false dichotomy -- you can have both a law and a technological fix. There's no harm in having both, as often neither is a comprehensive solution. Why so negative?

Re:I'm surprised!

[HyperColor Underware]

You're both partially right.

However, if you step on their balls a little, and keep on doing it, eventually it will become cheaper to move base into another country. For example, I'm sure that some of the South American nations wouldn't mind adding Spam to their list of exports. Hell, that could be quite lucrative for them; the fact of the matter is, laws, lawsuits, and the like will not do anything. I'm a lowly 19 year old state college student, and I can easily have five or ten computers set up overseas - and I don't have resources.

Maybe the spammers would start, somehow, making use of open SMTP ports on unsecure systems? Who would get in trouble then? The fact of the matter is, people will just have to live with spam for the next few years. It's unrealistic to have an "allow only" list, and it's unrealstic to have a "block only" list. I have heard of some databases which store known spammers - perhaps making a client software to automatically filter things from these. The more people who use it, the more success.


Either way, that guy's out of a job.

Yes, but cocaine is super-profitable

[Goonie]

Whereas spam, from all reports, isn't all that profitable. In fact, it's only profitable because of the insanely low cost of doing business.

If the cost could be driven up just a bit by legal and technical means, that would make it unprofitable and therefore it would disappear.

Finally, whilst pr0n can be served up from anywhere it's legal, there are a lot of products that require a US presence, and thus present a target for civil and criminal law.

Re:Please resign now

[Guppy06]

"He simply refuses to understand that we are quickly entering into an age where either all information will be controlled or all information will be free."

Your assumption is based on the idea that nobody cares about copyright laws and will do anything they want no matter what. We're all born kleptomaniacs. But if that were true, the entire CD industry should have vanished the night Napster fist came on-line. KaZaa should be making serious dents in movie ticket sales. But neither you nor Valenti and Rosen can come up with information that supports your argument.

"He reminds me of the people who thought that the free states could peacefully get along with the slave states, but in the information age."

And you and those who hold similar opinions to yours remind me a little too much of John Brown for comfort.

Re:Please resign now

[peacefinder]

I don't agree with you, but I certainly hope you're not modded out of existence. Yours is an interesting point of view; I'm going to have to think about your "slave-vs-free state" analogy.

However, I think Lessig's immediate resignation, as you suggest, would be a serious setback to the "freedom" of information. (And it's obvious you don't mean "as in beer". :)

If he is right that the middle way is viable in the long term, and he acieves it, then life will be pretty good. Information will be less free than in your ideal, but it will be much more free than it is now.

If he is wrong as you suggest, and the middle way is not viable in the long term, then his work does not harm your cause. In this case, it will be chiefly relevant for having moved people away from the belief that complete control is viable. Perhaps he will win a non-viable middle way, perhaps he won't... but either result improves the cause of freedom of information. (Keep in mind that this contest will take decades to win; the only close end is defeat.)

Information freedom doesn't have enough prestigious voices, speaking in places that matter, for any of them to be lightly cast aside. Whether you agree with him or not, Lessig is, at the moment, the most viable opponent to the idea of total information control*... and that idea must be defeated before we'll have the chance to quibble over the system that takes its place.

You may have valid reasons for spurning the middle way and its supporters. You should have a care, though, that in spurning the middle you don't end up on the side that you like least, for lack of allies.

*: This is a matter of opinion, of course... there are other candidates. But I haven't heard of anyone else arguing this before the US Supreme Court or other institution of similar importance. And no, /. doesn't count. :)

Make it Slashdot-specific.

[Anand_S]

What a great idea Mr. Lessig has. I've adapted his legislation to be Slashdot-specific. I'm convinced that if my legislation is passed, there will be a significant reduction in "In Soviet Russia" posts. If a) the legislation is passed, and b) it doesn't work, then I'll forfeit all my karma.

Bayes can create your own whitelist and RBL

[yerricde]

To add to the problem, you can't really make an effective commercial email without mentioning your product and where to get it.

Unless the spammer makes an HTML e-mail and puts the entire ad spiel in a PNG image.

You can't sell me a mortgage without mentioning mortgages in some way

You can't discuss your mortgage with your banker without mentioning mortgages in some way.

You can't ask me to help get your mail out of Nigeria without mentioning Nigeria

Your middle-school daughter can't ask you for help on a geography report on Nigeria without mentioning Nigeria.

I agree that an e-mail classification system can reduce false positives by including headers in the formula. In fact, applying Bayesian classification to specific header lines emulates the already-known spam blocking techniques, possibly with weaker drawbacks. For instance, Bayes on From: and Reply-To: creates a personal whitelist. Bayes on Received: creates a personal RBL.

Dude!

[edunbar93]

It's information, not people.

Information is replaceable. That's what backups are for. People are not.

If someone nukes Los Angeles, then people are going to have more than just a little bit of a headache sending their e-mail. If someone nukes your mail server, then mail gets bounced for a few days, and that's it. It's not that important.

Collateral damage is *good* in this instance. Yes, people will have problems sending mail. Yes, people will complain to their ISP's about the REALLY IMPORTANT E-MAIL THAT MUST GET THROUGH. Yes, Tech support at said ISP (if there is any) will live through hell. Yes, customers will go elsewhere when the ISP doesn't fix the problem. And yes, people will be irritated, annoyed, and even lose money, but it's all because the ISP in question is run by boneheads who don't want to hire a sysadmin, and think that the spammer market is an untapped resource. Companies like this *deserve* to go broke. People who sell services to scammers are running around with huge blinking neon signs on their backs that say "kick me!"

The collateral damage we're looking for is exactly the sort of thing that unions do when they go on strike. They go out of their way to scare away the very customers that feed them in the hopes that upper management will starve first. When the workers go back to work, the company *will* be damaged in some way by the strike, but in the end, things advance, life goes on, and things improve for the better for everyone. The sooner people see the cluetrain coming, the better, but sometimes the whistle has to blow loud and long before anyone notices.

Bad bet

[T.E.D.]

A US law can't have much effect, for the simple reason that most of my spam these days comes from outside the US. If you could wave a magic wand and stop all US-based spam, you'd hardly make a dent in it.

In fact, the majority of my spam these days comes in using one of the various eastern pictographic fonts. Not only can't I read it, I can't even make out the symbols. I might as well be getting 50 emails a day of line noise.

Bet?

[po8]

Technically, this is not a "bet". A wager requires that a potential direct consideration accrue to the winning party. Lessig more accurately labeled it a "guarantee", although it isn't clear how his resignation would be helpful to those who might harmed by ineffectiveness of his law.

I hope Larry doesn't have to resign: he doesn't seem to have much future as a professional gambler :-).