Virginia Anti-Spam Law; FTC Forum on Spam

kiwimate writes "According to this press release, the state of Virginia has just passed a statute making 'the worst, most egregious and fraudulent kinds of spam' legally actionable. And yes, this includes header forging. The article reads like a big AOL PR piece in some places -- the VA governor led the signing at the AOL HQ in Dulles. The story also states this comes on the eve of the first-ever FTC forum on spam in Washington D.C." The FTC also made the insightful discovery that most spam is fraudulent in some fashion.

Comments

Sic Semper Tyrannis

[sulli]

Will they drive a spear through the heart of the spammer? I would move back to Virginia just to be part of that.

Suitable Remedy

[ferret70]

The convicted spammers should be forced to use AOL the rest of their lives! :)

Is their sample size really valid?

[psychosis]

The FTC studied a random sample of 1,000 unsolicited e-mails taken from a pool of more than 11 million pieces of spam it has collected.

OK, so were they planning to sample more than 3 typical e-mail accounts worth of daily spam?

AOL HQ

[Red Warrior]

they signed the anti-spam law at the AOL HQ?
Isn't that one of the seven signs, or something?
Or

Re:Going after header forgers?

[k-0s]

This is the one that's always gotten me. It's obviously one of the worst possible things in spam. But how do you then track down who happens to be sending it and punish them for it?

I don't know how you track them down personally but when you find out let me know and I can take care of the punishment part.

how to stop AOL cds

[SHEENmaster]

1. Beat the crap out of the disc and package. Stab it, crush it, bend it, shatter it, etc.
2. Either send the original package, or the package in a sandwich bag back by writing "Unsolicited, return to sender!" on it and placing it back in the mailbox.

I haven't recieved a CD in several months, down from once a week or so.

fraudulant?!?!?!

[edrugtrader]

spam is in no way fraud. i make $50,000 a day posting to slashdot from home. you can too, email me back at ahk235hk2@yahoo.com. if that doesn't work, try my work email at 235hlj235hl2@hotmail.com.

Most Spam is Fraudulent?

[X_Bones]

Next thing you know, someone's gonna say the Pope wears a funny hat.

Tasty!

[pcwhalen]

Mmmm. Virginia Spam! The best kind. They cure it different there, Smithfield I think.

"And after a while, you can work on points for style.
Like the club tie, and the firm handshake,
A certain look in the eye and an easy smile." Rodger Waters

Re:Where do I turn myself in?

[ajs]

Exactly, so for example, when I've written such invoices, the fact that I claimed to be "ajs@ajs.com", but was in fact sending the mail from work (or visa versa) means that I was committing a crime by Virginia's standards.

Worse, I'm interpreting what I think is the *intent* here, but technically the fabrication (e.g. creation) of any headerer information (you know, header information, that thing "normal" mail doesn't have...) would seem to meet the criteria, so any message I've ever sent that generated $1000 in revenue would be criminal spam.

Hi, my name is Aaron and I'm a spammer. [insert reply posts here with, "Hi, Aaron!"] My career as a spammer started out like most people's. I thought it was ok to send business email, but then I got hooked on adding "headers"... that's when my dog left me and my beer all went flat! But I've admitted that I'm powerless in the face of my addiction, and I've asked my higher power (ISP) for help. Since I've been blocking outbound port 25 I've only had one relapse at an Internet cafe. I've been a recovering spammer for 2 years now, and I'd like to thank you all for this lovely medallion! ;-)