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Spam Meeting Wrap-up

wendigo2002 writes "Get used to that daily flood of e-mail come-ons, Viagra offers and lucrative enticements to invest in Nigerian pyramid schemes. Internet gurus, software designers and lawyers today ended a three-day Federal Trade Commission discussion on combating spam by concluding neither technology nor laws are yet capable of completely dealing with the plague."

6 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Re:They needed three days to figure this out? by Salgak1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The issue of spam is not an issue of free speech, its' an issue of theft of service and of fraud. And the answer is a total re-write of the SMTP specification and standard to allow accountability and traceability of email messages

  2. Way to go! by arvindn · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said this week she would seek federal legislation offering rewards for individuals who help track down spammers.

    Lets see more of those! I hope the reward applies irrespective of whether you bring in the spammers dead or alive :-)

  3. Re:Perhaps by Uber+Banker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The summary said "neither technology nor laws are yet capable of completely dealing with the plague".

    The fact they discussed it means they recognise a problem. Technology or laws not yet capable of meeting it mean they now recognise a deficiency -- a deficiency needs a solution.

    I hope they can divert resources to creating this solution. They need to throw rosources, legal and technological, and *WE* need to keep them aware (or indeed, make them more aware), so it doesn't slip down the government's priority list.

    As for your hotmail address, I suggest you ditch hotmail. I did five years ago, and that was not soon enough.

  4. scary by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ``We are now importing more spam from the United States,'' he joked. ``We are actually learning what American culture is through spam.''

    Hopefully you know that it's not an entirely accurate view of American culture...

  5. Answer the question that lawmakers want by clovis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nothing will be done until someone answers the question that lawmakers always ask:

    What's in it for me?

    No matter what you present to a politician, no matter how good the cause or important the problem, laws get introduced and passed for only one reason, and that reason is that someone was able to answer that question.
    Sure, it's possible that the answer was "you'll advance your career if you save mankind with this bill", but that almost never happens. There's always a payoff somewhere, and what I can't figure out is a way to tell a Congressman what's the benefit to him for putting in the effort to fix the spam problem. And getting a bill passed is a hell of a lot of work.

    I say: "There's these people who make money by sending a deluge of annoying fradulent emails
    that ..." All the politician hears is "There's these people who make money" and wonders "How can I get some of it?"

    If every spam victim donated a dollar to support congressmen (IE, campaign funding) to do something about spam, then it'll get done. I for one am ready to help.
    Just put your name at the bottom of the list, and send $5 to the person at the top of the list. Now send the list to five of your friends and soon, real soon, we'll have enough money to buy a whole session of Congress. This is completely legitimate, a lawyer looked it over, but you mustn't break the chain.

  6. To stop spam? Two words. by MsWillow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    White list.

    If the *only* way for email to arrive in my mailbox was if it came from (or at least purported to come from) somebody on my list, I'd never see spam again. No need to bounce it, just delete it from the mail server, sight (and site :) ) unseen. Eventually, if everybody started doing this, spammers would see zero revenue, and the tide of spam would disappear.

    Anybody know of a Linux email app that does this all, deleting spam at the server but downloading wanted email? I'm all ears.

    --

    Lemon curry?