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Spam Blackhole Lists Redux
tsu doh nimh writes "Are spam blackhole lists good, bad or indifferent? That appears to be the question they're tackling in this Washington Post story. It has some interesting back and forth between supporters of the lists and those who claim they condone censorship."
J adds: Brad Templeton recently
offered some comments
on the most extreme pro-blacklist position.
I think black hole lists are a great thing, but I will admit, they are certainly censorship, and the customers of an ISP using such a list may disagree with some or all of it.
Perhaps the solution is to design a standard format for a black hole list, and add that functionality to email applications? If the end users had such access for themselves, then they could decide whether they wanted someone else to censor their mail (and whether they wanted to bypass that censorship for certain specific people or networks).
And yes, I know there is software that does this, but it's all proprietary. Is anyone interested in adding a generic functionality to, say, Mozilla? Perhaps the ability to import an XML list of bans from one or more specified URLs, run by volunteer blackhole list sponsors?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I can see where you're coming from in a "theoretically, Communism should work" sort of way. But from a practical standpoint, free speech only works if people have the ability to tune out some messages and concentrate on others.
Imagine that you're having a lively conversation at a dinner party. There are a dozen different groups of chatters in the room. The spammer mentality recognizes the opportunity here: If I just brought in a megaphone, then everyone would be able to hear what I have to say.
The problem is twofold: Everyone has a message that they want others to hear, and thanks to the marvels of the Internet, everyone with a broadband connection has a huge megaphone. At some point, it becomes difficult to pick out the messages that are important to an individual, and the medium as a whole suffers. The solution here is to silence the proverbial megaphones.
The difference between Spamhaus and the RIAA is that Spamhaus is interfering with "speech" that interferes with more constructive speech, and the RIAA is trying to interfere with speech that interferes with their monopoly on certain messages.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Yes it is a form of censorship, but NO this is not about free speech - SPAM is not free in the cost sense. It costs money to move it around - if you don't believe me, then you have no idea how the internet works.
Sure, if you get SPAM at work, you personally don't absorb the cost... and sure, if you have uncapped internet access, sure you don't absorb the cost. BUT SOMEONE DOES. I don't get SPAM at work but do on some personal email addresses and I, like many other people outside the united states, DO NOT have unlimited download limits.
So those who want the right to speak freely about their latest porn sites, sex products, can pay, albeit a tiny amount of money, per email we receive.
Another thing about free speech, it doesn't mean you can talk as loudly as you want in the middle of the street at 3am - no, you WILL be approached by authorities for disturbing the peace - just try it. SPAM is not really all that much different - you don't have the option of not hearing it, the same way as you don't have the option of not hearing someone blaring music or screaming at 3am while trying to sleep. While the remedy might sound easier to delete a SPAM message than bother the local police for noise complaints, you don't have the noise every day, and hundreds of times.
Free speech might mean not being censored, but it doesn't mean you can do it at other people's expense of inconvenience.
Since when does someone else's freedom of speech *require* me to listen?
In the case of spam, it is on my dime too!
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Here's my response to Brad Templeton's post:
What if, at the end of Brad's list, we add:
h) trading child pornography
i) plotting terrorist attacks
j) promoting cannibalism
On his list, items a, f, and possibly g are potentially illegal - the others are clearly legal in the U.S., although they may violate service agreements with some ISPs. Nonetheless, even the possibly illegal actions are perceived as minor crimes, like speeding - if you found out your neighbor was doing these things, you wouldn't start looking for a new place to live. The three items I listed above are different - if any reasonable person even suspected that their neighbor was planning or committing one of those acts, they'd be calling 911 (or your local government's equivalent, unless you live in a country that supports terrorism / kiddie-porn / cannibalism) in a jiffy.
Spam is different from both of these. It's legal in most places, which distinguishes it from the three items I've mentioned, but it's looked upon with nearly equal horror as a violation of trust. If spam were made illegal (particularly porn spam), it could easily be lumped in with these other categories (okay, spam doesn't directly involve killing/torturing other people, but when you get spam that lists your full name and discusses rape, that's bordering on assault).
I think most people would consider it ethically responsible for their ISPs to report kiddie-porn traders, terrorists, and cannibals - at the very least, it would be irresponsible of the ISPs to not report such activities if they were aware of them. The difference, which Brad's post ignores, is that some activities (kiddie-porn, terrorism, spam) cause or can potentially cause DIRECT phsyical or emotional harm to other individuals (and before you argue this point with regard to spam, think carefully about how you would distinguish between soliciting children for sex and sending porn emails to children), while other activities (copyright infringement, NAT) don't.
To (hopefully) temper the debate, I'll add that I would oppose a "one strike and you're out" rule. It's easy to imagine someone being tricked into downloading unpleasant images, and it's easy to imagine someone sending out spam without knowing any better. But after being warned, the punishment the second time should be more severe.
On stereophonic equipment, the monaural sound obtained through multiple channels will enhance your listening pleasure.