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Inappropriate Spam Reaching Children?
peeweejd writes "Wired has an article stating that four out of five children receive inappropriate spam e-mail touting get-rich-quick schemes, and almost half receive spam linking to pornographic materials. Should spammers be held responsible for the spams they send out? Can someone sue a spammer for offering to sell 'adult only' items/services to children?" There are more details from survey originator Symantec's press release - and yes, Symantec does sell mail filtering software.
This is why I run my own mail server. With SpamAssassin, nearly all spam is nuked. There's still a very small amount of stuff slipping through, but none have reached my daughter's mailbox (yet). When one does, I will definately go after the company responsible if they are US based (not much I can do about the foreign based companies).
-- Will program for bandwidth
Oh my god!!!! Junior saw a tit, he is sure to grow up being a serial killer/rapist/laywer/president (ordered in the amount of tit observed)
There are far worse things then porn out there... They will see it anyway and you better be there to explain it to them and prepare them for the real world which happens to be a bitch.
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
This may well be the only issue where 'just think about the children' will result in something good.
And now anti-spam legislation will be SO much easier to sell to congress/general(dumb) public (if it CAN be any easier to sell...)
And obviously so. We've got to start coming down hard on these people, setting some prominant examples.
Oh my god!!!! Junior saw a tit, he is sure to grow up being a serial killer/rapist/laywer/president (ordered in the amount of tit observed)
There are far worse things then porn out there... They will see it anyway and you better be there to explain it to them and prepare them for the real world which happens to be a bitch.
There's a big difference between the front page of Playboy.com and some of the raunchier porn spams I've received. Some of the images I've gotten in spam emails has made me sick, and I'm an adult.
I agree.
I mean really, if the corner gas station attendent was selling cigarettes, beer, or pornagraphy to underaged children, would he be held responsible? The obvious answer is yes, he would. So, why would we treat spammers any differently?
...interesting if true.
Since nine times out of ten the spam is sent across state lines, should the penalties be a Felony?
Dolemite
__________________
Save the World! Use a Quote!
- I give out my address only to thoughtfully selected individuals. I check mail here several times a day.
- I have a second address, which I call my "public" address, which I give away freely (and check about once or twice a week).
- For both addresses, I set up a whitelist which includes all the people that I have given the address to. All other messages get filtered to the trash. I empty the trash occasionally, quickly perusing the "From:" lines in the list of unread messages before doing so.
I have an idea to extend the whitelist policy: Each person would set up a "deposit" sum on their email address. This deposit could be any amount you want, from a few cents to billions of dollars. Each person's email address would be tied to some sort of payment system. If you want to send a message to someone whose whitelist you're not on, the system will charge that person's deposit fee to you. If that person accepts your message, your deposit is refunded. If that person rejects your message, they get to keep your deposit. Get paid to reject SPAM mail! What do people do who don't have credit cards, bank accounts, etc.? They'll deposit some sum of money (like a hundred bucks) with their mail service provider, and deposits will be deducted from that amount. People in the spam business will be out of business, really damn quick. Yes, this would require changes to the mail protocol. People who continue to use the old protocol will continue to receive spam and will be unable to send mail to people with the new protocol unless they're on their whitelists.Very few "wanted" messages end up in the trash. My "wanted" message traffic is pretty high, too.
Guinness. Because friends don't let friends drink Bud Light.
It doesn't matter that you didn't know that girl was only 15, you're going to jail for statutory rape. (You may have an out if she *said* she was 19, but that's acting in good faith, not ignorance).
It doesn't matter that you didn't know "soccrkid95" was only 8, you're going to jail for child abuse through exposure to images.
If you want to avoid going to jail, check ID. In other words...Opt-IN.
It's just *snapping fingers* that easy
No comment...
But I consider an offense against my kids as an order of magnitude bigger than an offense against me. If you slap me, I may get upset, but I'm man enough to let it slide. If you slap one of my kids, you'd better watch yourself.
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
@localhost would be even better. If the address is invalid and the spammer is using particularly crappy mail software, you might get the bastard's machine stuck in a mail loop with itself...one less spammer disturbing the rest of us.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
A very smart women once told me that you must choose your battles. Some battles are not worth the cost of winning.
I think this is as true for spam as anything else in life.
I think we need to look at the battle to kill spam and reduce it in scope a bit. This idea of simply 'spam bad, kill it' is actually too broad.
It leaves open too many issues, like companies that allow opt-in lists and the like.
I can't wait for the first time that some kid decides to send an email to every kid in his school and the kid or the school gets sued under some spam law. That would prove the validity of my point.
However Porn (yummy) is a fight worth winning.
It is so clear and concise. How can you argue against it?
Playboy and Penthouse have some fascinating articles in them sometimes (or at least they used to, I haven't read one in years). Would you have a problem with me giving your 12 year old a copy of Penthouse just because I thought some article in it would interest him?
I just don't see how any reasonable person can find any circumstance where putting porn in the hands of kids is acceptable.
If the companies say that they don't know how to tell the difference between a 12 year olds email address and an adults I think we should just agree with them that that is a real headscracther.
It just might not be possible to spam porn.
The hardship in this fight needs to be squarely placed on the shoulders of the porn industry. There is no reason to force kids to register special email addresses, that is what they porn industry would ask for and they need to be denied it.
Tell the porn industry this. If someone pays you money to access your sight then you can spam the email address that is tied with that account.
That way you got the industry in a trap. If some kid stole daddies card and daddy finds the porn in the kids mailbox later on then the porn industry is still at fault for distributing porn to a minor.
"I know I never asked to recieve ads for child porn, yet I get it. And I can't make it stop."
Ah, but you never know- maybe someone who didn't like you and had your email address "opted you in" on those pr0n pages with the "be really stupid and type your email address here to receive pr0n in your inbox" things.
Just something to consider...
graspee
It should be obvious that a kid with an unrestricted e-mail account is going to get load of the same damn twisted porn spam everybody else gets. We don't need Symantec to tell us that. Anyone who lets their underage child get unrestricted e-mail is setting them up to see some seriously twisted shit. The only way my kid is getting e-mail is if it's whitelist-only. Even a whitelist would be risky with header spoofing, which I predict will become more of a problem once challenge-response systems start gaining popularity.
Which is why they should require conformation for their lists. They also shouldn't be allowed to sell or share with other sites with out you knowing about it. A little ethical behavior now could save them a world of pain later.
But I doubt that's going to happen. The people trying to make the las don't understand the medium, so how can they make up good laws? It would be like asking a cave man to pen all out modern traffic laws!
Until then I'm doing everything I can to block them, I used to get about 300 a day, now I get maybe 10 a week.
It's gone from being annoying to making me homicidal. They are stealing from me, IMHO.
When I want a flathose, bigger boobs and horney teens gettiing it on with lawn furnature, I can find it on my own.
Spammers must die. It's the only answer to the problem that I can see.
As far as I know, you can sometimes put in root@127.0.0.1, which will cause a mail loop. This used to work, so if people have old systems, perhaps this still does.
-Dae
"Alle reden vom wetter. Wir nicht." - SDS Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund.
j00 4r3 3n73r1ng l337 w0r1d.
And strip clubs shouldn't be calling Tommy Junior on the phone at 4pm on a weekday, before his parents get home, and asking him whether he wants to see Hot Naked Chicks.
And then they should be shot and killed.
Or fed to aligators.
Whichever is more convenient.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
That is exactly the argument that spammers use. "If you don't want our ads, get rid of your email account."
But it's a nonsense argument. I have a phone, but if you harass me by calling it, I have legal recourse. Similarly, there are limits on telemarketing. A fax machine? The TCPA outlaws unsolicited faxes.
But you need to keep spouting the nonsense or your spamming business will go all to hell.
People like you can't understand that I pay for my email account so that I can use it for my purposes - not yours. Keep your porn/MMF/Mortgage crap to yourself. And don't force your advertising costs on other people.