Slashdot Mirror
Anti-Spam Bill Killed In California
Craig Newmark (craigslist) writes "In California, we had a pretty good antispam bill proposed by Sen. Debra Bowen, which was killed yesterday.
A pro-spammer bill, backed by the big media sites including Microsoft, passed through committee.
Here's a quick round up.
We're considering a big feedback campaign, based on conversation with staffers on what works for them, since they want to hear from constituents, as opposed to spam.
More to come ..."
It seems that the sentence ..."seek actual damages, or may elect to recover liquidated damages of $1,000 for each unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement ... $1 million per incident, whichever is less."
..."seek actual damages, or may elect to recover ( liquidated damages of $1,000 for each unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement OR $1 million per incident, whichever is less.) "
.."(seek actual damages OR may elect to recover (liquidated damages of $1,000 for each unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisement OR $1 million per incident)) whichever is less."
Should be parsed as
But it can also be parsed as
Disclaimer: IANAP.
Didn't Microsoft just recently step up it's Anti-spam efforts as pointed out in this previous story
Maybe they're "selling weapons to both sides" by backing a pro-spamming bill so they can have stronger reasons to step up their anti-spam behaviour?
In C++, friends can touch each others private parts.
The story title on Slashdot: "Anti-Spam Bill Killed In California" The google link: "Consumer-Backed Anti-Spam Bill Passes" on almost every link. Am I missing something?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Microsoft was supposed to be against spam. (See slashdot article regarding Microsoft stepping up anti-spam efforts)
--
Luck is just skill you didn't know you had.
The news link doesn't mention this, but Senator Bowen's bill was actually written by Greg Maddox of Spam Prevention Early Warning System (SPEWS) fame
It's odd that this would come up right now, but I've got a friend in the California state senate (he's a page), and apparently there's rumor that this bill may have been killed because some topless photos of Senator Debra Bowen have been floating around on the internet. It's ironic that the spam bill would be killed because of free porn spam.
Consensual sex is boring.
..we should forward all of our spam to the reps who voted agains the bill?
Eschew Obfuscation
What do I see? The post I just made at /.
That's pretty good considering the story only had 20 comments when I followed the link... Google News is really up-to-date.
May I suggest this alternate Google News link with a "-slashdot".
'He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.' - Douglas Adams
Show that to a couple of senators with the tagline "... of taxpayers money"
--LordKaT
The FCC authorized a nationwide "do not call" registry to prevent unwanted phone solicitations. Why not also enforce a "do not spam" registry to prevent unwanted email solicitations?
Of course, his reports leave out a lot of things, like young children having adds for bodypart enlargements, or graphic emails of beastialty in their inbox... certainly don't see that too often with Directmail.
But this guy is just one example of those who do lobby for spam mail... misguided though they may be.
A link to the audio stream is here
Insert witty
A story in MIT's tech review spoke of a prolific spammer who used servers in Romania and China.
The location of the servers is (or should be) massively irrelevent. If I set up a kiddie porn website, I won't get very far with the excuse "I used a server in Romania" if I'm still located in the US.
Technology is still the best hope for killing spam.
I've been hearing that line for nearly two decades, and I've seen absolutely NO PROGRESS! I'm sorry, you had your chance, it's time to try some other approaches. A state law is, indeed, not much of a deterrent for a lot of people, but it can help set a precedent that will lead to a national law, which in turn can help set a precedent that will lead to international law.
Furthermore, spam depends on really thin margins. If you have to factor in the expense of moving (physically, see above) to Romania, then you may not find spamming such an attractive idea after all.
Anyway, questions of jurisdiction are not necessarily as simple as you'd like to think. See, for example, the cases of Sklyarov (sp?) and Elcomsoft. For something like this, the big question would be, is the controlling jurisdiction willing to cooperate with the jurisdiction where the offense took place?
You also have to have every machine in every nation you do business with have perfect security also.
Good point, but my solution was designed for... me. I've given up on the spam war. Now, I only care about my personal inbox. I blacklist IP blocks willy-knilly (but not so many that it would make sense to move to a white-list. Yet.). I've NEVER received anything important via email from anyone I didn't already know.
Job offers? They phone me.
Emergency? They page me.
Going out for a beer? They IM me, or they knock on my damn door.
Business? They send it to me via our secure LotusNotes server (yea, yea... IBM is VERY different on the inside than it looks from the outside. We use OS/2 Warp on critical servers too.) Or they email me normally (I know them: they're not blacklisted).
Pleasure? Any girl who propositions me over email (unsolicited, mind you) is probably not very high on my ladder to begin with.
Email is not a way to receive messages from strangers anymore: the spammers have ruined that. Email will likely become a white-list based messaging system and nothing more. It's a pity, but we've already crossed the bridge, and there's nothing left to do but to burn it behind us.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Its obvious that a legal solution to spam will not happen anytime soon. Instead, I personally take matters into my own hands: I registered my domain and found an inexpensive webhost ($10/mo can get you a truly decent webhost.) From there its easy to create all the email accounts you need, as well as install anti-spam software.
Alternatively one can just set up a *nix box off a DSL line and run your own mailserver with whatever anti-spam tools you choose. It saves you the $10/mo and its a little more work, but you do have complete control of the box. Doing this, my spam has fallen to almost nothing.
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
What's becoming clear is that Microsoft has a strategy to control spam, not eliminate it. You'll find that the legislation that Microsoft supports typically: 1) legalizes spam, 2) mandates opt-out, and 3) places power of enforcement in the hands of service providers rather than individuals.
One essential element of any good anti-spam law would be the right to private action: the spam victim gets to go to court and collect damages directly. This is one of the things that has made the junk fax law so effective. This is precisely what Microsoft does not want to happen.
Although the Microsoft supported laws aren't killing private action outright, they tend to make it useless. For instance, the trick they pulled in Texas was to allow ISPs to collect $25,000 or $10/spam, whichever is more, but individuals get $25,000 or $10/spam whichever is less. So, under the new (Microsoft-endorsed) Texas spam law, you could drag a spammer into small claims court and not even collect enough to cover your filing fees.
I believe Microsoft's intention is to chase away the rogue spammers, and then turn the corporate spammers into a revenue stream. So instead of 100 messages/day sellng us viagra or pr0n, we'll get 100 messages/day selling us insurance or aluminum siding. Oh yeah! That's so much better.
Last week I saw a Charlie Rose episode where he discusses spam with a Cnet editor, FTC commissioner, AOL VP and a Microsoft Attorney. The stance of all those involved were against spam and wanted to do something to reduce it. It's a interesting discussion and I suggest you try and catch it if it's on again.
http://www.charlierose.com/thisweek.shtm
I'm so confused, conflicted, and concerned. The Democrats own California government, body and soul, and yet the legislature keeps selling out to business. Yesterday it was the shootdown of financial privacy legislation, now this. The only way the pubic is going to get anything useful passed is the initiative process. Or maybe even elect a few more Republicans, just to see if they might do a better job.
Anti-spam is a deprecation of those rights.
A lot of trolls who are favored by moderators here will respond about how they hope I get spam highlighting it with mention of vulgar ads, and they will be modded up. It is unfair, but I understand how far to the left the general readership here is and how popular it is to ridicule statements that are perceived to favor Big Corporations.(TM) This is in spite of the fact that were the law to take place and I wanted to advertise my machine shop, my activities would be criminalized for simply advertising.
Read the constitution. Nothing in the constitution says that my rights to advertise my product is in any way subordinate to a politician making a political statement or to a newspaper publishing an editorial. Advertising products is every bit as important as political speech, and I submit to the readership here it is in fact far more important.
Dawn of the Dead