EU Rolls out Anti Spam Strategy

An anonymous reader was one of several who noted an article about the latest developments in the EUs War on Spam. The article is pretty realistic in pointing out that EU Legislation won't be very effective unless Asia and the US do something as well.

Comments

Hrmm

[acehole]

With all the laws, bans and implementations of anti-spam measures, I'm curious to know if there is any reduction in the amount of overall spam?

Are we fighting a losing battle? or have the tides turned against the spammers?

too late

[u-238]

Sigh..

before this thing is even PROPOSED, spammers have already implimented a method to deter this

http://www.symantec.com/spamwatch/

they've spread trojan viruses to moron AOL users who's PCs act as proxies thru which spammers safely and anonymously continue their work

Re:too late

[leerpm]

Legislation is not going to take out all of the spammers. In fact most of them will remain. But by forcing them offshore, to use proxies, and seek alternative methods we are making it harder and more expensive for them to do business. Spam is not going to be taken out in one swoop. It will take legislation, enforcement and probably changes in the protocol.

But every little bit helps. When they are forced to use proxies, all sorts of problems start to come up. None of them are insurmountable for the spammers but they do create obstacles. Their bandwidth is limited by the trojan proxy's connection, and they open themselves up to criminal charges for hacking. They run the risk of hitting the wrong computer, perhaps a machine administered by a particuraly ruthless and short-tempered sys admin.

An interesting experiement might be to see how difficult it is to set up a honeypot to catch the spammers using proxies.

Re:too late

[gav1n]

They've also been infecting students' machines on university networks, which have high bandwith. Also, some students have been agreeing to relay spam through their machines in 'spam-for-pay' schemes. Both of these occured at my school, causing SMTP servers to be banned on the residential network. This is forcing our Tech department to implement brash solutions such as an outright ban on SMTP until they get the resources for a more elegant solution. We are amidst a state-wide budget cut.

Unless Asia and the US...

[robslimo]

I see the US doing something... after a bunch of wrangling with lobbiests and various red-tape cutting, but Asia? By Asia, do you mean, China, India, Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan and more? Gee, that's a large group of governments who'd likely have their own agendas and possibly reasons for not wanting to do anything official regarding spam.

Good luck waiting, but don't hold your breath. I think it will take an international entity like the UN to get anything done in a global scope and I don't have any great confidence in that either.

Money

[cspenn]

It's all about money. Until legislators and the rest of the folks who run systems that understand this, spam will not stop. Spam is a cost effective, if obnoxious, solution for advertising. Even if spam is illegal, unless the entire planet decides to take unified action, spam will not stop - it'll just relocate to places without extradition treaties. You'll end up having to blackhole entire countries to staunch it.

How many people and how many euros is the EU willing to pony up to enforce these laws? Probably about the same amount that the United States ponies up for speed limit enforcement. 55 MPH is the law, not the reality...

Chris
www.studint.com

International Computing Organization

[dlosey]

While reading about Iraqis being trained in Linux, I saw that the United Nations supports Linux and its worldwide expansion. It got me thinking (always a bad thing for a /. reader), why can't we have an international group of policy makers for the computing world? They could be created by the UN and eventually form a separate organization which regulates such things as email, domain names, and spam. Sort of like ICANN, but more law enforcement based.

Maybe its just a pipe dream, but a nice thought anyways.

Re:Gotta start somewhere

[gdiersing]

Can you really legistlate a virtual annoyance/problem withing geographical boundries? How many virus authors have really been punished with similar *country* laws?

It may sound far fetched but SPAM and virus authors need to be held accountable to a virtual Internet authority if one doesn't already exist.

Well it goes something like this...

[Kjella]

EU thinks "no point, we need the US and Asia"
US thinks "no point, we need the EU and Asia"
Asia thinks "no point, we need the EU and US"

Laws have to start somewhere, and I'm sure there's a reason why all my spam is carpetbombed US crap. I'm pretty sure it's the local laws that are the cause that I have only recieved *one* spam mail in my local language, from a national company, ever. And I sent them a reply stating that next time I would file charges, and I've never heard from them again.

We need a new mail protocol, with proper digital signing and verification of authorithy (does 231.143.211.35 have permission to send mail using the domain name "hotmail.com"?) as well as integrated feedback possibilities both to mail servers, and if possible, to those administratively responsible for a given netblock (e.g. ISP) as well. If spam was more tracable, it would be a lot easier to shut down and blacklist.

Kjella

As a writer from Asia....

[cyberon22]

The vast majority of spam hitting *my* inbox starts coming in at around 9am California time, and then peters out early evening on the East Coast.

What's this about an international problem again?

Wrong!

[www.sorehands.com]

If spam is illegal, and someone uses "affiliates" that spam to promote their pills, the seller is still responsible for their agents.

Even if the person is using a ralksy to send spam from servers in China, the person hiring the ralksy is still liable.

At some point, if the product originates or the money goes through the country that's laws have been violates, you may be able to get it.

Re: Universal Remove List (tm)

[gorbachev]

There're a lot of problems with the Universal Remove List (term coined by spamming scum) aka "do-not-call" approach.

Most of them do not allow sitewide opt-out or wildcards.

Most of them only allow number of Email addresses per user (I have an infinite number of potential Email addresses, and at least 25 active ones I use regularly).

A listing in DMA's list expires after a year or two. What sort of bullshit is that?

There is no way in hell there's going to be a "do-not-spam" list that will work, ever.

Still, I think, I'd personally welcome one, if it was managed by a pro-consumer 3rd party (not a .gov office, marketers or spammers) and there was some REAL sanctions on spammers that do not use it.

There's been plenty of examples of Universal Remove Lists ran by spammers (spammingbureau.com, Sanford Wallace had one, Walt Rines had one too, iemmc.org, etc. etc.). All of them are/were fronts set up by spammers to keep an appearance of respectibility.

Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers. Remember to shoot knees first, so that they can't run away while you slowly torture them to death

Re:No, we're fighting the *wrong* battle

[Ben Hutchings]

What mystifies me is why they're not willing to do this. Is it some BS gung-ho pro-sales "caveat emptor" mentality? I find this hard to believe, since I don't think any of the products I've seen turn up in ~/mail/bogofiltered are even remotely legitimate -- quack potions, stock and money schemes, 419 scams, et al. We're not talking about laundry soap that really doesn't get my whites their whitest, we're talking about products that are prima faciae nonfunctional.

Marketers see this, and realise that if even obvious fraudsters can make money out of spam then legitimate businesses with legitimate pitches are likely to do even better, if only they can get the law to say that spam is OK.