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Louisiana Tries Anti-Spam Law
chompyZ writes "The legislative battle against SPAMMING heats-up as a new law became effective yesterday in Louisiana. According to KPLC, the new law requires senders of sexually explicit e-mail to include a note in the subject line, "adv-adult," to let unsuspecting internet users know ahead of time. The Olympian reports that Louisiana officials actually think this will be effective... leaves you wondering if "officials" have any clue how SPAMMERS operate..."
Now subjetcs will be
adv-adult: Enlarge your penis
Way to go, I just don't know if this way leads somewhere:)
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Though the paragraph is somewhat pessimistic the concept is a good one. Why not try? If it works, great, if not then tweak it till it does. I hope more states try something.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
and so I don't know the law you have there, but won't it just cause spammers to move outside Louisiana?
Subject: adv-4dult
Body:
Fr33 g0at pr0n c!ick h3re!
I'm waiting to see how futile an http://donotspam.gov would be.
Hard loop..... huh?
Dynamic Designs
Most every porn type email I get can be traced back to servers in China or The Netherlands. I doubt those Cajuns will be going overseas anytime soon to prosecute.
Hmm, just got a new porn email, from Pythonvideo, up in Canada. Hope those guys have a large travel budget.
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com
"adv-adult: Fill your prescriptions from Canada, save up to 80% !"
That would be really helpful if I not only didn't have a spam filter, but took the time to read every spam that didn't have a pornographic title.
Of course, this only applies to louisianans who send non-anonymous pornographic spam to other louisianans.
Spammers are already breaking laws; highjacking mail servers, using trojans such as 'jeem' and 'proxy-guzu' to make others send spam, etc. I doubt this law is going to be the one that finally makes them operate ethically.
Perhaps they need to also make it a crime for an individual in the state to purchase a product or service from a spammer...
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
It may be ineffective in getting spammers to stop their penis and lolita porn spams, but it does give the state a way of prosecuting spammers. Remember, going after a criminal is just a matter of technicality. After all, they got Al Capone for tax evasion of all things.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
At least spammers operating inside the U.S. will be a little nervous when they get several notifications from lawyers after it was traced back to them. Bouncing emails off of or originating from foreign mail servers may be effective for not being able to do anything at the ISP level but if they are caught in their apartment standing in a room full of penis enlargement pill cases where the law can reach them at a business level..... They'll probably wish they hadn't sold it to all those prisoners who are winking & saying "you're my little puppy now".
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Most spammers operate out of other countries these days, as do telemarketers. If you ask one the next time one is on the phone, they usually call from another time zone or Canada (if the target is American). Most spammers operate from servers in Canada or small Pacific Rim countries that would prove immune from this law anyway. Note also that most of these sexually explicit e-mails are easily recognized by anyone literate as they tend to accumulate several consonants at the end of the e-mail title that form babble instead of coherent words. I find this an example of people saber-rattling in preparation for re-election campaigns, especially given that several other meaningless "vote-for-me" laws were modified or enacted at the same time. These include:
-no more execution of the mentally retarded (already mandated by the Supreme Court)
-allows telemarketers to call you if you "are referred to them by someone you know"
-increase penalties against drunk drivers who kill or seriously injure people while driving with over a 0.2 blood alcohol level (as if attempted/ murder is not serious enough to get life in prison anyway)
-no credit card company can give out anything of value to students unless they also get a brochure
Some of the new laws make sense, but again there are enough of weird and nonsensical laws that I wonder if such would make it to the legislative table, much less get passed, if not for the election coming up in about a year's time. Until then I await the first case of a spammer getting tried under this law if he/she/it/they are operating from another state or country.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
As each state and locality implement their own variant, some requiring "ADV:" in the subject line, some requiring "ADULT:" and this one requiring "adv-adult", all a spammer will have to do is claim that he can't possibly satisfy all of the constraints. Why can't we have a header which marks spam as spam, such as "Solicited: no"? Or just require that all spam use "Precedence: bulk"?
Not that any of this will be effective... but if they have to legislate something...
Check out my webcam!
You can't mod me down! I had adv-adult in the subject line!
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
Handy for those with a spam filter, now you can save the only interesting spam from going to dev/null.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Nope, what it would lead to it would be something like that.
.X.X. mailer
Predefined filter in newer mailers:
move all mssages where subjects contain adv-adult
to folder Personal Folders/Scientific matters against world extinction
and next advertising will be something like protect your self against mom raiding your computer. Use
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
coming from the state that brings you drive-through daquiri huts. There's a law in Louisiana that says you can't have an open container of liquor in your car. Somehow having a styrofoam cup with a lid and a straw is still a closed container. It's things like this that made me move away from that God-forsaken state. :)
as 99.9% of spam i recieve is usa based and iam not a USA resident or have any buisness there i managed to block it all simply by filtering the $ sign, works great and hasnt created a false positive in 2years of using this method
Actually, many spammers operate from INSIDE the United States, they simply hire companies outside the United States to send/route the spam.
By "decrease", of course, I mean "exponentially increase unabated just as it has been doing for the last several years".
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
If I send unsolicited porn through the USPS I can be arrested, why is email any different? You don't hear to many people screaming that not allowing porno junk mail is a violation of freedom of speech.
Let's pass a law that forces district attorneys to actually prosecute spammers that break the law.
>> leaves you wondering if "officials" have any clue how SPAMMERS operate..."
Actually it leaves me wondering if you have any idea how the law operates. As silly as this legislation may at first appear, you have to realize that (mostly) nothing is illegal unless there is a LAW to make it so. Yes, spam is already illegal in many states, but creating a law where spammers must insert adv-adult in their subject line is another point where would-be prosecutors can trip spammers up with, thus increasing penalties and even prison time. Its like when a murder is really heinous, prosecutors dont just try someone for murder 1, they get them on just about every count thats feasible to the case.
So let's say you limit those in the US from sending you spam, what are you going to do when they start relaying from borked out servers abroad... Better yet what can you do. Waste taxpayer money tracking down spammers abroad... Let's see $5000 to track them, another $1000 to bring them down here to face the music, $100,000k miminum for some sort of farce trial for something you could have taken care of with spamassassin.
Boy oh boy I don't know who is dumber the politician who passed this law or the spammer I hit d on using mutt.
MoFscker
In the first months after the law went into effect the percentage of spam attacks with "ADV" or ADV:Adult" in the subject line was a full 5% on average. This compared to the months before it became law, where only 1 out of 20 spam attacks contained these in the subject line.
This in the state with over 1/10th of the U.S.'s population.