Australia To Fast-Track Anti-Spam Bill

Crypto Gnome writes "News Interactive is reporting that anti-spam legislation is being fast-forwarded by the Australian Federal Government. The proposed law will ban sending commercial emails without the recipient's prior consent and ban the use of email harvesting or list-generating software. Naturally, this will only directly impact local Australian spammers, but they're also hoping this will set a precedent for the International community." Banning list-generation software seems a bit heavy-handed, doesn't it?

Comments

Re:Heavy handed is about the norm...

[Martin Blank]

This may be one of those rare cases where it's better to lock it down and then open up a few holes for legit stuff to squeak through. Sort of a firewall approach.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

It's only spam

[evil_roy]

"Banning list-generation software seems a bit heavy-handed, doesn't it?"

Of course it does, but all rational thought seems to disappear when the issue is spam.I hate it, you hate it, we all hate it. But it is clear that many people who are quite tolerant of copyright abuses, IP theft, piracy , porn as free speech etc etc etc become quite intolerant when the topic at hand is spam. The rights that are held so precious are there to be trampled over for convenience sake.

The way to fight spam is to build clever tools, come up with a technical fix. New laws are the last thing we need. I have seen Aussie net laws lambasted all over the web, but as soon as one of these stupid laws is aimed at spam a lot of people seem to think it is a good idea. It is not. When similar laws were proposed to ban porn and bomb making sites many were outraged. The same sentiments should apply.

Re:It's only spam

[Zachary Kessin]

Part of the reason spam is different from most free speech issues is that spam imposes a cost on people other than the speaker. If you want to promote whatever your cause is you can go buy ads in the paper or whatever and its fine as you are paying the bills.

But if you spam me you (not you peronally) take up my resources that are not yours to dispose of. If my ISP has to buy a bigger mail server to deal with the spam that is real money they have to spend on your spam. If you want to put porn up on your website as long as you pay for the bandwidth etc I don't see a problem as such.

Re:It's only spam

[scottme]

In western societies, we pride ourselves on being democracies, and in democracies, the will of the people is supposed to prevail, though of course the rights of minorities need to be respected.

For me, the key point about spam is that no-one wants to receive it.

Sure there are plenty of misguided individuals who are financially motivated to think it's in their personal interest for other people to have to be on the receiving end of it, and will therefore cynically maintain that they are in favour of it. But I have never met anyone who could honestly say they would willing endure being sold to via cold-call, unsolicited sales pitches for products they mostly have less than zero interest in. And I've had that discussion with plenty of people.

That universal distaste for it is what makes spam so reprehensible, and that is why I am totally in favour of all legal and technical measures to curtail it to the maximum extent. It wastes more and more of everyone's time and money (it's wasting my time right now, writing this!), and the sooner we are rid of it, the better.

Re:It's only spam

[dbirchall]

Clever tools? Spam's been an issue since 1997 at least. That's a half-dozen years. Clever tools are all well and good, and believe me, quite a few minds of reasonable skill have been doing that sort of thing all along. But it takes more than that.

A clever tool is worse than useless if, for example, it's running on your desktop. By the time the tool gets around to nuking the spam, it (the spam) has already wasted resources across the Internet.

Take the Bayesian logic and drop it into backbone routers, and we can talk. :)

Of course, the further the tools get from end-users, the more non-zero (if still miniscule) the odds become that they're going to nuke from orbit something that someone, somewhere actually wanted to get.

Oh, and "list-generation" software? I think the people who're concerned about it think that the term refers to things like LISTSERV, Majordomo, and MailMan. It doesn't. Those are list management programs.

Want an example of list generation? Take a "Baby Names" book in your language of choice. Type in all the names. Then have your software send your message to each of those names. At, say, AOL, MSN, Yahoo... and anything else large. That's a speedy way to generate a list. :)

Re:It's only spam

[Anonymous Coward]

That simply isn't true. If nobody wanted to receive it, then nobody would buy anything sold via email, and spammers would go out of business.

The fact that they are not going out of business, and in fact seem to be thriving, means that some people like spam, (or at least are willing to buy from it) even if you personally don't happen to believe it.

As soon as people truly don't want it, it will disappear. That simple.

Re:It's only spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of the reason spam is different from most free speech issues is that spam imposes a cost on people other than the speaker. If you want to promote whatever your cause is you can go buy ads in the paper or whatever and its fine as you are paying the bills.

It's more than who pays the costs. Free speech is about freedom of content. It is not freedom to force everyone to listen.

I treat me e-mail box (and my snail-mail box) as my own property. When I get spam, I feel like someone has commited trespass and vandalism. It's as if someone plastered posters inside my house.

Re:It's only spam

[pixelpusher220]

If nobody wanted to receive it, then nobody would buy anything sold via email, and spammers would go out of business.

Spammers do go out of business all the time. The people actually making money are the ones selling the lists and mass sending services. The people who actually 'sell' via the channels are the ones going out of business.

Reference the California Gold Rush days...the only ones who got rich were the people selling shovels.

The moral here is that as long as people 'think' they can make money via spam, someone else will sell them the ability to send it. Kinda like the script kiddies...no real skill, just following the instructions.

The real problem is the conveyor of the message...which makes shooting the messenger in this case quite reasonable ;-)

Re:It's only spam

[Macka]

The way to fight spam is to build clever tools, come up with a technical fix. New laws are the last thing we need.

Sorry but you're wrong. No single law is going to fix the problem, and technical solutions on their own won't either. Spammers will always find ways around them. The fix when it eventually comes will be a suite of technical changes combined with a suite of changes to international law. Only in combination will they pack the punch needed to stop this abuse. I welcome this new law and hope that other countries follow their lead asap!

Heavy Handed ?

[SirFlakey]

I agree - When viewed on the angle of banning software in itself - That sort of thing sets those tiny little alarm bells ringing in the back of the cavernous space dubbed, somewhat grandiously, "my brain".

But for the life of me I cannot see anything positive "email harvesting or list-generating software" could be used for. But maybe that is just me.

List Generation Software has no valid use

[Jailbrekr]

So tell me, if banning List Generation Software is a bit heavy handed, then please explain its lawful use?

Oh? Do I hear silence? Of course I do. there is NO legitimate reason for list generation software, or email harvesters. If you develop a drug where its only use is to incapacitate a person, you ban its possession and manufacture. The same goes for list generation software.

Re:List Generation Software has no valid use

[StaffordBeerIsMyHero]

It is heavy handed banning something outright just because its primary use is antisocial. You don't need to think of a secondary use a priori for this to be the case. A secondary use may pop out of nowhere next week, and it'll be too late because the heavy-handed law has been passed when no-one thought it was too much.

Drugs are different, but ironically drug law is one of the most heavy-handed pieces of legislature there is.

Make up your MINDS, people!

[mcrbids]

Banning list-generation software seems a bit heavy-handed, doesn't it?

Which is it going to be?!?

On one hand, we decry any attempt to regulate the Internet for any reason (see this article just earlier today!) unless it's XYZ...

This is why true democracy always fails... Everybody will vote only for themselves, but the end result is that everybody votes *against* everybody else.

So we have slowly eroding personal liberties, along with a gradually growing, now almost all-encompassing quasi-socialistic govornment. (here in the US)

Sometimes altruism pays. Is it so terrible to BAN email harvesters and their accompanying list generators? How about google? They've certainly made notes on some of my recent activity...

Most any slashdotter will agree that a line needs to be drawn, even if it's just ABM. (Anything But Microsoft)

It takes a level head to realize the idea of valid compromise towards drawing lines that will function well in society.

valid uses

[CoffeeCrusader]

Yeah, it might be that there's no valid use for list-generating software, but the problem's the spam, not the software. Anybody who knows a bit about programming can write a new list-generating software. Thus you can't ban the software, as you can be sure that there'll be a site who offers the same banned software for download. The only way is to punish them for actually using it, not for having it. 'cause software ought to be free and not regulated away because someone could misuse it. just like a kitchen knife could be used for cutting bread as well as for killing someone

stupid stupid laws

[geoff lane]

"email harvesting or list-generating software"

So greping for email addresses in netnews is now going to be illegal?

"List generating" - wait for the bill

[lpontiac]

Let's keep in mind there is probably an entire section in draft legislation, which was reduced to a few sentences in a press release, which the media reduced to the phrase "list generation software."

We won't know what this actually means until the bill appears before parliament.

One concern is that a sufficiently vague definition could cause legal concerns with software that has legitimate uses - for instance, something like SELECT DISTINCT sender_address FROM usenet_posts; on a database like Google Groups could generate a list of email addresses, how should things be phrased to make sure Google Groups is in the clear?

Re:Heavy handed is about the norm...

[kgbspy]

I always find it amusing that "our" government calls itself "Liberal", but is practically conservative enough to closely resemble a U.S. administration (except, perhaps, without all the sex scandals). Alston really needs to buy himself a clue - how he can justify his station really is beyond me (perhaps they should start calling him "The Australian Information Minister"...)

I can't see that this is going to have a great deal of immediate impact; based on my own experiences receiving spam, and that of friends, scarce little comes from within Australia, most of it seems to source from the States or Asia (well... now that the New Zealand guy is out of the way, anyway). I did receive spam from Russia today - completely in cyrillic. Sure, I'd love to buy what you're selling, if only I could read it...

As much as I'd like to credit Mr Howard's 'initiative' and 'forward planning' in this instance as an attempt to cut the spam problem off at the pass, as it were, I can't help but feel that this is just a poorly thought out knee-jerk reaction to something that needs considerably more thought than this technologically ill-informed administration is willing to put into it.

Still, proof's in the pudding, as they say. If they can stem the source of spamming in this country before it grows out of control, as it has done elsewhere, good on 'em. I just can't see it happening.

Australian spammers

[Zog The Undeniable]

Naturally, this will only directly impact local Australian spammers, but they're also hoping this will set a precedent for the International community.

Precisely. When was the last time you had any spam from Down Under? As far as "the international community" is concerned, I don't think we can really class the spamming scum, who obfuscate their identities and operate across multiple countries, as a community. All in all, not even close, and definitely no cigar :-(

Re:Socialist?

[Anonymous Coward]

This person doesn't know what the hell they are talking about. The blanket, unsupported statement "This is why true democracy always fails..." pretty much says it.

Re:Simple solution to Spam Control

[LordLucless]

That stops the user from having to see it, but not the bandwidth cost of having downloaded it. Also, with white lists, theres the problem of initial contact. Sometimes people, for valid reason, want to contact you without having done so before. Example? Many freelance editors advertise their services online. They can't setup a white list, or they won't get any clients. So with white lists, the user only delays the necessity of sorting through the spam; they need to identify the false positives and undo them.

Spam repellant

[Flingles]

Wouldn't it be possible to regulate emails? For example- ISPx monitors subject lines of incoming mail, if more than 50 are the same, it is checked if it is spam. Spam gone. When ordinary word scripts to block certain words are added, this would prolly be the unspammable ISP. Any reasons why this wouldn't work?

Re:Spam repellant

[Bruce J L]

50 emails the same.. 1. Email lists / groups that people actually did sign up for 2. Autoresponder / vacation replies.. They might not be at the same time but thier may be 50 of them 3. Order Replies from business.. Your CDW Order #232423xx not much is going to change in the subject line.. Just how much processor usage do you want to use? Just some quick ideas on why isps can just monitor emails.

Re:Spam repellant

[yalla]

I agree. When i'm at work where there is no spam-filter i sometimes just delete my project-managers emails 'cause his subject lines look like spam. It's not on purpose, but it looks so... Well, spamish.

If i can't decide by the subject line what's spam and what's real, how should a spamfilter do?

Can you imagine the rage of people, when some projectmanager's email gets filtered and you loose profit?

Alex.

Re:Heavy Handed?

[inaeldi]

What else, apart from sending spam or selling the list to someone else who'll send spam, would such a list be used for?

Funny how slashdotters then go to say that P2P software shouldn't be banned because it has legitimate uses, when we all know that almost everyone uses it to pirate music.

Not flamebaiting, just being cynical.

Re:My idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say you don't want to listen to a particular radio station. So you change the channel. Then after a little bit of enjoying the new station, the one you changed from kicks back on. You think, weird, and change it back. But this keeps happening.

Then you go buy another radio cause this one isn't working correctly. But dammit if it doesn't happen again with the new radio. Some how some radio station aquired technology to change your channels.

I guess your response would be to not listen to the radio then???

It might be a little less troublesome if they didn't use fake return email addresses, steal other's mta's, subject lines that try to deceive,... If they were just legitimate business people and not immoral crooks, they wouldn't have to resort to such deception.

Re:Heavy Handed?

[ColaMan]

That's not spam, because we're contacting genuine potential customers.

You do realise that spam is termed 'U.C.E.' as in Unsolicited commercial email?

The phrase "but I'm just contacting genuine potential customers" is the mainstay of every spammers excuse list.

I do applaud your sales guy for snail-mailing things out - it's likely to have more credibility anyway compared to having your message slotted in between v1argara and peni5 enlargement offers.

Re:Australia rules

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you talking about? Zero power? Indonesia might be interested to hear about that - I guess they actually have negative power then, since we just walked in and took over East Timor. Not to mention PNG, who are next. It might be news to the Solomon Islands too - considering we waltzed in there a few weeks ago and took over their whole fricking government. Whose soldiers were first into Iraq? Whose apples do the japs pay $10 each to eat? Who has the largest Law Of The Sea claim on earth? Who runs the whole fucking south pacific? Sure we're a smaller fish than the US. But for christ's sake, we're 20m people. We punch well above our weight.

And as for not making anything here - why would we? We just buy it all from China, at a price we couldn't match even if it were 10 times what it is. Why? We have a fair minimum wage. Sucks doesn't it? That's why there's almost no crime? Do you like walking through Sydney CBD at 3am? Think you can do that in NYC?

Business community rejecting risky technical investments? Shit, you're right. We missed out on that whole dot com thing. God damn it.

Vassal state? You're the one living in an alternate reality. Where the hell is your evidence for that one? The fact we helped in Iraq? Well look here pal, I wanted us to help, and if there's one thing I'm not it's a "vassal" of the USA.

Your opinion smacks of someone who has never been outside of Australia. Here we don't like bullshit, don't like spin, do things by the basics. Go live somewhere else for a while and you might come to appreciate that a bit more.

hk

1c e-mail postage stamp

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way spamming will significantly reduce, is when each e-mail has to be paid for. Say 1c postage for sending an e-mail. I would have no problem paying the $10 for the 1000 e-mails I send a year. A spammer would need to pay this amount every millisecond of sending spam.

How to implement this world-wide is another question.

Re:1c e-mail postage stamp

[thogard]

Why does this get moded up every time it comes up? If you want this, go get your self an X.400 email address and you won't have spam problems and you'll get to pay per message too.

At $.01 per message for leagal messages means that any message will be legal if its paid for.

I've worked for compaines that have dumped $10,000,000 on some ad campaigns. At your rate thats a billion messages.

Besides who gets the money? There is no way to get it to the small ISP and the only other choice is some govt funded scam or slush fund.

Re:Australia rules

[sholden]

What rubbish. I live in Sydney - a city FULL of whites, asians, blacks, you name it. All living in relative harmony. My girlfriend is asian, I'm white. It's an awful myth that Australia is somehow racist.

It really isn't a myth. I also happen to live in Sydney. I also happen to be white (and my family tree goes back to the first fleet). I happen to be married to an Iranian.

Australia has gotten more tolerant of Asians in the last 20 years. Jump back to the "Asians arebuying all of Australia" idiocy and it wasn't so good. Instead of Asians, currently it's the Middle Easterners who bear the brunt of Australia's reasonably famous intolerance. Those who are muslim get treated like terorists. Those who are male and young are assumed to be planning to rape the white women.

Did you somehow miss the whole Lebanese gangs paranioa recently...

On the surface Australia seems fine and dandy, but the racism quickly shows itself whenever the surface is scratched by some event.

Many Australians are not rascist, many Australians are reasonable and tolerant. The closer you are to the city (in Sydney anyway) the better it gets. But step out of the city and things deteriorate.

And maybe you shouldn't assume that everyone else in the country shares your personal mindset about the general shitness of everything in the world everywhere.

Maybe you should stop assigning your interpretations onto other people. I made no such assumption. I stated my opinion. You don't have to agree with it.

list generating software

[u05]

I can think of many good and essential uses for list generating software

-scientific data result generation.

-list of open ports on a computer for security analysis.

-list of most popular products from your on-line store front for re-ordering and evaluation.

-compiler/assembler output is a list of errors in your code hence a compiler is list-generating software.

-list of journey routes and times generated through point and click maps.

-security auditing software recording logon times and users.

-lists generated by search engines. be it online or by database search.

The law bans all of this legitimate and essential software and i think i could go on all day thinking of situations this software is needed.

Spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone think banning Spam is a bad thing. It annoys us every day, but do we ever think what can be done to us through any law that affects a control over the Internet. If we intend to destroy Spam and Spammers trusting our legal system is a bad idea; nine times out of ten they'll take something onourous onto a law.
It would be safer and more likely to preserve an open free internet if we did it ourselves.

Liberty or Safety as always. We'll choose safety of course.

Hitting spammers where it hurts

[Frodrick]

The proposed law will ban sending commercial emails without the recipient's prior consent

Perhaps the law could also prohibit businesses paying someone to send unsolicited email - and hold them accountable for the behaviour of the person they hire to send their (solicited) commercial emails.

It seems to me that this would have two effects: 1) It would make unsolicited email unprofitable, and 2) It would force businesses to keep their emailers on a short leash.

I suppose there must be something wrong with that idea or it would have been suggested long ago...

Patching the law

[t_allardyce]

Im sure viruses, hacking, even port scanning are banned in most countries and/or ISP policies. That doesnt mean people don't get hacked or get the virus! Anyone who cares enough will use protection - firewalls, anti-virus, properly set-up systems. Banning spam or any of the software thats used to create it means nothing. People will still get spam, maybe not as much but they will still get it and they will still need filters. It just ads another layer of legislation to the internet which is essentially just a hack, so you have to balance it out - if people are still going to get spam and always will even if the whole world bans it, then they might as well just use filters, is it worth reducing it abit by adding more laws?

Governments are acting like Microsoft, their laws are full of massive holes so every month they issue more hot-fixes, thats not the way to do it.

Re:Heavy handed is about the norm...

[daffmeister]

It's a bit like walking down a busy road in London, and expecting people not to offer you leaflets.

As usual, the analogy is poor. If the leaflet-givers were offering you penis enlargement and viagra, along with legitimate messages from friends and business associates, and you had to take the leaflets before you could determine which it was, and they charged you a penny for each one, and they gave a couple of hard-core ones to your nine year old daughter, then I think the analogy would be more accurate.

Re:Heavy Handed?

[tybalt44]

Let me give you my own take on this.

I'm a lawyer... someone who consumes a lot of specialized services. As a result, my inbox gets flooded every day with emails "promoting the slightly obscure services that we provide". It's irritating, it's annoying, and because my e-mail is listed in Martindale-Hubbell, I'm going to continue receiving this crap.

Now snail mail... I have less of a problem with that, particularly since I have someone who can winnow out the garbage, and it costs you a few pennies to send - limiting the potential abuse. But yes, if you were to be bulk e-mailing it would be spam as surely as the sun came up this morning. The fact that you target which particular people to annoy doesn't make me any happier with it.

P.S. I know exactly what credit insurance is, meat. Not only is it "almost essential" for sh*t, but if you think that your business is somehow different or special from the 1000s of other service businesses out there, you are very sadly mistaken. How would your statements be any different if you worked for a pants-pressing service rather than a credit insurer?

If your customers aren't even aware of what credit insurance is, my suggestion is that you guys start paying for articles and advertising in the trade journals.

Prior consent

[M-G]

IIRC, the problem with this was covered on /. a while back. Someone set up a harvestable address, and then waited for the spam to arrive, most of it claiming that the recipient had agreed via some partner to receive their 'valuable offers'.

So these spammers all either believe that they have a list of opt-in addresses, or are convincing their clients they do. (And the clients are frequently legitimate businesses.)

Given the ease with which a spammer will claim that you opted-in to their mailings, and the ease with which they could claim that you had agreed to those terms, won't all spam simply be labelled as opt-in after a law like this is passed?

SPAM - We're missing the mark.

[mbottrell]

I do believe the way we tackle SPAM and Email in general is outdated.

SMTP based on RFC821 relies soley on the principle of:

1. User sends mail to target sender.
2. Mail goes to their SMTP server
3. Mail 'finally' arrives at the recievers SMTP server.

The problem with this is that there is no verifcation from the end-user that the mail is legit.

A much better solution would be based on user verification.

This in theory would work on the principle that the we are creatures of habit.

We all recieve legit Email from a small trusted group. Anything not based on the trusted group is potentially unwanted mail.

A verified Email transport would work like such:

1. Reciever builds a list of trusted Email senders.
2. The trusted list is uploaded to the recievers SMTP server.
3. A mail sender sends an email.
4. The senders SMTP server sends a message envelope to the recievers SMTP server. (contains just the senders smtp address).
5. The message is stored on the Senders SMTP server awaiting verification from the remote end.
6. The Recieving SMTP server checks the envelope against the user 'whitelist'.
7. If the sender is on the recievers whitelist - the RECIEVERS SMTP server confirms that this is legit.
8. Senders SMTP message delivers the message to the Remote SMTP server.
9. If the Email is NOT on the whitelist, the SMTP server sends a WAIT for further instructions message to the Sending SMTP server.
10. The user then can review the 'envelopes' and decide whether to recieve/remove the offending email.
11. If removed - the Recievers SMTP server sends a message back to the remote Senders SMTP server to say not to send.
12. If a response is never recieved by the Sending SMTP - the message is deleted after 30 days.

This has some added benefits:

• Legit mail recieves a higher priority. :)
• SPAM is not Blindly Sent but is only initiated at the 'Recievers request'.
• Network Traffic is cut considerably.
• The cost of storage of the SPAM is held at the remote end (SPAMMERS ISP).
• The Spammers ISP could legitimately then charge the SPAMMER for 'unsent' Mail storage. :)

This is only a thought -- and would need to round out the idea - however it seems feasable that this is possible.

Interested in others comments.

Most Spam filtering software already includes 'WhiteLists/BlackLists'.
Moving this into the SMTP transport at the server end seems the next logical and automated approach.

MB.

Re:SPAM - We're missing the mark.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an idea.

It would help the problem of Spam if the infrastructure of the internet only allowed messages to flow if their source address was not forged (the vast majority of Spam has forged return addresses).

Instead of challenge/response requiring human interaction, you could hash the content of the e-mail with the source e-mail address to come-up with a key, or 'magic number' that is sent along with the e-mail - then have the infrastructure do a quick reality check when the message is sent from the first server forward, checking the key to get the e-mail address and automatically challenging the sending server to verify the existence of that address. If this fails, the infrastructure kills the mail at the source. If it succeeds, then the server is accountable as the source of the junk mail for legal purposes. A final reality check when the mail arrives at its destination can check for tampering with both the key of the mail and the id of the sending server. If the 'magic number' hash has been tampered with, the client could just discard the e-mail instead of delivering it.

This way, if you get spam, you have a degree of accountability from the infrastructure and the from the sender. Then technical and legal solutions are feasible without breaking the benefits of e-mail for everyone else. If spammers use forgery, the infrastructure will not let their junk through.

Nice idea, but...

[chriskenrick]

I'm certainly behind this idea, providing they get the wording of the legislation right.

However, given the Australian government's track record on these matters, I'm not confident it will make that much difference in practice. Take Internet censorship as an example. Similar concept, the legislation gives them the power to take down Australian hosted sites. Result - dismal failure