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U.S. Spam Law to Take Effect Jan. 1
We lead with news that the U.S. 'anti'-spam law, written largely by the Direct Marketing Association, will enter into effect on January 1. The bill preempts existing state laws which are tougher (states' rights anyone?), so for many citizens, this is purely a pro-spam law. The FTC is thinking about bounty hunters to enforce the new law (which you can and probably should read for yourself).
Hey, come January 1st, you can just email this important information to everyone in the US!
Somebody please compress the text of law... What can we expect from the law, how to enforce? What about people abroad?
The problem is that our current email system is flawed... one of the best solutions (or actually work-arounds) for the current protocol is obvious, and already being used by several major ISPs... opt-in for ALL email. I know a few people who do this (their server rejects email from all senders except those on an approved list) and it works very well for them, but the average Joe wants both convenience AND security for their email, so the hassle of having to "approve" folks is not worth it (apparently it's easier to weed the 30 or 40 legit emails out of the 100's of spam messages)
Face it, email, in its current incarnation, is inherently flawed. Until we actually change the way we implement and use email (perhaps even changing protocols) we will continue to have spam problems. Even Britain's "opt-in" version of anti-spam legislation has done little to curb the problem. The US "opt-out" version is even worse! When a prominent spammer is quoted as saying this 'anti'-spam legislation "makes my day", you KNOW it's a bad law!
I think that the problem needs to be tackled from a technical standpoint, rather than a legal one. If we were able to improve the system, legislation like this wouldn't be necessary!
Hm. Wonder if Boba Fett has an IMAP client in all that fancy armor... :)
-JT
Hell, I'll work as a bounty hunter for free, as long as I get to bash the spammer in the head... That's my "payment" for my "work".
On Slashdot? I thought I felt a chill down here.
The law was necessary and inevitable. Not doing anything is not an option when the US is the second major source of criminal spam scams. Do you want the US business reputation to sink to that of Nigeria?
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
The federal law is general - you can't escape it across the state borders?
The owls are not what they seem
FTC - I want them alive. No disintegrations Bounty hunter - As you wish
It may go into effect on January 1, but expect spammers to treat it like April 1.
And I don't get ANY sales calls since I signed up, but I worry how many spammers give two shits about the DMA, unlike the phone scumbags.
Yes, this is a great law. Even if spammers follow the law, you'd have to opt-out for every
"company" spams you.
That is going to work great. Put this one right up there with the Medicare Bill on the list of "2003 Who Cares If It Doesn't Work, We Passed It" legislation.
Its a step in the right direction, but isn't what you think it is.
Its a law that forces soliciters to acknowledge who they are (nothing really big), but the one kicker is to enforce that if you opt out, the spammer actually opts you out.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Isn't that the same organization that was formed by many spam companies to fight anti-spam companies by threatening to sue them?
Well that's just great! Have a spam organization set the rules for the country to follow by. It's official our government is forever currupted!
This space is not for rent.
Hmm, an anti-spam law written by the Direct Marketing Association. No, that doesn't sound like an conflict of interest to me.
It's not about the law - it's about a hatred for Bush. Notice that even threads about unrelated topics such as Gnome or Linux will eventually degenerate into an Anti-US pro-socialist/Europe bash fest. It's about powerless people using a public message board to protest since it's the only outlet available to them.
From the FTC article:
The bounty-hunter idea was promoted this year primarily by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., who called upon Congress to allow individuals who identify and help locate spammers to receive at least 20 percent of any fines collected.
I hereby stake my claim to the 20 percent bounty on one Flo Fox , of Slidell, LA. Hands off!Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
if this is it then look:
The bill will provide criminal penalties for violations of its provisions (up to five years behind bars), but will not allow private parties to sue spammers.
correct me if I'm wrong.
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
I'm confused about how this will preempt state law. The state and federal government regularly disagree on a particular issue and have different laws in place to handle such issues (see state marijuana laws vs federal) but that has never preempted a state law or deemed a state law unenforceable. Unless of course a court determines the law is unconstitutional.
What gives?
I have to wonder if some spammers are already backing off in anticipation of this or if hotmail did something about spam. I went from about 200/day to about 4/day as of about 3 days ago. I thought my account was messed up and had to email myself to see if it was working.
Wouldn't it be great if that was a preview of things to come if this bill works? Yeah it's not exactly what we wanted but it does restrict them quite a bit and opens them up for legal repercussions for spam-blasting pron to teenagers. Things won't be as easy as harvesting addresses & blasting users with crap. I personally like it. If they don't have working unsubscribe mechanisms, forge headers, relay off of unsuspecting users, etc they can be prosecuted.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
This seems like another useless law around here. As others have pointed out, off-shore spam won't change a bit from this. Also, this won't affect the most annoying spam I get, the junk email from companies that I have an account with. No matter how many times I check my privacy preferences they send me email about how I can pay my bill online.
Technology could have solved this problem a better way. But leave it to the federal gov't to reign over another portion of our lives.
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
For those looking, the section on bounties is on page 19 of the pdf file: Improving Enforcement by Providing Rewards etc
It basically says that within 9 months of the enactment of the act, the commission is to set forth a system for rewarding those who supply information about violators; the first person who supplies the required information is to recieve a reward of not less than 20% of the total civil penalty collected.
I only scanned the file and I'm not sure how large the fines are expect to be; it does say that all property traceable to illegal spamming proceeds and all equipment used for such is forfiet.
Twenties Retirement
No Child Left Behind
Healthy Forests
Patriot Act
Doublethink doubleplusgood!
As long as the term dead or alive is included, I want in!
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
(2) uses a protected computer to relay or retransmit multiple commercial electronic mail messages, with the intent to deceive or mislead recipients, or any Internet access service, as to the origin of such messages,
(3) materially falsifies header information in multiple commercial electronic mail messages and intentionally initiates the transmission of such messages,
It prohibits Fake headers and abusing relays and proxies. Granted, this will only start the use of throw away email addresses that are used once for sending the 20 billion pieces of spam.
People are complaining that it's pro-spam... I see that it is a start in the right direction. 99% of the spam I get is from outside the US anyways so I expect that it will not do much to change the amount of spam out there and in that note, if mister spammer moves his spamming operation outside the country then this law has no teeth.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
After the war on drugs, the wars on poverty, the war on terror... no the war on spam?
You cannot legislate away structural problems. Spam is the direct consequence of having an unprotected communications ecosystem. Communications represent a resource and spammers exploit weaknesses in protocols, interfaces, and operating systems to steal this resource from others.
This law will simply harden the existing bonds between spammers, criminals, and virus writers. Expect the fight to escalate, and your inbox to get fuller of junk.
Legislating against spammers will simply mean that spamming will become a criminal activity. Since some of the largest and most profitable and fastest growing businesses in the world are criminal (drugs, weapons, slavery, stolen antiques & art), what government can be so naive as to hope that this can succeed?
There is only one answer and I've bored Slashdotters with this often enough. Understand that the Internet acts like an organic ecosystem, where parasites evolve according to basic and unalterable rules that govern all ecosystems, natural or artificial. Understand that there are also ways to combat such parasites, based on variation, mutation, and recombination. Explore and develop these techniques.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
"It is hard to locate spammers, and it'd be very hard without subpoena power,".
And once you do find one (with or without the help of bounty hunters), what then? Im sure law enforcement will really care. Maybe the politicians will push for an example or two, but this will have no real impact.
Meet the new sig, same as the old sig
But most of us are just sick of getting 500 "PAR1S H1LTON S*X TAPE!!!!!" emails every day. And I'm particularly sick of the assholes forging my domain in headers, further flooding my inbox and prompting mailbombs and death threats from the aforementioned righteous and holy. If a measure bans domain forging and creates a national Do Not Spam list, I can more than live with the occasional opt-out mail from E-Bay. Sorry.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The problem with "opt-out" is two-fold:
If the law mandated that opt-out must be implemented by use of a web link (e.g. "This message was addressed to john.doe@mail.us, click the link below and you will be removed immediately"), that would be a little better. None of this detracts from the overriding issue, and that is by requiring opt-out instead of opt-in (either double opt-in or a verification link) this law essentialy legalizes, indeed encourages, spam.
How can anyone complain about and Anti-SPAM law?
How could anyone complain about my new (patented) Hugs And Kisses greeting? Of course, its actually punching you in the face and dropping a brick on your foot, buts its called "hugs and kisses", so how could anyone complain about that?
You can't take the sky from me...
It's about powerless people
Well, they're not all completely powerless. Many of them have a very powerful stench.
Looks to me as the laws were conveniently rewritten (as the have been for the past many months) to make legit what would not have been easily defensible without the rewritten laws ....
Maybe the CAN-SPAM law is more commercial than political. But, I am starting to believe that most politics is now commercial ... Am I one of just a few sceptics ?
To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
net connection to that Sarlacc. The three sarlaccs in my backyard are splitting a T3, but remember, connectivity is rather spotty on Tatooine ever since Jabba signed that deal with Covad.
Three things strike me about this law:
1. After reading the text, it does not include the word "bulk" in any context for spam, which basically means that any single person email to another person (even if sent in good faith) could be applicable to the law if the receiver deems it "spam." I think that is a mistake.
2. It limits statutory damages for civil violations. This is ridiculous, is it really necessary to protect the spammers, basically the most hated group of people within the net?.
3. It still allows "spam" email from charities, religious organisations and government bodies. Now all I need is my penis enlargement emails coming to me from the church of large testicles. Seriously though, why is junk mail from churches or the even the government for that matter better than my daily breast enlargement emails?
exactly. That is the mindset of Clinton supporters/Democrats. You can't just ban spam. Then there would be a flurry of lawsuits saying a company replying to your inquiry was spam. You have to draw the line somewhere. You can't tell other countries they can't spam Americans either. Yet Democrats have the need to bash Bush for not trying. Ironic since they bash him for enforcing anti-terrorism and not enforcing spam laws. He can't win for losing against these guys.
I see this as a dangerour move for the legislators who passed the bill. If they go about trumpeting it in their re-election campaign then it could backfire HARD.
Look, we all know that a bill on the books in even a country as influential as the US won't do any good for technical reasons.
If the senators talk about how they're doing it for the little guy and then said little guy looks in his inbox to find just as many, if not more, penis ads then confidence in the reps could waver.
Not only that, but I'll be that overseas spammers are smiling at this bill. Just because you clicked on an opt-out link in an email from a company based on China doesn't mean that they have to remove you from their list any more than they did before. In fact, now I'd bet that you're going to see even more spam because people in the US will be doing just that; clicking on all the opt-out links thinking that now they're protected by the new bill.
this should be fun to watch =]
Recently I have started reporting my spam to the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (in addition to the FTC and SpamCop). Has anyone else tried filing complaints with this agency? What have your results been?
This will be used to do more monitoring on citizens. The feds will be saying that they need relaxed conditions to see who is spamming.
Sadly, even if written to stop true spam, there is no way to stop spam via government control anymore than china can stop access to all politcal web sites; ppl and companies just shift domains and IPs.
Until the underlieing smtp protocol is changed (Yahoo's is looking interesting), there will be spam.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Strangely enough, this is starting to become strangely similar to my idea for a Spammer hunting license. you license the spammers so that you can track them down. bounty hunters to trackthe illegals volume fee for spam similar to us postage to pay the spammers and generate income from the internate. extra bonus: orange ear tags for spammers so they can be identified in public
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Well, at least no spammer would ever ruin their great brand recognition and close down shop only to open up again under a new name every couple weeks...
You can't take the sky from me...
So for any spam that has a forged header or a misleading subject, California's new law, with the $1000 per spam penalty, will still apply. California allows private suits in small claims court by any party. So you can haul the bozos into court. Maybe even across state lines.
A year or two from now, we'll be rid of the chickenboners, but we'll be getting even more spam from "legitimate businesses".
The RIAA writes the copyright laws.
The Direct Marketing Association writes the SPAM laws.
The Rapists write the sex laws.
The Breweries write the alocohol laws.
Way to go legislators, leading the people into a safer future!
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
Are there enough spammers in the United States to make it worth the bounty?
:)
Not for long -- anti-spam bounties will drive the remaining US spammers offshore.
Maybe we should just keep the vile stuff here at home. I think Lyndon Baines Johnson put it well when he said "Better to have the skunk inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in."
But seriously -- no US bounty is going to affect non-US spammers. And if the bounty does actually hit US spammers where they live, expect international spammers to pick up the slack.
"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here."
-kgj
-kgj
and started firewalling the worst spammers that are hitting them. Most of the big mail providers, be it for political reasons or plain incompentence, do a piss poor job of controlling spam thats incoming.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
The weak Federal law was specifically advanced/signed to supercede and eliminate the tough state laws. The spam industry (and those who benefit from them) feared aggresive state level prosecutions (think what Eliot Spitzer could do to them). They got a "law" that says it is doing something, doesn't actually stop anything, and protects them from everyone who might try to stop them legally.
Hell, son, that's chicken feed. That nice Nigerian fellar's promising me $60,000,000!!!! Sorry, but I don't do business with two-bit operators.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
While it sucks, it's not so bad. Opt-out can be automated, and reporting of continued spams from opted-out spammers to the FTC could be automated as well. I bet the guys behind the excellent spam filters in Apple's mail.app (for example) could come up with a way to do that.
sulli
RTFJ.
People complain about the bill because, due to the way it is written, it is likely to actually increase spam as people reply to spams believing they'll actually be removed.
:-p
And the parent is NOT flamebait
It's a valid question.
Twenties Retirement
Well, I've got an anti -anti-spam law!
it's a travesty that the largest domestic terrorist organization, the DMA, is allowed to give input into the creation of our anti-terror laws. Yes, unsolicited commercial advertising is a form of terrorism.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
In SOVIET RUSSIA (Score:1, Funny)
All your e-mail belong to government.
-----
Good God man! I pity the man who modded you as funny!
1. Use cliched Slashdot joke
2. Mess up formatting
3. ???
4. Profit!!
There are two ways to interpret your attempt. You could have been going for a Soviet Russia joke, which could have been better worded as "In SOVIET RUSSIA, spam law makes YOU!"
Or you could have been going for the all your base parody which could have been worded as "All your email are belong to U.S.!"
In either case, respectfully, YOU FAIL IT.
(Anyone with karma to burn want to count how many cliches I've used?)
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Email is a problem that transcends State's borders (It's an interstate problem, not an intrastate one)... hence, it's a federal issue and transcends State LAw.
The FTC has proven extraordinarily effective combating adds that sell fradulent products. That is why I never recieve adds telling me how to grow bigger/get, tits, dick, wealth or Gold in south africa. We all know that a law that threatens people with government enforcement is going to REALLY scare the spammers.
The only effective law against spammers will be one that allows the spammed to take the consequences out of the cyber world and put it into the real one. The law goes like this. If you have been spammed, goto a judge and prove what machine/person did it. Once done you get a "spammer hunting liscence". This liscence allows you to attack the people that spammed you, and their computers. Acceptable hunting weapons include baseball bats, chainsaws and piano wire. I like the bounty hunter idea, in case your too squeamish to deal with spammers yourself.
Am I pissed off about spam? You bet I am
AngryPeopleRule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Your (heh) government at "work".
I wish I could vote myself a raise whenever I felt like it!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
No actually, they're not just a good idea, they're a GREAT idea.
Unlike criminal bounty hunters, there's no violence involved. It's all intellect to intellect. Who can study and understand the most about everything involved. (Which can be everything from OS's, to protocol stacks, to network topology, to application exploits, worms viruses, daemons, services, ect.)
But how are they going to determine bounties??? This is a tough question.
Will it be by volume (amount of spam sent)
Will it be by complexity? (How hard will it be to decipher what the spammer did?)
Will it be by difficulty? (How well did the suspect cover up their tracks?)
Or will it be by the amount of time unsolved?
I think all of the above would make a great basis to calculate a bounty. I also think an audit trail of some type has to be established with evidence gathering, because it's not too hard to point the finger at an innocent person.
So if you say it's ok to bounty hunt as long as you're white hacking in the "name of the law" how far will you be allowed to go with your evidence collecting before you've crossed the line into privacy invasion?
See, that's the real conundrum with bounty hunters on the net. It's not like the days of the old west when you could hang up a picture of a guy, point and say "That's the one!" With the net there are so many complex ways to frame a person that it's unpractical to give goverment, let alone private netizens the type of evidence collecting power they would need in order to procescute people.
So maybe it isn't such a great idea after all. Sounds more like someone trying to equate the net with some spaghetti western. What we need to do is replace the current mail system with something better (something discussed many times here)
I'm one of those people that wouldn't screw someone over for a buck. I'm in the minority.
Technology could have solved this problem a better way. But leave it to the federal gov't to reign over another portion of our lives.
BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT! I've been listening to this anti-government crap for the past 5+ years in the discussions of spam. If technology has had the ability to solve this problem, then just when the hell was it going to happen? Are you waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain with a stone tablet proclaiming that it's time for you to deploy your technological solution? Spam has been increasing at an alarming rate and, with the exception of a tiny percentage of technically savvy users, most people have no technical solution to the problem. This law doesn't prevent you from rolling out the technical solution that you've been witholding for the past few years. Go ahead. Let me know when you've gotten every ISP, business, and individual running a mail server to adopt your heretofore secret spam solution.
It's like suggesting that we abolish laws against rape by reasoning that technology can solve that problem using chastity belts, mace, pepper spray, stun guns, and whistles.
If something is unethical and harms innocent people, then it should be illegal. The problem with the federal law is that it doesn't do nearly enough. But I'd rather that they outlaw some spam than make it all legal. Having a legitimate return address to clog with complaints is worth something to me.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Actually, the interesting bit to me when I read the Spamhaus article entitled, "United States set to Legalize Spamming on January 1, 2004", was that it ought to be awfully easy to filter spam if it must contain some text (and a link?) about how to opt-out. As long as it's clear what is spam and what is not spam, then the probably is almost completely solved.
And make all mail resident on the sender's server, instead of the current store and forward. You would be inundated with the same number of messages, but they would be small references to the location of the actual data, which would obvously need to be a 'real' location, thus making it traceable. Any server that received a messaeg that could not be reversed would be refused. This way, the ISPs can stop bitching about the amount of mail they have to store, and you can start writing filters to filter out the reverse lookups. all flames are automatically redirected to /dev/null
If at first you don't succeed, redefine 'success'
Isn't it a sad commentary on the state of our nation that we are powerless and that our only outlet is this?
The complaint didn't have anything to do with Bush at all. The complaint is that the new law doesn't have any teeth at all and won't make a difference. That doesn't have anything to do with Bush, so stop your whining.
I bet you're one of the people who believe in the "LIBERAL MEDIA!!!" myth and that conservatives are being oppressed, eh?
Well there'll soon be a new source for cheap IT products :)
"(2) PROCEDURES- The procedures set forth in section 413 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 853), other than subsection (d) of that section, and in Rule 32.2 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, shall apply to all stages of a criminal forfeiture proceeding under this section."
Looking forward to it.
---
All your old jokes are belong to sigs.
Second off, we've lost the wars on drugs, poverty, and terror? Why didn't somebody tell me? I'm going to go spend my last dollar on drugs to help alleviate the overwhelming terror I feel.
Not just every company, but also every division within that company. There won't likely be any "opt me out once and for all" clauses.
I expect that I'll be limbering up my "Delete" button over the next few weeks in anticipation of the onslaught.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
No they can spam everybody legimate if they stick to the new rules.
my spamcount: 265 spam since Dec 3
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
Seriously, sign me up.
You are not the customer.
"and to include opt-out instructions and the sender's physical address" Now it will be infinitely easier to counter attack email spammers with "paper spam".
Unpleasantries.
Patriot "Act"
looks like a do not email registry will not happen until at least next September:
(b) AUTHORIZATION TO IMPLEMENT- The Commission may establish and implement the plan, but not earlier than 9 months after the date of enactment of this Act.
it will be interesting to see who is in charge of such a list
I don't like Spam, but I can't STAND spim! I use aim and now like 5 times a day I get IM's from "horny 18 y/o coeds who want me to check out their webcams." It's so freakin annoying. Plus, there doesn't seem to be a way to filter them out, unlike spam. Damn it. And unlike email, which changes every few years anyway, I really don't want to change my aim screenname - I've had it for 11 years now. Damn it Damn it Damn it...
In the past it was on a few Spam lists, but I opted out of those and now I don't get anything. So, if you're careful, Spam won't affect you at all!
Anybody else finding success with the 'chastity' approach?
Federal Law cannot preempt state laws that are stronger than the federal law.
Then the issue will quickly go away.
If the spammer's customer's have to pay the USPS or some guv'mint agency a dollar per email they send out, and maybe a day in jail per million spam emails, its cheaper and smarter to use smail mail. And most of them won't anyway.
The best way to get rid of spamers is to squeeze their customers.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
No, you would have to opt out for every division of every company that spams you. And the spammers are perfectly free to create a new "division" for each spam campaign. The opt-out provisions in this law are really utterly worthless. No wonder they called it the "can spam" act. It tells everyone that they can spam you all they want.
I believe you've confused "April 1st" with "December 25th".
When/what was the first mention of the word "internet" in US law? Anybody?
DiscDividers tabbed plastic CD dividers: divider cards f
Must... Patiently... Wait for... PJ.
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
Um, no. The law says that the spammer must provide an opt out method, but it does not standardize it. It just says that that they must provide "a functioning return electronic mail address or other Internet-based mechanism".
So your opt out method in the email could be something so arcane and difficult that only a handfull of people could do it. (e.g., a secure corba call via an unpublished IDL. Or clicking on a series of web pages that require you to download more than 10G of advertisements before you get to the opt-out link.) And they can change it 30 days later to something even more assinine.
Most spammers won't do it. But some will. opting out can be more painfull than the spam itself because they didn't standardize it. Thank you congress.
W
Offtopic my ass... Had I not already posted, +1 Insightful.
There's so little difference between politics and jihad lately...
CAUCE's response to the law can be read here.
A copy of the final version of the law can be found here.
According to CAUCE, the law was passed without any public hearings. What a shame.
there is a substantial government interest in regulation of commercial electronic mail on a nationwide basis
Why don't we just take care of this ourselves? The net is global. Unless the US-G want's to put a big spam filter on all incoming lines, I'd guess any 'regulation' would result in a reduction of freedom for those of us living here in the states.
Jezz, I should'a voted Democrat.
I'm glad that this law requires unsolicited email senders (aka spammers) to send their physical postal address location along with the spam. I imagine that soon, message boards will be popping up with lists of all known spammers... Of course, being the noble /.ers we are, we would never sign anyone up for any magazines or stuff that they didn't want... even if they were spammers.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
URGENT ASSISTANCE - FROM USA
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FROM: GEORGE WALKER BUSH 202.456.1414 / 202.456.1111 FAX: 202.456.2461
DEAR SIR / MADAM,
I AM GEORGE WALKER BUSH, SON OF THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH, AND CURRENTLY SERVING AS
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE
YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT MET NEITHER IN PERSON NOR BY CORRESPONDENCE. I
CAME TO KNOW OF YOU IN MY SEARCH FOR A RELIABLE AND REPUTABLE PERSON TO
HANDLE A VERY CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS TRANSACTION, WHICH INVOLVES THE
TRANSFER OF A HUGE SUM OF MONEY TO AN ACCOUNT REQUIRING MAXIMUM
CONFIDENCE.
I AM WRITING YOU IN ABSOLUTE CONFIDENCE PRIMARILY TO SEEK YOUR
ASSISTANCE IN ACQUIRING OIL FUNDS THAT ARE PRESENTLY TRAPPED IN THE
REPUBLIC OF IRAQ. MY PARTNERS AND I SOLICIT YOUR ASSISTANCE IN
COMPLETING A TRANSACTION BEGUN BY MY FATHER, WHO HAS LONG BEEN ACTIVELY
ENGAGED IN THE EXTRACTION OF PETROLEUM IN THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA,AND BRAVELY SERVED HIS COUNTRY AS DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY.IN THE DECADE OF THE NINETEEN-EIGHTIES, MY
FATHER, THEN VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, SOUGHT TO
WORK WITH THE GOOD OFFICES OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ TO
REGAIN LOST OIL REVENUE SOURCES IN THE NEIGHBORING ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF
IRAN. THIS UNSUCCESSFUL VENTURE WAS SOON FOLLOWED BY A FALLING-OUT WITH
HIS IRAQI PARTNER, WHO SOUGHT TO ACQUIRE ADDITIONAL OIL REVENUE SOURCES
IN THE NEIGHBORING EMIRATE OF KUWAIT, A WHOLLY-OWNED U.S.-BRITISH
SUBSIDIARY.
MY FATHER RE-SECURED THE PETROLEUM ASSETS OF KUWAIT IN 1991 AT A COST OF
SIXTY-ONE BILLION U.S. DOLLARS ($61,000,000,000). OUT OF THAT
COST,THIRTY-SIX BILLION DOLLARS ($36,000,000,000) WERE SUPPLIED BY HIS
PARTNERS IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA AND OTHER PERSIAN GULF
MONARCHIES, AND SIXTEEN BILLION DOLLARS ($16,000,000,000) BY GERMAN AND
JAPANESE PARTNERS. BUT MY FATHER'S FORMER IRAQI BUSINESS PARTNER
REMAINED IN CONTROL OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ITS PETROLEUM RESERVES.
MY FAMILY IS CALLING FOR YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE IN FUNDING THE REMOVAL
OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ AND ACQUIRING THE PETROLEUM
ASSETS OF HIS COUNTRY, AS COMPENSATION FOR THE COSTS OF REMOVING HIM
FROM POWER. UNFORTUNATELY, OUR PARTNERS FROM 1991 ARE NOT WILLING TO
SHOULDER THE BURDEN OF THIS NEW VENTURE, WHICH IN ITS UPCOMING PHASE MAY
COST THE SUM OF 100 BILLION TO 200 BILLION DOLLARS ($100,000,000,000
-$200,000,000,000), BOTH IN THE INITIAL ACQUISITION AND IN LONG-TERM
MANAGEMENT. WITHOUT THE FUNDS FROM OUR 1991 PARTNERS, WE WOULD NOT BE
ABLE TO ACQUIRE THE OIL REVENUE TRAPPED WITHIN IRAQ. THAT IS WHY MY
FAMILY AND OUR COLLEAGUES ARE URGENTLY SEEKING YOUR GRACIOUS
ASSISTANCE. OUR DISTINGUISHED COLLEAGUES IN THIS BUSINESS TRANSACTION
INCLUDE THE SITTING VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
RICHARD CHENEY,WHO IS AN ORIGINAL PARTNER IN THE IRAQ VENTURE AND FORMER
HEAD OF THE HALLIBURTON OIL COMPANY, AND CONDOLEEZA RICE, WHOSE
PROFESSIONAL DEDICATION TO THE VENTURE WAS DEMONSTRATED IN THE NAMING OF
A CHEVRON OIL TANKER AFTER HER. I WOULD BESEECH YOU TO TRANSFER A SUM
EQUALING TEN TO TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT (10-25 %) OF YOUR YEARLY INCOME TO
OUR ACCOUNT TO AID IN THIS IMPORTANT VENTURE. THE INTERNAL REVENUE
SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL FUNCTION AS OUR TRUSTED
INTERMEDIARY. I PROPOSE THAT YOU MAKE THIS TRANSFER BEFORE THE FIFTEENTH
(15TH) OF THE MONTH OF APRIL. I KNOW THAT A TRANSACTION OF THIS
MAGNITUDE WOULD MAKE ANYONE APPREHENSIVE AND WORRIED. BUT I AM ASSURING
YOU THAT ALL WILL BE WELL AT THE END OF THE DAY. A BOLD STEP TAKEN SHALL
NOT BE REGRETTED, I ASSURE YOU. PLEASE DO BE INFORMED THAT THIS BUSINESS
TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO CO-OPERATE IN THIS
TRANSACTION,PLEASE CONTACT OUR INTERMEDIARY REPRESENTATIVES TO FURTHER
DISCUSS THE MATTER. I PRAY THAT YOU UNDERSTAND OUR PLIGHT. MY FAMILY
AND OUR COLLEAGUES WILL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL.
PLEASE REPLY IN STRICT CONFIDENCE TO THE CONTACT NUMBERS
BELOW.
SINCERELY WITH WARM REGARDS, GEORGE WALKER BUSH
free ipod and free gmail!
I read over most of this law, and there doesn't seem to be anything unreasonable in it. Certainly nothing the DMA would want, does anyone have any proof of the claim that they drafted it?
Ofcourse they will do a reorg every day :D
I fear that this will not affect penis-enlargement spam but instead will be used to suppress mass e-mail dissent. China has a very similar law which prohibits the spread of 'false information'. Since the government defines what the 'truth' is, any antigovernment speech is automatically outlawed. In America, coprporations control the 'truth' through the corporate media as well as the government. Thus I predict in the future that anyone who sends anti-corporate or pro-union (for example) mass emails will be penalized under this law.
How about a simple enough protest of the can spam law? Buy a can of Spam and mail it to your congress critter or the Direct Marketing Association.
Direct Marketing Association
Washington D. C. Office
1111 19th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036-3603
Telephone: 202.955.5030
Fax: 202.955.0085
This website will give you the address of your congress critters address when you put in your zip code. Just to play it safe I went to the USPS website and checked their prohibited items list(warning PDF) and canned meat isn't on it.
It's about people sending mail to millions of people, without the recipients being able to express a general preference at all.
I mean I get maybe 80-200 pieces of spam a day; but I bet you anything if I started to indicate my preference to not get it, by replying to it or clicking on the opt-out, I'd get even more spam. In practice that means I don't have any way of specifying it at all.
Don't you want to be able to receive legitimate e-mail from people you haven't met yet?
Define 'legitimate' and I will tell you. Actually, don't bother, I can tell that your definition would almost certainly suck.
Perhaps someone wants to write you a note about your web site. Or maybe someone read an article that you wrote and would like to discuss it. Or maybe an old friend from high school wants to send you an e-mail out of the blue.
Perhaps this 'someone' who wants to write a note about my website found it via automated search and wants to send me mail about this amazing new product they have 'discovered'? This 'old friend' suddenly wants to send me an e-mail out 'of the blue'. Uh huh. And how did they find me exactly? How do I know they are who they say the are? Looking online, reading my email, I'm clearly the most popular guy ever! And all of these high school friends of mine, girls wearing hardly any clothes all want to be my friend. Funny that, I went to a single sex school... and it wasn't a high school.
If there was one or more centralised repositories for recording preferences for email, and the spammers actually used it, it wouldn't matter if it was opt-in or opt-out at all. I wouldn't care. The point is that there is no such thing, even if there was the spammers wouldn't use it, and the current pretense that all spam has opt-out is just that, pure pretense.
It seems to me you just haven't got it, you haven't even understood the merest outline of the problem.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"Sure, ISPs get protection, provided they can prove "harm," defined very narrowly by law; what about end users who are receiving the brunt of the spam? When do we get our protection? Apparently, we don't, and now state laws, that might have been better, are shot. They should have just ammended 47USC227 to cover spam and the whole damn thing would have been fixed better than this stupid piece of filth.
ARGH! Urge to kill rising.....
Like the anti-spam packages currently use.
Use opt-in, and if you get a message from somebody that isn't on the list, it gets quarantined. Once a day (or however often) you get a digest that lists all the quarantined messages, their senders, the subjects. Next to each list item is a link that allows you to release/view the quarantined mail.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
what about Source Code Oppresion Group
It's funny, many of those authoring "cyber" legeslation, never seem to understand the scope or technology behind the problems they attempt to solve. For example, what stops me from setting up a machine in Ethiopia and sending my important msg about erectile dysfunction, and my new miracle cream to millions of US addresses? What stops me from plucking any number of wide open .hk hosts of the network and using them to send out my spam?
This "Anti-Spam" law is merely an attempt to appease he voting public, and show that our government is "doing something about the problem".
The best way to get rid of spam is to target the companies using it as a means of advertising.
Online money transactions have the longest paper trail and validation setup of any other consumer service online. If they're capable of receiving payments online, they're capable of being tracked down.
What if every /.er forwarded every piece of spam to their Senators and Reps before deleting it? Just make a group in your address book...
You will quit sending when they opt out - how many 'opt out' e-mails would you suppose they need to generate to shut off the Forward Spam Flood?
Just a thought.
Goals for 2011: 1. Stop plate tectonics. 2. Prevent animal predation. 3. End supernovae now. 4. Rid the world of evil.
The fix... OK.
:) (but not geeks, oh no!)
Being a product of my time, my proposal is simply a mix of what I already see and know. Presumably what will actually happen is going to be totally different.
But here goes anyhow:
- First, treat viruses and worms and trojans as natural phenomena rather than the consequence of directed human activity. Assume that there will always be a new, smarter, more capable virus able to get around whatever locks we put into place.
- Second, assume that all data passing into a computer system is suspect, and must be discarded unless it can be accepted. Apply this paranoia at all levels from individual packets up to the contents of web forms.
- Third, use the techniques of genetic programming to evolve filters that work at each of these levels. Allow them to evolve rules for identifying valid and invalid data, and run them on live data mirrored from many places on the Internet. Use honeypot systems to attract parasitical software, and integrity checks to see how well filters perform, and to cull those that do worst.
In the final goal, every computer has a slightly different set of filters, inherited from other computers, recombined and improved over time.
Not just more variation in the landscape, but total variation, to the point where viruses will have to actively work to crack each individual computer (for this is the logical next step: if defences are built using the techniques of evolution, so will the parasites).
Using a biological model lets me predict some more effects:
- filters that find ways to co-opt parasitical software into the defense system
- computers having sex
- plagues
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I'm tired of the whole 'cyberterrorism' thing. Nobody has EVER been terrorized by computer, with the exception of stalkers. Even that would likely be called harrassment, and not terrorism by authorities.
Young Teen Schoolgirls Suck Cock for Cigarette Money!
--OR--
16" Cocks Rip Unsuspecting Pussies!
shiao student gottesmn skatz Drizzt valauber mgregory project ddpdrlma itbhines zambroski theboss ernestina aylmer macreyno Bigfoot oopardee tandy hychoi devin gtcargo merlin2 kacy older happy sacramento zelman rmaw
Get off this list by writing to getmeoff6346@mail.com
FYI, the 2nd SCO countdown on your page is incorrect - the federal judge ordered 30 days from the order (December 12th) - see here.
Why are they trying to go after the spammers and not the companies that have the products advertised by the spammers. Basically spam is just email advertisements. If a company uses that as a method then that company should be put out of business or fined heavily. As soon as the customers disappear then the spam will disappear.
the problem with internet email was that a bad standard was set back in the day when you would put your email at the bottom of your web page....at the time everyone thought the prospect of being contacted by strangers was new and exciting. problem is, the net is no longer that small community of wizards and geeks, it consists of mostly losers, and that value is outdated. opt-in for all email, you wouldnt walk around with your phone number on your shirt, why should your email be any different in a world full of whores
peace
Why don't we make upstream providers responsible for the garbage that gets thrown at us? Having owned an ISP since 1997, I have dealt with numerous upstream providers. Most, if not all of them, outlined traffic that was acceptable as well as unacceptable coming from our network. Maybe if the law were to hold them ultimately responsible it would put some of the spammers out of business. I know this is naive thinking, but hey, it would be nice to know that the upstreams care about their bandwith being abused and not just about the $$$.
The FTC is thinking about bounty hunters to enforce the new law
.40cal spam assasin in the other screaming about it all being Bill Gates fault.
Just what this country needs. Dorks on horses riding around with an iPod clipped to their pants, a network sniffer in one hand, and a
would benifit. They could demand protection money and turn in anyone they wanted.
Office Space (1999)
Going with the premise that for anything I do sign up for, it is relegated to specialty "spam" accounts in case an address gets sold or picked up by a bot
Make a script that checks if the recipient is one of your no-spam addresses. If it is, find the unsubscribe line, send an email back from a generated address stating we don't want crap.
Stick the generated address along with the original sender and unsubscribe addy in a text file somewhere.
Check the text file, see if generated address has received spammy email (anything other than perhaps an unsubscribe confirmation). If it hasn't "unsubscribe" any users on your server (in an opt-in to "automated antispam unsubscription service"). For spammers that go after your generated address, try and track them down to collect your $$$.
I'd imagine with such a service that somebody could make a living on it. Have clients send you spammy emails, logs, etc... use them to track the spammer and collect.
They deny our hard-working vetrans the right to have a ice cold draft beer, and create an environment in which organized crime can flourish.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I was glancing at the law and noticed the term Protected Computers, and noticed the definitition listed was an obscure law reference, so i followed it, and realized the truth of the matter. The term Protected Computer refers to Financial Institution or Government Computers. Aint that cute? They protect themselves, but leave the citizens vulnerable as hell. The definition can be found here. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1030.html It's about 3/4 of the way down the page.
I'd love to be contacted by strangers, depending on the distributed reputation of the person or machine contacting me.
If "James T. Kirk" sends me a message, and the fringes of my weighted Six Degrees of Separation net have never seen him before (newly generated cert for spam), or have seen him but say that he's a spammer (or maybe just an asshole in general), then I'll just ignore him.
If "Juicy Jane" sends me a message, and a few friends of friends trust her, even just a little bit, I'll give her the time of day.
--
Power to the Peaceful
My grandma is terrorized of computers.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
The whole point of Internet email is to allow people whom you've never heard of to get in touch with you.
Yes, people who you have never heard of, but people who you have provided your email address to in one way or another.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Of course the law was written by, for and of the Direct Marketing Association. Karl Rove, President Bush Junior's boss at the White House, built his career on direct marketing (junk mail). That's where he developed his high respect for the American people.
--
make install -not war
To me, the idea of "bounty hunters" just sounds like open-sourcing the hunt for spammers. Just like with open source code, there are some (many?) people out there who would jump at the chance to track down a spammer just for the pride and glory of being "the h4xx0r that stopped penile enlargement spam"
Imagine the conundrum they'd face if there was Federal legislation pending that banned gay sex while spamming SCO with patented hot grits from an Open-source server using Outlook.
I, for one, would welcome the overload.
I've always been leary about OPT-OUT options on shady spam emails. On more "legitimate" advertisement spams, like maybe concert updates from a venue I bought tickets from, there is always a tag-line at the bottom that gives instructions for how to be removed from the list. I trust this to a degree and believe that it will get my email taken off of the list.
:) ). Another thing I've always thought of is that if I send a message to be removed from their list then all I'm doing is confirming that my email address is valid and currently in use. Sure I may get removed from that one list, but now my email address has been confirmed as active and can be put on a whole crop of new spam lists. I don't have any proof that this is what happens, but in my paranoid mind it makes alot of sense.
When I get spam for "make your penis bigger and keep it up all weekend", I wouldn't trust any link they put in their email anyways. For one it could be a link to a site that might try to hijack my browser or do something else nasty (although that wouldn't happen because we all keep current on our patches and use less vulnerable browsers like Mozilla
"State long-arm statutes authorize the courts to claim personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant whose principal business is outside the state." Long arm statutes are triggered by business transactions or torts committed within a state. From "Introduction to Cyberlaw" 2004.
What the federal law *does* do is eliminate distinctions between states for spamming.
- Linux server
- Postfix MTA (not sendmail)
- fetchmail (optional - used to grab your pop3 mail)
- spamassassin
I am running this configuration to download my mail from my various POP3 accounts and since 12/9/03 it has sucessfully filtered 2800+ e-mails as SPAM. It labels the e-mail with [SPAM] in the title so it's simple to place all my incoming SPAM into a specific mailbox. My success rate is greater than 90% with the default configuration and there are tools which can improve even that ratio. Got SPAM? Use the resouces which other people have created for you and end your own problem.In my journal...
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Unless I read this wrong, and it is legaleez so I may have, it appears that the fine does not go to the person/company actually damaged.
What stopped Junk faxes and telemarketing calls was the $$$ paid to the end users of a law suit.
The mess is not pro-consumer. Its pro-business. Pro-isp. It talks more about using pcs that were "protected" than it does about end users of net access. It talks more about the "volume of mail" to reach the criteria than it does about end users.
I want, and asked for through my congressfolk, for a spam law that pays me $.25 for each spam I receive. Since I get around 18000 a month that spammassassin grabs, I could make good money.
18000*12*.25=$54,000
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
Spam does not get through a Whitelist unless some fool enters the gimpy word manually!
If I read this new bill correctly, doesn't it state that new National bill will supersede all individual states declarations?
If that is the case, then this is a DIRECT attack on the Constitution which was modeled to give superior power to individual states on their own states.
This whole situation (spam and the governments reaction) pisses me off so much that I can't even see straight.
I give up. I'm going to start buying Viagra and help out that poor guy in Nigeria transfer his family's money.
It just might work, you know? Here's two reasons why:
a) The provision that the spammer will forfeit his equipment and anything he gained through spamming if caught
b) The "bounty hunter" part.
See, those 20% might just turn out to be a nice new machine or two. And we already have enough people who are hunting down spammers for free. Combine these two, and the FBI might be running out of agents to make the arrests on or around January 3rd.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Yes, that's why it's called the Can Spam Act. Perhaps someday it will be replaced with a Cannot Spam Act.
See section 9, it provides for the establishment of a "do not email" list.
I assume there will be some means of applying fines for violations, and won't that be fun to administer! (but it was a spoofed FROM field! Really! It wasn't us!)
For me, the new "spam is okay" law is very, very sad. I can remember when the U.S. government was not as corrupt as it is today. Now, everything in the government is for sale, including the laws.
As the director of spamhaus said on british television when asked about how the new british anti spam laws would help, he said, "well, actually, it'll stop, let me see
His argument was correct: basically spam will stop being sent from within jurisdictions that have anti spam laws, so the spammers will move offshore. Then you then need an international agreement - how the hell are you going to enforce anti-spam against an smtp originator from china that uses a local relay, even the US defence department can't get it right (http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/inter
Have international IPR laws have completely eliminated fake goods ? No. Will international spam laws completely eliminate spam ? No.
There's no silver bullet. Stop your moaning to suggest that anything that's happening isn't a silver bullet.
As the economist pointed out, the real issue is economics. Fundamentally, it costs virtually nothing for a spammer to send so much spam. The only effective way to resolve the problem is to change the economics so that a spammer incurs some cost. When I say cost, I don't actually mean monetary cost. For example, the anti-spam systems that rely upon individual tokens replies institute a resource/time cost on the sender: this kind of works on a small scale.
I don't know what the proper solution is either; but it'll be a mix of (a) law, or psuedo-law (just like the laws we have with anti-invasitory direct marketing phone calls and junk mail), (b) technical measures.
It looks like the ball on (a) is rolling. Sounds like the technical community needs to put some work into (b) - spam catchers / filters / etc don't seem to be the real solution, something has to alter about the way we send and receive email itself.
Take off your tinfoil hat, for crying out loud.
Oooh, now there's a good idea. I know this guy named New Jack, he's a bounty hunter... Hmmmm...
-jls
Techno-pagan
I believe the problem is not the spammer exploiting flaws, but rather people not protecting themselves.
As someone pointed in a previous post, spammers evolve just like any species would in any other ecosystem. So shall we.
Complaining will just result in useless laws that actualy affect our freedom of speech instead of doing what they're meant to. We should rather adapt and stop being "lusers". People have to get computer-litterate v2.0. Knowing how to turn you PC on and how to play solitair just isn't enough. We should learn more about secutiry and how to protect our (more and more popular) home and office networks.
Are you REALLY relying on the government to clean your inbox?
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
Last I saw, /. does not state that it is a news organization. This is a message board. Michael, Taco, Neal, etc. are merely introducing the topic of discussion. They have every right to insert their views into the postings. You have every right to disagree, but not to slam them for stating their views.
If you want "fair and balanced" reporting, I suggest going here.
This is an authentication problem not a filter or label problem. Your friends wants to send you mail and you know them so you use an preverified opt-in address for them. If any new persons need to send an email them they must goto a website and send it from a contact field with a non scriptable human readable only "key". Its used all the time already with web forms. After the first initial "contact" then you can respond or ignore that "person" (because a computer/spammer is not able/willing to use your web app); if you respond with an email address for them, all is now normal email tranactions.
...please spell check this for me...
As all auth. processes are a two tranfer process; this will make email work again. If you have to recieve any email from an unknown person them you have to deal with spam. That is the way it will always be. The trick here is to make the spammers job so slow/tedious/distasteful that the money made is not worth the effort.
It's up to the ISPs of the world to fix this problem; not the "law". I'm ready; who's gonna write the code?
--
.
I don't want a pickle; I just want a Motor-Cycle! A four foot cop arrived with a five foot gun!
Well, 1 good thing came of it... No Spam.
Huh?
The federal government's laws supercede the state's.
I thoughtn it was funny.
Since it didn't fall into the cliche category, it was original as well.
perhaps you have to have memories of the cold war for it to be funny.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Before this law, many spammers(1) were paranoid about the legalities of their methods. Additionally, many potential customers of spammers(2) were hesitant due to the unknown potential legal consequences.
After January 1, at least one spammer I know will be heavily pitching his spam newsletters to those hesitant customers, and probably cashing in. This law appears to make such spam *legal* (since it appears to have inherent value in addition to commercial embedded links).
Today such spam newsletters are ethically quuestionable and illegal in many states, not because they are deceptive advertorials but because they are sent unsolicited to millions of email addresses. After January 1st they will be declared LEGAL, making them an option for business that otherwise would have continued to decline to use questionably ethical means of commercial promotion.
Notes:
(1) The source of this statement is a very wealthy and very paranoid acquaintence of mine who is a full-time spam marketer and a lawyer. He spends tons of time and money covering his arse just in case while never technically breaking any laws. Now he can keep that money.
(2) I am one of these - I will not hire spammers to spam the world to sell my wares, nor will many of my associates. But since our competitors do, it makes for some tough business economics.
White list emails certainly do help in limiting the unwanted email you recieve and are a good technological solution.
However, this dicussion is specifically about anti-spam efforts from a legal point of view. From that perspective I think attempting to make what the spammer does illegal, while justified and certainly satifying to any urge that exist to punish them,is not the most effect solution.
The problem that has been pointed out is how to identify the spammer.
The solution is not to directly seek out the spammer but rather the advertisor. There is little point to spam not attempting to sell something (even if that is just a visit to a website). Thus, the spam header might be bogus there is direction to some website or a number to purchase some product.
Therefor it should be generally easier to find the person who hired the spammer.
If you make ALL advertising by email (of any quantity or kind, for any intention) illegal along with significant and draconian pentalties then you have more of an ability to enforce it.
If both spamming and purchasing spam services are illegal then caught advertisers will roll over on there hosts - if not there jailed and fined.
End result - people are reluctent to purchase spam and it looses viability as a business model.
If some merchants get crushed - so what. If *I* want to buy someone I will seek out a store and NOT the other way around.
I have a possible solution that I believe fits both camps of convenience and security.
For starters, don't change SMTP. Leave it be.
Adopt the follow standard at the mail user agent level:
Mail encrypted using your public key is "trusted", and will appear in your unfiltered INBOX. You can distributed your public key to whomever you see fit, and when they send you mail you'll automatically get it.
Mail not encrypted using your public key is subject to the filtering methods that exist for detecting spam (bogofilter, spambayes, spamassasin, etc). Periodically scan your non-whitelist email from time to time to see if anything is in there that you are interested in. If so, send that fellow your public key.
It's not a perfect solution, but it does address some of the problems we currently have.
Do it for da shorties
your thinking, my friend, is too abstractinal
to change the email system ain't rational
worldwide change of email is quite propsterous
the upheaval and chaos would be monsterous
you got to make do with what cha got
instead of changing it to what it's not
if you change it around, you drop old problems, sure,
but a new, unknown set be knockin' on your door
though my skills be running strong,
and this post could run long,
i sense you be trollin' and i say that's wrong
so let me leave you with one final dose:
learn to spell brotha, it's Pre-Pos-Ter-Ous
if you opt out, the spammer actually opts you out. ..and then sells your confirmed active address to ten other spammers whose lists you haven't yet opted out of.
Last I saw, /. does not state that it is a news organization.
It was the "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters" motto that led me to believe this was a news site. And being a news site, they should follow professional journalism standards. But as you showed, they're biased like most news organizations are. And like you, I like to point out such bias. =)
Or equally important, when was the last time you answered the phone and got a machine on the other end of the line? They were legislated out of existence (or, popular usage at least). Now if you are the recipient of a scuzzy, spammy phone call it must be a human being on the other end of the line.
This law is a lot like that, and will probably be just as effective. No longer will you be spammed by the little guys selling unsavory things, just by the rich companies looking for new markets. Isn't America great?
The ______ Agenda
It's rather ironic that for an "editor" who loves free speech so much that he has no qualms about suppressing it whenever it hurts his ego.
BTW, this thread is most definitely ontopic and relevant, but someone higher up has decided that any criticism is unwelcome.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
Is it just me, or does the title of this Act serve as advertisement for a certain company. Personally, I'm opposed to government endorsement of large companies ;-)
Parent is Flamebait? Or is it that some in the 6 million-email-addresses of the Bush Patriots Army got hold of the moderator points? And maybe there aren't enough Dean supporters to turn the balance around. Oh the Irony of One man One Vote ...
No no no! You're only supposed to talk about states' rights when a Democrat is in office! Only traitors and terrorist-sympathizers would disagree.
[o]_O
Spam is normally untargetted, bulk email.
UCE, without the bulk modifier, is called doing business in the USA.
If I see a website that I want to do business with, I find the contact information and send an email. If you aren't careful in the law, my email can be construed as spam.
Targetted lead generation is part of how small businesses generate new business.
Under this law, AT&T's new subsidiary can email ANYONE, but my small business that competes with it cannot?
This isn't pro-spam, it's anti-small business, pro-big business regulations...
Ah, when the GOP's fascist wing (state and big business in combination) combines with the Democrat's communist anti-business wing, and they can wrap it all up in populist rhetoric.
A frustrated Republican,
Alex
i use hushmail, and it has a human authenticator system...
any user not on my allow list is sent an email to validate they are a person (it sends them to a link and they have to click on a moving icon in a picture)...
if they do this, their email automatically goes to my inbox, otherwise it gets grouped with the spam...
it actually works pretty well...
a system like this combined with an opt-in system would work pretty well, i think...
FYI:
The parent was modded +3 Insightful as of a few minutes ago. It held that position for roughly an hour. Then, in the course of 3 minutes( likely much less ), it was slapped down to -1 Troll.
Supporters envision the day when armies of 18-year-olds will be transformed into a global posse, riding out over the Internet to help round up bad guys.
Who the hell needs to "ride out"? That's the thing about SPAM, it comes right to you.
That like saying people need to "ride out" and find ways the IRS/Fed Gov is crewing you!
JWall: GUI client for IPTables
You have to opt-out from each spammer. Sounds like something the DMA would like.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
I really don't understand why so many individuals think this is a bad law.
I've looked the law over, and there are multiple requirements on each spam email message that will make it much easier and more reliable to filter it out as it arrives on your computer. Such as the requirement for a legitimate reply address in all spam and a physical address in a commercial spam.
If anybody should have a beef with this law, its the ISPs. They still have to carry the spam.
-Rick
What show is this?
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
The have email guys working on a opt-out database, the web developers working on an opt-out webpage, every employee must add their name, title, work address and phone number as a footer to every email.
They want this all done by Jan 1st. Not such a big deal. We run a Linux / sendmail email system. The point is they are taking this new law very seriously. So serious they are talking about an employee agreement that will make the employees responsible for spam.
I know this will never work. The web programmers don't have a clue. On the opt-out page you can just put in any email address you want. No cross check. I wounder how long it will take for our compeditors to opt-out all of our customers.
I'm glad I'm just a sys-admin.
There are 10 type of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
I decided to do a little research on this law today, and here's my conclusion.
IMHO were better off today with nothing, than this new bill.
Wouldn't it be nice if they made a list of these companies, so I could e-mail all of them to opt-out.
My ex works for a direct marketing company, and almost every week, she'd come home and tell me about some new email based marketing thing she was thinking about pitching. I always had to sit down and tell her how it would really dick her client over in the long run, because people hate spam so much, but she said "they would be sent to a list of people that said they want to recieve mail" ok.. I asked where she got it "Oh, we bought it" yeah.. so it was spam. Anyway, Here's what I see happening; marketing people such as her are gonna hear about this and go, "Oh, the junk mail I'm going to send falls within the limits in this law, so why can't I do it? I'll send out "good spam"" Similar things could happen to more reputable companies that just happen to have a clueless marketing guy, and then they would get thier mail servers blocked, and get all ticked because they thought everything they were doing was kosher, because it was within the limits of the law. This seems obvious to us, but some small company isn't nessessarily going to even know of the concept that people get thier mail servers blocked for doing something that isn't illegal.
Any law that does not include the ADV: prefix requirement has clearly been messed with by the D.M.A. or its ilk. All matters of opt-out, opt-in, who exactly has an estabilished commercial relationship, etc., are simply not that big of a deal if all commercial e-mail has ADV: in the subject. People who can't stand spam like yours truly would simply redirect all ADV: to /dev/null and have to bear the hardship of missing out on semi-legitimate advertising. Violators are easy to identify, making enforcement easy - or at least as easy as it can be, or at least easy after it were eradicated.
Of course, the direct-marketing special interests (and the general-marketing "general interests" whose diapers and home equity loans and CD collections are generally responsible for making our version of capitalism fastidious) would never allow that would they.
I will continue to forward every unsolicited commercial email I get (about 60+ / day)to:
uce@ftc.gov
and let the FTC worry about it. Just like I do now.
Simple definition:
If it's unsolicited and it's bulk, it is SPAM
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I don't know about that last claim, but the DMA did push for its adoption, and it is easy to see why. The law:
(5) INCLUSION OF IDENTIFIER, OPT-OUT, AND PHYSICAL ADDRESS IN COMMERCIAL ELECTRONIC MAIL- (A) It is unlawful for any person to initiate the transmission of any commercial electronic mail message to a protected computer unless the message provides--
(i) clear and conspicuous identification that the message is an advertisement or solicitation;
(ii) clear and conspicuous notice of the opportunity under paragraph (3) to decline to receive further commercial electronic mail messages from the sender; and
(iii) a valid physical postal address of the sender.
(B) Subparagraph (A)(i) does not apply to the transmission of a commercial electronic mail message if the recipient has given prior affirmative consent to receipt of the message.
I'm not too sure about that last one, however; I've seen tons of stuff regarding "...or our marketing partner."
C|N>K
how about creating a law that punishes all businesses that make use of spammer "services"? Spammers may hide and go abroad but at least we can shut down some of their revenue.
You are basicly correct.
Fine the benificiaries of the SPAM (the companies being advertized) and they will change their method of advertizing.
It's really simple, kill the money tree and the problem goes away.
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
You fucking idiot. Stop breathing my air.
I was wondering when Bebop would get into this. "Ed spammed him!!!" "Hey Spike! The next spammer is worth five hundred thousant woolongs!" Et cetera. Buying DVD sets will always pay off someday for in-jokes among small cliques!
Yup...
I no longer have my e-mail address posted on my web-site because I was getting so much spam. I use a PHP SMTP form instead which sends me e-mails from one of my accounts to another of my accounts which bypasses all filters except content. If they want me to e-mail them back they can include their e-mail address.
E-mail addresses change constantly anyway. Give people you don't know your domain and just have a web-form. If you want to e-mail them, add them to your white-list. It's easier to remember a domain name than an e-mail address anyway.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Everyone claims spammers will move offshore to avoid jurisdiction of US laws.
But why the hassle of China, Russia, Korea, etc. when Canada will do just as well?
After all, telemarketers already do it to avoid US telemarketing laws.
Just wait untill this becomes law, when in additon to the spammers who don't give a shit the laws, you now have to deal with the same crap coming from "ethical" businesses.
Just expecte them to use this law as the lobby groups intended.
From the FA:Supporters envision the day when armies of 18-year-olds will be transformed into a global posse,
I would much rather 18 year old pussy, thank you very much.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Wasn't that spammer featured on here a while back?
You know, the spammer that we had slashdoted their mail box, and they had to opt-out of all those magazines, mail order catalogs, etc?
Why yes he was!
I study law in the UK. This means I am NOT au fait with US law or the US mechanisms of law. This is NOT legal advice, nor should be acted upon as being such.
/is/ considered commercial electronic mail MUST contain an opt-out opportunity, AND a _valid physical postal address_ of the sender (Sec. 5(a), Para. 5).
;-)
I just read and summarized this Act for a company I work with. Here's what I wrote (company name removed).
~~
I figured this might be relevant to what some of you are involved in, or what you/company name sends. The CAN-SPAM bill was signed by the President today, and becomes law on January 1st, 2004. I imagine you've already heard about it all, but incase not, there's a copy of the act online at this URL: http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.html
A quick summary, as it's pretty torpid reading.
The Act supersedes existing state laws based exclusively on the regulation of commercial mail (Sec. 8(b), Para. 1 & 2). The Act controls and concerns the delivery of "commercial electronic mail". It seems like corporate newsletters (like company name's own) are not considered to be commercial electronic mail (Sec. 3, Para. 2, Subpara. B) so they are not subject to the regulations laid out in the Act. Nor are "transactional" e-mails, which means all of company name's billing mails should also be exempt. Indeed, it seems all mails except marketing are fair game.
Of most interest is that mail which
Also of interest is who gets the blame for mass mailings. This could be of importance considering many affiliates advertise company name in their spammy e-mails (of which I receive a few myself from time to time). Section 3 Paragraph 16(a) is poorly worded on this. I'd watch out for what other people think and experience on this one. Also, Section 5(a), Paragraph 3 states that you cannot send commercial mail using a From address that is not valid, and which is not read and responded to. Bear this in mind in certain situations where noreply@company name.com is used, which may be considered "commercial electronic mail"
Anyway, looks like the Act is reasonably fair to both businesses and consumers, now let's hope we see some lawsuits getting filed in 2004, and all that spam deluge slowing down a bit.
Hopelessly optimistic!!
My Name
mogorific carpentry experiments
Looks like it's time for me to strap on the old six-sniffers, and bag me some spam!
Be vewwy, vewwy quiet...
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
It's a long, painful road -- but I'm convinced anti-spam filters can be made intelligent enough to pretty much kill off all incoming spam, other than the occasional advertisement that's out of the ordinary, and contains actual, pertinent information.
Right now, the best of the spam filters seem to be effective enough that spammers have to resort to badly garbling up their messages just to sneak them through. (They're putting lines of poetry between every line of their own text, badly mis-spelling half the words on purpose, etc. etc.) These are all signs that spam filtering is starting to win the war, IMHO.
You have to remember, spam advertisements generally only target certain lines of products and services. Most legitimate businesses realize that it does FAR more harm to one's reputation than it does good in additional sales - so they're highly unlikely to resort to mass emailings. This is going to be their downfall. Filters can and should be made smart enough to kill mail based on the topic - so anything hawking ink-jet cartridges/refills, drugs/pharmaceuticals, loans, extended warranties, porn/dating/matchmaking services, weight-loss, or insurance should be trashed automatically. If this is done effectively enough, I imagine that would reduce my spam by 2/3rds. or more right there.
As someone who runs the good part of an ISP, i can say i see more spam than most people do. 99% of the email I get is trash. As is that of the customers. We've spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on anti-spam technologies. We've spent countless hours working on the mail servers, upgrading so they can handle the volume of spam they recieve. My thought is this:
Maybe vigilante justice IS the solution. Call it overly violent, or divinely inspired if you will, but how many people would continue to send spam if they knew people wanted to break their hand with a hammer? Maybe some spammer getting rundown in the wal-mart parking lot is what it takes to get the point across that WE DONT WANT WHAT YOU ARE SELLING. If I knowingly met a spammer, i would probably beat the bejeasus out of them. They do, in fact deserve it.
My older brother said something the other day. He said "I think the DNC list is wrong, because it's putting a lot of people out of the job. The companies have the right to sell their product." This from someone who does not have his own phone line. All it does is keep people from trying to push products on me that im going to say "no" to anyway. It saved THEM time. He proceded to tell me that I don't know what Im talking about, and how the DNC infringes on the company's right to make a profit.
Maybe that's why I work in IT and he delivers pizza. (but to be fair, the tips even out and he makes more than i do.)
Stop breathing my air.
Rather greedy of you. Didn't your socialist teachers teach you to share?
Editors are not the only ones with mod points, but they are the only ones with absolute power. And, boy, do they ever abuse that power!
I agree with the sentiment but I don't think it will work. Most spam I see seems to come from illegitimate fly-by-night operations overseas. The last spam I got advertised adweawen.biz, which no longer seems to have a DNS entry and was registered by someone who gave a billing address in Malta. Previous one advertised about-mgt.com, which no longer has DNS or whois entries. Then we have one that didn't even have a website but only gave out an email address from yahoo. Some spam advertises sites that were registered with obviously fake names and addresses (likely with a stolen credit card number), and the domain name itself might point to some rooted box in China. It's a bit more difficult to hide when getting an SSL cert signed by a recognized provider than it is when getting a domain, but some of these companies use services like Yahoo's sitebuilder, if they even do SSL at all (my guess is that the people who fall for spam are not those that actually verify SSL certificates). Such a law might work for shops that do mail-order business, but little of the spam I receive actually offers a physical product sent through the mail.
Point is, a lot of the companies that advertise using spam already take measures to obscure their identities since they engage in various questionable practices (not just paying spammers) and these "companies" disappear overnight.
Another problem: suppose I don't like Slashdot, so I root some boxes and start sending out spam that advertises Slashdot. Is the burden of proof then upon Slashdot's lawyers to prove that they didn't commission or authorize that spam? If yes, that's much more dangerous than a joe job as the victim now has to deal with lawyers and law enforcement, not just some fool spammer. If no, what's to stop companies that do advertise using spam from paying off the spammers under the table and losing records (if they don't already do so)?
Some researchers in Carnegie Mellon are working on the implications of having a postage on emails. So far that has seemed to be the most effective of all techniques I have come across. The idea is the ISPs charge a postage to the sender and receiver has the option to waive it. Simple isn't it? Some ISP in S.Korea has implemented it and it's working well.
When a post becomes too insightful, it often becomes funny.
Nobody is complaining about an anti-spam law. The law being discussed does not outlaw spamming. It protects it.
Slashdot could do whatever it wants in terms of biased reporting and censorship, if they owned up to it. Have you seen slashdot's editors mention the mass banning of moderators who modded up the troll investigation? Me neither.
It is for these reasons that slashdot must be destroyed.
The linux hacker
I've been listening to this anti-government crap for the past 5+ years in the discussions of spam. If technology has had the ability to solve this problem, then just when the hell was it going to happen?
Part of the issue is that the target keeps moving - as soon as technology stops spam, spammers find a way around it. Spam blocking technology has come a long way in the last 5 years. But so has spam delivery.
I'm pretty impressed with Yahoo's spam filters - it seems to catch about 95% of the spam that I get on my old junk yahoo account. So I think technology does provide a decent solution, at least in some cases.
I'm a small-government guy, so I think twice about any federal law. This one in particular overrides some state laws that were just starting to be effective, and if given time I think would have been more effective than the federal law. So I would rather see technology and state laws above a federal law.
I have blog like everyone else
I looked at the name of the bill and all I saw was CANNED SPAM. Though I realise it really was CAN SPAM.
SPAM in a CAN... CANNED SPAM. Are we throwing the SPAM in the garbage CAN or are we being fed CANNED SPAM.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
So, the national governement has decided to rule over on State's rights with this one (a place for Republicans to step up), but there are ways around it.
First: They can make laws against falsifying information in e-mails, so false-headers and _anything_ false in the e-mail could still be prosecuted by the states. I could see this being expanded to something like using open-relays, since the spammer may not have had legal access to them - but that is a strech.
Second: States are allowed to make broad unwanted mail laws, just not specific e-mail laws, so do it. Make a broad, hard hitting law, that can be applied to postal mail, too, but choose to enforce it against only spammers - not like we don't already pick-and-choose who gets the book thrown at them and who walks.
Third: Computer fraud and abuse: now here's where the opey relays and falsified headers are beggin to be prosecuted under state laws.
Fourth: ISPs can do as they will with spam, so any state could choose to aid ISPs in any and all ways to combat spam, and do an end-around around the central government.
Those are my thoughts. But what do I know - I've only had a small amount of training in contract law. though I've been getting screwed by the government and its agencies increasingly more as I grow older.
-bZj
.sig
You are a worthless nigger. Please die.
If instead of listing full e-mail addresses, the registry included only e-mail domains, it would be easy to administer, easy to comply with, and not susceptible to abuse by spammers. For example, if AOL submitted aol.com to the registry, if would cover all of its subscribers at a stroke. All by itself, this would be a fair and workable system, but the DMA would scream bloody murder because it would sign up some recipients without an explicit action on their part. (Of course, they could change to a UCE-friendly mail service that did not sign up for the registry, but that would hardly satisfy the DMA.)
A refinement of this system would create a workable do-not-e-mail registry, without requiring a cumbersome, expensive, and perhaps ineffective secret govenment database. It would work as follows:
This scheme divides up the do-not-e-mail registry and puts each part in its appropriate place: the public part (the domain names) is managed by the government, while the private part (the usernames) is managed by the ISP's. The best thing is that the new law requires the FTC to study the feasibility of a do-not-mail list, and authorizes it to put the list into effect nine months from now. We need to make sure that the FTC knows that it is possible to create a workable do-not-e-mail database by just adding a little design creativity.
Think of this as a high school debate class. One of the guys volleys a topic in the air and starts the debate...
This just isn't a news outlet.
Hmmm... speaking as a moderator, I suggest easing up on the rhetoric.
is my blacklist and filter rules.
Nothing in that area has changed. All it does is force "legitimate" spammers to use easily filterable tells. That's a Good Thing(tm) as false positives will go down.
Meanwhile, we deal with the "illigitimate" spammers just the same as before.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
were the major methods for getting around filters.
By following those guidlines filters will be capable of 100% accuracy with "legitimate" spam.
Now there will just be more legitimate spam. Which means more spam being sent (since it's legal) but far less being recieved (since it's so easy to filter).
Have fun Ralsky. Send all you want. I won't be seeing any of it once the tells are all established in my filters which won't take long.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Let me tell you something, growing up and living in my home country of Belaruse has taught me one thing: People who say "tone down the rhetoric" are agents of something very sinister. Shame on you all.
The linux hacker
I agree that this law was an incredible win for the spammers. Otherwise the new CA law would have made a (small) difference. It is nice to know our government responds to the needs of all businesses with money, regardless of their ethics and how they annoy the citizens. I also agree that any solution must be technical, not legal, especially since the government is placing themselves in the other camp.
I doubt MS will be of any use in distributing a new email protocol. First, we need to design the new protocol to be usable on the hostile internet. Then we can try to get the mail clients to use it. Mozilla would have it very quickly. Mozilla seems to be spreading rapidly from what I hear from non-techies, but I have no stats.
If MS is going to fix MSOutlook to work with a new email protocol, it would only be available when buying their next OS, and possibly included in a MSWindowsXP service pack. This is called a marketing opportunity. "Buy our new version and reduce SPAM." Even though all of the technology would be invented/defined by the OSS crowd. And MS would have to learn how to read the RFC so they could change MSExchange to fit. That costs money (and brains) = probably would not happen unless more money could be made.
IIRC, 1/4 of surfers run MSWindows9x, one fourth run NT4/2K, one third run XP, one sixth run "other". MS would try to use this to get half the surfers to upgrade.
This policy would not change the world in 6 to 10 months. The only reason XP is the top group is because almost all machines sold in the last 2 years had it preinstalled. Do you know anybody who "upgraded" to XP without buying a new PC at the same time or soon after?
So if MS added the new protocol, it might be usable in 5 years. My opinion is that MS will stop owning the desktop soon, so better software will have a chance to effect this change without MS.
Does MS even patch MSOutlookExpress any more? I thought that was cancelled with MSInternetExplorer. I could be wrong.
I worry that people are dropping broadband because of the RIAA, and are dropping email and chat because of the spam. Email was the killer app for the internet. Many people may soon only use the internet for surfing.
(Sorry. Not my usual cohesive post. Time for bed.)
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
Actually, the law says they are equally liable. Well, actually it defines a spammer as being anybody who causes spam to be sent (whether they do it themselves or pay somebody else). It also says that the person or company being promoted is guilty if they don't take steps to stop the spamming once they find out about it.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
But aren't hashes constructed by definition in such a way that the hash of the message "V*i-4.G..R.a." would be as different from "V*i-A.G..R.a" as the hash of "Hello TGK"? The way spammers operate now, cycling random letters, random text, random punctuation, and random grammar would do a pretty good job of evading automated matching of spams with their duplicates.
If that's only a property of some hashes, then I stand corrected.
Of course, this is all academic anyway, judging by the small percentage of spam I get that actually comes from places that will be bound by this law, and I don't see even our current administration starting a war or something over spam :).
Does anyone else see the inherent flaw in a US do-not-spam registry? Ok... "do not spam me, here's my address". So, the government is establishing a list of valid email addresses.
What happens when somebody pulls the FOIA to obtain the list? What happens when the list is leaked? Great... millions upon millions of valid email addresses could go for a pretty penny to spammers in china. How is this supposed to stop spam, especially when the majority of spam originates from sources foreign to the US?
I'm not defending spam -- my solution is running spamassassin on my mail server. Works perfectly.
I think that if more people would install their own spam filters, we'd reduce the spam market within the US and the amount of spam would decline as spammers would be forced out of business. As a libertarian, I think this approach would be *far* better than a government imposed "solution".
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
All those who have repsonded to this thread are in very real danger of having their moderation privileges permantly revoked my Michael.
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
When the force you are working against scilences your voice, it is time to stop working from within and work from without. It is clear that slashdot's editors are unwilling to address their censorship publically; trying to convince them to do so only legitimizes them.
I really wish there were some kind of web site or organization that was committed to working against slashdot. I know in my home country such organizations are crucial in bringing about the great justice.
The linux hacker
For example, I keep getting spams for Circuit City stuff, they haven't learned from my 4+ year boycott of them that I don't want them to email me. We should be able to consider Circuit City to be an accomplice to the actual emailer, as they are the company that bought the "ad".
... fly-by-night storefronts, transient criminal enterprises in Nigeria or wherever, factories in China, etc. No leverage there -- nothing to boycott because I would never buy in the first place; and no law I can bring to bear.
I agree with you about boycotting advertisers. But companies like Circuit City -- real companies selling real products and services to the American public, with established business presence, subject to law and boycott -- are the minority case.
Most of the spam I get is from God knows who, God knows where
-kgj
-kgj
Nonetheless, it's a highly influential website. To ignore that fact is immoral.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I stay to help people like you understand the injustice. I stay in the hope that I can wake the sheep from their slumber and flock them to a brighter tomorrow. If people never stood up against non-public entities, can you imagine what a condition the world would be at! Slashdot shapes and molds young geeky minds like yours, and it does so mired in censorship and conspiracy, and I will fight on until a the battle for your heart is won.
The linux hacker
How does passing a law about something suddenly make it stop happening? Offshore spammers... header forgers... people who send 20,000 emails from ufb892y3h0ebf@yahoo.com... they're not going to be deterred by this.
As for 'legitimate advertising email' sent with real subject lines, valid contact info and working opt-out addresses... this law simply lays out guidelines, thereby removing the gray areas for those who haven't been doing it yet because they thought it might be illegal. I say if this law has any effect, you'll see more unsolicited mail than you did before because now it's been made legally acceptable if you follow the right rules.
Do not spam registry?? Hahaha... riiiiiight.... and how do they propose to administer that?
yes it is flaimbait stupidd!!!! anything pro-bush is flaimbate and must be moodded down!!!!1
It's a shame to see such a promising young mind be infected with the same disease that lead so many people to their deaths.
I remember how important it used to be to me to get +5s and be popular...but I saw what I was doing; I saw that I was supporting censorship by helping slashdot's "nazi" editors by giving the illusion that this is a user-controlled site, when the fact is that it's a facist regime controlled by a few (sound familiar?) I'm hopeful that you'll realize I'm write when you read this.
The linux hacker
Imagine what your grandfather would be saying if he saw you now, siding with the axis. You should be ashamed of yourself.
You are right about one thing: The truth does not leave room for debate. I am absoluetely correct.
My young friend, please believe me when I say that a few years ago I might have been the one typing your mindless posts...so full of adoration for slashdot's editors, so quick to defend their "right" to run a site that claims to be a geek forum but is in truth a facade for their own megalomania and the corresponding stupidity of their masses.
And so, once again, I find myself acting as the flashlight of truth, sheading light on injustice, only to be switched off by the hand of man, too cowardly to face the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
The linux hacker
The way to do this is to go after the companies who advertise this. Get to the root of the problem; it's not the necessarily the senders, it's the people who think they can push their product this way. If they want to sell it, then they have to give you information at some point. Thats when sic johnny law on them. Other than that, I think congress best stay out. Technology will always be one step ahead of the law. So ammend existing laws that target other deceptive behavior to those spammers who engage in those deceptive practices. Ideally, laws would be general enough to cover these situations already. (Which could launch me into my soapbox about the insane number of laws that we have. All because lawmakers feel the need to react to events and make whole new laws rather than attempting to work within the existing framework. Simplify. Attempt to extend the same principle to all areas where said principle is appropriate. etc.)
The combination of RMX and blocking open relays assures that the mail comes from where it claims to come from. This will eliminate the most deceitful spammers and at least make spam a minor annoyance, much like regular junk mail, rather than an all consuming avalance of junk and waste of bandwith and resources.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
I'll have you know that the post you linked to was posted by another account of *mine*, thank you very much.
Go on promoting the facists, I'll go on fighting for freedom.
The linux hacker