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Congress Loves Spam -- If It's From Congress
Makarand writes "According to this NY Times article (registration required), while Congressional members were busy
passing the U.S. anti-spam law that will go into effect on January 1, they were also busy
sending unsolicited e-mail to their constituents. This activity was aimed at growing the subscriber base receiving their political messages because these email lists are not subject to the normal 90-day blackout period before an election where members are forbidden to use taxpayer-supported Congressional mass communications. Consumer advocacy groups say that this policy may be unfair to the challengers because this loophole could be used by elected officials to communicate with voters right up to Election Day."
SPAM is irritating but how effective is it really? Aside from the occasional well publicised ripoff who reads or responds to it? The US Congress must know something I don't.
This shouldn't really come as to big of a suprise. Political acts have been exempted from major laws before. From the DoNotCall.gov FAQs:
The National Do Not Call Registry does not limit calls by political organizations, charities or telephone surveyors.
Political spam isn't to much different from unsolicited political phone calls. And both would surely be of intrest to the politicians, as they seem to have exempted them from the laws. I find political phone calls equally, if not more annoying, then people asking me if I want to save $.13 a year on my long distance bills.
Request: ECM unit, 1000 km fullerene cable, 1 tactical nuclear weapon. Reason: Birthday party for foreign dignitary.
I guess when the first email arrives from my representative or senator I will start using their email address when signing up for free offers and sweepstakes. That should give them lots of input from their constituents.
Following their example: it's ok as long as nobody says it's not.
Are politicians required to send this email from specific email addresses e.g. your_faithful_candidate@congress.wankers.gov? It seems like they should be (i.e. in order to prove their spam is actually "from a political organization", it should at least come from a traceable *and documented* source), in which case a few simple email filters could make the problem essentially disappear.
Thankfully I'm not a US citizen, so my exposure to this sort of rubbish is, oh, probably 2-3 years away...
And why should any of us be surprised by this? The politicians want to regulate it as long as it doesn't apply to them. I think that would cover quite a few things, not just spam.
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
These guys need to go... ALL of them. This country really needs to take back control of itself. Watch some Cspan folks, watch these guys debate in the house, watch the senate, watch all of the other covered events... watch these guys like a hawk. They're all slick, they all play each other for fools. Enough cnn, fox news, msnbc(does anyone watch it anyways?) and hell even the bbc is looking more like cnn these days. They have this game called politics down to a science called bullshit. You linux users know this as FUD :)
If the email is sent using government, rtaher than private or party equipment, doe sthe list become a record that can be obtained using FOIA (Freedom of Information Act?) If so, Congress could very well help spammers harvest email addresses for at lost less than buying an email database that has been matched to records.
If you can get the list, how long before someone spoofs a Congressman's addresse and sends his or her constiuents an email that upsets them and forces the rep to deal with the backlash?
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
As a SysAdmin I've been studying the DNS-based blocking lists in general and SPEWS in particular. Seeing how they say they operate, how long do you think it will take for the US Government to "win" an escalated listing in the SPEWS database?
"I'm sorry, Congressman, but the reason all your mail is being bounced is that our server IP address is listed in SPEWS. What is SPEWS? 'Spam Prevention Early Warning System.' Because we have been unable to answer complaints to abuse@house.net to their satisfaction, they have put together a 'crimes file' showing that The House of Representatives is a spam-lovin enterprise, have listed our entire netblock, and we've run out contractors to superserve our mail servers -- every time we hire one, it ends up listed in SPEWS, too."
Will the blocking lists work as they are supposed to, or are they going to take the smart path and NOT piss off the one organization who makes the "Laws of the Land?"? I can see it now: it becomes illegal for any operator of a mail server with more than 100 commercial clients to use any DNS- or domain-based blocking list.
Not exactly the death of the Internet, but possibly a case of felony if you do, damned if you don't.
First of all they shouldn't be able commit abuses through e-mail that they are forbidden from commiting through normal mail. Elected officials are not permitted to abuse their office to run a private polical campaign, they are not permitted to stick the tax-payers with the bill for running that campaign.
Secondly, because it is still SPAM.
They are each sending millions of unsolicited junk E-mails with the costs almost entirely dumped on the receiving end. The actual dollar costs are split 50/50 between the sender and receiver, but the dollor costs are negligable. The real cost is human. Lets assume that only takes one second on average to spot and delete each spam. Each batch of 1,000,000 spams costs 1,000,000 people one second. The total cost is still 1,000,000 seconds. That is cost is SEVEN WEEKS of full-time work for one person.
Then multiply that by the fact that they are each sending several million spams in each batch. Multiply that by the number of state and federal elected positions. Multiply that by the number of candidates. Multiply that by the number special intrest groups. Multiply that by every year, assuming that they are nice enough to only spam us once per year.
The E-mail system is flawed in that anyone can set up an automated system generating spam and for merely a few dollars they can burn up more than an entire human life-span dealing with the output. A human waking life is around 1.5 billion seconds. Every 1.5 billion spams generated costs one human lifetime. The dollar cost to generate those 1.5 billion spams is far too low a price to pay to burn up a lifetime from other people.
The problem with spam is that the lionshare of the real cost is dumped on the people receiving it. Unsolicited bulk e-mail is still unsolicited bulk e-mail when it is sent by a politician or political activist. It is still spam.
P.S.
Don't think the new "CAN-SPAM" law is going to fix the spam problem. The Direct Marketing Association considers the law a victory for the spam business. Check this C-NET sory "
It's not called 'Can' Spam for nothing.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
After reviewing and crafting a new AUP document for my boss at a Web hosting company, I'm beginning to appreciate how the CAN-SPAM law will get a handle on spam. Let me explain.
There is a lot more to the CAN-SPAM law than just spam. The thing that caught my eye when I read the actual Act of Congress and the law referenced by the Act is that the issue of unauthorized access to computers "used in interstate commerce" (and Web hosting falls into that class) has been clarified, and the penalties for unauthorized access have been strengthened. That means when some twerp uses one of my customer's Web sites to commit FormMail spam, it becomes a Federal matter. Falsified credentials isn't just a civil matter any more -- the Feds have criminalized the offense.
One of the biggest problems that the anti-spam crowd has had is with forgery. I have a domain, fluent (dash) access (dot) com, which has been used as a forged return address in someone's spew for a long time -- I found out when I turned the entire domain into a spam-trap and started getting bounces from all kinds of networks. (Some of those networks are now blocked because of that, but that's life on the Internet these days. Maybe I'll implement a sunset script for my automated access blocking...or maybe I won't.) With the new law, a forged From: line is criminalized. While the law is silent on the matter, forged Received From: lines may also be roped into the "deceit" intent of the law -- but that will have to be tested in a Court.
As a commercial operator of Internet services, it lets me write things into my AUP that now stand a chance of being enforced, and not necessarily on my nickel. Before CAN-SPAM, it just didn't pay to go after a guy who is probing my network looking for broken formmail.pl and formmail.cgi scripts. What CAN-SPAM really does is put the black hats on alert that their activities may attract more attention than they would be comfortable getting.
It also unshackles the programmer in me to write scripts to enforce some of these things using technological means instead of investigative means. For example, if I enforce the From: line restriction, the script person can't complain because it's an enforcement of an AUP requirement -- I'm just making sure that my customers toe the legal line.
For the DMA, it is a win, because it makes more people play by the rules. Consider that CAN-SPAM is also a win for the block-lists like SpamCop and SPEWS, because it reduces the detective work required to recognize the spew just starting from yet another IP address, and it also limits the methods available to the abusers to avoid being caught and blocked.
Government officials will be following the rules. You're not going to be getting e-mails with "v0t3 f0r 930r93 6u5h"
If you don't want policitical spam, as soon as one arrives, look for the tell and block it. They're not going to be faking domains and it's going to be professionally written. A preemptive expression block of "vote for" would probably knock out close to 100% of political spam.
The problem with spam isn't spam itself. It's that it's designed to be difficult to filter out.
As long as spammers of any sort follow the rules, I don't have a problem with them. I can filter them out without any trouble if I choose.
Howard Dean is praised for exploiting the internet to build his campaign. Now you're whining that they would dare use e-mail. It's a public medium. Anyone can use it. Calling it "spam" doesn't make it any less e-mail. Politicials will be sending out a few million (if that) not billions. How many voters gave out e-mail addresses? Those are the only people who will be getting e-mails. I wouldn't call it spamming when you volunteer your e-mail address. That's "opt-in."
If they abuse it, don't vote for them. If they use it intelligently, encourage others to do the same. That's what the internet is for.
The only issue is the black out period. And no one has done anything yet. I'd be more impressed if a politician didn't take advantage of a legal situation than if they were forced not to.
Ben
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