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101 Ways To Save The Internet

Posted by timothy on from the good-luck-with-that-list dept.

captain igor writes "Wired news is running an editorial detailing 101 ways to save the Internet from spammers, crackers and smothering regulation. What does do Slashdot readers think of these suggestions, and what other options should be considered to keep the Internet from falling to evil forces?"

3 of 490 comments (clear)

  1. Re:getting rid of spammers by tomhudson · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Or we could make it a goal in 2004 to each get a throw-away address, and reply to every single spam we receive. This way, the spammers will spend so much time looking through our bogus replies that the "legit" replies to their spam will be lost in the background noise.

    The current tactic of ignoring spam "in the hope it will go away" just helps raise the spammers' signal-to-noise ratio when they look at their replies. If they had to go through a million bogus replies to get the 10 that are stupid enough to really want their crap, they'll become unprofitable quickly.

  2. Re:getting rid of spammers by October_30th · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The current tactic of ignoring spam "in the hope it will go away"

    Well, why not crack down on it on multiple fronts. Target the morons buying into spam by advertisements showing how stupid it is and create an effective, international anti-spam effort.

    --
    The owls are not what they seem
  3. Stopping spam, popups, etc. by Animats · · Score: 5, Interesting
    • Define adware, spyware, etc. as "computer intrusions" under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Require European-style "explicit, separate permission" for installs of such things as public policy, so they can't hide "permission" in some vague EULA.
    • Get Visa International to require that any site that accepts credit cards must have a digital certificate that gives the identity of the merchant, including their true name, DUNS number, and primary banking relationship. Any credit card site that doesn't do this gets their transactions reversed as soon as someone reports them to Visa. That will make it easy to follow the money.
    • Enforce the new Federal spam law. It's weak, but it's something. A few high profile raids and arrests will do it.
    • Lobby the FTC on the details of the "do not spam" list. Insist that opt-out by domain be supported. Insist that mail service providers that don't opt out their customers be required to disclose this in ads.