Spammers Not Complying With CAN-SPAM

Zelphyr writes "The Register is reporting on a study done by MX Logic found that of 1000 messages tested, only three complied with the recently enacted CAN-SPAM act. Little wonder why the spammers weren't shaking in their boots when this spam friendly anti-spam bill was passed."

Comments

What a fscking shock...

[geminidomino]

A law that says it's OK to spam, has exactly 0 enforcement behind it, and overrides stronger state laws didn't have an effect on the spammers? Who'da thunk it. Welcome to the U.S. of A. We have the best Government money can buy (off).

Re:What a fscking shock...

[haxor.dk]

Don't attribute to conspiracy what can adequately be explained by stupidity.

The US gov't doesn't hold its hand over the spammers - not intentionally anyways. They're just utterly ignorant about the extent of the SPAM problem. Hence the weak legislation that has been passed.

Re:What a fscking shock...

[Tehrasha]

What conspiracy? A conspiracy would imply that something was done behind closed doors, covertly away from the public eye. The DMA (Direct Marketing Association), remember those guys, the ones who opposed the junk-fax ban and Do-Not-Call list? They supported the senators who wrote the freaking bill!! There was no conspiracy. Fox/Henhouse.

Anyone surprised?

[Kjella]

I mean, really. They've shown so much respect for other laws (deceptive marketing, viruses, DDoS, fraud, hacking relays, illegal use of resources like open relays) so why should this be any different?

Kjella

Duh!

[NemoX]

Most spammers are from overseas in non-cooperative countries (with the US). This is a US law. What do they care? This law has no effect on illegal spamming. Besides, a vast majority of it comes from compromised home Windows boxes...they should just sue microsoft for making shatty insecure O/S' which help increase your daily spam. All it's going to to is get a lot of innocent and naive computer users in trouble for not securing their boxes and allowing overseas spam to bounce through their home PC's.

Why even bother?

[tuxette]

What's the point of having this anti-spam law in the US anyways? The real point I mean. Is it an attempt to make American citizens or the people of the world think that the US is tough on spam or something? I mean all that stuff about real address and markers for porn are nice and all, but without the rule of opt-in, you may as well not bother having an anti-spam law at all.

An anti-spam law ought to ensure that people do not receive spam. Period. It doesn't matter if the addresses are real or not. It does not matter if they are marked for pornographic content or not. They should not be receiving that kind of e-mail in the first place, and it should not be a burden upon the people to ensure non-receipt of spam. And if for some reason someone or other wants this kind of e-mail, they should explicitly consent to itsreceipt.

Re:Why even bother?

[pjrc]

An anti-spam law ought to ensure that people do not receive spam. Period.

No. Not period. Saddly, life just isn't that simple. In fact, there isn't even a precise, widely accepted definition of exactly what is and is not "spam".

The precise definition problem is not with obvious ads for viagra, get rich quick scams, debt consolidation and mortgages, porn, and so on. It's with the fringe cases. Defining "spam" precisely enough that a ban could be meaningful is a giant problem. It's a problem most of the anti-spam community has recognized for quite some time.

It's easy to be an armchair politician and declare "all spam should be illegal, period".... but what exactly is you definition of spam that will be banned? Something more precise that "I know it when I see it"?

Anyone who administers mail lists, for example, will be able to tell you that even benign non-commercial lists regularily get complaints about being "spam". Many would call those end users "clueless", in that they signed up for announcement or to participate in the list (often with a double-confirm process), but later forget they had ever expressed an interest and accuse the mail list operator of spamming them.

It does not matter if they are marked for pornographic content or not.

Yes, it does. At least that's what the research has said. Perhaps you missed the article months ago, where researches surveyed how spam impacts real people, and found that the overwhelmingly strongest frustration with spam is the inability to filter porn spam.

It doesn't matter if the addresses are real or not.

Yes, it does matter.

It's also a lot easier to define and verify whether message header and envelope information (used by SMTP) are a legitimate, good-faith representation of who transmitted the message, than it is to define whether the content of the message is "spam".

.

However, your message does make the very good point than an opt-in standard is the only real, long term solution. Saddly, it looks like there is not enough political support for a true opt-in standard in US law (like we currently have for faxes).

Maybe the failure of this CAN-SPAM law will prompt opt-in? But I would expect first a modification that adds some real enforcement and penalties for forged headers/envelope and mis-labeled porn.... which are both easy to prove and will provide at least some relief.

And now what?

[tacocat]

Now that we've pretty much proven the the current Congress is entirely incapable of doing squat for it's voting constituents (and worlds for their Special Interest, PACs, and Business/Corporate campaign contributors) I am wondering what will really happen next.

This is pretty clear evidence that Congress doesn't really do a great job in protecting the interests of the voting public.

It seems to me that these people have forgotten that while we live in an Economic system called a Capitalist system, we live in a Political system called a Democracy. They are not the same system and not the same functionally.

Business has done an excellent job at protecting themselves at every turn under the banners of "Don't hurt the already ill economy" or "Free Trade, Capitalism forever" without any voices standing up for the basic rights of the voting public.

I would have expected that the issues surrounding the Internet would have become more political by now, but I believe I assumed that more people would care about these things. Recently I have been approached by a number of people who honestly thought that the CAN-SPAM law was going to solve all their problems. They thought I was full of BS when I told them CAN-SPAM actually legalized spam. But then they never read it and I did.

The reality is this: Congress will never really do anything to protect the private citizen unless there is some Corporation behind the initiative to either make money, or block their competition. I haven't really seen anything of late that would contradict this. Have you?

Re:And now what?

[DukeLinux]

I agree. Politicians can virtually take their votes for granted. The districts are so gerrymandered that it guarantees a select party will always take the seat. Also most people vote along party lines thinking that there is actually a difference. The rhetoric is different but the end result is the same: bigger government, higher taxes and less freedom. I vote against all incumbants. I do not favor any particular party and I try to understand the issues. Unfortunately, we are given little choice at the polls since things are so highly controlled. I would like to see some other countries come in and monitor our "free elections" for a change. They are a joke and so are we. As long as the peasants put up with the status quo then I guess we will get what we deserve. Perhaps when the American economy consists only of CEOs, Laywers and burger flippers people will get a clue...but I am not hopeful.

Re:And now what?

[pjrc]

Don't forget that voters also elected in a republican majority to both the house and senate, and floria fiasco aside (still nearly 50%) voted for a republican president.

Now, you were saying something about congress passing an act that favors big business and "doesn't really do a great job in protecting the interests if the voting public"....

It's pretty obvious that the voting public, faced with only two (viable) rather similar political parties, had chosen the one that clearly favors economic interests and opposes government regulation of business.

CAN-SPAM certainly appears to be a failure at regulating spam, but to call it a failure of democracy would be to ignore the will of the majority of voters, who clearly elected a majority of republicans to both the house and senate, and who showed strong support for Bush 3.5 years ago (even if the result was a "toss up").

Big EMAIL List

[Nadsat]

Well, in the meantime, the US Government is getting a large email list. Can anyone guess how it will first be used? Elections? Non-Profit group?

CAN-SPAM!!! So they can spam

[deadmongrel]

hey the act said they "CAN-SPAM" so they spammed. guess they are complient!. Seriously Law should be the first line of defence and shouldn't be the last one. enforcing a law internationally is very very difficult.I am not sure why this is even a news. I am sure this law is just a joke for most of the companies 'cause there would be loop holes which they can exploit.

Even if they are complient there are spam anyway. I don't think it makes much of a difference.

Re:Obvious flaw

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's an accurate description of the law. It means you CAN SPAM.

Silly Fools....

[Gorillaka]

Analogy: Certain groups are upset with the amount of rugby being played over in Austailia. So they lobby congress and have a bill passed against it. But wait! They're still playing rugby in Austrailia.. what happened, we passed laws against it!?

Most of the spam does NOT come from the US. It's retarded to assume that these spammers all over the world are expected to change their core business model because the US passes some law.

"But wait, I know that a lot of the ringleaders behind all this MUST be in the US". Sure.. but the reason they can hide themselves so well is because they're breaking a dozen other more serious laws in the process of sending out their crap. CANSPAM is seriously the least of their worries.

The spam situation in the world right now is one of those things we'll tell our grandchildren about some day.. as someone growing up under globalization will laugh at the 'crazy' notion that two individuals on the same internet weren't governed by the exact same set of laws.

So anyway, until full globalization is upon us (hey.. I guess the one perk is that it'll cut down on spam), your best bet is to upgrade your filters and use Shadango.com. In case any of you haven't heard yet, Shadango allows you to check all of your accounts from one interface (imap, pop, aol, y!, hotmail, etc), PLUS if filters ALL of them for you in real time. I seriously did not believe it worked until I tried it.. I've actually had the first spam-free week since the mid 90s. Check it out.. it works.

That's my two cents

Kevin

Re:Silly Fools....

[arkhan_jg]

Moust of the spam does NOT come from the US. It's retarded to assume that these spammers all over the world are expected to change their core business model because the US passes some law.

I think you are incorrect in this assumption. spamhaus shows that, of the 200 or so top spammers (that create 90% of the spam) almost all are american or canadian based. They are also invariably advertising US goods and websites, priced in US dollars, from US-based companies, with the one exception of nigerian scammers. If America can get it's house in order, then the world spam problem will be massively reduced.

Admittedly, much of the spam is bounced off asian proxies, or trojaned windows boxes; but that just shows that american and european ISP's crackdown on open relays and spammers is having at least some effect.

What NEEDS to happen is
a) much greater action by american law enforcement for fraud by the sellers and spammers, along with prosecution of the other major offenses.
b) laws specifically drafted to make spam illegal, unless opt-in, with heavy penalties and again, strong enforcement.

Client side spam filters are a sticking-plaster on an amputated limb. They help filter your own mail, at the risk of false positives (which are increasing, given the increasing attempts by spammers to make their mail pass baynesian filters). They do nothing to reduce the massive load on the infrastructure caused by spammers.

Currently, this is a US problem that is affecting the world.

Re:No, you got it all wrong...

[ahknight]

What is Vipul's Razor?

It compares your mail to everyone else's spam to see if it's spam, too.

(Was that so hard?)

OK..What Would You Do?

[reallocate]

>> An anti-spam law ought to ensure that people do not receive spam.

How would you propose doing that? Making something illegal doesn't make it go away. One might as well argue that "an anti-murder law ought to ensure that people do not commit murder."

Fine or arrest everyone who creates spam? OK. What's your definition of spam?

Mandate changes to SMTP? OK, but the cost of implementing the changes will be paid by you and me.

Mandate some kind of magic spam blocking code in all operating systems and mail programs? OK, but if legislation can compel you to use one kind of software, it can compel you not to use another.

No one likes spam. But, stompinmg your feet and decaliming that someone ought to make it go away isn't especially useful.

Re:CAN-SPAM is not weak

[anthony_dipierro]

I have read the law. It's full of loopholes. Yes, the vast majority of current spam is probably covered by it, but it's quite easy for spammers to adapt to the law to comply with it. That is, if it is actually enforced, which I tend to believe it won't be. There's just far too much spam and spammers cover their tracks far too well for the government to enforce any anti-spam law.