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Is the CAN-SPAM Act Working?
DynaSoar writes "Lance Ulanoff of PCMag.com offer his opinion on the success, or lack thereof, of the CAN-SPAM Act. It doesn't appear to be working, though spammers have noticed, in that they try to make their spam look "legit". What might make a real difference, according to US Senator Conrad Burns, co-author of the bill, is international standards and enforcement."
It seems to be working about as well as the War on Poverty and the War on Drugs.
The only thing I have noticed is that spam to my junk Hotmail accounts has dropped to almost nothing. I think this is due to a change in MSN's filtering, and has nothing to do with the legislation.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
My Bayesian filters are starting to pick up on the snailmail addresses the compliant spams contain...
So maybe there was one minor positive point to the law after all. Unless they're simply fraudulent, it's a lot tougher to change a snailmail address than an email or URL address.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
Free viagra with every order
"If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments." Earl Wilson
Now I start receiving spams that come with a nice big attached image which tells me that particular email is complied with the Can-Spam ACT.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
It's working in the meaning of the word that means "not doing anything."
Anything in parenthesis may (not) be ignored.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Big unsurprise, no CAN-SPAM isn't working (assuming by "working" you mean reducing spam).
A sample from my spam-bucket this morning (one of those logo design offers) :
[snip]This mailing has been performed by Internet Marketing Solutions, 1719 University Avenue, Bronx NY 10453 USA,in compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003,
approved and signed by the president of
The United States of America on Dec. 16, 2003.
For this reason, this email cannot be considered SPAM.
My next sig will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush
In actuality, a lot of spammers are located within the US. They only use remote facilities to mask their identities and cover up what they are doing. No, 'international enforcement' would not likely even have much of an effect either.
There is law, and then there is enforcement. I'm sure there is still a no-jaywalking law in New York City. Does anyone care? No, because there is no penalty. When some spammer does Kevin Mitnick-style time for his crime, the law will mean something.
Why would I buy Viagra from someone who can't spell it?
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Yahoo has been doing a fantastic job of filtering spam. Of the hundreds (a thousand?) spam messages I get each week, only a handful make it to my inbox. The rest get put in the bulk mail folder. However, without their excellent filtering, email would be unusable.
Until the spammers money flow is cut off no amount of laws making it illegal will have any effect. What should be happening and I find this RARELY addressed is holding the businesses that spam links to responsible.
Passing laws like that is nothing but a show folks. Put on by our inept governmental leaders (that's a stretch of terms) to say they are working on the issue. Until those businesses that use spam to sell their products are held accountable my tax dollars (once again) are being pissed down the toilet.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
If the congresscritters that sponsored it get re-elected, than it worked! What... you mean is it working to eliminate spam? Do you really think that was it's purpose?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
It's very simple, really. Make the sender pay for every message they send. How?
Simply reverse the email architecture on the 'net. Turn the current method of sending and receiving mail around. Instead of messages being immediately sent to the recipient's server, send the recipient a very tiny message saying that a message with this subject is waiting on the sender's computer for the recipient to pick up.
It would require a change in all the email software currently in use, and the only real hurdle that it provides is that people who are no longer on the Internet all the time can't send mail, but I'm sure someone would be willing to provide that service for a fee.
This would also make it much more difficult to forge headers on a mail, since you would need a valid IP address and/or domain name in order for anyone to get the actual mail that you wanted to send them.
Now, if you spam millions of people peddling whatever it is you're peddling, you'll be using very little bandwidth, a hundred or so bytes compared with several K, until those people come to pick up your message.
Furthermore, you won't be able to hide the originator of the mail nor would you have the problem of open relays spewing a constant stream of junk.
Couple this with PKI and you have a very flexible and very fair system.
The problem that I have with spam is that the current email architecture places 99% of the costs of email on the recipient. If you swing that around and make the spammers have their own, high end servers for handling the millions of mails that they want to send, then spamming will vanish in a hurry.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
In what way is this different than the current situation?
What sort of legislation would increase your ability or right to block or filter?
What "power" are you thinking of? Do you have to be born on Krypton to get it?
Do you suggest legislating the structure of the internet? How would you go about doing that and enforcing it? If it can be done by altering the structure of the internet what is the need of legislation?
Yes, I too am sick of paying for it, seeing it, filtering it, having it clog up the whole bloody net, etc.
The spammer's "power" is no different than my own though. The power to use email. The primary difference is that I'm not an asshole.
If one could legislate away assholes, hey, I'd be the first to endorse it. The instant the bill passed there would be a loud sort of "Whoooooph!" inside the Capitol Building, followed closely by the implosion of the dome as a result of the sudden low pressure inside.
Suppose you were an idiot. Suppose you were a member of Congress? But I repeat myself. --Mark Twain
KFG
KFG