Slashdot Mirror
Businesses Try to Gut Junk Fax Ban
An anonymous reader writes "The Telephone Consumer Protection Act prohibits junk faxes without first obtaining consent of the recipient but EPIC is reporting a bill is being proposed by congressman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) to allow junk faxes that are now prohibited and to undo new rules that go into effect January 2005 that would have further tightened the junk fax ban. In keeping with congressional truth in naming rules, this bill that will allow more junk faxes is understandably titled 'The Junk Fax Elimination Act of 2004.' There will be a hearing Tuesday in the Telecommunications and Internet subcommittee. I'll be faxing my concerns and opposition to this bill to Mr. Upton and the Committee several times today."
How hard is it to filter calls from junk fax senders?
Hard. Consider the difficulty that most normal spam filters are now having. If you're not using whitelisting (which sucks), then you will receive spam. There's simply no content or bayesian filter that can possibly recognize all forms of spam.
Now imagine you don't have any keywords at all, just a source phone number, which probably can be spoofed.
The only identifying information for a fax is the sending phone number. And, unlike e-mails, it's hard to recognize a phone number as being a certain sender.
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
Problem is, the fax was designed to be an appliance. Mostly, that's still the way it's used. So when a junk faxer sends some spam, it gets automatically printed at the recipient's expense.
Imagine how you'd feel if every piece of junk snailmail automatically charged your bank account $.50 for printing costs... and then imagine how much more you'd get if it were free for the sender...
How many people are now waiting for the "Illegal Narcotics Elimination Act of 20xx" ?
In Soviet America the banks rob you!