Slashdot Mirror
No Federal Do-Not-Spam Registry For Now
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "The AP reports today that the U.S. government has no plans to create a do-not-spam registry in the immediate future. Why not? They argue that the proper technology is not yet in place. 'A national do-not-e-mail registry, without a system in place to authenticate the origin of e-mail messages, would fail to reduce the burden of spam and may even increase the amount of spam received by consumers,' said the commission." The moral of the story is: never try. See the FTC's press release or their report (pdf).
Homer: Trying is the first step towards failure.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
I'm glad that they haven't jumped in headfirst, I can't imagine how they could enforce such a list right now with so much spam coming from outside of the United States and from unknowing zombie PCs within the US. If they did create a list it would place an expectation in the public eye that the US government can enforce it, when it obviously (to us slashdot readers) cannot.
Like it or not, we need to come up with more clever hardware or software solutions like Yahoo's "Domain Keys", Meng Weng Wong's SPF (Sender Policy Framework), or god forbid, Microsoft's Caller ID for E-mail.
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
I thought they had this now: Isn't it the "Opt-Out" thingy?
My processed lunch meat business will continue for now.
The moral of the story is: never try.
Funny, when someone does propose an anti-spam solution, people here can't poke holes in it fast enough.
So you want to hear these lame proposals so you can scoff at them and feel superior? Or what?
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
At least they are smart enough to realize that it is not technically feasible yet. Score 1 for the FTC.
The moral of the story is: never try.
Come now, michael. If it is most likely going to CAUSE more spam, its something that shouldn't be done.
Its a "damned if you do, damned if you don't by people with kneejerk reactions that normally hate everything you do anyway" thing, isn't it?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
A do-not-spam list right now would be a spam-me-now list. So many spammers are beyond the reach of the law at the moment that adding your address or domain to this list would be like adding it to WHOIS.
sulli
RTFJ.
I completely agree. How do you intend to enforce such a registry? People are forever insulting the gov't for creating unenforceable laws, and the FCC is right to hold back. You must remember that CAN-SPAM makes it a civil crime, while a national registry would make it a federal crime, requiring the gov't to spend money trying cases that obviously won't be won (and could also implicate a lot of innocents).
Read jack phelps dot net
Don't hand the spammers what would probably be the worlds largest distribution list on a silver platter.
They should have a do not spam list. It will kill off at least one segment of spam. Spam mails trying to sell you a list of valid email adresses.
Spammed if you do, spammed if you don't.
"How am I supposed to remember you, when you won't let me forget?" --Bare Naked Ladies
Your message probably best sums up the response to this, and nothing else really needs to be said by anyone. If you create a list of email addresses and attach to it an American law governing their use, then someone from China isn't going to care one bit. The global nature of the Internet (which defies censorship) is also the same thing that allows for spam.
Personally, I'd get a little scared if they can legalize away spam. Although a different medium, if they go all-out for spam, it probably makes for a good sign/precident for 'other things' to be eliminated from the Internet. (Be it pirated files, porn, 'ideas that my citizens shouldn't be having', etc.)
But I still wish spam would go away, like everyone else.
... I'm gonna report myself as '*@*.*'.
"Derp de derp."
Why pass unenforceable legislation which has a good chance of making matters worse?
For once it looks like a responsible decision has been made, lets not mistakenly equate that with doing nothing.
Imagine the screaming you would have done had they tried and failed miserably, or tried and made things worse.
"Talk minus action equals nothing" - Joey Shithead, D.O.A.
"Talk minus action equals
Unlike the You CAN-SPAM Act, this decision by the FTC shows that they have two clues to rub together. There's no guarantee that spammers would adhere to the list..witness the fact that telephone spammers are moving their operations offshore to evade the do-not-call list.
The only way to stop spam is to hammer the advertisers. Follow the money. Penalize the folks who benefit. No other law-based solution will work.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
For the zillionth time, can we put an end to boneheaded ideas like this?
Almost all spammers are violating Federal law right now. A do-not-email list would be the most ridiculous thing ever heard of, and would more likely serve as a great source of addresses for spammers.
The problem is there is no enforcement of existing laws in this area. We don't need more laws; we don't need more goofy schemes. We need resources dedicated towards educating and funding law enforcement authorities on how to catch and prosecute spammers.
If the US Govt. Imposed a draconian policy regarding spam and the technology was dicey or imposed on end user rights (such as no more anonimity) you would see the admin here go apeshit.
Michael also seems to think that whatever is decided in the US will magically become policy for the whole net. After all, if the US govt says you must comply with a no spam list, we must expect the rest of the world is going to suddenly stop sending spam. Right?
No, Michael, it's not. What they said was
And quite frankly they're right. Additionally, it's not in the FTC's jusrisdiction, I don't believe, to change the SMTP protocol. As such, they do not have the ability to actually solve the problem.
Given the degree to which the FTC fought for the Do-not-call registry, I think they deserve more credit than Michael's snide editorial remarks. They also deserve credit for having the courage to admit that they can't solve the problem under the current situation and providing a damned good reason why, as well as leaving bad enough alone and not doing something simply for the sake of doing it. Sometimes, inaction is the best course, and it takes maturity to realize it.
Right now, setting up a do-not-email registry would be as smart as responding to the "Please remove me" addresses. In short, it would be absolutely stupid.
So let's leave the FTC alone, shall we?
I have some asswipe forging my domain right now which is a form of identity theft. I could call the FBI, but who would bother answering my call. Forget the local police department.
Fact is that eliminating spam is a 3 part solution:
- Technical, make it such that it cannot be transmitted or very easily filtered with minimal to no false positives.
- Laws, make it illegal to send spam
- Enforce laws - Ralsky and others like him should hang. They know what they are doing pisses off millions, they are nothing but sociopaths and should be treated as such. Spammers should pay 2-4x the money spent to investigate and prosecute them.
It's sad, spammers IMHO are doing far more damage that Mitnick ever did or could. Yet they are not being taken down as publically or as hard as he was.GAAAAAH. Sometimes, Michael, you are the biggest idiot.
Did you ever stop to think that sometimes just doing "anything" is not the best way to go? Can we please give the government a little credit for not jumping in and just "doing something" to score political points?
Creating a do-not-spam list just creates a beautifully maintained list of people to spam.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
This seems like a near-perfect application for a one-way hash of the email address. Rather than publishing a list of do-not-spam email addresses, publish the SHA-1 and/or MD5 hashes of the email addresses. It's then possible to confirm that a given email address is on the list, but it's not possible to convert the list into a set of usable email addresses. Am I missing something obvious here?
"The moral of the story is: never try"
Um no. The moral of the story is do not kick a dead horse. Email as it is needs a fundemental change. I mean, come on, clear text passwords over a network? You can sniff out 99.9% of all email traffic on the internet easily. Nevermind how easy it is to spam and exploit the vast majority of systems out there. Yes I know email can now be encrypted, blah blah blah, almost no one on the net knows what that means let alone knows how to use it.
I personally do not want my tax money being spent kicking a dead horse. They would spend millions on a system that's unmanagable at best when they could instead spend that money on developing a better email system.
The moral of the story perhaps, is fiscal responsibility. While not kicking a dead horse and picking their battles wisely they will save us tax payers a fair amount of money. This is probably the best news I've heard all week.
This is like arguing that marketing companies or political candidates should be allowed to send people to break into your house to tell you to buy their product or vote for their candidate, and pointing out that you could secure your house by buying better locks and putting bars on your windows if you don't want them there.
If you want to advertise, take out ads on billboards, TV, magazines, or even web sites. But stay the hell off my personal phone, fax machine, and email account.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Speak truth to power.
Result - Slashdot complains about how ignorant and evil the US government is.
Option 2) The US government concludes a do not spam list will cause more problems and the correct solution is to fix email itself.
Result - Slashdot complains about how lazy and evil the US government is.
They argue that the proper technology is not yet in place
Unless I'm mistaken, we've had laser-guided missiles since the first gulf war which is all the technology we need to deal with spammers. It didn't take some Navy supercomputer to find Eric Head or Scott Richter and any half-assed napalm-delivery system would easily show them the error of their ways.