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Can A Bounty System Cure Spam?
dankinit writes "The FTC is considering a proposal made popular by Lawrence Lessig which would offer a bounty to people who help catch spammers. The proposal looks to harness the power of volunteers online who might want a piece of the multimillion dollar fines spammers could incur. Spamhaus founder Steve Linford doesn't like the idea though, explaining '...the FTC already has so much information on their identities that to get anymore would be useless.'"
Because some spammer might propose more money + no spam in exchange of their safety...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
"I want them alive... no disintegration." Oh to be a bounty hunter...
404
Can A Bounty System Cure Spam?
Depends, will the FTC hand out Boba Fett type bounting hunting uniforms? I wouldn't mind starting a collection of Spammers In Carbonite on my walls.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Just answer a few simple questions and we'll send you this FREE spammer catcher software!
There's no justice quite like angry mob justice
See your sig here
Dead or Alive Sounds good to me.
think about it: spammers start trying to catch each other for the bounty, and then they form these massive spamming groups (read gangs) that join up to get the bounty on other spammers...then you end up with a smaller group of REALLY powerful spammers...i gotta stop playing Mafia...
I feel the need for some airstrikes... not to make light of the damage an airstrike can cause, but come on, they're spammers.
When I was a kid growing up in the sticks the county offered a bounty of $0.25/pair for gopher paws. That might work.
They should all be locked up with men who have enlarged their penises, used viagra, and are looking for a meaningful relationship.
That's it! That's the answer! Everybody buy one thing from a spammer, then charge-back it.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
.. in a great sci-fi book "Labyrinth of Reflections" by Sergey Lukianenko. Unfortunately, it hasn't been translated into English (yet), so I can't post a link ...
In the book, there's a funny bit about cyberworld residents meeting in a town hall by the Statue of a Last Spammer... built when the last spammer was exterminated by the bounty hunters. Being wise enough, the governments still decided to keep the bounty in effect AFTER the last spammer was caught.
Personally, I think this is crazy enough that it could work. Imagine the unlimited energies of 16 year olds who spend their days glued to the computer, chatting on IRC, cracking porn site passwords, doing various small-scale mischief and playing Counterstrike, directed towards catching spammers. All I can say is, that would be a BAD time to be a spammer.
"We would need an organized way of combining suits against spammers."
:-)
Would some communication medium or forum for free exchange of ideas help? mmmm. I reckon something like that could be just around the corner
Is there a website already suited as a seeding place for such activity? I personally never see spam, I have heard about it, and am curious about morgaging my penis and enlarging prescription drugs without any pumps.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
And don't forget,
So long Spam Cowboy!
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
The bad tempered girl has no memory? I never knew that. I thought she was just bad tempered. And annoying.
I also never knew Edo was female.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
This article advocates a
( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based (X) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(X) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
(X) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
(X) Microsoft will not put up with it
(X) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
(X) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
(X) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(X) Asshats
(X) Jurisdictional problems
(X) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
(X) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(X) Extreme profitability of spam
(X) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(X) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(X) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
(X) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
(X) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(X) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(X) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(X) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, l0ser! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!
Armed sysadmins tracking down spammers, breaking down the doors? I can't imagine my sysadmin doing more than picking up his cup of coffee or typing on his keyboard or taking his calculator out of his pocket protector, let alone being able to break down a door! Sysadmin 1: Break down the door! Group of sysadmins start hitting door repeatedly to try and break it down. 30 minutes later, police arrive. Police Officer: You are all under arrest for disturbing the peace, we had a call from the person living here about the excessive noise! Another failed attempt for the sysadmin bounty hunters to arrest a spammer!! ;)
who couldn't find their own IP address if you burned it on their asses with a branding iron.
There's the problem right there. You're branding it on their asses! It's hard to see that even with the help of a mirror and a setpping stool. Try their forearms next time.
To 10 of your closest friends and recieve money from Microsoft and the FTC!! It really works!! I know you got email like this before, but this one is the real thing!
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
I'm looking forward to see the first photo-gallery of spammer-ears and tails on the web.
Can I take their scalps like a real bounty hunter?
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds