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UN Takes Aim At Spam Epidemic
clester writes "CNN reports 'The United Nations is aiming to bring a "modern day epidemic" of junk e-mail under control within the next two years by standardizing legislation around the world to make it easier to prosecute spammers, a leading expert said Tuesday.' The full story reports that as much as 85 percent of all e-mail may be categorized as spam and that the problem is rapidly spreading to cell phones in the form of text messages..."
How much will legislation actually do though?
Until a method is found that kills or significantly makes spam nearly impossible to send or makes the profits significantly less than the costs of operating, all legislation will do is drive the spammers further and further underground...
be stopping real travesties like war and disease?
That would require courage. Don't hold your breath. They are too busy trying to block investigations into abuse from the "oil for food" program.
Mod it down or whatever, I don't care, but the UN is working very hard to fulfill GW's statement, that they are irrelevent. They COULD be very powerful and effective, but the individual players (and yes, often us as well) are too busy with their own little power trips and rip offs.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Not quite. First there will be at least one innocent person who has his life ruined because of some far reaching interpretation of the policy. However, blatant spam with procede uninterupted.
Yes, cause who would listen to a part of the UN that is pushing this? the silly ITU.(International Telecommunications Union). These are the guys pushed the standards for telephones, like dialing internationally, and equipment working together.. Bet your local telecom and cell companies all followed the ITU's mandate to the letter, or else they wouldn't interconnect with the rest of the world.. Which is a pretty good idea, if you ask me.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
That doesn't mean that nothing can be done... I and everyone else with a firewall in front of a mailserver can blackhole those nations that choose to tolerate spam.
I can't wait for IPv6... It should be even easier to throw away traffic from entire nations than it is now.
Instead of pushing our leaders to pass more unenforcable laws that will expand government regulatory power, let's go after ISPs (and entire national networks, if need be) that tolerate spammers.
Go after ISP's using what? New laws? No laws? Vigilante teams? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Just what do you mean by "go after" if it does not involve passing new laws to prosecute violating ISPs with? You do realize that no law prohibits an ISP having a spammer as a customer, don't you?
So how shall we "go after" ISP's with no new laws?
Edith Keeler Must Die
The war against spam will be won by a new mail protocol. Filtering is good and all, but it doesn't catch everything no matter how well trained the filter is. SMTP needs to be replaced with something better, and Spam is just the thing to kick people into working on the problem.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
.. take some time and know what you're talking about. Don't dismiss the United Nations because a bunch of right wing idiots on TV like to make it their whipping boy. The UN does a lot of good all around the world. And if anything, the US is more responsible for crippling the UN's effectiveness than anyone else.
dunno.. we haven't had a world war in half a century..
That is not due to the UN but to the arsenal of nukes which backed up the Cold War. It was only the threat of total annihilation that prevented WWIII.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
standardizing legislation around the world to make it easier to prosecute spammers
Must have been asleep, but I didn't realize that it was within the power of the UN to 'standardize legislation' in any given juristiction upon the planet.
Bitter sarcasm: This should come as a great relief to the countless vitims of murder, genocide, torture, displacement, starvation, disease, opression and the myriad other insults, which more than half of humanity fears on a regular basis.
What was the mission of the UN? Ladies and gentlemen, get a real job..
There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
Actually the ITU adopted standards that had previously been established. They just decided to take credit for standards that already existed.
The UN outlawing spam will work as well as the UN law outlawing genocide.
-- Will program for bandwidth
The UN will not have ANY mandate or ANY power until they remove non-democratic countries that do not;
1) respect their people.
2) have a binding constitution.
3) have a system of government that is subservient to the people.
4) have an media system which is private.
5) ensures that non-democratic nations do not have the same standing as democratic nations.
People can call the US a dictatorship and all the rest, I like calling Canada a dictatorship. God knows Darth Jean treated the country like his own piggy bank. The point is this, each of the G8 countries fall under those first 4 points. Each of the G8 countries fall under the 3 fundamental points of which lead to personal freedom.
1) Common Law (Upholds Property Rights)
2) Free Society (Liberty)
3) Market Economy (Wealth Generation)
Without those, and without the people having those rights...the countries in that organization are meaningless. It gives dictatorships the ability to be 'as powerful' as the EU, or the US. It gives butchering Syria or N.Korea as much 'moral' right as Canada or Japan.
You can not have a 'moral' organization which places corrupt, immoral, and terrorist entities at the same levels as those who are not. Our governments are accountable to US(the people)...me...you...the guy down the street.
Their governments are accountable the the guy holding the gun to his head, saying protest or die...then raping his wife and daughter for fun. Or killing someone to ensure 'loyalty'...
Bah...I don't care...mod me down, up. Kiss my ass...whatever. The UN is failing, because it puts the 'bad guys' on the same footing as the 'good guys'. If you are having a moral clarity problem trying to figure out the difference between the two...I'd suggest an actual trip to one of those 'socialist paradises'.
Sit in front of your computers, decry 'international law' but you fail to see the reasons as to 'why' it fails, bah. The same reason as to why the League of Nations failed, the same reason as to why the "Arab Leauge" are nothing but dictators who control hate filled media but are willing not only to condem us(the west) for 'evil' acts, but were unwilling to stop them from happening in their own backyard. The same reason as to why a war broke out a few hours from Paris...and it took NATO and the US to stop it. The same reason as to why Kofi is afraid of what the oil for food program will really show, and how 'deep' the corruption really is. You think the US is profiteering? Not even close. If you didn't hear...the UN head inspector for the "Oil for Food" program was killed by a bomb the other day. Very strange. Not to mention the governments who have the most 'vested' interest, want to turn this from a 'legal' to 'political' investigation. Ask why Kofi and the General council reprimanded and censured a couple of workers who wrote about what really happened in Africa. It goes on and on and on.
It's so damn corrupt that even ex-stalinists would be rolling with glee at the kick-backs.
If you want to reply, I may or may not read it.
Spelling and Grammar Nazi's can pike off.
Om, nomnomnom...