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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..."
Even a cursory follower of international affairs probably knows just how, ahem, "effective" the paper tiger that is the UN has been in accomplishing their intended goals and ensuring their resolutions are adhered to in places such as Iraq, Palestine, etc, while not being bogged down in internecine politics...
Although spam is different from war and peace, I see the same issue here. If one rogue nation chooses to defy UN law, there's not too much they can do...
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
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...
... the chairman of the anti-spam committee will be the representative from Nigeria.
Never attribute to stupidity what can be construed as a monopoly preservation tactic.
I for one was worried about how to stop the spam epidemic. I'm glad the UN has finally stepped in to fix things. I'll bet the spammers are shaking in their boots, and cursing the UN's decision to put an end to their evil ways.
Not. I don't think the UN will do anything more
than waste billions of dollars on projects that are not needed. Why not spend the money on AID
research or prevention?
Finally!! An organization with a backbone, a clear vision, and a strong determination to do something about the problem... er, what? The UN? Crap.
Use Ctrl-C instead of ESC in Vim!
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!
I didn't realize that the UN was involved in this kind of thing. It is good though. I wonder if they will have a stronger influence than they have had with other issues (like war).
Now there is additional unified governmental support. Here is another article that talks about governmental cooperation to fight spam. This is in addition to cooperation we read about between Microsoft, Yahoo! and others. It'll be interesting to see how the spammers counter. They are a particularly strong bunch. Like cockroaches I suppose.
"Now the problem is rapidly spreading to cell phones. Nine of every 10 spam messages in Japan are now directed to mobile phones as text messages, Horton said."
Thats the scary part. How do we stop spam on phones? They easiest way would probably involve filtering by our service providers. But do we trust them to do that? And would they do that? I don't know about USA or Japan, but here in Jamaica, the majority of unsolicited text messages that I get actually comes from my cellphone providers (I have phones from two telcos).
J2ME, SMS enabled versions of spamassasin?
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.
because the spammers that send 15 million emails to people in country 1 are not breaking the law in country 2. And Country 2 refuses to do anything about it. The ITU (the UN Group) wants to standardize legislation, making it much more difficult to hide in other countries and continue to break the laws of other nations.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
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.
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.
The main reason that spam is proliferating and will continue to do so is simple: it is a commercial activity, hence sacrosanct.
Governments today can make effective law against all sorts of things, but the sacred cow that they must never interfere with is people's and corporations' right to make profit. As soon as they mess with that, they can wave their economy bye bye as all the powerful corporate players jump ship.
Long-established commercial activity such as farming, mining, agriculture, retail, insurance, medical practice, etc. have equally long-established, effective laws that protect us from the abuses of their worst practictioners. Those laws were made in the days before "free enterprise" ruled the roost. Today, though, new enterprises are free to neglect their social responsibilities, and they will get away scot free because governments no longer dare to make effective law to inhibit them. They will make new law, yes, but not effective law.
So now the U.N. is picking up the ball. That's not surprising, because all the lost causes get booted to the U.N. eventually anyway, which is why they have gotten a reputation for being ineffective and goody-goody.
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.
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