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FTC Recommends Bounty on Spammers
joke-boy writes "AP reports that as part of the CANSPAM legislation, the FTC has issued a report recommending placing taxpayer-funded 6-figure bounties on spammers, much like the bounties placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted."
Now these bastard are gonna make *ME* rich!!!!
Like a good caning or flogging plus prison time and life bankrupting fines and I'm sold on this!!!!
Bounty is a good idea, but I was hoping for more of a Mad Max scenario. You know, 2 Men Enter... 1 (non-spamming) man leaves
This action will hurt consumers.
You see, now I'm going to have to increase the cost of my penis enlargement pills to cover the increased risk this represents.
1. I can think of a lot of different types of criminals that would deserve a six-figure bounty before a spammer.
2. Taxpayer funded? Bullshit. I don't care if it comes from a non-profit organization but there is absolutely no reason why taxpayers should have to fund six-figure bounties on the heads of people who cause an annoyance. Fuck, put it on Johovah's Witnesses first. I actually have to stand up to deal with them.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Oh yeah. Now since the playing field is little even, let me get my catcher's mit.
Why did I just imagine someone grinning evilly whilst cocking a machine pistol?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
920 Delaware St SE #3003
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Thanks in advance!
Your post advocates a
( ) technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) 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
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) 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
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(x) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
(x) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) 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
( ) 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?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) 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
( ) 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, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!
----
Also, finding spammers has never been a problem.
1. Send massive amounts of spam
2. Profit
3. Frame someone else for having sent the massive amount of spam
4. Get them on the "most wanted spammers" list
5. Turn them in for $100,000
6. Profit more
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Well, I am just outraged! Why does the FTC want me to put paper towels on spammers? Are they going to microwave them or something? Furthermore, why does it have to be Bounty, in particular? I know it's supposed to be the, "quicker picker-upper", but, come on, can I at least use a bargain brand like Marcal? This is just insane...
What?!?! A reward offered by the government for acts deemed beneficial to the state...?
Oh.
Nevermind...
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
A bounty doesn't really make sense the way that spammers are currently prosecuted.
It does, however, make a *lot* of sense if the spammer gets to hang on my far wall encased in frozen carbonite.
I wouldn't consider paying a bounty hunter who brought in the spammer any other way.
Your company 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
(x) 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
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) 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
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(x) 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
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Microsoft
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Yahoo
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) 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
( ) 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?
( ) 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 company for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
___ This sig is in boldface to emphasize its importance!
You'd have to legislate out stupidity.
Fools buy stuff via spam, the companies involved feel justified in hiring a central marketing firm, who in turn hires the spammer.
We have to get rid of the fools.
I'm waiting for the day we get a reality show based on the bounty hunters out searching for these spammers. *Cut to a scene of 2 large men bursting in the door and some fat balding man infront of his computer trying to eat memory keys of information before getting caught* now that's tv I'd watch!
awake since 7, angry since I met you
Dear Chris,
Thank you for posting your home address in a public forum. Now we know where you live. Do you have any idea what we are going to do to you? Do you? We're going to...
Sincerely,The International Brotherhood of Spammers and Unsolicited Bulk Email Advertisers
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Now spammers will let you MAKE MONEY FAST!!!
splunge (n) -- A good idea.. but it could be lousy... and I'm not being indecisive!
As you may know the CANSPAM legislation now includes a SIX FIGURE bounty on spammers. I am willing to share with you a list of known spammers for a paltry sum of $US10. Please send money to...
skribe
Blog
Do you need a new mortgage? Do you want to earn your d1pl0ma? Do you want a Nigerian penis? Send $1 to:
Sincerely,Darl McBride
Now our tax dollars are going to go towards keeping our penises small. Great.
Or just the pelt?
-- Alastair
Don't forget Col. Mubutu and his money laundering - that's important too!
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
Maybe we can get two spammers to turn in each other. Sure, they'd both get the bounty, but then we'd sentence them to the same jail cell. That's reality TV I'd watch.
How about legalizing (or promising to look the other way) vigilante attacks against spam sites? If they give a phone number, set up an auto-dialer. If it's a website, launch a DoS attack. If there's a physical address, mail them a bomb. If this stuff was all legal, I guarantee the problem would solve itself.
Seriously... bounties that are marked "dead or alive" are far more effective.
Kind of like lawyers making laws?
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
"Further, I am very curious as to how many bounty hunters will have will and/or the ability to get foriegn spammers to US Courts.
You are free to use any methods necessary, but I want them alive...no disintegrations!
You're using her as bait, Master!
Federal programs are available to you! You can make THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS with a simple email or phone call!
1. Find a spammer
2. Turn him in
3. Profit!!!
The Federal Government wants this message to get out to all InterWeb users! So send this mail to all your friends and family!
davejenkins.com |
Is that dead or alive?
> You're not going to see "world-famous physicist" at the top of Stephen
> Hawking's webpage (and yes, I checked. It's not there).
Yes, but he DOES claim to be "The dopest shiz-nit in the universe":
http://www.mchawking.com/
I'm glad they're ADA compliant.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
Spam Boys, Spam Boys,
What you gonna do?
What you gonna do,
when we ping for you?