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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."
Surely there are things that money could be better spent on. Like say, the implementation of a new email protocol. Or (gasp!) things like Social Security or education.
When there's a bounty on the advertisers who use the spammers, then we'll see a reduction in spam
If you forget about the future, the future will forget about you.
A bounty doesn't really make sense the way that spammers are currently prosecuted. Most spammers just get a slap on the wrist. Until spammers actually start getting serious hard time or huge civil penalties, then the value of the bounty would be greater than the cost to most spammers. This would make it beneficial for a small time spammer to partake in their own bounty.
If bounties given out were a percentage of the fines actually collected from spammers (which ideally should be really painful for big spammers), rather than some fixed range, then a bounty system would make sense. And spammers who manage to launder their profits so the fines don't stick need to get prison time.
....confiscation and public destruction of zombie computers. Then just *perhaps* enough people would bingo to what they are running and how they are running stuff on their computers to treat them with a little more intelligence, and they in turn might go seek out those who supplied them with inadequate products that are sold with no warranties, the vendors and software makers who ship these easily zombified boxes.
It's way past time products that come brand new pre-borked got recalled and the vendors ordered to "not do that".
We as consumers and the government wouldn't put up with "acme doors" that failed to swing open and closed, failed to lock adequately, and anyone could open with a gentle shove when it was allegedly latched, but with computers connected to the internet they can ship totally insecure crap and profit from it to the tune of hundreds of billions with little recourse for the consumer when they get owned or the dang thing fails to function as advertised.
And really, the thought of a legion of whizzed off grandmothers who had their zombie computers confiscated descending on a computer and software marketing weasel convention and laying waste with brooms is rather a nice image.
YOUNG MAN *WHACK* DON'T YOU EVER *WHACK* SELL THAT SHODDY MERCHANDISE AGAIN!! *WHACK WHACK WHACK*
RTFA. Not enough money is recovered from spammers, even the few that are prosecuted. There is a small number of big spammers, who are smart enough to keep their money safe from seizure, and a lot who live in trailer parks. The benefit to society as a whole is worth the cost if it deters.
- Spammers use stolen resources (hijacked zombie computers, DSL/cable connections) in order to further their business.
- Spammers do not seek consent before bombarding email systems with their marketing information.
- Spammers generally disrespect requests for them to stop sending unsolicited email, and in fact often send more mail after such requests (selling 'confirmed' addresses to colleagues)
- Spammers deliberately conceal their location of 'business', mislead consumers in their 'marketing campaigns' and forge their identities.
It's good to see these people increasingly treated as what they really are, criminals that have been harming society and getting away with it because our current laws are too slow to catch up. What they're doing is not only annoying, but harmful to innocent peoples' systems.I agree.
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.
This, of course, speaks nothing of the spammers who are already here.
Spammers being actively hunted in the post Soviet Bloc countries, China, Nigeria, etc would be a very interesting thing to see if it *ever* happened, which I sincerely doubt.
The war on spam reminds me of the war on drugs.
And, IIRC, the war on drugs has yet to be won.
Donald Rumsfeld, a man I am not very fond of, did correctly point out in my opinion that the war on drugs is a demand problem.
So is Spam.
As long as spam is profitable, it *will* continue.
This will mainly serve to make the FTC look good while doing little (VERY little) to solve the problem.
Our tax dollars at waste - again.
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uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
What's to keep spammers from turning in other spammers? Then the spammers get MORE money.... OUR money!
The fact is that major corporations, like the illegal drug dealers, outsource the most dangerous of their illegal activities to small time criminals. The discounts these small time criminals provide are the smallest part of the benefit. The real benefit comes from a judicial system that allows Wal*Mart to hire illegal aliens at wages that do no meet the federal standards, but not be responsible for the legal consequences. This shifting of responsibility away from corporation appears to the primary purpose of the modern executive. And therefore the livelihood of the million dollar executive depends on the fiction that he or she is not responsible for anything separated by the smallest sliver of paper. Even if it requires that the we assume the executive is the stupidest person in the planet, pride in ones job and oneself has become so irrelevant that stupidity is the preferable interpretation.
This means that the spammers we are likely to catch will be replaced tomorrow, created by the corporate dual obsession with criminal behavior and outsourcing risk. They at the same time need to protect themselves from lawsuits, but also need to sell prescription drugs to kids. There is always another person who wants to earn a buck, and the pushers are always willing to set up another patsy to take the fall.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
It's all about enforcement.
It's a sad day when one branch of the government offers a bounty to get another branch of the government off their asses to enforce laws that have been on the books for decades.
Spammers break laws. Felony laws. 95% of all spammers break serious laws that could have them put in prison.
We don't need people to report spammers. All someone has to do is put an unpatched windows pc on the net for a few hours and they'll be a zombie pc and start collecting info and able to identify the spammers. In a day you can have a hundred charges of computer tampering.
Think about this come election time. We have a government that has been neutered by big business that has little concern for anything which doesn't directly affect big, multinational corporations that contribute to their campaign coffers. The apathy of the public is responsible for allowing these losers in office.
How about something that works: Fight SPAM
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