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Ohio Law Could Send Spammers To Jail
ej0c writes "We in Ohio are set to save you from Spam. The legislature, with AOL's help, passed a tough anti-spam bill (Reuters). Spam in Ohio, and you'll be in the can for 6 months, with fines of $25,000 per violation, or $2 to $8 per e-mail. Text of the Act."
Ohio Inmate #7779: What are you in for sir?
Ohio Inmate #2466: Nuttin' much, assault and burglary. How about you, cutey-pie?
Ohio Inmate #7779: Selling penis pumps online.
Ohio Inmate #2466: Eyyyyxcellent...
Sigs cause cancer.
I thought that it was just a case of actually finding someone who could enforce them.
My other processor is big-endian.
Doesn't the federal "CAN SPAM" act prevent state laws from taking effect? I thought that was one of the main provisions that kept the new California law (at the time) from happening.
Save me from popups while you're at it.
Well, I do all my spamming from China. Come get me.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
...who owns a Zombie machine. I hope that was taken into consideration.
But is it really all that bad? I mean sure I am totaly against spamming, but 6 months in prison? Seems a little harsh to me. But I suppose it will stop spamming more effectivly than a light slap on the wrist and an admonition not to do it again.
Does not atone for what you did on November 2nd.
Is when someone posts that stupid pre made form where they check off the boxes as to why this won't work. I can't wait for that one.
I'm finally getting the other folks in my office to use Thunderbird as an email client, the big selling point was spam filtering. Trends like this may make such FOSS evangelism harder, since people (esp. the lawyers) can just rely on the law to protect them rather than go to the trouble of trying software that didn't come with the machine.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Scenario... innocent dumb user has their computer hijacked and made part of a spam botnet.
Did they just spam? Are they now off to jail?
1) Does this affect spammers who operate in Ohio but send the spam from outside of the state? Or outside of the country?
2) Does this affect spammers from outside of Ohio who send spam into the state?
I wonder if jail time will be an effective deterrent for spammers. I think the lack of any real teeth in current legislation has kept the current spam laws from having any real effect. Even if the spammers are actually fined the fines represent a significantly smaller amount than the potential profits from spamming. If this passes, is upheld as legal, and is enforced it will be very interesting to see what kind of spam, if any, continues to originate from Ohio.
-- Gargonia
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.
We send drug dealers and drug buyers to jail, we should treat spam the same way.
We should punish the idiots that buy things advertised in Spam.
One could argue that the "war on drugs" is a failure, and for the most part they'd be right, but I was a kid in the mid to late 1970s and the culture has changed dramatically with regard to drugs. People used to smoke weed on downtown street corners, it certainly isn't that way anymore.
Take away the incentive to send the spam out and fewer people will risk it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Now all we have to do is get all the spammers to move to Ohio and we are set.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Hopfully this will be an example to the rest of the world. It would make a banner advert I saw earlier nicely illegal.
It detected I was using Linux (No, FreeBSD) and Netscape 5 (No, Mozilla) then told me that my system could be optimised (yippie!) by installing some Windows-only software.
Deceptive? I'd say so.
Quite amusing though.
Hormel factories in Ohio have been stormed by enthusiastic but confused SWAT teams. Hormel spokesmen could not be reached for comment, as they are being held at gunpoint.
Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
But having a law, and actually enforcing it are two wholly different things. Not to mention the prosecution...
There are already *plenty* of laws under which to prosecute spammers. They simply aren't enforced... The problem is not a lack of laws, it is a lack of resources/motivation/knowledge on the part of law enforcement. I would much rather see a commitment to spend a few million actually *doing* something - and when you consider the drain spammers are on the economy, it would be money well spent.
SSL Certificate
I am not being a troll, but for all the known spammers, there are so many unknown, who live in other countries. How is a state law going to prosecute these people? How/Will the law be implemented. This remains to be seen.
Maybe this is a warped way to improve the conditions of America's prisons. Once they're filled with non-violent offenders like spammers, drug-users, and copyright violators, there will be less incidence of assault and rape behind bars. We'll leave that for the outside.
Ohio legislators sent an anti-spam bill to Gov. Bob Taft on Tuesday, with the aim of joining other U.S. states that have laws that put people who flood the Web with junk e-mail behind bars.
I guess if you use webmail the "Web" could get flooded with junk "e-mail" (previously known as email for at least 10 years), otherwise the "journalist" looks pretty dumb right from the 1st sentence.
If signed into law, it would outlaw Internet ads that are deceptive or misleading and ban people from setting up false accounts to send spam, the junk e-mail that clogs consumers' online mailboxes and taxes the resources of Internet service providers.
The measure would also allow the state attorney general to impose criminal and civil sanctions against spammers.
fraud n.
1) A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.
2) A piece of trickery; a trick.
3) a) One that defrauds; a cheat.
3) b) One who assumes a false pose; an impostor.
I know of no state in the United States where fraud is already legal. I'd be content with enforcement of existing laws before wasting time and effort passing new laws where enforcement of either the new or existing law is nonexistant.
why don't we go after spammers in snail mail?
I really don't want advertisments ANYWHERE unless I say ok, so why is snail mail exempt? Granted, most of it is not offensive ( except for the odd jury summons ), but that doesn't change the fact that it's unsolicited junk mail, albeit arriving via physical means instead of electronic.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Tough lawyers and Walcher* coming,
We're finally on our own.
This winter I hear the drumming,
Spam dead in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it
Spammers are mailing us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her swamped on the ground
How can you spam when you know?
* Representative Kathleen Walcher co-sponsored the bill under discussion.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
We grew up and smoke it in our own homes now.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I am all for taking a tough approach to spammers, but putting them in jail? Have you heard about the prison overcrowding problem?
Why don't we instead seize all of their assets, profits, and make some money for the people, instead of having to pay for them in jail?
I've always thought that the criminal penalty should be from one second to one minute per message sent, comparable to the amount of time the spammer intended to cannot be served consecutively with any other penalty. No upper limit on time served; all persons involved in a conspiracy to spam should be subject to the penalty independantly.
statistical estimation based on all available information from ISP's (link utilization, etc.,) should be used to estimate the number of spam messages sent. messages blocked by spam filters still count, as the unsuccessful sending attempt indicates intent to waste the time of the recipient.
This is more feel-good legislation that will probably have no teeth because it takes too much work for too little result. Real change requires going back to holding ISPs responsible for spam -- cutting the worst off at the uplink when they don't put some minimal effort into keeping their users from spamming.
Maybe that'll mean certain countries are delinked until a scrupulous ISP shows up. It'll do a hell of a lot more than prosecuting a handful of spammers here.
I never vote for anyone. I always vote against.
-- W.C. Fields
Additional civil cases may be personally filed with the state over spam. This is stating that the attorney general has no judical power in the courts of Ohio. Such as the normal separtation of state and federal branches and laws. If the federal goverment fails to honor the CAN-SPAM act. You can still seek compensation through civil action through Ohio court.
Good news for me, however it is hard to say if this will help. I can see ISP rates going up due to increased labor with judical action requesting for records.
Punishing American spammers but letting the Chinese off seems awfully unfair to me.
Ohio Inmate #66092: Burglary, grand theft, passing bad checks, what're you in for?
Ohio Inmate #73507: 4.5 million pieces of email a day, selling bogus pharmaceuticals, green card lotteries, advertising pr0n and promoting online casinos. I was making $250,000 a month before the troopers knocked on my door.
Ohio Inmate #66092: Oh, master! I am not worthy! I am not worthy!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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 vary from state to state.)
( ) 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
( ) 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
(x) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires cooperation from too many of your friends and is counterintuitive
( ) 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
(z) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever worked
( ) Other:
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
( ) 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
( ) 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
(x) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(x) Technically illiterate politicians
(x) 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
( ) Other:
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) 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 cannot involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures cannot involve sabotage of public networks
( ) 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
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
( ) Other:
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Nice try, dude, but I don't think it will 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!
Follow the money. If it comes back to Ohio then they've got a case.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
First, I think getting 6 months in jail and a criminal record is insane for sending out spam.
Why is the asshole who shoves flyers under my apartment door not in jail? It's a far bigger hassle to pick them up and toss them daily than it is to use a spam filter.
If you want to make a dent in spam, there are two entities to go after:
I skimmed the act, and it's not clear to me that the businesses that commission spam are also under the gun here. I also didn't see provision for private cause of action ala junk fax.
Well, everybody should do their part. China is good at controlling Internet Access, and spammers are one group of criminals for whom labor/re-education camps would be actually approporiate and helpful. When they start a crackdown on spam under international pressure, I am sure they'll have excellent results.
In the meantime, Ohio can jail CEOs of companies that advertise through spam.
Physical spam is actually more of a nuissance IMO because it is wasteful of real resources and takes up space in my trash bin (requiring me to empty it more frequently, requiring me to buy more trash bags). Also, I live in an apartment building in which the communal area is regularly a trash heap from tenants who refuse to take their unwanted flyers and catalogues with them when they retrieve their mail.
'nuff said.
in essence, if a federal law does not specifically permit an activity, it is within the state's power to prohibit that activity. The State law here [but IANAL] appears very clearly written and defines all its terms and the crime described in those terms with some precision. If a spammer is fighting this law in court, they will have to show that the Fed regulation [sorry, text not available to me here] explicitly permits something that the Ohio law has prohibited. [Law is NEVER as simple as the people enacting it would wish or would promise their constituents.]
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
I know the DMA and other bodies are big political contributors, is there anything similar among spammers?
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
Wait a second -- you seem to be implying that if something isn't punished in another country, it shouldn't be punished here. Why not punish them here? It's not going to stop all spam, of course, but it doesn't make sense to scoff at each individual step because it doesn't solve the whole problem immediately. Even if all we do is stop all spam from inside the US (eventually, I hope) it'll then make it that much easier to identify spam and deal with spam.
I avoid most of the annoyance of spam by carefully protecting my email address and using my provider's spam protection services (Yahoo). However, I can't stop my relatives from sending jokes, heartwarming stories, virus scares, urban legends, chain mails, and bogus Disney offers. I say we lock them all up for 6 months, too.
I require is a short list of every SMTP server IP address in your state so that I may be informed enough to comply with your legislation.
Thank you,
Nigerian P. Freely
Wouldn't Florida be a better place for a law like this?
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
And send that scuzzbag Alan Ralsky to prison.
BTW, anyone got a link to the interview from the Daily Show?
We need to STOP putting so many people in jail for non-violent crimes. How many people's lives would be spared, how many tax dollars saved, if we reformed our prison system?
The idea is not to ignore American spammers. The idea is that if we punish American spammers, we should also punish Chinese spammers. The USA has something called "Super 301", which is used to punish unfair trade partners like Taiwan. Let's amend "Super 301" to also punish Chinese spammers.
If the spammer's cell mates were given some of the penis enlargment pills during the spammer's visit.
Fight Spammers!
we already have anti-spam laws.. I dont know about you others states.. I believe its a $500 fine per spam message payable to the recipient of the spam. The problem is tracking the spam to its original source.
If this had been a law designed to send copyright infringers to jail for six months, I doubt we'd be hearing the many 'hell, yeah!' responses posted so far. We should all be uneasy about 'tough' laws which can send people to jail by criminalizing online-specific types of behavior.
...
I'm not claiming that copyright infringment and spamming are equivalent activities, but I'll bet many of the same arguments people would use for criminalization and tough sentencing in one case are applicable to the other.
There are laws out there already against fraud and deceptive advertising, just as there are (old, established) laws against copyright infringement. We only start running into trouble by trying to 'update' these laws for the internet age (think DeCSS, DMCA, etc.). IMO, little good comes out of these 'tough updates'.
And so I say "tech solutions for tech problems" and keep the government and courts out of it as much as possible
Imposing Libertarian views on everyone online since 1992.
Would it be legal to set up a web site where people can place a bet on a date in the calendar. Then, if a known spammer that date, the gambler wins the money? I suppose a cleaver person would figure out a way to win the money, but that would be outside the scope of the web site.
There are 10 types of people in the world... those that understand binary and those that don't.
are we supposed to feel bad for spammers... send 'em to gitmo....
Get your torrents...
Another example of law makers not having a clue. It stops spammers in ohio. Now only 50 states and the rest of the world to worry about. That should clean up my mailbox.
Now I live in ohio, My computer is ohio, my yahoo,gamil,hotmail or whatever mail account is someplace besides ohio getting email from someplace besides ohio. Hmm, wonder if ohio law applies.
set up the death penalty for this. Once someone starts spamming, they wont stop spamming for the rest of their life, so i say we need to stop them so they dont have a life of spamming. We used to kill people for treason (up till the 60s IIRC), and im pretty sure that spamming is worse than treason!
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. - Catcher in the Rye
Quoth grasshoppa: "Granted, most of it is not offensive ( except for the odd jury summons ), but that doesn't change the fact that it's unsolicited junk mail, albeit arriving via physical means instead of electronic."
.
Ok, I know this is getting off on a tangent, but *what* do Jury Summons have to do with junk mail? Granted, it might not be solicited, but since it is government business, involving you directly, and not just a mass-mailed advert, I'm a bit confused how that fits the definition of unsolicited junk mail. .
Oh, and how are jury summons offensive?
I just hope the penalty is $2-$8 per e-mail, or $25,000, whichever is HIGHER.
Hitting em in the pocketbook is usually pretty reliable. Assuming you can enforce it in the first place, but that's another discussion. =P
Erioll
By allowing a private right of action for individuals, you get some of the smaller-time spammers.
There is one spammer, AVTech Direct (Avtech Direct 22647 Ventura Blvd. Suite 374 Woodland Hills, CA 91364), that I and about 10 others filed suit against for spamming. A $5000 small claims judgement won't get them, but if they had 100 or 1000 judgments for $5,000 each for spamming, they may not spam anymore.
Fight Spammers!
Not if Netcraft doesn't confirm it, you insensitive clod!
I had an idea for a TV show. It's called Spam Cops and it would use a similar format to the current show Cops. Every episode would focus on a differant scam. It would start out explaining how the scam works, then a commercial, then we get interviews with people who were taken in by the scam, perhaps using pixelated faces. Then, a commercial. Then an investigative segment where the spammers are tracked down. Then, a commercial, then the cops bust into the spammer's office and beat them with clubs. Then, commercials. Then, credits.
Seriously, it would at least educate the people out there. They would know not to fall for Phishing scams, and maybe they would switch to Firefox or at least change their IE settings. And they would see the effects that spam is having on real people.
Just a friendly nitpick: since Hormel has been super-nice about letting people use the term "spam" in the internet-sense, we should respect their wishes and NOT capitalize the term:
Ohio Inmate #7779: What you here for?
Ohio Inmate #2466: I massacred almost an entire town, for the hell of it. What about you?
Ohio Inmate #7779: I spam inboxes
Ohio Inmate #2466: You make me sick!
Ohio Inmate #7779: *Lowers head in shame*
Physical spam is bought and paid for by the companies that send it. If a company has to fork over cash to get a return, it will have to justify that cash outlay in terms of ROI. The same theory that goes for the billboards and Race car sponsorship. A spammer is not the one who spends the capital to transfer the message to you, it is you who is burdened with cost of recieving said message. Junk mail creates employment from the ad layout guy to the printer and to the delivery channel. Spam is an end run around the advertising practices that have stood the test of time.
Stay tuned for new sig...
Here's what I'm yapping about:"(F)(1) The attorney general or an electronic mail service provider that is injured by a violation of this section may bring a civil action in an appropriate court of common pleas of this state seeking relief from any person whose conduct violated this section. The civil action may be commenced at any time within one year of the date after the act that is the basis of the civil action."
We have that same (or damn close to it) language in our state law. Notice the word "may", that's the key. If the AG chooses not to he doesn't have to do shit. He can let it all flush away. They should have put that word as "must", which would have mandated action. As it is, this law is no better than Iowa code 714E that we've had for a while now and not one case has been put to the measure, sadly.
I predict no real help from this "feel-good" legislation.
Can someone recommend anti-spam software that works well with pop3 and Thunderbird? I tried McAfee. It only filtered about 50% of the spam. Even reporting all the missed spam to McAfee didn't help, I guess it's not a learning system. After a few monthes, i was still getting only 50% spam filtering.
There are 10 types of people in the world... those that understand binary and those that don't.
I don't like spam anymore than anyone else but my advice to you is to install a spam filter and shut up. I get one piece of spam a day. If you can't bare that toll, time to get off the Interweb. Sending people to jail is not the answer.
You want to know who isn't running Firefox 2.x? They spell it "definately" and "rediculous".
Does not atone for what you did on November 2nd.
Maybe they'll invade Michigan and capture Alan Murray Ralsky... It wouldn't be the first time there was war between Michigan and Ohio.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I'm a bit confused. When CAN-SPAN passed, I remember vividly that one of the major problems with it was that it negated state anti-spam laws. Yet here in Virginia, AG Jerry Kilgore just, amidst much celebration, sent a spammer to prison for years. Now Ohio intends to pass this law. Another commenter has pointed out that this Ohio law seems to be based on a permissive clause of CAN-SPAM that permits such laws to be passed.
Can state anti-spam laws only be passed if states have been expressly granted the power to do so under CAN-SPAM? Or am I missing something?
-Waldo Jaquith
Mod this fuckwit down, his links are anti-Chinese ranting which have no mention of Spam.
That kind of statistical estimation probably won't (in legal eyes) pass the "reasonable doubt" test. There's a good reason that these laws are based on specific "coarse-grained" acts of fraud and misrepresentation, as opposed to per-message. Criminal punishments are not meant to be directly proportional to the financial damage caused by the crime.
That part made me think about the physical mailbox that collects pounds of wasted paper every week.
We're so damned concerned about having to sift through spam and the time we waste to delete it, that we've ignored a tremendous source of waste that infiltrates our homes every day.
All those free credit card applications, retail catalogues, AOL CDs, and grocery store fliers incur a cost to the environment. Why aren't we focusing more attention on something that's causing real harm to the world?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
There are multiple Americas. There share some common needs, and have some common traits, but the East Coast has different needs and wants than the West Coast. Different still are the needs and want of the South, the Southwest, the Industrial/Great Lakes Region, the Northwest, and the Midwest (Grainbelt).
Farmers have different needs than auto manufacturers, and insurance companies, and stock brokers, and software houses need.
This is why states rights is such an attractive doctrine. A solution for Kansas, may not work for Alabama, and a solution for New York might make no sense for Nevada.
My Heart Is A Flower
Yeah... those democrats and those unions really saved those lost Timken jobs. ROFL!!
We don't need more laws, unless those laws mandate X amount of money and resources for enforcement of existing laws.
When will people wake up?
"Shr1nk Y0ur Pen1s!" aimed at the convicted felon population
I don't like spam anymore than anyone else but my advice to you is to install a spam filter and shut up. I get one piece of spam a day.
Who the hell cares how much spam you hide from yourself, spam ostrich? Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean that it's not there. You still paid for the bandwidth the spammer used. If you're using your ISP's mail server, you paid them for the storage and delivery of the spam. Spammers are costing everyone money.
If you can't bare that toll, time to get off the Interweb.
While your time may have zero value, others do value their time and an attorney, CPA, or other professional using the net should not have to invest his time, or his money, fighting off spammers. Spammers are stealing from him and hurting his ability to earn a livelihood and should be jailed just like any other thief. Why the hell should millions of people have to invest billions of dollars and countless hours just so that spammers can spam without fear of jail time?
While your little geek-boy spam filter might suit your needs, I've worked with someone who consults to the real-estate industry and real-estate agents are bombarded with spam -- as well as legitimate business newsletters, business communications, and client communications. In order to be competitive, they have to post their e-mail address online. And that means that it gets harvested. They can't afford to lose a commission on a half-million dollar home sale by posting some javascript obsfuscated mailto link that doesn't work with the buyer's or seller's web browser. Nor do they want to get important mortgage rate information scrapped -- but they don't want some spam with a refinance-your-home scam.
I have my own domain and probably get two to three pieces of spam a week through my blacklists and filters, but I'm a grown-up, so I recognize that what I, as an individual, do isn't going to work for most businesses. If I bounce all mail from Taiwan, that's fine. If a business does, they might miss out on important correspondence that translates to large sums of money.
Instead of arguing about whether a legislative or technical solution will work better, why don't we do both? Obviously Ohio spammers can simply move to Jersey or something, but this is a strong precedent that hopefully everyone else follows. Also, I've seen some comments about SPAM laws not being enforced. Well, if the DA can get actual prison time and the politicians tell the DA that anti-SPAM is a priority then maybe law enforcement *will* bother finding and prosecuting these cretins. Why would a DA bother now if they know they'll have to fight for months and the spammer will walk away with a 25k fine, which the spammer will make up in a month?
The technical ideas are being proposed, and we are learning about which ones are promising (note to M$, byte me). This process will take 5+ years to codify into some IETF stadard and get deployed in some meaningful way. In the meantime we can let our politicians do something useful by making the spammers we can catch pay in a big way (with community input I hope). This means prison time; just like embezzlement must carry a prison sentence because the financial incentives are so great and the chance of getting caught in time are small enough to be enticing. That is the *deterrent* factor. The malicious grin we get from this law is the revenge factor of punishment. This law has both.
While the materials for the flyers and other physical junkmail left on my property are paid for by someone else, *I* have to pay to get rid of them.
No one is paying for my time however trivial that may be to pick up the trash around my front door. I also pay for my trash/recycle service to haul the stuff away. And finally, when I get spam, nobody is alerted to the fact that I may not be home, since spam doesn't collect on the front doorknob.
Should I send a bill to the junk-mailers for hiring the neighbor kid to keep my doorstep clean?
What law would I be breaking if I had a couple of tons of scrap paper delivered to your front lawn? Seems to me this is the same thing leaflet-leavers are doing, just to a lessor degree.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Most-favored trade partner ring any bells? We're not anymore likely to go after China for business practices than we are to go after Israel for espionage. In both cases, we publically like them.
I sincerely do not mean to flame or troll here, but this comment just tears at me really bad. Please, please, please, don't compare the gravity of the drug scene to something as trivial as spam. That kind of casual glossing over causes so much damage I couldn't even begin to describe.
:(
I see this stuff every day. I'm not a drug counselor or a therapist, the people I see are my friends and my family. The effects these drugs have on all our lives is absolutely devastating. You should really consider educating yourself. I'm a smart, well educated guy who's been around it most my life. Even though I never tried any, I used to think I knew all about it. It's literally impossible for me to explain how naive most of us are in regards to this problem.
Don't brush this stuff off so easily, don't take such a casual attitude about drug abuse (or even drug use). I used to do that too. I used to sit around, all high and mighty like and say "It's their body, they can do whatever they want to with it." Over time everything becomes more clear. If only I could have stopped some of them
I've thought of abandoning them, but without some kind of link to sobriety, they have a better chance of winning the lottery (literally) than they do of overcoming their addiction alone. So I stay there, and I try to help those who want it. I can't do much, but I can try and be useful and helpful and maybe delay a few deaths here and there.
There is a reason why they call it a disease, it affects everyone equally. Rich, poor, pretty, ugly, smart, stupid. Don't think for a second you, or your parents, or your spouse, or your children are immune. Please take this very seriously.
And just for the record, and for the pro-drug mob out there, I'm taking about the heavy stuff. I'm not talking about smoking a joint once a week. I'm talking about shooting up speed and heroin mixtures after 7 days of no sleep because you can't seem to get high from smoking it anymore.
Please don't take this stuff so casually. Read up on it, and be ready for when it might try to enter your life. You might be surprised to realize how little you know about it. There are a hell of alot more people out there doing this stuff than you might ever imagine. Those who are around it alot will know what I'm talking about.
Drugs != Spam
Engineering is the art of compromise.
...is that if and when spam is ever eliminated, it would mean the end of Spamusement. http://www.spamusement.com/ I actually look through my spam to find the weirdest subject headings to send to the guy who makes the cartoon. It's the best use for spam I've yet to see.
"I'd rather stay here with all the madmen, for I'm quite content they're all as sane as me..." ~ David Bowie
This is as silly as the idea that you should serve jail time for copying copyrighted materials. While there is some economic impact of spamming, there is little actual physical harm done by it.
Instead, I think fines should be enforced. And a rate of something like $1/message seems fine to me (pun intended).
Jailing someone is an extreme measure to take. I might argue that it's cruel and unusual.
Until we start executing spammers and the people who profit from spamming, this crap isn't gonna stop.
IBM got slapped down by San Francisco for sidewalk graffiti spam; it seems reasonable to me that anti spam laws should focus on the folks paying for marketing services.
This would incentivize firms to require companies that being retained for marketing purpose to affirm that they won't spam.
Marketing firms that do spam would quickly be driven out of business.
Seems pretty simple. Or am I missing something?
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How is this flamebait? "Ohio" is a protest song written as a direct result of the Kent State incident. If expressing a certain level of dismay at the parody of the song is "flamebait" then the original post with the parody is certainly no less flamebait then this is.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Charge these people a fine of say, double what they made on their scam.
The problem is people in prison also cost us money. A lot more money when they were flooding my inbox with spam. It cost something like $20,000/year per prisoner here in the U.S.
Just fine the shit out of the bastard and move on. It would also be prudent to spend more time/money on anti-spam software, which would protect you from spam coming from offshore (i.e. out of your State/countries jurisdiction. If there is such a thing for the U.S.)
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
I think ISP filtering is a *much* more desirable mechanism for stopping spam. Really, I even prefer individual filtering over ISP filtering (the perfect mix is when the ISP has a simple interface for the user to enter in filtering rules for their inbox), but either is better than a first-amendment-violating-law against spam.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
If they don't want to receive spam, I can just delete their email accounts.
A very few years ago, there were less than a hundred major spammers. And most of them were low-rent operations. One arrest per week would have killed off the spam industry.
Now that organized crime is involved, it's going to be much harder.
On the other hand, "legitimate" spam is almost dead. You see few spams today from any business that is even vaguely legitimate.
This sucks, as the professional spammer is hard, if not impossible, to track down. Oh well, may as well make an example out of the easy guy to track down, like that teacher's assistant that sent homework reminders out to the parents of the class....
Slashmail.org "The Open Source Email Company"
Why should I (an Ohio tax payer) pay to keep a non-violent criminal in jail? Most jails are so over crowded they parole people early to make space. I don't care if you want to fine spammers, but don't ask me to support them in jail. Jail should be for people who are a danger to society, not for someone who sends junk emails.
I always get tongue-tied when I'm trying to respond to a Bushie. My point was going to be that the picture he linked to was based on land area, not population. I got done typing up a post along those lines twice and nixed it both times.
I mean, if this guy doesn't already realize that his argument is stupid, how am I going to convince him? I already know that he's willing to defend Bush in a public forum, which makes him an idiot and closed-minded. It feels like trying to teach algebra to a kid who can't do fractions (which is my job, by the way, so I know exactly how it feels).
PUBLIC SPLIT ON WHETHER BUSH IS A DIVIDER -CNN scrolling banner, 10/15/2004
I just settled with Global Web Promotions, but cannot discuss the terms. But, part of what encouraged me to settle is that the FTC has gone after them (and I am helping with that) and had an injunction and order to freeze assets granted.
Fight Spammers!
What penalty do you propose for crime? I don't want a buy your way to freedom justice system.
What if someone sets fire to your house? That isn't a violent crime, just a destruction of property. I say throw them in jail.
Why not go after the people that use spam to advertise? I would think if you took out the incentive to use spam to get your name out, then you would take away spammers. most spam i get is for US based companies.
why is no one going after those that use spam to advertise? this seems the logical thing for me.
We[Bush voters in Ohio]are just a bunch of dumbasses. With MBA's and JD's. Who are outsourcing you idiot northern pro-labor union types. And making assloads of money.
Kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it.
The revolution will not be televized.
We smashed all the tv's with hammers. --;
I already know that he's willing to defend Bush in a public forum, which makes him an idiot and closed-minded.
Do you really think evey bush support is an idiot? If that is the case, doesnt that make you closed minded?
I greatly disagreed with John Kerry as a candidate, and as a politician, and as an american. That being said, I COULD understand why people would vote for him. Without resorting to phrases like "ignorant bible-thumping tobacoo giants" or "intolerant, bigoted, hatemongers" can you think of a reason people voted for bush?
I think people voted for Kerry mainly because they disagreed with Bush's Foriegn policy, or did not like him personally. I think Kerry lost because he did not connect with voters, only jumped on issues... he made himself a challenger, not a candidate. People root for an underdog but they dont vote for him.
There, See? I discussed why people could vote for Kerry and I didnt even mention Frenchie-Communist, Wishy Washy, peacenik hippies.
How about Taxing Spammers like they do Casinos and the Lottery. The States take a split of the money and keep things in check. You would also have to have liscences to spam. This is if your company spams from anywhere in the world. States which are strapping for cash will get additional revenue, things will continue as they have been, and excessive spammers can be congratulated for keeping our taxes down.
First, it's a joke. I don't think you got it. Have you never seen this form before?
Second, you neglected to address "Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business," which is the key problem with "following the money," particularly if the spammer is out of the country. You won't be able to prove association with the spammer outside of the country, you won't be able to find out who sent it and you will run into jurisdictional problems. Someone could spam and then say "it wasn't me!" Someone else could be a victim of a identity-spoof spam and say "it wasn't me!" How would you be able to prove it one way or the other?
Therefore the following can apply:
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
(x) Open relays in foreign countries
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
These merely spice up the problem:
(x) Jurisdictional problems
(x) Extreme profitability of spam
(x) Technically illiterate politicians
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
Finally, these are merely opinions:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever worked
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
I think you mistake "ease" with "lack of thinking things through."
In all reality, snail mail spam is even worse. The resources wasted on one piece of paper, an envelope, and the rest of the "stuffers" dwarfs that of five packets sent over the internet. Probably on the order of magnitude of 1 billion.
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/01/1 535228
Amnesty International don't think so
Neither do these guys
Nor does Human Rights Watch
A quarter of prisoners aged 18 to 25 claim they have been sexually assaulted while in custody
Rape isn't funny
Amnesty International don't think so
Neither do these guys
Nor does Human Rights Watch
A quarter of prisoners aged 18 to 25 claim they have been sexually assaulted while in custody
What about the silent killer, fax spam?
Can they stick fax spammers in that bill while they're at it? It's worse than regular spam, IMO, because aside from time, it also wastes ink and paper. This is especially hurtful to non-profit companies like the one I work out. We're not overloaded with fax spam, but it's still a nuisiance.
Anti-bush is not pro-kerry. If you can't stand kerry, there are plenty of conservative third party candidates. There are plenty of valid non-kerry votes you can cast, but I don't see any excuse for voting bush under any circumstances.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The previous post was for the New International Translation. Here's the King James:
And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables;
And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise
The NIV version makes it seem that he made a whip for the cattle, the KJV seems to say that he used the whip rather more liberally. Of course, I can't read the original, so I don't know which might be more accurate.
I don't read AC A human right
over half the people out there voting are below average intelligence
Don't know what definition of average you are working with, but that statement doesn't seem to be possible.
Last time I checked, if over half of something is below the average, doesn't that lower the average to make exactly half below average?
Are we talking about me here?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Let's talk about holes you can drive trucks through.
What we need is an anti-spam law, so that people who steal everyone's network access and email addresses can actually be prosecuted (including the people who fund them). Then the various technological techniques to counter and track the spammers down have a chance. It's still legal to spam in Ohio, and elsewhere. Why would we expect people to stop spamming when it's still legal to do so? Some people will stop doing things that are illegal, and for the rest, it's only possible to enforce laws that are actually passed.
Murder still happens, even though it's illegal. But many people won't murder for fear of punishment, and we have a whole infrastructure set up to catch and punish those who break the law. Time to bring the spamming thieves into that list.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
That innocent dumb user is going to be left in the poor house after their legal bills build up. I can see the headlines now, 86 year old woman sent to jail for 6 months after computer sends out spam.
What if the circumstance is, you are George Bush.
Actually, an effective law would need to allow for whats known as a "private right of action" where individuals (or groups of individuals, classes, etc) can *SUE* senders of spam for damanges.
Anything requiring DA's to be involved will not be enough of a threat to spammers. And yes, it needs to be written without regards as to the *content* of the spam, as you note.
kids are open-minded. It's some of the older people that keep 'm away from the diversity of the real world (not just (a certain part of) the US) and keep telling 'm a lot of paranoia terrorist and money-money-money crap, that make them scared and grow them up into Bush voters. These older people all together are worse than what they fear.
e ction/
Give a good example to kids: Share, cooperate
here are the nice maps doing statistics on 2004 elections
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/el
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
"...can *SUE* senders of spam for damanges."
does that include the persson who had theer system broken into and turned into a spamming server?
THere can not be an effective law against spam. Too many questions, too expensive, to time consuming,and our courts have better things to deal with.
The efeffective solution to spam is user awareness, and confirming the email was sent by a real person.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
First off, I would say a fire is pretty damn violent.
Sending SPAM can not phisically harm people, burning down a house can.
Plus someone burning down homes a danger to people.
Now, assume it's a perfect scenerio, no people or non replacable personaly belongings in the house, no risk the person will do it again. Then I would rather his wages were garnished, and he do community service instead of going to jail. In this scenerio Jail will not change the behaviour(one time incident), cost the tax payers a lot of money, and have no benefit to me what-so-ever.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
goes away, so will spam.
IANAL (But You Knew That)
You try them in absentia, they don't show up to defend themselves, of course, so the State wins a monetary judgment against them. Then the State Prosecutor will place a lien on the company's assets in the United States.
If the company does not have assets in the US, the company will be forced to pay any such fee prior to aquiring any assets in the US.
And many chinese companies don't want to be placed in that situation. They may not even be able to do business with US firms.
"Piter, too, is dead."
I'm sorry, usually I don't complain about my moderations, but this is stupid. The parent remains at plus 3 for mocking peace martyrs. Doesn't anyone have any class around here?
You just reinvented Assasination Politics, where a deadpool site is set up where everyone pays by anonymous e-cash, and the winner is whoever most accurately predicts the death. Since the person who killed the target can easily win, the site is effectively a way to hire a hitman. The idea takes advantage of a loophole in Libertarianism, in which only the person who initiates the use of force (the killer) is responsible. Since the people hiring the hitman did not themselves initiate the use of force, they did nothing wrong.
Flash is a very powerful tool - and an interpreter for a single-code multiplatform OOP language that does what Java applets promised but never delivered. (That's mostly Microsoft's fault, not Sun's, but it doesn't matter now)
True, it was a lot less powerful a few years ago. Also true, many people make Flash websites that should be html, or that are terrible design in some other way.
But it's the only solution for truly rich interactive web content.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
First, it's a joke. I don't think you got it. Have you never seen this form before?
Many, many times. And, had the post been modded "+5 Funny", I might not have replied as I did, but some people actually took it seriously.
Second, you neglected to address "Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business," which is the key problem with "following the money," particularly if the spammer is out of the country.
Wait a second. You just said that it was a joke and implied that I was dimwitted for replying seriously. Now you are arguing the merits of what was posted. So is it only a "joke" when you want to ridicule me for replying?
Framing people is an age-old problem that the legal system has grappled with countless times. This is no different. What's to stop me from anonymously destroying your career or business by means other than spam? What could stop me from signing you up to receive NAMBLA mailings at work? Why couldn't I kill a man, smear his blood on your car door handle, and anonymously report having seen you kill him? This is not a new problem or one that is unique to prosecuting spammers.
Therefore the following can apply:
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
(x) Open relays in foreign countries
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
Most cases would be open and shut. The AG's office would subpeona the credit card processing company who would identify the person collecting the money. The AG's office would get a search warrant and seize his computer. They would find HTML source for the spams, copies of the spam, and/or other records of the spamming activity, including who he paid to send it. They would find a home filled with penis pumps, miracle weight loss pills, or whatever else he was hawking through spam. They would bring the case to court and assert that he did not advertise through any legitimate means (radio, TV, postal mailings, etc.) and make a rock-solid case that his entire business was predicated on sending spam. End of story. It's kind of hard to claim that you had a legitimate business selling penis pumps if you didn't have a storefront or any legitimate form of advertising.
I think you mistake "ease" with "lack of thinking things through."
I own the domain anti-spam.org. I am a member of CAUCE. I have consulted with a company which produces a spam-filtering appliance. I have studied many laws and proposed laws, including Chris Smith's, which was the most promising before it was killed. Unlike you, I have thought the problem through for a period of years while your "thought" on the matter seems to consist of checking boxes on a 'funny form.'
I'm from Ohio. Spammer's pay bills (ie bandwidth, servers, employees, salesmen, etc..).
They're gonna spam regardless. But now they go to Michigan to make their loot, and guess what - you just rid my state of some taxpaying people that would have bought stuff from my neighbor's store and from my business.
I hate spam just as much as you do. But this only starts "brain drain" in its state. I don't see why Ohio would do this - It should be on a federal level.
Berto
I can handle the spam......but can Ohio run a an honest election? Precincts with 3,800 votes for Bush, but only 800 voters in total suggest Ohio's priorities should be other than spam.
Only boring people are ever bored.
If we could make the case that spam hurts Big Business, surely we could get the U.S. government to force the rest of the world to adopt draconian anti-spam laws, as they do with copyright laws to protect the entertainment industries.
My Windows program is very sensitive to spam because it uses a different method I find more effective than the leading statistical method to stop spam. It works for me, an individual who was fed up with spam and malware and wanted to get rid of both of them for good.
My program lets you decide what kinds of email you want.
Fear not, the program can be configured to 'save spam' in order to avoid deleting important email. The best thing to do is to set my software up on a 'wide open' public POP3 email address and direct correspondents to private 'wide open' email addresses as needed for the ones that get past the filtering.
All I can say is that proper usage of it will make receiving spam and malware 'almost impossible'.
P.S. No lewd/derisive comments please. My software may not be a perfect fit for you but it is for me.
To put it bluntly, I pity spammers/scammers/computer crackers now. Their email is worthless to me--i'll never see it. Should I see it on rare occasions, it will be in a harmless, inert state or contain absolutely no content at all.
I'm sorry, usually I don't complain about my moderations, but this is stupid. The parent remains at plus 3 for mocking peace martyrs. My plea for fixing its moderation isn't fof-topic. Doesn't anyone have any class around here?
The original was supposed to be funny and serious at the same time, so why not extend the duality. Is it too much to handle?
The funny thing about the form is that it's true. There are too many tradeoffs to fighting spam to find a perfect soltuion. You can't get away with technical approaches without checking the following boxes:
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
and maybe these two
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Nice try, dude, but I don't think it will work.
I mean, we've had this problem forever with junk faxes and junk mail. What makes you think that some pansy legislation that makes *only certain kinds* of spam illegal? Those kinds go away and more kinds come in to take it's place.
You put the collection group overseas. Where's your subpoena now? Nowhere, because Nigeria or whatever doesn't give a rats ass about spammer extradition, particularly from Ohio.
Legislation isn't going to fix spam. All is does is put a few token people in jail, give legislators something useless to get paid to do, and in general do nothing useful. Laws don't stop spammers, they're just routed around and calculated into the cost of business. Just like MP3 trading....
You have to target the root cause, and that is that SMTP is broken by design. Quit thinking SMTP is the epitome of things e-mail and work towards something better.
Let the revolution be good! --;iffic
--;