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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.
Save me from popups while you're at it.
Does not atone for what you did on November 2nd.
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
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
From TFA:
:) I don't believe in innocent dumb users.
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.
Did the "innocent dumb user" set up a false account to send spam?
Did the "innocent dumb user" gain from sending spam?
Who cares, thow them in jail anyway
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!
Where do I sign up to be one of these "armed persons"?
- Kevin
The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.
Because we all know that Ohio is a HUGE tourist attraction for the Chinese.
If the spammer's cell mates were given some of the penis enlargment pills during the spammer's visit.
Fight Spammers!
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.
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*