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Can-Spam Increased Spam
andy1307 writes "According to New York Times, spam has actually gone up [Free registration required. You gave real info, right?] since the CAN-SPAM act went into effect. There is a graphic in the article that illustrates this increase. Before the CAN-SPAM act was passed, spam was about 60% of all e-mail traffic. Now it's 80%. In a we-told-you-so quote, Steve Linford, the founder of the Spamhaus Project, says CAN-SPAM legalized spam by giving bulk advertisers permission to send junk e-mail as long as they followed certain rules. Slashdot covered this story last year. For companies that offer offshore "bulk advertising" servers, business is booming. A survey from Stanford University estimates the global cost of spam in terms of lost productivity to be at 50 billion $ and 17 billion $ in the US alone. CAN-SPAM does give prosecutors some leverage to go after the merchants - but it must be proved that they knew, or should have known, that their wares were being fed into the illegal spam chain. " The BBC has a related story talking about rates of spam, viruses, and scam mail.
A fact that seems lost on most journalists these days.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
It's likely that spam would have increased anyway.
Welcome to Slashdot. Where correlation does not mean causality for things like piracy, but does for things like legislation inducing spam. The trick is to remember that the evidence supports your position, and then figure out why.
--LordPixie
A growing number of so-called bulletproof Web host services like Mr. Gillespie's offer spam-friendly merchants access to stable offshore computer servers - most of them in China - where they can park their Web sites, with the promise that they will not be shut down because of spam complaints.
.br) and keep banning /16's and /8's until it is gone. The spammers are here to stay.
And this is exactly what we have been saying all along. No matter what laws are passed, no matter what we do to combat spam, the spammers will always find another way to make a buck.
One of the spammers quoted in the article claimed that he didn't care about the lawsuits... He was making too much money to stop.
If you're making too much money and they somehow make a law that actually works stick do you think that they are just going to go away? Yeah, I do, to other countries where those laws won't mean anything...
Keep those firewalls banning entire countries (.kr and
I have to wonder if you can really say that CAN-SPAM made it get worse. To me it looks like there was a brief drop off, and then it resumed the normal climb. Do we seriously believe that a significant amount of spam wasn't sent before CAN-SPAM, because the originators were worried about it being illegal? Seriously?
Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
Definition:
The name in Latin means "after this therefore because of this".
This describes the fallacy. An author commits the fallacy when
it is assumed that because one thing follows another that the
one thing was caused by the other.
Examples:
(i) Immigration to Alberta from Ontario increased. Soon
after, the welfare rolls increased. Therefore, the increased
immigration caused the increased welfare rolls.
(ii) I took EZ-No-Cold, and two days later, my cold
disappeared.
Proof:
Show that the correlation is coincidental by showing that: (i)
the effect would have occurred even if the cause did not
occur, or (ii) that the effect was caused by something other
than the suggested cause.
References
(Cedarblom and Paulsen: 237, Copi and Cohen: 101)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
The only way we'll actually see a reduction in spam is to put true measures in the MTAs such that there is absolutely no way to mask the sender's address or host, and completely disallow any form of relaying. Then, you have to start setting up the MTAs to not accept any mail delivered by older versions.
Yes, I realize the impact this would have on the internet and e-mail delivery... but if you want to eliminate it, or at least be able to truly identify the sender, this is about the only way to actually do it.
OCO is Loco
There is something deeply ironic about a post stating incredulity that people would buy anything from spam... ... in a post with a sig to a "offerprizes.com" -- "free" iPod stuff.
Life is short: void the warranty.
We have to deal with this on an infrequent basis, where people actually do sign up for things, and then whine and snivel when mail comes.
Then stop creating webforms that automatically check the box saying that people want your spam.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
If you believe that, then I have a scary statistic for you. Since that legislation passed more people have died of gunshots in the US! And my lucky red shirt prevents bear attacks with a 100% success rate!
Corrolation != Cause & effect
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Spam is **** NEVER **** sollicited.
I used to get easily 50 or more spams every day at one of my accounts... I implemented spamlist.org and now it's more like 5 or 10. Spamassassin on top of that cuts it to 1 to 5.
They say that spam accounts for so much lost productivity, but they fail to mention that spam has spawned a whole new race of products and services that keep people employed. The Anti-Spam industry is thriving and contributing to world economic growth. As with everything, spam may be a nuisance, but it does have its benefits. As usual, regular users are caught in the crossfire.
Damn straight.
...
...
Not only was this law SUPPOSED to reduce spam (by the charts, it hasn't)
But it was also supposed to make it easier to prosecute spammers who failed to follow it
AND it REPLACED state laws that were far stricter in their definitions and punishments.
It's a damn sight more difficult to get a FEDERAL case filed than it is to get one in your STATE courts.
We need to get rid of that stupid law and let the state courts handle it (they need the money from the judgements, anyway).