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Aussie Spammer Faces Millions in Fines
An anonymous reader writes "An alleged Australian spammer could face millions in fines if he's found guilty of breaking the country's anti-spam laws, reports ZDNet. The Australian Communications Authority alleges that Wayne Mansfield and his company, Clarity 1, sent at least 56 million commercial e-mails in the 12 months after the Spam Act was enacted in April 2004."
Right up there with the war on drugs and the war on terrorism right?
If you want to stop a fire take away the fuel source.
What drives people to spam?
1. Greed
2. Zero talent or drive to do real work
3. It's easy [which reinforces #1].
Make spamming hard [e.g. hash-cash or something similar] and you essentially remove any financial backing to spam.
Let's keep in mind that not all the spam you get is from one source. There are many smaller time spammers out that by using their fourth grade math knowledge think they'll get rich overnight by sending out a billion "genu1n3 r0lll3x" ads.
As for drugs I have a simple solution to that problem. Expulsion. I don't see how a university can legitimately claim they have a serious admitance program [e.g. you need the high marks, pass an essay or oral exam, etc, etc, etc] when they let students drink and do drugs all the time.
If kids honestly feared ending their academic careers the serious ones would avoid drugs and the less serious [e.g. bench warmers] would fall out.
But no... we must forgive all the shit they cause... all I know is I was a teenager once, I went to college once and never did I do drugs.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.