France Launches Anti-Spam Platform

njondet writes "French-law.net reports that the French government has just launched 'Signal Spam', an anti-spam platform created in association with public entities and private companies, such as Microsoft. Internet users will be able to report spam messages by mailing them to this platform which will act as a centralised monitor of spamming activities. The platform will generate a blacklist and help initiate prosecutions against spammers."

Comments

Trust French cullinary experts to destroy all SPAM

[BrentRJones]

and smoke a noxious cigarette to celebrate.

Better as a Private Service?

[MankyD]

This is where the libertarian in me comes out and wonders if these things aren't better left to the private sector. On the other hand, perhaps having this information sent directly to authorities will result in more prosecutions (or more successful prosecutions) under laws similar to CAN-SPAM, (or maybe that's just wishful thinking.)

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is where the libertarian in me comes out and wonders if these things aren't better left to the private sector.

What do you mean? Microsoft is private sector. It's also monopoly, so the choice is obvious and deniable. There's no other players in the field.

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[Kjella]

Given that SPAM is outlawed most places, and even if not then most of the offerings are illegal to import drugs, stock frauds, nigeria frauds, products with claimed medical effect without documentation, identity fraud, virus and trojans and so on then I see no problem with suspected illegal activity being reported to the authorities for investigation and possible prosecution. It's technically what I could do if I printed out my SPAMs and went to the local police station, except they'd never do anything about it.

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[gustafsd]

The way i read it this is the government providing private interests with a service that would take a serious amount of cooperation to succeed and so they are speeding up the process. Cooperation in favor of competition

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[MankyD]

It's technically what I could do if I printed out my SPAMs and went to the local police station, except they'd never do anything about it.

I guess this is my question. I have no problems with sending my spam to a government run central location (as long as its actually spam that I reviewed and sent by hand.) I'm more wondering if sending it to the authorities in this manner will give them motivation or ease in prosecuting.

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[IdleTime]

Left to the private sector? ROFLMAO!

The private sector are the spammers, why would you give them control? Stupid libertots.

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[MankyD]

Yes, there are certainly private sector spammers, but there are also plenty of private sector spam detectors. The reason that I would suggest leaving it to the private sector is that they have strong motivation to improve and evolve their detection methods.

On a side note, you need to spare the ad-hominem attacks. I never said I was libertarian (I am not). I simply stated that my belief in this area might be comparable with a libertarians beliefs. Insults do no one any good.

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[k1e0x]

The libertarian in you should be more worried about what else it can do, and who else it can put in jail, and really for that matter why is it against the law to spam again? Does a law stop it? Are the ISPs unable to find a true solution? If they could they could charge a premium easily. This is the bad part about the government running such a service.. because THEY can put you directly in jail, BeSafe can not.

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[k1e0x]

Stupid statists, they think government is the answer to everything. so tell me.. what had your big scarey government law done about it, besides put a few kids in jail? "zOMGOZORZ! There is still spam even after we wrote some words down on paper saying you can't?!?!?"

According to my inbox it looks like Google is doing a better job than anyone else.

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[hedwards]

Aspects of this will have to be left in the hands of the private sector. But for example: stock pump and dump scams are best handled by the SEC or the regulatory agency in play at the particular foreign stock exchange. It would be prohibitively difficult to require that the individual exchanges look into these things as they have not been historically required to.

Other aspects such as the large number of commercial software programs such as MS Office and Adobe Photoshop are likely better regulated by the companies whose products are being advertised. Probably with some sort of incentive or stick to get compliance.

And still another area, which is probably where most of the debate goes is, pharmaceuticals where there is a bit of a grey area as to how much of that should be the FDA and how much should be the individual corporations. In this instance there really is, at least in the US,a powerful incentive to drug corps., to keep there profits high by squashing as many of these types of spam messages as possible.

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[justinkz]

care to rephrase your question again? i didn't get it the second time.

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[SL Baur]

On the other hand, perhaps having this information sent directly to authorities will result in more prosecutions (or more successful prosecutions) under laws similar to CAN-SPAM, (or maybe that's just wishful thinking.) Blizzard cannot control violation of ToS SPAM on their own servers. What makes you think laws and governments can improve on that?

The libertarian in me says that the model of email is totally broken. If it's free to send ads to everyone, someone will do it. A less broken model would require paying the recipient of email to read it. Hey, if I were getting US$.25 or whatever for every ad I get in email, bring it on. (See the Cyphernomican, old cypherpunks list archives, etc. for discussion of that).

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm more wondering if sending it to the authorities in this manner will give them motivation or ease in prosecuting [or not].

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[jonbryce]

The private sector has a strong motivation to simultaneously make money out of sending spam, and make even more money detecting it.

It is not in the interests of the malware detection companies to eliminate the problem, because then they would eliminate their own business.

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[jonbryce]

The difference is that governments can potentially put people in jail. Whether or not they actually do is another matter. Local police forces tend to think that catching murderers is a bigger priority, and I suppose it probably is.

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[Guppy06]

"This is where the libertarian in me comes out and wonders if these things aren't better left to the private sector."

You mean like the past ten years?

The "private sector" is where all this spam is coming from to begin with!

Re:Better as a Private Service?

[Uniquitous]

True, and as much as it galls the DoJ, American law is only valid in America, so the Nigerians will still send their famous letters.

I wonder how long before...

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how long before we see a massive DDOS attack against the infrastructure used to run this.

Centralized Service?

[lag10]

Haven't we learned by now that centralized services don't exactly function as advertised? What happens when the server farm containing the blacklist gets hacked, and millions of spam senders are removed from that blacklist? It seems like the blacklisting system should take the BitTorrent approach and have copies of the database spread around.

Re:Centralized Service?

[name*censored*]

If they have half a brain, they'd put a physical shunt between the server containing the blacklist and the server which hosts the inbox. Since they'd obviously have to have a person sitting somewhere and clicking "is spam"/"not spam", they could just have their interface copy all the "is spam" to say, a flash key, and at the end of the day they unplug it and input it into the blacklist server. It would only be marginally more inefficient, and it would mean the worst case scenario is no new spam can be reported until they stop/fix the DDOS attack, but the old ones would still be on report.

Re:Centralized Service?

[Kjella]

Haven't we learned by now that centralized services don't exactly function as advertised?

Yes, it's terrible how the DNS root server farm is constantly hacked. Or how the google server farm gets hacked every day to redirect to the goatse guy. What? That doesn't happen? What's happnened in the past with a few is that they've managed to DDoS them out of business, or sue them out of business. The government can throw hardware and bandwidth at it. If people come to rely on it, call it "critical infrastructure". Prosecute anyone trying to hack it as cyberterrorists (sic). Let the spammers threaten to sue it, and laugh at them. And if they do it, pass special laws to protect it from liability. Link it up so whenever there's a penny stock scam, start a SEC (or whatever the French version is) investigation. If there's a drug scam, start a FDA (or similar) investigation.

I'm sure this scares the hell out of spammers - someone with more power than to simply blacklist the servers after the fact, which honestly is running around putting out fires instead of catching those starting them. And even if they turn out to be completely incompetent, nothing stops the current blacklists from running...

Reinventing the wheel?

[Arkaic]

This seems like an unnecessary duplication of effort. There are already established providers of blacklists, such as spamcop. Why not work with them and help develop easier ways for users to report spam via their email client?

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[iknownuttin]

There are already established providers of blacklists, such as spamcop. Why not work with them and help develop easier ways for users to report spam via their email client?

Because there's a lot of folks out there who distrust private firms and their solutions and/or actually believe a legislated solution is always the best way to solve a problem.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[larry bagina]

There are even more people that distrust the government.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[Ravnen]

I would say this is much more true in the USA than in Europe, perhaps with the exception of the UK, and I think the electoral systems in the USA and UK are in part behind the lack of trust in the state. In general, I trust the state in my country, and if I had to choose between the state and a corporation, I would say I trust the state more, because it's democratically elected, and has no profit motive.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[larry bagina]

European countries are smaller which changes the dynamic a lot. When the EU starts usurping power, you may change your mind. Personally, I trust profit as a motive more than the altruism of someone who wants to be (re)elected. If I dislike Walmart, I can shop elsewhere. If I dislike the war in Iraq, I can't stop paying taxes.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[fiddlesticks]

And what about people who work in Walmart because it's the only job that they can get? They can't stop working there....

In France their wages, hours, holiday, etc would be protected. So for them, perhaps, the state provides a friendly, helpful barrier against the raw unfettered capitalism that you think is something you can just opt out of when you want.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[mat]

The goal is not to build another blacklist database, but to take legal actions against (french) spammers.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[Paradise Pete]

And what about people who work in Walmart because it's the only job that they can get?

Questions:

Why is it the only job they can get?
So then is it good or bad that they can work at WalMart?
If WalMart disappeared these people would never work again?
Would people be better off if WalMart had, in exchange for less growth, always paid its employees more than they were willing to work for?

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[Ravnen]

I agree that being small makes countries more democratic. The EU might be a threat to democracy if it had more power, but in economic terms, it is only a tiny part of GDP, a few percentage points at most, whereas many national governments are over half. It has extensive powers in creating regulations, but as a state apparatus, the EU is actually very small.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[ceoyoyo]

Studies have actually shown that, counterintuitively, when a Wal-Mart opens somewhere the average income in the area decreases, probably because it drives other, higher paying retailers out of business.

So the answer to b is bad, c is no and d is yes.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[fiddlesticks]

Questions from you.

  * Why is it the only job they can get?

Who knows, who cares (they don't, neither does Walmart)

  * So then is it good or bad that they can work at WalMart?

Neither. It's many things, none of which are simple enough to reduce to a good/ bad or moral argument

  * If WalMart disappeared these people would never work again?

What, disappeared like something from a child's story book? Please explain how Walmart could 'disappear'

  * Would people be better off if WalMart had, in exchange for less growth, always paid its employees more than they were willing to work for?

'People'? Which people? Rephrase: If employees/ unions/ the state forced Walmart to pay more out in wages and less out in stock dividend, who would suffer? The stock owners and bosses at Walmart. Would Walmart 'disappear' as a result? No.

Are your questions bizarrely naive? Yes.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[nospam007]

* If WalMart disappeared these people would never work again?

What, disappeared like something from a child's story book? Please explain how Walmart could 'disappear'
---
Sometimes others are better at the job.

World's Biggest Retailer Wal-Mart Closes Up Shop in Germany
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2112746,0 0.html

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[fiddlesticks]

Walmart fucked up. "Like, did you know that American pillowcases are a different size than German ones are?" he asked. Wal-Mart Germany ended up with a huge pile of pillowcases they couldn't sell to German customers."

I know that and I'm neither American nor German.

That said, this hasn't disappeared - the stores have been bought, and Walmart won't be doing some of this again:

'....management had threatened to close certain stores if staff did not agree to work to working longer hours than their contracts foresaw and did not permit video surveillance of their work.'

Ugh. Still, the poster above seemed to think that the jobs and shops run by Walmart would go away at the slightest hint of state intevention - and the link you posted shows that not to be the case - thanks

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[955301]

Why is it the only job they can get?

- because their town is too small to sustain a globally competitive cost-cutting store & the collection of mom and pot stores (which tend to keep money in the area btw).

So then is it good or bad that they can work at WalMart?

Bad - Noone who works at Wal-mart should be trying to live off their income. Wal-mart, goodwill and lower positions at fast-food franchises are only good for sustaining kids who live at home and are trying to save up for the next step (more education, training, funding for a small business venture) in their progress. If you are trying to live off the money you are in the wrong place!

If WalMart disappeared these people would never work again?

Yes, because that implies that wal-mart came into the area which causes smaller businesses to close down. They have now become the nipple that feeds, but too little. So when that is gone, nothing is left. Don't consider it a stright shot, but more of a one-two punch.

Would people be better off if WalMart had, in exchange for less growth, always paid its employees more than they were willing to work for?

People would be better off if the threshold for putting in a wal-mart store was a higher population and regional income.

You are ignoring a commonly understood side-effect of capitalism and competition: In a pure environment prices go down, efficiency goes up, and employees which are part of the value chain suffer.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[jfp51]

I worked in France for six years and it suffers from one of the worst 'not invented here, sucks' attitudes I have ever seen. Co-operation is not in their chracter. Just look at their politics and strikes :)

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[larry bagina]

I didn't realize this would turn into a referendum on walmart. I guess it's a good thing I didn't mention the RIAA.

Anyhow, a couple years ago, a walmart opened just outside of Chicago (Evergreen Park). 25,000 people applied for 325 jobs. I repeat: this was Chicago, not East Bumfuck.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[martin-boundary]

That makes no sense. Iraq is exactly what you get when you have a state-with-profit-motive.

The point of a democracy is that you can replace the people at the top if you don't like what they do.

In a state-with-profit-motive, the people at the top would only get replaced if they failed to gouge out enough profit, and they would only be replaced by people who are prepared to gouge out _more_ profit. So you would replace an Iraq-war-starting government with one who is prepared to start not just one but two wars to double the profits of its favourite corporations.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[Guppy06]

"There are already established providers of blacklists, such as spamcop. Why not work with them and help develop easier ways for users to report spam via their email client?"

Because, as humorous as this sounds, the government has more accountability.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[skahshah]

Yep ! As largely proven by Concorde, Airbus, ESA and Ariane, Galileo, the Milhaud bridge, being a founding member of the EU, being under american command during GWI, or now in Afghanistan, the "Chunnel", participating in UN missions, CEDRE, CAT.INIST, he British and French aircraft carrier projects CVF and PA2, the development of the A400M transport aircraft with six other countries, the future air defense missiles (FSAF), Tigre, NH90 helicopter, SAKURA, etc., etc., France can't just cooperate, it's just not in their character.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[Ilgaz]

Poor Spamcop tries to send abuse reports to some very popular French ISPs for years and they get either filtered or bounced. Now they "invent" spamcop service again.

BTW a suggestion: While posting to public, prefer spamcop.net instead of spamcop. You know, those thieves at spamcop.com

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[Ilgaz]

Spamcop is originally and still a abuse report system. Spamcop BL is completely optional. I am a paying spamcop user and I still put SCBL flagged messages to Junk folder for review instead of vanishing them like open proxies.

They could login to spamcop ISP account and see the mess their users create 24/7, mail the users ISP account a warning saying they should virus clean their system.

The data is THERE, on a time tested, reliable and secure reporting system. For FREE. Also if they are obsessed with big corporate names, Spamcop now indirectly belongs to Cisco systems since their parent (Ironport) was purchased by them.

Remember the issue with Spamcop is newbie admins enabling both Spamcop RBL and bounce on their mail servers while Spamcop warns them that it is an experimental feature. Spamcop mail reporting service is a really underrated gem of Internet. Think about non techie end users.

Re:Reinventing the wheel?

[Ilgaz]

What if I don't trust a very active, imperial country government with my private mails even if they are spam?

I better keep reporting French spammers via Spamcop, they make into SCBL for anyone opting in and live with peace of mind. At one point they will really have to login to that "american" system since planet will start blocking their country blocks if this complete lack of management continues.

See what happened with South Korea. They weren't caring about spam reports and after they figured their industrial giants mails are bouncing from ordinary users mailboxes. Now they have setup a security organisation and opted in to receive entire country block reports to that organisation mail.

Well France Telecom can start with verifying their SMTP servers DNS, see the entries at Senderbase, parent of Spamcop:
http://www.senderbase.org/senderbase_queries/detai ldomain?search_string=orange.fr

Gives a good clue how non managed they are.

Yes this'll work

[Colin Smith]

Because.

1: We all know how quickly the law works... Talk about a bottleneck.
2: Most spammers operate outwith the control of any single government.
3: Many spammers operate through compromised proxy systems.

Still, at least they're being seen to be doing something and this is the important bit for the politicians.

Re:Yes this'll work

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

1: We all know how quickly the law works... Talk about a bottleneck.
2: Most spammers operate outwith the control of any single government.
3: Many spammers operate through compromised proxy systems.
You forgot:
4: ???
5: Profit!

initiate prosecutions

[Anne Thwacks]

initiate prosecutions

How about "fire cruise missiles!" (since France does not have Chuck Norris)

Re: initiate prosecutions

[Dark_Gravity]

How about "fire cruise missiles!" (since France does not have Chuck Norris)

Would those be Tom Cruise missiles?

Re: initiate prosecutions

[Detritus]

We could lend them Tom Cruise.

Re: initiate prosecutions

[Beretta Vexe]

Belgium regulary lends Jean Claude van dam to France. It's like Chuck Norris with insane speech.

Re: initiate prosecutions

[ThePromenader]

Off-topic perhaps, but now-president Sarkozy rigged a publicity stunt around a year ago where he met (Tom) Cruise - just by coincidence, of course - in front of the Press. Perhaps it's all part of some secret "Tom Missle" anti-spam plan?

Re: initiate prosecutions

[laejoh]

Who needs Chuck Norris when you have French taunting:

NARRATOR: Defeat at the castle seems to have utterly disheartened
King Arthur. The ferocity of the French taunting took him completely
by surprise, and Arthur became convinced that a new strategy
was required ...

Internaut?

[NJVil]

Any organization that uses the word "internaut" to refer to people who use the Internet is doomed to failure, regardless of its intentions. Combined with the fact that it's a French, governmental organization working with MicroSoft, how could it possibly succeed?

Seriously, how long until the zombie networks retaliate? I'd like to have some marshmallows ready for the server fire that follows.

Re:Internaut?

[Narishma]

In french an Internet user is called "internaute".

Re:Internaut?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could say the same of a /. commenter who uses the form MicroSoft - even if they WERE called that in the mists of time, my Works3 box from ~15 years ago has 'Microsoft' on it. It's Microsoft, ms or m$, but not MicroSoft.
End rant.

Re:Internaut?

[Mattwolf7]

And surfer makes more sense?

hOT STOCK MARKET ADVICE

[Anonymous Coward]

ATTENTION!!!!

Shares in Viagracorp are set to TRIPLE!

Act now and buy VCP!

This is not spam!!!

How much input to the citizens have?

[ancientt]

I'm thinking this is a good idea, get a serious organization behind fighting spam, not just one with serious goals and effort but one with serious authority. I wonder if the citizens (who are ultimately paying for it of course) have much control over how it is set up? I can envision a conflict between our marketing department and the government going something like this:
Marketing: "No, it's not spam, we put in opt out links and only send it to people we have a relationship with."
Gov: "But 200 people called it spam, you're now listed as a spammer. Sorry."
Marketing: "That's no fair! How do we change our status?"
Gov: "The will of the people has spoken, but I don't have lunch plans, maybe the people could buy....?"
Marketing: "Do you like steak?"
....Fast forward two years...
Gov: "I realize our office receives a lot of criticism for not allowing the public to mark mail as spam, but in reality many of the emails we receive are legitimate businesses using legal means to advertise. We will not allow the public to slur the good name of reputable companies."

more like ENABLE-SPAM Act ..

[rs232]

'having this information sent directly to authorities will result in more prosecutions .. under laws similar to CAN-SPAM'

CAN-SPAM doesn't ban SPAM, what it does do is legitimise the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mail and specifically forbids e-mail recipients from suing the spammers. It's one of those Acts that do the exact opposite of what the name means. As such it should really be called the ENABLE-SPAM Act of 2003.

was Re:Better as a Private Service?

Re:more like ENABLE-SPAM Act ..

[Kjella]

It's one of those Acts that do the exact opposite of what the name means.

Or it does exactly what it says, if you read it like a verb. Hopefully a few spammers died of laughter thinking about it, how they got Congress to pass a "We CAN SPAM" act.

Re:more like ENABLE-SPAM Act ..

[jfengel]

I always assume that any piece of legislation does the opposite of what its title says. The "Clear Skies Act" greatly increased the amount of pollution allowed. The "Freedom to Farm Act" was all about making it harder to be an individual farmer and easy to be a food-factory megacorporation. And let's not even get into the PATRIOT Act.

The same goes for lobbying groups. Any advertisement paid for by "The Group To Preserve Habitat For Cute Little Critters" has oil fingerprints all over the check.

Re:more like ENABLE-SPAM Act ..

[Phroggy]

CAN-SPAM doesn't ban SPAM, what it does do is legitimise the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mail and specifically forbids e-mail recipients from suing the spammers. It's one of those Acts that do the exact opposite of what the name means. As such it should really be called the ENABLE-SPAM Act of 2003. Not quite. CAN-SPAM does legitimize the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mail with certain restrictions, but it also clearly defines e-mail that doesn't meet those requirements as being illegal. Virtually every single piece of spam I get violates the requirements of CAN-SPAM and is therefore illegal under US law. If CAN-SPAM were aggressively enforced, it would have a huge impact in reducing the amount of spam that gets sent. Any spam that is legal under CAN-SPAM is trivially easy to filter out through technical means, and if we did start to see legal spam, Congress could simply amend the law to address the problem.

To reiterate: while CAN-SPAM does define certain types of spam as legitimate, that's OK because none of the spam being sent is that kind of spam. If this changes, the law can be fixed later.

However, you are correct that CAN-SPAM also prohibits individuals from suing spammers. If the government were doing its job and aggressively prosecuting them, then private lawsuits would be redundant and unnecessary, and I'm sure that was the original thinking. However, that's not happening. That's a problem.

Re:more like ENABLE-SPAM Act ..

[gbjbaanb]

yeah, that's why I get spam for viagra or porn that says at the bottom some disclaimer that it's ok under US spam laws because this particular piece of spam has fulfills some loophole-style requirement.

Re:more like ENABLE-SPAM Act ..

[Anonymous Coward]

you are just flat wrong.

in order to send commercial email under can spam you have to have certain information (like a postal address) in a message. this effectively creates a perfect signature for filter services by which to filter out unwanted commercial email. likewise it has a requirement for advertisers, thus creating a perfect signature for filtering out just an advertiser.

the only thing can-spam did was draw a line in the sand that said spammers (the v!@gr& kind) can pwn your inbox and corporate american can pwn your inbox; but the little guy with just his customer list can get called a spammer by spamcop.

Re:more like ENABLE-SPAM Act ..

[gmack]

And you take their word for it?

Rule #1: Spammers lie.

Re:more like ENABLE-SPAM Act ..

[ThwartedEfforts]

The misunderstanding of "can" in CAN-SPAM is the same as the misunderstanding of "free" in "free software".

Re:more like ENABLE-SPAM Act ..

[Phroggy]

Exactly.

That Viagra spam is NOT complying with CAN-SPAM, no matter what they say at the bottom. The fine print is just there to trick you into thinking what they're doing is somehow legal, so you'll assume you can't take action against them.

Your post advocates a...

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

Your post advocates a

(x) technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based (x) 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 used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(x) 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
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) 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
(x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(x) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) 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
(x) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) 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
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
(x) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
(x) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
(x) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
(x) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
(x) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) 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

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

(x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would 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!

Re:Your post advocates a...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, how can this be classified as a vigilante effort when the French government is advocating it?

Re:Your post advocates a...

[jacksonj04]

Not sure why Outlook poses a problem here though.

I too have found something new

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a solid flat thingy which has every point in its sides equidistant from the middle...it just rolls off the ground...I wonder if I can connect two of them with a rod..I might be able to move heavy flat objects this way..Since nobody's ever thought about it, I think I should get some friends involved.. This could be the next best thing after tyres..uh..wait..crap..

The volume of SPAM precludes this approach.

[BrentRJones]

Can't keep up with billions of messages per day.
Time to pay 1 cent per message.

Re:The volume of SPAM precludes this approach.

[Watson Ladd]

Won't work. We don't have a micropayment scheme, and it will affect mailing lists.

Spam is international

[matt me]

Spam has no borders. We need a *worldwide* effort.

Re:Spam is international

[Hal_Porter]

Yes, it's like terrorism in that respect. Also in the respect that thate volume of spam could be reduced if suspected spammers were shipped off to be unwilling participants in a ethically questionable CIA psychological experiment in Gitmo.

It may help.

[khasim]

Depending upon how it is implemented and how they evolve it.

1: We all know how quickly the law works... Talk about a bottleneck.

But it seems to be the only way to actually get the spammers. Filtering doesn't affect them. Their bandwidth is essentially free.

2: Most spammers operate outwith the control of any single government.

Not really. Each individual spammer lives in a country and is governed by the laws of that country. No single set of laws govern ALL spammers, but you can target some of them.

3: Many spammers operate through compromised proxy systems.

The technology should just be one aspect of this.

The spammers usually don't send out crap on their own (unless it is to advertise their services). This is one of the classic "follow the money" issues.

The Register ran an article that I cannot find right now. It was about how Company A hired Company B to send out ads to certain addresses. Company B hired Company C to send the ads. Company C needed more names so it bought a list of email addresses off of eBay from Person D.

It's easy for a government to handle research like that. Companies respond a LOT quicker when the request for information comes from their government.

And companies don't like having the government digging through their paperwork.

Sure, you risk "Joe Jobs", but overall, it should get the legitimate companies to be a LOT more careful before they outsource their next "email advertising campaign".

And that means that some of the money in spamming will dry up.

Re:It may help.

[tindur]

But it seems to be the only way to actually get the spammers. The only way to get spammers is to lynch them.

Re:It may help.

[cp.tar]

Each individual spammer lives in a country and is governed by the laws of that country.

And since I've read several stories on /. so far about some or other citizen of another country being extradited to the USA after breaking an American law in his own country, maybe the US could start prosecuting spammers all over the world and finally do something useful with their "Global Policeman" policy.

Better idea

[OldManAndTheC]

Duplicate the platform onto a series of servers and put them into reinforced bunkers strung along the border. That ought to stop spam from entering the country.

Oh, and be sure not to leave a gap in the Ardennes...

Re:more like YOU CAN-SPAM Act ..

[Dark_Gravity]

As such it should really be called the ENABLE-SPAM Act of 2003. It is already pretty well known as the YOU CAN-SPAM Act.

Re:Its SO French....

[DiamondGeezer]

They are at it again. Snob, uppish, wants whole world do things in their own way, learn french and whatnot. They isolate themselves, dont join in the international community, and they want whole 250+ countries in the world to listen to what they say.

I'm sorry, were we talking about France or the US?

Now they found a "anti spam" organization as if anti spam organizations do not exist. In at most 2 years i assure you they will be proposing laws to eu that every eu member should mandatorily use their anti spam shit. This is the french way.

Come back in two years to discover...that you're dreaming.

You know what fucking morons, we dont care about your delusions de grandeur. Shove your "own way" up your own arses. Theres spamcop, we will use it, and we will ignore whatever shit you "invent" as if new.

Who is this "we", paleface?

Re:Its SO French....

[Ckwop]

They are at it again. Snob, uppish, wants whole world do things in their own way, learn french and whatnot. They isolate themselves, dont join in the international community, and they want whole 250+ countries in the world to listen to what they say.

That sounds an awful lot like the US to me. The US/France relationship reminds me of two brothers who "hate" each other for no other reason that they are so similar. The French are a proud, strong and patriotic nation and so are the citizens of the United States.

On top of this, the French are also more internationally minded than the US. They did start the European Union after all and relinquished control of interest rates to Brussels to adopt the single currency.

Simon.

Re:Its SO French....

[ghyd]

I agree with you that this French idea is stupid, but I don't see why the rest of your post is about the USA.

Some decent advice on the site

[MysteriousPreacher]

Unfortunately quite a bit of the site is waiting to be translated but it's a decent initiative. I like the following advice.

"Every time you send a message, check that the email addresses contained in the recipient's field and cc can be clearly transmitted. If you want to send a copy to certain recipients, choose the field bcc or cci . Ensure you do not use the tool "forward to a friend" presented in some sites allowing giving an email to a third party without his consent."

http://www.signal-spam.fr/en/index.php/frontend/re commandations/usagers_de_la_messagerie_electroniqu e_et_mobile/10

I've been able to stop most people from doing it but it's still a pain when I receive another 'funny' email and notice that my work address is just one of dozens of addresses CC'ed. Now we just need email clients to use BCC as the default rather than CC.

nothing new, blue security did it

[Anonymous Coward]

blue security, blue frog, pharmamaster.

if you don't know these terms, look them up. when i had blue frog my spam STOPPED!!! i do mean stopped. i went from over 5000 spam messages in my google account to about 2 a week, in only a month.

Like drugs, spam is too profitable

[iminplaya]

When there's easy millions to be made, it's just too irresistible, and will always be considered worth the risk. And all the spam laws are full of holes to allow the big boys through, and that hypocrisy does not go unnoticed, just like in the drug wars. Don't expect any respect for the law while that continues. This being France, the spammers will probably riot :-) In the meantime, I'm sure the prison industry will appreciate the influx of fresh meat. Unless you can assure they never get a dime, you will get nowhere, but now you will have a new government bureaucracy that functions every bit as well as any other, rife with all the same incompetency and corruption and nepotism as the rest. Like with the American's FCC and FDA and USGA, etc., heads of corporations that spam will head up these departments while their friends are in office and making news rules that provide them all the privileges, and then they will return to the private sector to make more money than ever. As long as there's a little something in it for everybody, the spam will flow undiminished. Round and round we go.

Why not rather attack the source...

[Freggy]

Personally I think that rather the source of these spam should be dealt with. Since about 1,5 week, I'm receiving a lot of German spam for companies on the Frankfurt stock exchange. Authorities should rather investigate these companies. This is not some innocent spam anymore, but financial fraud on a very large scale. Companies have gone broke already for other kinds of fraud...

And of course, (l)users and mail server sysadmins should start to secure there machines, so there would not be those huge botnets :-(

Re:Why not rather attack the source...

[Nasarius]

Authorities should rather investigate these companies.

Maybe. Do you have any evidence that the company itself sent out the spam? "Joe jobs" happen, and in the case of a publicly traded company, it could just as easily be someone who has a stake and is trying to influence the price.

Re:Why not rather attack the source...

[pbhj]

>>> "Do you have any evidence that the company itself sent out the spam?"

No, but I'm guessing that the company itself will and governments tend to have ways of finding this type of information. They can run a tax audit and look for the source of transactions and look for the payments to "MadIgorsSpamporium@moscownet.ru". They can send in an undercover agent to gather intel that spam is a main revenue winner.

I'd hazard that taking down a few companies - and imprisoning the bosses - that are using spam will cure a lot of the sources of spam (financing by bricks and mortar companies).

This doesn't work (generally) for companies beyond your borders but being able to rank all non .fr emails as just below your spam threshold will probably work in most spam filtering situations.

Re:Trust French cullinary experts to destroy all S

[eneville]

that's quite funny for a first post, i don't know why you were modded down as troll. how does this system differ from spamcop? what makes the french think this will not be subject to abuse?

Re:Its SO French....

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

They isolate themselves, dont join in the international community, and they want whole 250+ countries in the world to listen to what they say.

So?

In at most 2 years i assure you they will be proposing laws to eu that every eu member should mandatorily use their anti spam shit.

So?

Theres spamcop, we will use it, and we will ignore whatever shit you "invent" as if new.

Oh I see. You're a spammer, and now you are whining because a democratic government is putting the good of its people over your own selfish, antisocial habits. I'm guessing from your post, you don't even live in France, but in some other EU country that isn't even currently considering this proposal, paranoid that you may have to think of others before unthinkingly spraying your crap over our email addresses. How pathetic.

Re:Its SO French....

[gratemyl]

They are at it again. Snob, uppish, wants whole world do things in their own way, learn french and whatnot. They isolate themselves, dont join in the international community, and they want whole 250+ countries in the world to listen to what they say.

I'm sorry, were we talking about France or the US?

The US speak french???

Now they found a "anti spam" organization as if anti spam organizations do not exist. In at most 2 years i assure you they will be proposing laws to eu that every eu member should mandatorily use their anti spam shit. This is the french way.

Come back in two years to discover...that you're dreaming.

You know what fucking morons, we dont care about your delusions de grandeur. Shove your "own way" up your own arses. Theres spamcop, we will use it, and we will ignore whatever shit you "invent" as if new.

Who is this "we", paleface?

Re:Spam-eating surrender monkeys?

[koreaman]

"Pourriel" is very clever, but I've never ever heard it in real French speech. (Note: I've only ever heard "courriel", the official French word for e-mail, very rarely. Usually they just say "e-mail" like we do.) "Spam" in French is called "spam".

anyone else...

[jkenneth24]

read the english version of the site with a french accent in their head? ...

menu change

[sidemouse]

The lobster thermidor aux crevettes with a Mornay sauce garnished with truffle paté, brandy and with a fried egg on top... is no longer available with spam.

Country-wide blacklists

[bill_mcgonigle]

2: Most spammers operate outwith the control of any single government.

Yes, but if countries actually prosecuted spammers to any real extent we could blacklist the rest. France has just taken the first step towards getting on a whitelist.

If the proposal for tax-free overtime goes through I expect France to become something of an IT powerhouse.

Space-based anti-spam?

[mbessey]

Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's because there was another space-related story nearby, but when I saw "France Launches Anti-Spam Platform", the first image that came to mind was an orbital bombardment platform for eliminating spammers from orbit. Now that's the kind of technology taxpayer money should be spent on!

I wrote Signal Spam

[JohnGrahamCumming]

I wrote the code that is behind this web site. I'll try to answer questions without giving up confidential information if people are interested.

John.

Re:I wrote Signal Spam

[sonictheboom]

All I see is FAQs , where is the meat?

Re:Spam-eating surrender monkeys?

[mkiwi]

Just one quick note on the French word for "spam"-
"spam" is a correct term in idiomatic langage. The parent cites a word very few French speaking people. It Switzerland, Quebec, and other French-speaking places, the email is known as "spam" or "undesirable mail" to common people.

Please see this thread (if you can read French) for more info

no

[unity100]

no they are not.

french did not start eu. thats so 'french' again. more than one country started eu as an economic society for coal trade, after ww2. French has been trying to monopolize everything about eu since.

its not united states either. united states does not try to impose its standards on every nation in the world. french, do. start from metric system and go up to trying to make their language official language of eu despite there are hordes of people in eu that have no idea what french sounds like.

Re:no

[skahshah]

How is it "so french" ? You don't even know if the person who said the French did start the EU is french.

Nobody said France started the EU alone. It is evident, for anyone with a functionning brain cell, that France did not start the ECSC alone : how can you start an international organization alone ?!!! France, a founding member, just played an important role in the creation of the ECSC and the EU.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Coal_and_Ste el_Community
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_union

As for your assertion that France has been trying to monopolize everything about EU since, I'm not sure it is worth an answer that everybody will find, anyway, following the links above. Same for the official language : France never tried to make French the official language of the EU (since the beginning, the official languages of the members have been the official languages of the Union -- 23 today). Chirac having a tantrum because a french official chose to speak english instead of french is by no mean an attempt to force the horrible french language upon unwilling innocent non-francophones (someone tried to make you learn french at school and you didn't like it ?).

That France has imposed the metric system on unsuspecting innocent countries is not true. France would have been quite a superpower to impose that system on the whole world, except the USA, Liberia, and Thailand. The reality is that the metric system imposed itself, the French has no other responsibility than having invented it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_system

You seem to entertain some strange ideas about France. If you want to hate that country, you don't need to make things up, you'll find enough reasons in its real history. Stop the mindless bashing, inform yourself, and bash intelligently.

Re:no

[unity100]

first of all, that guy said french started the eu. your own links too say to the contrary. so ill pass on this.

chirac-official tantrum was not an isolated incident. we are in turkey, and we are unfortunately closely following what goes within eu, maybe better than eu citizens due to our candidate status and the antipathy turkish people has against some eu matters, thanks to our media. there are many other cases that french tried to put forth french ways as the ways of the eu, and thats not counting the disneyland incident in which they have shown extreme hostility against anything non french, and the idiots who come to vacation here to turkey and refuse to speak english even though they know how to.

lets see, what else. oh yes. they have "withdrawn" themselves from the military wing of nato, do not supply anything militarily, but still try to participate in decision process and have equality to decide where and how nato forces, sons of other nato member countries except french will die. another "frenchiness".

by the time metric system was invented and put forth, france was a superpower. they are STILL trying to behave like a superpower, even though they are not. people mentioned why i didnt type those things about usa. its not necessary, if france had the power, it would act more aggressively than usa. We know it here in turkey due to our 200 year old history in international relations with them, and the fact that people that grew up 4 generations ago were taught french as secondary language due to french influence, and they have nothing to do with it now. this is the way of french, from frankish times to modern times - same with screw-up of the french revolution, only one major good thing they did for this world, with delusions de grandeur again, with the help of a egotistic short megalomaniac, and turning the whole republic into an empire charade and trying to force everyone submit to it.

Re:no

[Anonymous Coward]

first of all, that guy said French started the EU. your own links too say to the contrary. so ill pass on this.

So? Just read around a bit on the history of trying to unite Europe in France. It goes way back. France had such an important role in setting up the foundations for this that it is entirely fair to say they founded the EU. It is no coincidence that treaty that started the ECSC was the treaty of Paris. Also look at the countries that signed in. These are all neighboring countries of France (if you take the Benelux as one).

(by the way, I'm from the Netherlands. I'd welcome Turkey in the EU, but come on, I've heard Turkish people give their own government so much flack, but when another country is a bit critical, you guys get all angry)

Re:no

[unity100]

So? Just read around a bit on the history of trying to unite Europe in France. It goes way back. France had such an important role in setting up the foundations for this that it is entirely fair to say they founded the EU. It is no coincidence that treaty that started the ECSC was the treaty of Paris. Also look at the countries that signed in. These are all neighboring countries of France (if you take the Benelux as one).

excuse me, are you talking about napoleonic megalomania of "uniting europe" or, european union delusions de grandeur that we are experiencing as of now ? i mean the thing that irritates british public out of eu and annoys germans, and keeps italians silent ? french arrogance in pushing their agenda down on close to a billion people continent ?

(by the way, I'm from the Netherlands. I'd welcome Turkey in the EU, but come on, I've heard Turkish people give their own government so much flack, but when another country is a bit critical, you guys get all angry)

Turkish people are giving their current government too much flak because that current government is silently staffing all administrative, education, police and judiciary branches of the state with extreme islamists. Their agenda is an islamic republic, only milder than iran. I dont need to tell you what that would mean for modernity of turkey, heck, leave aside what doom would it bring to europe.

my critisizm for french do not come from national traits turks have here. i have an affinity for history, and i do history reading in my spare times. my problem with the french is their constant delusions de grandeur, which makes them squander even their own inventions/revolutions (like in 1805 when a short megalomaniac ruined down an entire revolution, aided by delusional french population), and attempt to push down/bully anyone who affiliates with them.

Re:no

[skahshah]

You do have some good points.

Concerning the metric system, the link I provided explain it all. For example, France itself adopted the metric system reluctantly. It was more a necessity for the scientists than for the people (read the part about France and Spain at war). At the time France finally really adopted the metric system, it wasn't a superpower anymore, after having been defeated by Russia, England and their allies. After that, France never had the clout to impose that system anywhere else than in its colonies. Why has Japan adopted that system ? Why has China adopted it ? Why has Turkey adopted it ? Russia ? Brazil ? Korea ? Don't tell me France was so powerful it has succeeded in forcing the metric system on all the world except three countries. If it has, then you can't speak of "delusions of grandeur".

Regarding NATO, you may find De Gaulle's reasons bad, but it is precisely because France couldn't participate in the decision process that he wanted to withdraw from the military command. And he couldn't have NATO's support in Algeria. It was logical, from his point of view, to withdraw. In fact, he wanted the same treatment as United Kingdom. How pretentious ! And it has never been to send others, and not French, you're inventing that. That said, didn't France participated in all NATO actions ? And, last but not least, didn't France rejoin NATO's military command in 1993 ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO

Regarding the tourists, it's unfortunate but France has its share of morons, ignorant bums, and unfortunately it isn't possible to keep them there. Morons of all nationalities tend to go on a show everywhere. I doubt those French are even aware of those long ties with Turkey (did you know that Balladur, former prime minister, was of turkish origin ?). Are you sure those tourists are refusing to speak english even if they know it ? Maybe they just think their english is horrible anyway, and they just use the only language they know ?

About Turkey and the European Union, I am one of those French who would like to have Turkey in the EU. I am against any modification of the rules, because Turkey is mainly in Asia, or because it's a muslim country. These are false, and dishonorable reasons. I'm even against making the recognition of the armenian genocide a condition to be accepted. There has been rules, conditions for the other countries, there shouldn't be other rules and other conditions for Turkey. I hope I'll live to see Turkey a proud member of the European Union.

"...with the help of a egotistic short megalomaniac, and turning the whole republic into an empire charade and trying to force everyone submit to it."
Wow wow wow ! You probably hate the Greeks because of Alexandre, the Persians because of Cyrus, the Mongols because of Gengis Khan, the Arabs, the Germans, and, why not, the Turks, who had quite an empire in Europe, IIRC. The French are not better, or worse, than other citizens of the earth, and the country, France, is not better, or worse, than many others.

Re:no

[unity100]

Don't tell me France was so powerful it has succeeded in forcing the metric system on all the world except three countries. If it has, then you can't speak of "delusions of grandeur".

late 19th century. france WAS a superpower than. it didnt start to lose that status until united states have ended isolation policy at the start of the 20th century, and have lost the status totally with ww2, along with great britain. countries were not fast to adapt to that situation. so, talking from a live example, for example from turkey, after 1945-50, when it was realized that france was not a superpower, and its language was not the dominant diplomatic and trade language anymore, there were still too many schools teaching french and too many textbooks/teachers teaching french in government schools to do the switch (even if they were able to fully realize it) that, generations born between 1945-1960 still learned french as a foreign language here. same goes with metric system. at the end of 19th century, france with britain was still seen at the forefront of technological development. so many countries adapted that system naturally.

isnt asking nato to algeria a horrendous reason to oust french enough ? totally out of charter, out of context ? to the contrary to what you say, between 1985-2000 here, when i was following the "Defense press" and news, we were hearing french trying to gave directions to nato affairs despite they werent on the military wing of it.

i am sure of the frenchmen's snobness that come here. the tradesmen here are annoyed mostly with french. not german, who are too clunky, not russians, who are too rude, not any other nation but french are known for their uppishness. they try to force people to speak french until they have no choice but to speak english themselves. all tradesmen here behaves accordingly. its not a subjective and uncommon view.

I hope I'll live to see Turkey a proud member of the European Union.

taking turkey in if turkey goes like this in the hands of islamic governments, this would be the swift suicide of european union. islamic radicalism is only setting foot in netherlands, france, belgium and germany, but there are already "universities" who are teaching youngsters according to sharia rules in these countries. im not even talking about "dormitories" that take in boarding students and bombard them with sharia propaganda. such kind of arrangements are rife in here, turkey in central anatolia konya region, and if turkey joins eu in this state, hordes of radical islamists will be pouring in there to triple, quadruple the momentum there. only germany is fighting back, france, netherlands and belgium are too paralyzed with the wrongful application of human rights to a faction that will deprive anyone of any basical human right (see the contradiction) just because it is ordered by their own religion. as an example of what this extremism is capable of even in the state that its not mass mobilized - 3 youngsters who were grown up in such a boarding school slit the throats of 3 people in malatya, central anatolia just because they were printing bibles and giving out to whomever interested. 2 of the killed were christians. 3 youngsters from a boarding school slit their throats behind their backs. this is just an instantaneous result of the hatred propaganda they preach in those schools. pray that secular movement in turkey succeeds, and a secular party wins, and roots out the oncoming radical islamism - all because of seemingly "democratic" government we have here now - they try to seem democratic and pro-freedom to europe to get support, yet their prime minister openly states that he "gets on the democracy train whenever he wants and he gets off of it whenever he wants" (he means when its not compliant with islam he lets go of democracy).

Wow wow wow ! You probably hate the Greeks because of Alexandre, the Persians because of Cyrus, the Mongols because of Gengis Kh

Re:no

[skahshah]

Well, you love to hate, it seems. Hope it's fun.

Re:no

[skahshah]

Keeping Italians silent ?! France is still a superpower ! ;-)

Re:no

[Anonymous Coward]

excuse me, are you talking about napoleonic megalomania of "uniting europe" or, european union delusions de grandeur that we are experiencing as of now ?

I was mostly talking about their attempts before WWII. There have been many late 19th and early 20th century attempts, eventually leading into the EU. (just in case: I never stated that Europe is united now). I completely agree about French delusions, and their tendency to fuck up on a national and international level.

Still, I think that for good or bad, it is fair to say that France started the EU.

About Turkey, my experience talking with the few Turks I know is that before the current situation, there was also a lot of criticism on their government, especially about corruption at the highest levels.

Also, I'd agree with that Turkey turning into an Islamic republic would be a disaster for all of the secular world and would have a wide ranging impact.

A stable, secular, freedom embracing and not-too-corrupt Turkey is vital for the region.

Re:no

[unity100]

early 19th and 20th century attempts by the french for any kind of european unity were imperialistic grandeur charades. start with napoleon go towards napoleon XXXXVCCMM or whatever. yet, they still continue the same kind of philosophy in european matters, which is despicable. no country is another's bitch. french should have understood that by now, but heck, they havent. do you think the coal deal would have got off if france was not battered with ww2, with broken pride, and kept low at that time ? would the other countries accept france to the deal in equal terms if they behaved as pompously and arrogantly they do when they are not under occupation or battered after a war ? like now ? i guess not.

corruption is rooted in tradesmen culture of turkey. from older generations, such "quick wits" are seen as a sign of "good tradesmanship". itll only change in 30 years when old generations get their tickets out of this world.

we are trying to preserve and further the secular republic. but clueless international community, and eu commissioners are not helping at all. they think that because they have rubber stamped democratically inclined laws, akp, the islamist party is pro-democracy. yet, akp uses "eastern cunning" in this matter - they know that laws are realized by bureaucracy and police, and they staff bureaucracy and police with islamist appointees, which has began to slowly practice islamist approac in all levels. police does not beat illegal demonstrators calling for sharia, but beats social democrats in the ground whenever they see them in a demonstration, even if permitted and legal. especially they stuff education ministry with islamists, they want to brainwash kids in government schools too, apart from their establishments. the fact is, ministries appoint these people, and this is in the hands of prime minister and 3-4 ministers, not the assembly. however democratic assembly happens to be, it can not effect islamisation or non islamisation of the country. this is why the army is a key factor in protecting secularism here, as it is the only organization that islamists were not able to infiltrate yet.

let me approach the subject as elegantly as you :

[unity100]

so ?

Feh.

[Dorsai65]

Just publicly publish the names & addresses of the originators, and let the villagers with torches and pitchforks take care of it.
(Not entirely meant as a tongue-in-cheek solution)

Dupe?

[renoX]

I faintly remember that the French government tried something like that some years ago, only to have the server receiving the forwarded Spam crash under the load..

We'll see if it work better this time.

Clean up wanadoo.fr please

[hal9000(jr)]

Those crazy French. wanadoo.fr is just a seething hot-bed of miscreants. Think they would do something about that first.

Not so original

[JohnnyBigodes]

Maybe better, but this looks like a copycat of Knujon. Not that another anti-spam establishment is a bad idea :)

Has everyone forgotten why blacklists suck?

[macraig]

Blacklists don't work. It's too easy to poison them, both by those who are simply ignorant or misguided and by those who are specifically intent on the blacklist's corruption.

What's to stop the spammers from poisoning this blacklist with so many good addresses or URLs that it becomes useless and has to be shut down, after wasting millions of francs and getting people's hopes up for nothing?

I greatly admire Graham-Cumming and have used PopFile for years, but this just doesn't sound like one of his more productive ideas.

Re:Has everyone forgotten why blacklists suck?

[JohnGrahamCumming]

Glad you like POPFile. The entire 'blacklist' discussion is moot because that's not the purpose of Signal Spam. To my knowledge Signal Spam has not plans to create a blacklist of any kind. There's a lot of automated processing going on with the messages which is directly targetted currently at the following:

1. Spotting zombies inside French ISPs and getting them shut down. This part is close to automatic since all the ISPs are partners with Signal Spam and can opt to get real-time zombie reports from the service using ARF format.

2. Spotting serious crime (such as pedophile messages) and handing them off to the gendarmerie.

3. Dealing with people who 'unsubscribe' from real mailing lists. Since the legit marketers in France are also partners of Signal Spam if you 'report as spam' something you could unsubscribe from you'll get a response from Signal Spam detailing how to unsubscribe from that specific mailer, and we can inform the mailer as well.

John.

Re:Has everyone forgotten why blacklists suck?

[skahshah]

How in hell haven't you been moded +5, informative ?

Mod parent funny!

[Dark_Gravity]

That was not a troll, and whoever modded it as such needs to have their sense of humor taken in for a tune up or revoked,because it is defective!

To the idiot that modded my joke a troll:
Get a fucking sense of humor, you jackass!
(or are you really a Scientologist?) :-p

To the mods with the functioning humor systems: Thanks!

Einstein predicted it-

[aqk]

"If spam fighting disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left."

                    Albert Einstein, 'In Defense of Bees' (1987)

Con domme l'homme

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is: will they consider french letters as spam?

If Yan CAN SPAM, So can you.

[Rsriram]

The name says it. Some entities CAN SPAM and you CANNOT complain.