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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."
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.)
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
I wonder how long before we see a massive DDOS attack against the infrastructure used to run this.
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.
Deleted
But it seems to be the only way to actually get the spammers. Filtering doesn't affect them. Their bandwidth is essentially free.
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.
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.
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...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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John.