I don't know about "for as long as," and I don't think these two scenarios are wholly analagous
On further consideration, the best analogy for spam filter evasion is computer cracking (both are attacks on a security system for the purpose of gaining access to a computer against the express prohibition of the owner).
but you can regulate "unsolicited commercial email" (spam that sells stuff) more stringently because it is "commercial speech."
It seems to me that the best approach is based on property rights. That removes the need to finely scrutinize the details of the message the trespasser is attempting to convey unto an unwilling recipient.
I think it's an easy argument to say that filter-evasion techniques are, in most instances, fraudulent, and as such outside the protection of the First Amendment.
True, and in fact I can't think of any exceptions that support the "in most instances" caveat. If I bar you from my property, and you have been put on notice to that effect (as the spammer who uses filter evasion clearly has, or else he would see no need to use such measures), the details of how you attempt to disguise yourself when sneaking in anyway are irrelevant.
Who moderated this moronic "save the treas" spammer apologia as "Insightful"?
The truth is that spam has a higher cost than junk paper mail because the latter does not threaten to make the mail useless as a means of legitimate communication.
I think the latter would be scrutinized in a way more analogous to digital cable channels.
So, you think that the law would support putting a spammer who used filter-evasion techniques away for as long as a pirate broadcaster who spliced into the cable and substituted his own signal for one of the channels?
The anti-spam law was limited in scope for constitutional reasons.
Nonsense. The Constitution does not give you a right to steal stuff, and no court has ever upheld any supposed "right" to (for example) spray-paint political grafitti on other people's walls.
Re:Why was it illegal there though?
on
Cell-Phone Wars
·
· Score: 1
I fail to see any valid reason for banning cell phones in a government waiting room, other than some bureaucrat needs to feel important.
Indeed. The bottom line is that conducting a conversation on a cell phone is rude if, and only if, talking to someone face-to-face would be rude. A DMV waiting room simply does not meet that standard.
Re:Agreed, inconsiderate users are the problem
on
Cell-Phone Wars
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Er, what's the point of asking people to turn off cell phones in a government office waiting room? Do they think the spectacle of one of them working and four of them dozing is so fascinating that no one will want to have it rudely interrupted?
I read the article on Google. You should have posted a C&C* warning for this quote:
Blogging is not journalism. Often it is as far from journalism as it is possible to get, with unsubstantiated rumour, prejudice and gossip masquerading as informed opinion.
I'm still waiting for the explanation of how journalism, at least as practiced by Mr. Thompson, differs....
*Coffee & Cats (i.e. swallow the former and put down the latter, or else your paryoxym of laughter may lead to unfortunate events).
There's a lot of ways you can set each of them up, but the only fundamental difference is who those bodies are accountable to. Corporations are accountable to their shareholders. Governments are accountable to their citizens.
No, that isn't is at all, as demonstrated by the existence of dozens of governments that clearly don't give a rat's rump about their citizens' opinions or welfare, and go along indefinitely without being held to account.
The actual difference is that a government has a monopoly on the use of force (i.e. the government may use force at its discretion; others within its borders may use force only insofar as the government permits).
Yeah, right. Bill Thompson had less role in "creating this network" than Al Gore (and unlike Gore he really is making this preposterouos claim, and compounds the sin by suggesting it as a basis for policy).
"But take away the profit then!" far easier said than done.
Actually, it's quite simple -- all it takes is a fine large enough that the expected loss (the size of the fine multiplied by the probability of being caught and forced to pay it) exceeds the expected profit (the average amount obtained from spamming). Note that not only can the former be increased as needed, but the latter can be directly reduced (e.g. by laws that make any debts arising from illegal spam solicitations non-enforceable).
People have gotten the impression that enforcement can't succeed in taking the profit out of an illicit activity because they remember the cases where such attempts have proven futile (e.g. drug dealing, prostitution, etc). However, this is a selection effect -- only the hard cases survive long enough to be cited as arguments.
You don't want to pay for a spam solution? Well, believe me, those little things called Taxes?
As noted above, I'm thinking more of things called "Fines", and not little ones.
If there was no market for spam, then it wouldn't exist.
There is no legitimate market for spam, for the same reason there is no legitimate market for stolen merchandise. The proper response by government is the same in both cases -- investegation, arrest, and punishment (within the parameters set by civil liberties protections).
Personally, I'd like to see a spammer arrested for distributing porn to minors... and for the other prisoners to know that "he's in here for showing dirty pictures to little girls".
The difference is that prostitutes are simply selling a service to a willing customer, whereas the spammers are stealing service, cracking computers in order to evade filters, etc (and that's not even counting the 99+% illegal content of the spam messages themselves -- almost every one of them is either touting a blatant fraud or distributing porn to minors).
One thing we can do is to make the spammers==virus_writers connection every time anyone asks us about (or even mentions) viruses.
An additional point: It would be trivially easy to encode a secret message into the filter-cracking gibberish appended to spam, and it would totally destroy any attempt at traffic analysis. I would be very surprised if terrorists and other criminals haven't thought of this.
I think we're beginning to see the wide-spread deployment of those new ani-filtering techniques some have talked about.
What we need is a prosecutor looking to make a name for himself who is willing to do the homework to apply the existing anti-cracking laws (what is filter evasion, if not an attempt to circumvent computer security for the purpose of gaining prohibited access to other people's computer?)
BBC's charter is renewed every 10 years, and it is this charter that allows it to operate/collect the license fee. There is always an anti-BBC lobby that is against everyone having to pay a poll tax on the BBC.
If it ends up releasing British citizens for paying for the BBC whether they watch it or not, some good will have come of this.
Slashdot Mirror
On further consideration, the best analogy for spam filter evasion is computer cracking (both are attacks on a security system for the purpose of gaining access to a computer against the express prohibition of the owner).
but you can regulate "unsolicited commercial email" (spam that sells stuff) more stringently because it is "commercial speech."
It seems to me that the best approach is based on property rights. That removes the need to finely scrutinize the details of the message the trespasser is attempting to convey unto an unwilling recipient.
I think it's an easy argument to say that filter-evasion techniques are, in most instances, fraudulent, and as such outside the protection of the First Amendment.
True, and in fact I can't think of any exceptions that support the "in most instances" caveat. If I bar you from my property, and you have been put on notice to that effect (as the spammer who uses filter evasion clearly has, or else he would see no need to use such measures), the details of how you attempt to disguise yourself when sneaking in anyway are irrelevant.
The truth is that spam has a higher cost than junk paper mail because the latter does not threaten to make the mail useless as a means of legitimate communication.
Sneaking into my house to glue flyers on my walls is a theft of my property in order to spread your message at my expense.
Sneaking past my spam filter to plaster junk on my screen is (all together now) a theft of my property in order to spread your message at my expense.
Precisely equivalent.
So Saith The Kshatriya.
So, you think that the law would support putting a spammer who used filter-evasion techniques away for as long as a pirate broadcaster who spliced into the cable and substituted his own signal for one of the channels?
Works for me....
Such laws have been tested, and passed, in court.
Nonsense. The Constitution does not give you a right to steal stuff, and no court has ever upheld any supposed "right" to (for example) spray-paint political grafitti on other people's walls.
Indeed. The bottom line is that conducting a conversation on a cell phone is rude if, and only if, talking to someone face-to-face would be rude. A DMV waiting room simply does not meet that standard.
Er, what's the point of asking people to turn off cell phones in a government office waiting room? Do they think the spectacle of one of them working and four of them dozing is so fascinating that no one will want to have it rudely interrupted?
You mean the one further down the page (the one that looks like Dilbert's boss gone punk) isn't him?
Demand into one hand, crap into the other, and let me know which one fills up first.
*Coffee & Cats (i.e. swallow the former and put down the latter, or else your paryoxym of laughter may lead to unfortunate events).
No, that isn't is at all, as demonstrated by the existence of dozens of governments that clearly don't give a rat's rump about their citizens' opinions or welfare, and go along indefinitely without being held to account.
The actual difference is that a government has a monopoly on the use of force (i.e. the government may use force at its discretion; others within its borders may use force only insofar as the government permits).
Yeah, right. Bill Thompson had less role in "creating this network" than Al Gore (and unlike Gore he really is making this preposterouos claim, and compounds the sin by suggesting it as a basis for policy).
Actually, it's quite simple -- all it takes is a fine large enough that the expected loss (the size of the fine multiplied by the probability of being caught and forced to pay it) exceeds the expected profit (the average amount obtained from spamming). Note that not only can the former be increased as needed, but the latter can be directly reduced (e.g. by laws that make any debts arising from illegal spam solicitations non-enforceable).
People have gotten the impression that enforcement can't succeed in taking the profit out of an illicit activity because they remember the cases where such attempts have proven futile (e.g. drug dealing, prostitution, etc). However, this is a selection effect -- only the hard cases survive long enough to be cited as arguments.
You don't want to pay for a spam solution? Well, believe me, those little things called Taxes?
As noted above, I'm thinking more of things called "Fines", and not little ones.
If there was no market for spam, then it wouldn't exist.
There is no legitimate market for spam, for the same reason there is no legitimate market for stolen merchandise. The proper response by government is the same in both cases -- investegation, arrest, and punishment (within the parameters set by civil liberties protections).
...you have got to stop "sexing up" your "news" and go back to reporting the facts.
Personally, I'd like to see a spammer arrested for distributing porn to minors... and for the other prisoners to know that "he's in here for showing dirty pictures to little girls".
The difference is that prostitutes are simply selling a service to a willing customer, whereas the spammers are stealing service, cracking computers in order to evade filters, etc (and that's not even counting the 99+% illegal content of the spam messages themselves -- almost every one of them is either touting a blatant fraud or distributing porn to minors).
An additional point: It would be trivially easy to encode a secret message into the filter-cracking gibberish appended to spam, and it would totally destroy any attempt at traffic analysis. I would be very surprised if terrorists and other criminals haven't thought of this.
"Flirting", hell. Spammers and organized crime are tasting each other's tonsils.
Not if I'm on the jury.
What we need is a prosecutor looking to make a name for himself who is willing to do the homework to apply the existing anti-cracking laws (what is filter evasion, if not an attempt to circumvent computer security for the purpose of gaining prohibited access to other people's computer?)
More fundamentally, the moment they make the slightest identifiable attempt to bypass spam filters, they are computer crackers.
What "argument"? There are two simple YES-NO questions here:
All else is irrelevant. If they're too incompetent to put some limits in the fine print, that's their problem.If it ends up releasing British citizens for paying for the BBC whether they watch it or not, some good will have come of this.
Yeah, that helps to eliminate some candidates right off the bat.