You gotta figure that anytime you have a local device, you're running a pretty high risk of getting caught given that you (a) have to place it, (b) have to have something physically there that might be found, and (c) it has to transmit data out somehow.
These difficulties are manageable if the feds are only conducting this level of surveillance on a few hundred targets. For law-abiding citizens in general, imposing this sort of practical limit on the government is a feature, not a bug.
Since the PATRIOT Act was signed into law, how many terrorist attacks have we had? None. Zero.
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Oh, how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
Please dont construe what I am about to say next as supporting spammers, cause I hate 'em just like everyone else, but you cannot just ban spam outright... not without tossing the 1st Amendment in the process.
Nonsense. It is well-settled law that time-place-and-manner restrictions on speech are acceptable when they are directed to some compelling interest (in this case, protecting the private property rights of the spam targets) and when they leave alternate avenues open to the speaker's message (in this case, spammers can buy banner ads and get listed in search engines like honest folk).
I've heard and read many people (including mail engineers at Y!Mail or Hotmail) claim that spam filtering doesn't work, can't work, the spammers will always be one step ahead, etc.
I still think that the key is to apply the existing computer-cracking laws against the various methods the spammers use to stay "one step ahead". Why is coming up with new variations on how to spell "viagra" any different from shoveling a dictionary into a password prompt, when the objective in both cases is to get into a computer despite a system that was put there to keep you the hell out?
All I'm saying here is that there must be profit (or the perception of possible profit) for the spammer to be paid to send spam.
That caveat is precisely my point. Even if no spam recipients actually bought any spamvertised product, there will always be somebody who thinks that his spammed pitch will work.
Folks, spammers are the messengers. You can shoot them all day and the spam will keep coming.
If spamming were properly prosecuted (i.e. any attempt to bypass filters were punished under the existing computer-cracking laws), then the risk of spending the next 5 years in prison would impel spammers to either quit or raise their prices beyond what the typical chickenboner quack can afford to pay.
Step 1: A gives money to B to send info to C.
Step 2: C then, ideally, buys from A.
The second step is the both the crux of the issue and impossible to not conclude because were it not for step 2, then step 1 would stop awful quick.
On the contrary, it is quite obvious that Step 1 can recur even if Step 2 falls flat. The most obvious example:
A = Ground-floor promoter of pyramid scam.
B = New recruit into pyramid scam.
C = People B tries to recruit into pyramid scam.
Every single pyramid scam collapses at the point where B fails to convince C to buy into the scam -- and yet pyramid scams continue to arise and make money (for the original scammers).
I used to be firmly in the "kill the spammers" camp, but I've come to the realization (like many others) that the real culprits are people who actually BUY stuff in the spam they get sent. If nobody buys the stuff, spam WILL disappear.
Big-time spammers get their money up front from the spamvertiser, not piecemeal from individual suckers. If nobody falls for whichever scam is being promoted, that's just too bad for the spamvertiser -- the spammer has the money, and rigorously follows the First Law of Acquisition.
Yes, individual spamvertisers will give up if they get burned often enough, but there are always new sleaze artists to take their place.
You might object and say, "the difference between drugs and spam at this level is quite sharp because drug users want the drug. Spam receiptients do not." Well SOMEONE is buying. Spammers don't spam because they think their literature amounts to avant garde exercises in promotional haiku. They spam because someone pays them to. And someone pays them to because someone is buying.
Spammers (the successful ones, anyway) get their money from the sleaze artists who pay them to vomit out advertisements for their dubious wares, not from the recipients of the flood.
SPAM to me seems like another one of those things in life like drug dealing for instance. Whatever tactice we take to stop or outlaw it, people are always going to find a way around it.
There are two basic differences between spamming and drug dealing:
1. Spamming produces relatively modest profits for its most successful perpetrators. Major drug dealers routinely make millions of dollars a year. Thus, the former are far less likely than the latter to accept a prison term as an acceptable cost of doing business (particularly since the former are far less likely than the latter to have the sort of "muscle" contacts that will keep them above the bottom of the prison totem pole).
2. Drug dealing generally takes place between a willing seller and a willing buyer. Thus, neither party has an incentive to cooperate with the police. Spamming, on the other hand, takes place between a bandwidth thief and a bandwidth theft victim. The latter has every reason to cooperate with the police, if he is only convinced that the police will actually do something about the problem.
(This difference is what makes drug dealing more respectable than spamming.)
Ever notice that spam now-a-days has random strings of characters placed throughout it? That's to make it unique to prevent spam filters from looking the checksum of the message up in a database and marking it as spam.
This should be prosecuted under the existing computer-cracking laws. It's no different from shoveling a dictionary at a password prompt -- both are attempts to break past a security mechanism designed to keep you out of other people's computers.
The "anti-spam crowd" are those that firmly believe that email is for their personal communications only. Any commercial use violates the terms of how the Internet was created and that is exclusively for the benefit of the user community.
Where's the "-1: Propaganda That Baghdad Bob Couldn't Deliver With A Straight Face" option?
Basically, these guys want to shake off the image of the sleazoids who sell you herbal Viagra to get your larger penis up while you watch images of hot teen lesbians.
However, they don't show any sign of being willing to bite the bullet and accept a pure Opt-In model -- which is the only way they can avoid the name "spammer".
DOS, schmoss. Why the hell aren't each and every one of the spammers' filter-evasion tricks prosecutable under the computer-cracking laws, as they are clearly deliberate actions aimed at bypassing the access security placed on a computer by its owner?
I hope that someone finds the personal info of those 180 people and posts it here on/.. We should be able to harrass them endlessly and make their signal:noise ratio equivilant to ours.
However, if we did that, then we would be no better than they are.
I reject this doctrine of moral equivalency. Striking back is justified, and sometimes even necessary, and in no way comparable to the initial act of aggression.
Anti-spammers have published the personal information of more than one of the spammers
No law against that.
They have claimed that the spammers break the law, when in most cases, spam isn't illegal
Irrelevant. Pyramid scams, quack medical claims, distribution of pornography to minors, etc. most certainly are illegal.
they have put pressure on ISPs to cancel spammers contracts
So what? It is perfectly legal to boycott a company to pressure them to cancel a contract with someone for any reason, or for no reason. Alan Ralsky may be as clueless about this concept as Susan Sarandon, but that's his problem.
Spam will not go away until it becomes unprofitable
When the laws are reformed so that the "cost of spam" includes 2-5 as the Bride of Bubba, then it will become unprofitable -- it doesn't bring in the kind of money that will get people to accept that level of risk (unlike, for example, the illegal drug trade).
Re:The FTC now says they can regulate spam
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FTC vs Spammers
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· Score: 1
An innocent legitimate business is going to have books that will demonstrate that, no, they did not pay a chickenboner to spew spam on their behalf. A guilty business will need to cook the books to conceal payment to the spammer -- but the government has lots of experience in detecting books that have been cooked to conceal some crime or other.
If you say no, either by a form of notice that the sender can reasonably be aware of, or by direct response to the sender, then I am FULLY in support of taking legal action against an obstinant sender.
Well, then, we are in complete agreement. Spam someone who has -- ever, even once -- posted to Usenet "DO NOT SEND SPAM TO THIS ADDRESS", and you go to jail. Bypass an anti-spam filter -- no matter how rudimentary -- and you go to jail.
Furthermore time/place/manner restrictions can never constitutionally be so onerous as to hinder all communication. So, for example, a law prohibiting telemarketing during certain times of day is ok; a law prohibiting it altogether is not.
***BBBZZZZTTT!!!*** I'm sorry; the correct answer is: Furthermore time/place/manner restrictions can never constitutionally be so onerous as to hinder all communication. So, for example, a law may prohibit all telemarketing and all spam, because the alternative channels of media advertising and web site publication remain fully available to effectively spread the same message without theft of recipient bandwidth.
I do think that if you do opt-out and it isn't respected, that then you have a GREAT grounds for a suit against the spammer
Yep -- put one post in (for example) Usenet where it can be readily determined via (for example) a Google search "POSITIVELY NO SPAM ALLOWED TO X@Y.NET" and that's that -- spam that address and pay. (In civilized jurisdictions, a property owner is permitted to shoot trespassers -- I suppose the cyber equivalent would be to place spammers outside the protection of computer cracking laws, making them fair game.)
Strictly speaking, this is true, but it's not relevant. Spammers' garbage dumps are several orders of magnitude above and beyond any reasonable gray-area zone separating "bulk" from "non-bulk" (the former typically being on the order of 10^6, the latter being somewhere on the order of 10^2); thus, the question doesn't really arise in any real-world spamming situation.
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These difficulties are manageable if the feds are only conducting this level of surveillance on a few hundred targets. For law-abiding citizens in general, imposing this sort of practical limit on the government is a feature, not a bug.
Not by itself. You need to chain two of them in series.
But will Tyron allow his name to be used in the next batch of tallywacker-enlarger spam?
Nonsense. It is well-settled law that time-place-and-manner restrictions on speech are acceptable when they are directed to some compelling interest (in this case, protecting the private property rights of the spam targets) and when they leave alternate avenues open to the speaker's message (in this case, spammers can buy banner ads and get listed in search engines like honest folk).
I still think that the key is to apply the existing computer-cracking laws against the various methods the spammers use to stay "one step ahead". Why is coming up with new variations on how to spell "viagra" any different from shoveling a dictionary into a password prompt, when the objective in both cases is to get into a computer despite a system that was put there to keep you the hell out?
That caveat is precisely my point. Even if no spam recipients actually bought any spamvertised product, there will always be somebody who thinks that his spammed pitch will work.
If spamming were properly prosecuted (i.e. any attempt to bypass filters were punished under the existing computer-cracking laws), then the risk of spending the next 5 years in prison would impel spammers to either quit or raise their prices beyond what the typical chickenboner quack can afford to pay.
Step 2: C then, ideally, buys from A.
The second step is the both the crux of the issue and impossible to not conclude because were it not for step 2, then step 1 would stop awful quick.
On the contrary, it is quite obvious that Step 1 can recur even if Step 2 falls flat. The most obvious example:
A = Ground-floor promoter of pyramid scam.
B = New recruit into pyramid scam.
C = People B tries to recruit into pyramid scam.
Every single pyramid scam collapses at the point where B fails to convince C to buy into the scam -- and yet pyramid scams continue to arise and make money (for the original scammers).
Big-time spammers get their money up front from the spamvertiser, not piecemeal from individual suckers. If nobody falls for whichever scam is being promoted, that's just too bad for the spamvertiser -- the spammer has the money, and rigorously follows the First Law of Acquisition.
Yes, individual spamvertisers will give up if they get burned often enough, but there are always new sleaze artists to take their place.
Spammers (the successful ones, anyway) get their money from the sleaze artists who pay them to vomit out advertisements for their dubious wares, not from the recipients of the flood.
There are two basic differences between spamming and drug dealing:
This should be prosecuted under the existing computer-cracking laws. It's no different from shoveling a dictionary at a password prompt -- both are attempts to break past a security mechanism designed to keep you out of other people's computers.
Where's the "-1: Propaganda That Baghdad Bob Couldn't Deliver With A Straight Face" option?
However, they don't show any sign of being willing to bite the bullet and accept a pure Opt-In model -- which is the only way they can avoid the name "spammer".
Actually, in a way it does -- it says that the government should respect the law, not that it does....
DOS, schmoss. Why the hell aren't each and every one of the spammers' filter-evasion tricks prosecutable under the computer-cracking laws, as they are clearly deliberate actions aimed at bypassing the access security placed on a computer by its owner?
However, if we did that, then we would be no better than they are.
I reject this doctrine of moral equivalency. Striking back is justified, and sometimes even necessary, and in no way comparable to the initial act of aggression.
Certainly not. They should all get a proper trial, and then be executed, Texas-style.
No law against that.
They have claimed that the spammers break the law, when in most cases, spam isn't illegal
Irrelevant. Pyramid scams, quack medical claims, distribution of pornography to minors, etc. most certainly are illegal.
they have put pressure on ISPs to cancel spammers contracts
So what? It is perfectly legal to boycott a company to pressure them to cancel a contract with someone for any reason, or for no reason. Alan Ralsky may be as clueless about this concept as Susan Sarandon, but that's his problem.
When the laws are reformed so that the "cost of spam" includes 2-5 as the Bride of Bubba, then it will become unprofitable -- it doesn't bring in the kind of money that will get people to accept that level of risk (unlike, for example, the illegal drug trade).
An innocent legitimate business is going to have books that will demonstrate that, no, they did not pay a chickenboner to spew spam on their behalf. A guilty business will need to cook the books to conceal payment to the spammer -- but the government has lots of experience in detecting books that have been cooked to conceal some crime or other.
Well, then, we are in complete agreement. Spam someone who has -- ever, even once -- posted to Usenet "DO NOT SEND SPAM TO THIS ADDRESS", and you go to jail. Bypass an anti-spam filter -- no matter how rudimentary -- and you go to jail.
***BBBZZZZTTT!!!*** I'm sorry; the correct answer is: Furthermore time/place/manner restrictions can never constitutionally be so onerous as to hinder all communication. So, for example, a law may prohibit all telemarketing and all spam, because the alternative channels of media advertising and web site publication remain fully available to effectively spread the same message without theft of recipient bandwidth.
I do think that if you do opt-out and it isn't respected, that then you have a GREAT grounds for a suit against the spammer
Yep -- put one post in (for example) Usenet where it can be readily determined via (for example) a Google search "POSITIVELY NO SPAM ALLOWED TO X@Y.NET" and that's that -- spam that address and pay. (In civilized jurisdictions, a property owner is permitted to shoot trespassers -- I suppose the cyber equivalent would be to place spammers outside the protection of computer cracking laws, making them fair game.)
Strictly speaking, this is true, but it's not relevant. Spammers' garbage dumps are several orders of magnitude above and beyond any reasonable gray-area zone separating "bulk" from "non-bulk" (the former typically being on the order of 10^6, the latter being somewhere on the order of 10^2); thus, the question doesn't really arise in any real-world spamming situation.