It isn't "impossible" to make Spam illegal. It is, however, impractical.
But again: You're right. Because it is impractical doesn't mean they WON'T make a law. The Law'll simply be ignored by those to whom it is worth the risk, and the law won't be enforced.
But the gub'mint can say "see? We're DOING SOMETHING!"
And that's all that matters to a pol or a bureaucrat: Plausible deniability.
1. Reagan did not develop Alzheimer's until some years after he left office.
2. Not all of us are terrific public speakers. Bush has killed a lot of our enemies--that's what we pay him to do.
3. In contrast, Clinton was a "brilliant" public speaker--if you didn't listen to what he actually said, or try to parse it. Yet he continually allowed our enemies to kill us with impunity, not responding to Mogadishu, not responding to WTC '93, not responding to U.S.S. Cole, etc.
I really don't care if a President has a mouthful of shoe-leather every time he gives utterance, as long as he does his job.
That's like saying, in response to a bloody execution-style killing in the news: "Hey, don't jump to the conclusion that this was the work of organized crime! This guy was a NOTORIOUS under-tipper! This could have been the work of the waitresses at the cafe where he has lunch every day!"
And sorry to say this, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to make "Spam" illegal because no two people can agree on what it is.
If you get an unsolicited email, and you get po'd about it, is that Spam?
What if you forgot that you DID enter your email address nine months earlier when registering some software on a website, and didn't uncheck the box that said "I'd like to receive solicitations from this company or their partners?"
Is it still Spam? You "opted in," didn't you?
The only recourse is to protect your system from "unsolicited" email via SpamAssassin or one of the other decent filtering schemes. Sorry, that's part of the cost of admission.
That most "war zones" come about because of the refusal of candy-asses like yourself to deal with "varmints" that "need killin'", until it is too late, leading to needless suffering as a result...
Well, that's a concept that is undoubtedly lost on the likes of you.
That's why you're a European, with all that noble "War Zone" legacy to your credit.
To say that that justifies killing is so stupid it isn't even funny.
Spoken like a "Euro."
Here in Texas, we have a venerable tradition. When a known "varmint" meets his maker at the end of a righteous citizen's gunbarrel, said righteous citizen testifies in open court that said varmint "needed killin'".
I have only my tiny SOHO email server (Red Hat 9; Sendmail) to go by, personally, but a simple implementation of SpamAssassin plus some open source Procmail scripts have pretty much eliminated Spam and Virii from our lives.
Poor Symantec AV hardly has anything to do any more.
Oh, and I also use RICOCHET to try to make the spammers' lives a little more miserable than they undoubtedly already are (being a "spammer" is its own reward, I think).
...I keep hearing that Linux "aspires to be Posix-compliant." Is this STILL an aspiration, and if so, when does it come to fruition? What is the "certification process" that ultimately renders an OS liable to be declared "Posix-compliant?"
In short, when can Linux be officially considered "*nix"?
Sure the market "eventually" corrects itself, but that's because of people who refuse to accept the bullshit,...
You are UTTERLY wrong.
You need to recall, for example--difficult to do for much of our "younger generation" who think that anything that happened in human history before they were born is irrelevant--that the "power of the people" is a very recent thing. Throughout most of history, "the people" took what was given to them and shut the hell up.
Yet "the invisible hand" has always been there, and it has little to do with popular enlightenment or deliberate uprisings. Rather, it has to do with individuals coming independently to the same--or at least a similar--conclusion about their own self-interest, and acting accordingly.
Their decisions, and the consequences thereof, ultimately work together to succeed or fail, and the successes go on to breed more success.
The most emphatic example of this was the settlement of the new world. Although "corporations" had a lot to do with this--mostly through providing the capital--it was the bravery and ingenuity of individual men and women, acting in their own interest, knowing that they could have it better than they presently did, taking the RISK.
And this legacy is the reason the United States of America towers head and shoulders above any other society in terms of economic power and clout. Only here has the individual had so much power, and that power was fought for and earned over centuries.
We are only in the first century of pissing that away thanks to the socialism that began with the New Deal, and it will take some time for ingenuity and self-interest to be crushed under the weight of law (and the enforcement thereof) but if things do not change, it will eventually happen.
But the light will spark anew, someplace else.
Because the "invisible hand," ultimately, is about the yearning of the human soul to breathe free.
NOT, as you smarmy anarcho-leftists would have it, their yearning to organize violent protests, burn cars and ransack Wal-Mart.
Problem isn't "unsolicited email," though. It's unsolicited BULK email.
As a "business" I often get unsolicited email simply from people who got hold of one of my biz cards and emailed me out of the blue to inquire after my services. I don't want them discouraged in any way, so I wouldn't implement any kind of "challenge-response" or "sign-countersign" system for that very reason.
So, I guess we either need to reform and properly lock-down email sending to show only accurate information,...
If I understand correctly, however, this is already possibly using the SMTP. I know that I can instruct Sendmail to bounce messages that don't meet the criteria described in the various RFPs relevant to mail transport, for example.
I found a couple of such Sendmail config routines on the SPAM-L mailing list for example, but since I'm too "chicken" to futz with sendmail.cf directly (cowardly-fashion, I use the sendmail.mc/m4 thingy for poking the config file) I didn't implement it. But I am assured they work to bounce a HELL of a lot of Spam. And I'm sure more sophisticated Sendmail/SMTP checks can be fashioned along the same lines.
Slashdot Mirror
And you also apparently never heard of Ken Lay, the former CEO of Enron, and golfing buddy of Bill "bow to your bent god" Clinton, I take it?
Check your assumptions, VERY VERY CAREFULLY!
You'll find, for example, that Enron gave equally to Republicans and Democrats.
Now that we have that settled, let's talk about the century-long legacy of Democrat vote fraud--which is what my original post was about.
It's the fact that most "crackers" are Democrats.
They have to be, to have such disregard for the law.
Hey, take it easy! After all, it's ONLY a...
Ah, never mind.
...I like the idea of "gifts THEN money..."
Um, sez who?
Who is it, pray that is going to "retrench" Linux to be corporate-only?
You DO understand the concept of open-source initiatives and the reason that Linux has surged to such popularity in ten years, don't you?
This is an honest question.
It isn't "impossible" to make Spam illegal. It is, however, impractical.
But again: You're right. Because it is impractical doesn't mean they WON'T make a law. The Law'll simply be ignored by those to whom it is worth the risk, and the law won't be enforced.
But the gub'mint can say "see? We're DOING SOMETHING!"
And that's all that matters to a pol or a bureaucrat: Plausible deniability.
I'm always very sad to have to dispatch a "varmint" to his eternal reward.
Very, very sad.
2. Not all of us are terrific public speakers. Bush has killed a lot of our enemies--that's what we pay him to do.
3. In contrast, Clinton was a "brilliant" public speaker--if you didn't listen to what he actually said, or try to parse it. Yet he continually allowed our enemies to kill us with impunity, not responding to Mogadishu, not responding to WTC '93, not responding to U.S.S. Cole, etc.
I really don't care if a President has a mouthful of shoe-leather every time he gives utterance, as long as he does his job.
Bush does his job.
That's like saying, in response to a bloody execution-style killing in the news: "Hey, don't jump to the conclusion that this was the work of organized crime! This guy was a NOTORIOUS under-tipper! This could have been the work of the waitresses at the cafe where he has lunch every day!"
And sorry to say this, but it is IMPOSSIBLE to make "Spam" illegal because no two people can agree on what it is.
If you get an unsolicited email, and you get po'd about it, is that Spam?
What if you forgot that you DID enter your email address nine months earlier when registering some software on a website, and didn't uncheck the box that said "I'd like to receive solicitations from this company or their partners?"
Is it still Spam? You "opted in," didn't you?
The only recourse is to protect your system from "unsolicited" email via SpamAssassin or one of the other decent filtering schemes. Sorry, that's part of the cost of admission.
And your credentials are...?
So there.
Well, that's a concept that is undoubtedly lost on the likes of you.
That's why you're a European, with all that noble "War Zone" legacy to your credit.
Spoken like a "Euro."
Here in Texas, we have a venerable tradition. When a known "varmint" meets his maker at the end of a righteous citizen's gunbarrel, said righteous citizen testifies in open court that said varmint "needed killin'".
Case dismissed.
Poor Symantec AV hardly has anything to do any more.
Oh, and I also use RICOCHET to try to make the spammers' lives a little more miserable than they undoubtedly already are (being a "spammer" is its own reward, I think).
In short, when can Linux be officially considered "*nix"?
You are UTTERLY wrong.
You need to recall, for example--difficult to do for much of our "younger generation" who think that anything that happened in human history before they were born is irrelevant--that the "power of the people" is a very recent thing. Throughout most of history, "the people" took what was given to them and shut the hell up.
Yet "the invisible hand" has always been there, and it has little to do with popular enlightenment or deliberate uprisings. Rather, it has to do with individuals coming independently to the same--or at least a similar--conclusion about their own self-interest, and acting accordingly.
Their decisions, and the consequences thereof, ultimately work together to succeed or fail, and the successes go on to breed more success.
The most emphatic example of this was the settlement of the new world. Although "corporations" had a lot to do with this--mostly through providing the capital--it was the bravery and ingenuity of individual men and women, acting in their own interest, knowing that they could have it better than they presently did, taking the RISK.
And this legacy is the reason the United States of America towers head and shoulders above any other society in terms of economic power and clout. Only here has the individual had so much power, and that power was fought for and earned over centuries.
We are only in the first century of pissing that away thanks to the socialism that began with the New Deal, and it will take some time for ingenuity and self-interest to be crushed under the weight of law (and the enforcement thereof) but if things do not change, it will eventually happen.
But the light will spark anew, someplace else.
Because the "invisible hand," ultimately, is about the yearning of the human soul to breathe free.
NOT, as you smarmy anarcho-leftists would have it, their yearning to organize violent protests, burn cars and ransack Wal-Mart.
Another example of folks who think the history of the world began the day they were born.
Taxes only hurt the honest. They don't hinder the dishonest because they will find a way to keep from paying the taxes.
Government solutions typically fail utterly; only the "invisible hand" of the market can succeed.
Keep the gov out of all of this.
As a "business" I often get unsolicited email simply from people who got hold of one of my biz cards and emailed me out of the blue to inquire after my services. I don't want them discouraged in any way, so I wouldn't implement any kind of "challenge-response" or "sign-countersign" system for that very reason.
If I understand correctly, however, this is already possibly using the SMTP. I know that I can instruct Sendmail to bounce messages that don't meet the criteria described in the various RFPs relevant to mail transport, for example.
I found a couple of such Sendmail config routines on the SPAM-L mailing list for example, but since I'm too "chicken" to futz with sendmail.cf directly (cowardly-fashion, I use the sendmail.mc/m4 thingy for poking the config file) I didn't implement it. But I am assured they work to bounce a HELL of a lot of Spam. And I'm sure more sophisticated Sendmail/SMTP checks can be fashioned along the same lines.
Sorry, but that ain't gonna happen. These people thrive on the anonymity, and they simply won't be getting this bill.
Mod parent up!