Last February AOL alone reported catching 780,000,000 spam messages PER DAY! With an average size of 10 KB per message that's 7,800,000,000,000 Bytes per day. Guess how much that is: 7.8TB
That's just the spam that AOL has blocked! Never mind those that it didn't catch! Forget Yahoo,Hotmail,MSN... How about the tens of thousands of ISPs and mailservers all around the world? I can't even BEGIN to imagine the total traffic that spam currently accounts for!
Lycos is organizing a mob of angry villagers to gently harrass the landlords of known burglars. That's a better analogy, indeed. Still... in my book it's also under the "Self-Defence" chapter.
If you happen to know exactly what you are doing, you belong to a minority, and your action alone won't make much of a difference anyway. Put yourself in the position of the average user, and ask yourself the question: Am I willing to trust Lycos to do the right thing, without myself understanding the consequences of my support for this? If you don't trust them, you shouldn't be running their software. If you do trust them, I wonder what basis you have for that trust. It's not that what they are doing may be illegal, it's that you seem willing to take legal advice from them and let them dictate your actions. It's fairly easy to check the requests the screensaver generates. Grant you, I am in the minority, but I really wonder what the purpose of the above-said is... Suppose that I belong to the majority of users who have never heard of the netstat command. If I have the time and knowledge to look for the screensaver and download it, don't you believe that I will eventually hear and read about the dozens of more informed users who will (eventually) discover that this piece of software actually does more/other than what it's supposed to do? If your reservations are of a purely legal nature then I would really enjoy seeing my home country extradite me to China because I have "gently harassed the landlord of a known burglar".
I'd be happy to design my own retaliatory software and use it with the same blacklists and other information available to Lycos, simply to know what my computer is doing and assume responsibility for any unfortunate incidents created. I could even provide the software for others to use, but they have to decide themselves whether to trust me giving instructions to their hardware. My source code would of course be open for public inspection, so that you can compare it with the Lycos screensaver (which I haven't even seen yet). Then please do so. I would certainly prefer using your open-source software!
I really enjoy reading all the comments about the legal implication of what I'm currently doing using Lycos' screensaver.
Some people insist it's unethical and even illegal... Can someone please explain to humble me: Since when did self-defense became either unethical or illegal? These "entities" attack my mailboxes and my mailservers on a day-to-day basis. Now that there's a simple way to fight back, I have suddenly mutated from victim to villain? If someone breaks into your home won't you use any means necesary to delay or stop this intrusion? If I sound the alarm and start shouting and hitting him, am I "disrupting the peace" and "attempting to cause bodily harm"???
Oh, one more thing. The earth does not revolve around the US Legal System. I really, trully wonder how the "laws" will be enforced upon entities of rogue (spamwise) nations like China and South Korea...
The day I see China extradite Wu Su Kwan on spam charges to the US, where he'll be immediately shipped to Guantanamo, I promise to stop using the screensaver. Till then...;-)
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33TB PER DAY is... NOTHING!
Last February AOL alone reported catching 780,000,000 spam messages PER DAY!
With an average size of 10 KB per message that's 7,800,000,000,000 Bytes per day.
Guess how much that is:
7.8TB
That's just the spam that AOL has blocked!
Never mind those that it didn't catch!
Forget Yahoo,Hotmail,MSN...
How about the tens of thousands of ISPs and mailservers all around the world?
I can't even BEGIN to imagine the total traffic that spam currently accounts for!
Lycos is organizing a mob of angry villagers to gently harrass the landlords of known burglars.
That's a better analogy, indeed. Still... in my book it's also under the "Self-Defence" chapter.
If you happen to know exactly what you are doing, you belong to a minority, and your action alone won't make much of a difference anyway. Put yourself in the position of the average user, and ask yourself the question: Am I willing to trust Lycos to do the right thing, without myself understanding the consequences of my support for this? If you don't trust them, you shouldn't be running their software. If you do trust them, I wonder what basis you have for that trust. It's not that what they are doing may be illegal, it's that you seem willing to take legal advice from them and let them dictate your actions.
It's fairly easy to check the requests the screensaver generates. Grant you, I am in the minority, but I really wonder what the purpose of the above-said is...
Suppose that I belong to the majority of users who have never heard of the netstat command. If I have the time and knowledge to look for the screensaver and download it, don't you believe that I will eventually hear and read about the dozens of more informed users who will (eventually) discover that this piece of software actually does more/other than what it's supposed to do?
If your reservations are of a purely legal nature then I would really enjoy seeing my home country extradite me to China because I have "gently harassed the landlord of a known burglar".
I'd be happy to design my own retaliatory software and use it with the same blacklists and other information available to Lycos, simply to know what my computer is doing and assume responsibility for any unfortunate incidents created. I could even provide the software for others to use, but they have to decide themselves whether to trust me giving instructions to their hardware. My source code would of course be open for public inspection, so that you can compare it with the Lycos screensaver (which I haven't even seen yet).
Then please do so. I would certainly prefer using your open-source software!
I really enjoy reading all the comments about the legal implication of what I'm currently doing using Lycos' screensaver.
;-)
Some people insist it's unethical and even illegal...
Can someone please explain to humble me:
Since when did self-defense became either unethical or illegal?
These "entities" attack my mailboxes and my mailservers on a day-to-day basis.
Now that there's a simple way to fight back, I have suddenly mutated from victim to villain?
If someone breaks into your home won't you use any means necesary to delay or stop this intrusion?
If I sound the alarm and start shouting and hitting him, am I "disrupting the peace" and "attempting to cause bodily harm"???
Oh, one more thing.
The earth does not revolve around the US Legal System.
I really, trully wonder how the "laws" will be enforced upon entities of rogue (spamwise) nations like China and South Korea...
The day I see China extradite Wu Su Kwan on spam charges to the US, where he'll be immediately shipped to Guantanamo, I promise to stop using the screensaver.
Till then...