SpamAssassin is a great idea for relatively small amounts of email traffic, but utterly impractical for large ISPs that process terabytes of incoming email traffic daily. ISPs must also consider the adverse effects of false positives in their spam filters. (anyone else remember AOL's snafu when they blocked a series of emails from a county government in Florida? )
The other problem, of course, is that spammers constantly use new tricks to avoid filters. "In a race between bullets and armor, bullets will always have an advantage" Purely defensive measures, such as filters and block lists will give the advantage to the spammer as they are more able to adapt quickly than large ISPs are.
Litigation and Criminal prosecutions, combined with efffective and adaptive filtering measures are the best bet. Unfortunately, effective litigation and prosecution is made more difficult by a lack of effective authentication for email traffic. These are things that SenderID and SPF are designed to address. Prosecuting individuals who advertise through spam is another effective measure. (for example, maybe RICO would be useful in going after folks who hire spammers to do their advertising?) There are plenty of laws which address criminal conspiracy, and applying those to the anti-spam laws which have hit the books recently may take some of the economic incentive out of unsolicited email advertising.
Slashdot Mirror
The other problem, of course, is that spammers constantly use new tricks to avoid filters. "In a race between bullets and armor, bullets will always have an advantage" Purely defensive measures, such as filters and block lists will give the advantage to the spammer as they are more able to adapt quickly than large ISPs are.
Litigation and Criminal prosecutions, combined with efffective and adaptive filtering measures are the best bet. Unfortunately, effective litigation and prosecution is made more difficult by a lack of effective authentication for email traffic. These are things that SenderID and SPF are designed to address. Prosecuting individuals who advertise through spam is another effective measure. (for example, maybe RICO would be useful in going after folks who hire spammers to do their advertising?) There are plenty of laws which address criminal conspiracy, and applying those to the anti-spam laws which have hit the books recently may take some of the economic incentive out of unsolicited email advertising.
Just a thought...
-Grim