Why the hell doesn't congress stop the damned spam? Are the spam lobbyists so wealthy that congress won't give up feeding at their trough? I am sick, sick, sick of it. I wonder what can be done.
Because Congress can only pass legislation that affects the U.S., and the spam will just go offshore (or to
Re:it can't be stopped
arhuman on 2002-08-22T21:29:33
Because Congress can only pass legislation that affects the U.S., and the spam will just go offshore (or to.ca or .mx).
I thought that as long as the spam pass through U.S. servers, using U.S. infrastructure it should comply to U.S laws.
Making spam illegal would allow (force) ISP to block spam* at the border and would mostly provide a ground for legal actions.
(taxes, fines, fees or whatever...)
We use the same principle here (in France) to fight things that are illegal here and allowed elsewhere (hate promotion here = freedom of speech for nazi) although we can't force some people to drop partially their "freedom of speech" (I repeat I'm talking about some VERY extreme ideas here), we can force companies here in France to not relay those ideas (making them legally accountable, and offering the opportunity to sue them...)**
*Beccause you must agree that they CAN stop spam, it's only a matter of cost.
**One perfect exemple was Yahoo France forced to cancel nazi's items auctions in FranceRe:it can't be stopped
petdance on 2002-08-22T21:56:03
First off, you can't "make spam illegal". The problem isn't the actual possession of spam, like if it were, say, child pornography. You'd have to make the sending of spam illegal.So the US can say "It's illegal in the US to send spam", and they may well do that, and the spammers will just pick up elsewhere. And the senders would be out of the jurisdiction of the US. We'd have no way to enforce it. We have no say in what happens in other countries.
I'm not kidding !
arhuman on 2002-08-22T23:15:39
You won't believe it but the automatic comment notification was spoted as spam (Yes I'm aware of whitelist;-) :
SPAM: -------------------- Start SpamAssassin results ----------------------
SPAM: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been altered
SPAM: so you can recognise or block similar unwanted mail in future.
SPAM: See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details.
SPAM:
SPAM: Content analysis details: (5.4 hits, 5 required)
SPAM: REPLY_TO_EMPTY (2.6 points) Reply-To: is empty
SPAM: NO_REAL_NAME (0.5 points) From: does not include a real name
SPAM: EXCUSE_1 (2.3 points) BODY: Gives a lame excuse about why you were sent this SPAM
SPAM:
SPAM: -------------------- End of SpamAssassin results ---------------------
petdance has posted a comment in reply to your comment.
Re:it can't be stopped
Re:it can't be stopped
arhuman on 2002-08-22T23:32:44
That's why I'm rather suggesting making 'spam forwarding/delivering' illegal...
I'm not trying to give weapons against the spammer.
I'm trying to give weapons against the ISP who don't block the traffic in the U.S.
When the ISP will be accountable for all the spam traffic they forward, they'll probably start to block it.
Spam will then disappear in the U.S. and it will then probably die slowly if all its markets become also unreachable the same way around the world...
(Where could they go to send spam if spam is no more delivered ?)
Re:it can't be stopped
petdance on 2002-08-23T00:57:24
What ISPs are you talking about?If somebody at spammer.co.jp sends me spam to petdance.com, then who are you going to prosecute? Me, at petdance.com? Nobody's doing any forwarding.
Re:it can't be stopped
arhuman on 2002-08-23T08:15:03
What ISPs are you talking about?
I'm talking about about:
- YOUR (DSL, dialup access) Internet provider.
- Hotmail, Caramail, Yahoo...
- All the open relay out there.
- The people managing all the Internet infrastructure (I may be wrong but It should be ossible to block mail traffic while routing ip packet depending on its source)
If somebody at spammer.co.jp sends me spam to petdance.com, then who are you going to prosecute?
Nobody, it's your problem/responsability:-)
Nobody's doing any forwarding.
But if your server isn't properly setup and you relay mail (there's a lot of SMTP open relay) to my server
I'd be able to sue you beccause YOU help spamming (by forwarding spam and making mail tracing more difficult)
The problem whith spam, is that even if you do your job, there will be someone at the end who doesn't,
hoping you'll handle his duty.
I'd just want everybody do it's job:
- You provide mail address, you should then also provide a way to effictivly block spam
- You run a SMTP server, respect the other, don't allow relaying
- You allow mail traffic through your router, you should ensure it's not originating from a spammer address
...
However I realize that I may miss some technical aspects,
and will gladly accept comments about what is (im)possible to flag/block spam.
Re:it can't be stopped
petdance on 2002-08-23T13:59:17
The people managing all the Internet infrastructure (I may be wrong but It should be possible to block mail traffic while routing ip packet depending on its source)I don't want anyone on the net blocking traffic for my benefit. The last thing I need is someone at, say, UU.net saying "Oh, this is a known spammer's IP address, we'll block all traffic." Why should I trust UU.net to know what's good and what's bad?
Just look at all the realtime blackhole lists for examples of babies getting thrown out with bathwater.
