Cornucopia of Spam

Eric Savage writes "The IETF, through IRTF, has formed an Anti-Spam Research Group. If there is any hope for a technical solution the problem, it appears the first significant step has been taken. More info here in itworld and here in ComputerWorld." Three more exciting spam related posts inside, including news from the Nevada legislature regarding spam, Arkansas dislike of the meaty email and "when students go bad"

torklugnutz writes "The NV state assembly just voted 41-0 in favor of a bill which allows spam recipients to collect up to $500 per piece of spam. The new law also requires ADV to be added to the subject line so that recipients can more easilly identify unwanted ads. In addition, spoofing of sender's email address or having an invalid return address is made illegal. The old law imposed a $10 fine on spammers, but required prosecuters to collect it. This law will, more than likely, increase my chances of reading the spam I get so that I can try to cash in. So, maybe I CAN make an incredible amount of money from this "Amazing Offer""

And in Arkansas: A.G. Russell writes "With House Bill 1008, Subtitled "Unsolicited Commercial and Sexually Explicit Electronic Mail Fair Practices Act." Arkansas looks to join other states that have criminal and cival legislation in place to deal with spam. Can we help them craft this?"

And from academia: mansemat writes "Seems spammers are using a new tactic these days by paying students to send spam over univeristy networks. This particular student will be disciplined by losing his computing privileges, and being educated on the policy he violated. One can only hope the education includes being subscribed to every pr0n, male enhancement, mortage, etc. spam on the planet." Should have booted the miscreant.

Arkansas emphatic

[ratbag]

Arkansas obviously believe that if you

• underline something it MUST be obeyed

Pay me for spam?

[Nevrar]

While I would definitely be keen on being paid $500 per "Enlarge your member" emails received, I somehow doubt the effectiveness of legislation to stop spam...

$500 a piece?

[gmuslera]

Space tourism will have a boom after this gets approved... what else will all do with so much money?

Instead of all this,

[Omkar]

I recommend spammers be designated cyberterrorists. For spammers in uncooperative totalitarian countries, replies with randomly generated subversive messages should be mandated by law.

Hopefully...

[Wino]

Hopefully this will also cover unwanted spam i receive from my friends and family, which is usually just some adversisement for an online card company, Democratic national committee, or Republican national committee.

Or maybe not. If its between the government or the individual to regulate the type or format of email, I won't be choosing the government any time soon.

I can see the e-mails now

[snitty]

IMPORTANT! READ NOW!

Please sign this bill from your state assembly! I did it and I got my wish! If you don't want to get this e-mail from the state anymore click the sucker link at the bottom!

Re:What's the point?

[gmuslera]

I once managed to track a spammer to a town about 2 hours drive from where I live. If I had been able to collect $500 out of my efforts, it is something that I would do more often...

A better thing would be having a 00Spammed number, a license to kill spammers. This also will make "economically" inviable to be an spammer.

Can you say work ethic?

[Joe the Lesser]

The ASRG meetings will be held 2-3 times a year generally concurrent with IETF meetings and possibly concurrent with other conferences

Way to get on the ball with those 3 meetings... a year...

Re:What is the best software techinical solution n

[kien]

If you're on an earthlink account, you should be using spaminator [earthlink.net].

I've been pretty much spam-free since I activated it for my account. Good luck!

--K.

Loophole alert

[paiute]

Political speech is exempted. Advertising of the "call X and tell him that you are against his position on Y" is protected free speech. So expect emails of the sort: "Call Senator McGuffy and tell him that his penis can be enlarged in only three weeks!"

Re:Techinical solution

[frankie]

Think of spammers like an infection. How does your body deal with it?

An interesting proposal. Spews and SBL are probably Leukocytes [redcross.org]. SpamCop users might be APCs [myimmune.com]. But I don't see any Macrophages [supercolostrum.com] in our virtual immune system. That must be why spam is so rampant -- we need activists to go eat the spammers! Volunteers, anyone?

Re:Techinical solution

[Raul654]

Well when your in the buisness of morgaging out Lolitas for the purposes of rape enlargement, I should think it would

I wholeheartedly agree

[Raul654]

On a cold winter night, there's nothing that tastes better than a nice, juicy spammer. Tastes like chicken, only a little gamier

Re:What's the point?

[Jay L]

What do you do when the apparent beneficiary of the spam claims they were joe-jobbed?

If only the courts relied on humans to make judgment calls about who's telling the truth, rather than using a strictly algorithmic, deterministic parser that would be fooled by a joe job!

Oh, wait.

Re:It'll never work...

[pclminion]

Also, what's stopping a Texan from spamming people in Arkansas? You can't enforce Arkansas laws in Texas. It doesn't work that way.

Maybe you can't enforce Arkansas law in Texas, but the Texans can sure enforce their law in Arkansas. All it takes is a shotgun and a pickup truck.