Spam, Milord

Your daily dose of spam... rjwoodhead writes "Hansard, the official journal of the UK parliament, reports on a recent discussion of spam in the House of Lords which not only mentions Monty Python, but reads like one of their skits." A New York spammer has been arrested. One account isn't scientifically representative, but it's a grim picture when you're showing a spam-doubling every 42 days. And an article in New Scientist suggests solving a puzzle, which is essentially the same idea as hash cash.

These spam laws are a waste of time

[w.p.richardson]

So one spammer gets arrested. So what? It's just red meat for the rabid anti-spammers, but nothing will come of it. You know, it's not legal to spam faxes either, but guess what... my office fax is loaded with crap every day!

Why waste time with legislation? A more permanent solution would focus on the technical - e.g., changing the protocol to forbid spam, etc.

Re:Puzzles = Waste of CPU cycles?

[mblase]

Instead of doing some random puzzle, why not kill two birds with one stone and have machines that want to send email or have access to other services do a small work unit for folding@home or something.

The idea is to authorize the querying computer by giving them a problem to solve for which the answer is already known. Something like Folding@home involves puzzles for which the answers aren't yet known, so if the querying computer avoided solving it and just sent back a garbage solution the host machine wouldn't know the difference.

My Lords, ...

[btakita]

I wonder how much time they would save if they did not say "My Lords" and talk in third person all the time.

The Best Solution EVER

[ajuda]

Instead of making the sender solve some weird problem, make him encrypt the message with your PGP public key. Then the sender only accepts messages that are encrypted, and junks everything else. Not only will spam be cut down to almost nothing (PGP encryption takes a bit of time), but you will now have some privacy too!

Mod Parent of Parent UP

[(54)T-Dub]

Oh right, and the war on drugs has been such a success?

Besides the parent has a good point. The answer is not through legislation. What is to stop people from hosting their spam sites off shores [sealandgov.com] where they are protected from the laws. Kind of like the 809 Phone Call Scam [boycottwatch.org].

Are Pseudonyms == Hiding Identity?

[GrokvL]

Are pseudonyms equivalent to hiding our true identity, and criminal under New York law?

House of Lords

[Shadow Wrought]

While visiting England many a year ago I had the distinct privilege to watch a debate from the "Strangers Gallery" (gotta love English names) about public noise laws. It was great the way they all insulted and belittled one another in pompous and correct language. Most of my anti-PC attitude came from listening to that session. What they said was perfectly polite and respectful. How they said it is where the fun took place!

Re:Monty's House of Lords

[meringuoid]

The HoL discussions are pretty odd from an American standpoint (Hey! It's rude to interrupt! So quit it with your booing and hissing and here-hereing!), but at least most of the house is present during the debates.

My bet is that the Lords are scared. They know perfectly well that Blair has an immense Commons majority and therefore could make mincemeat of them at a whim. He's already given them something of a bloody nose with the fairly limited reforms he's had so far. They face a near-absolute power that doesn't particularly like them.

How, then, can they save themselves? How can they stop Blair deciding to kick the whole lot of them out and install an elected or appointed second house? Answer: by appearing useful. If the Lords develop a reputation for being honest, for always turning up for debates, for standing up for the people rather than the corporations or the Americans once in a while... then Blair won't touch them, because that would be a disaster for him.

Personally, I think the Lords _should_ go, and be replaced with a proportionally-elected house, to complement the first-past-the-post Commons. But they're not all that bad as it is. That Hansard article was comedy gold :-)

Re:These spam laws are a waste of time

[bugnuts]

Why waste time with legislation? A more permanent solution would focus on the technical - e.g., changing the protocol to forbid
spam, etc.

You get very few unsolicited faxes a day. Almost certainly, you have or had a business relationship with the fax-spammers, which means it's not truly unsolicited. You should fax them back (on the required number listed on the fax) and tell them to stop. No number listed? That's illegal, too!

Without the legislation, you and others would be receiving literally TONS of fax spam a month (yes, you can measure the mass when using faxes :). The problem is the same with email spam: the recipient bears the cost of receipt. If we consider the anti-fax-spam law to be a good one, it should simply be extended to the email age due to the close similarities. Spammers have been successfully sued based on the fax laws.

The anti-fax-spam laws are absolutely NOT a waste of time. You don't know what you're talking about.

Re:Earthlink Abuse Department Rejoices

[parlyboy]

Great. You've just posted their real names on Slashdot. Just how hard do you think it is for vengeful spammers to connect those names to email addresses?

Re:The best parts

[ctid]

Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, can the Minister think of a name for the enormous amount of unsolicited ordinary mail we receive?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, when I have a moment I shall bend my mind to that question.

Definitely sarcasm.

It's not really sarcasm, as we understand it here in the UK. It's a polite attempt at urbane humour in the context of a debate most Lords would find rather perplexing, just as Lord Mackie's "request" was.

Re:Techincal Lords...

[pldms]

I am kinda left with images of 70+ year old men sitting looking baffled in a half empty house of commons, prodding their neighbours and discussing under hushed voices what tinned meat has to do with these darn fangled computer contraptions.

Aside from the fact that they wouldn't be looking at a half empty house of commons (they sit in the house of lords) you've pretty much got it.

The Lords, though often befuddled and (let's be honest) asleep, do have some very bright people and have prevented some of the worst excesses of the commons throughout the years.

Not really a "spammer" prosecution.

[Eric Damron]

"EarthLink VP of law and public policy Dave Baker applauded the decision by the N.Y. attorney general's office to arrest Carmack. "Howard Carmack's arrest demonstrates that spamming has both civil and criminal consequences. Simply put, spammers who brazenly disregard the law will wind up in jail," Baker said in a statement."

Ummmm.. Although he is a spammer, I think the fact that he stole people's credit cards and identities may be the real motivation for the prosecution.

Re:Not arrested for spamming

[Chris Burkhardt]

Ah, but they got Capone for tax evasion. At least he isn't sending spam anymore, regardless of what he is charged with.