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Spam United States

Still No Federal Spam Law 255

Posted by michael from the weak-and-weakerer dept.
jdedman4 writes "Declan McCullagh writes in c|net that the Congressional Republicans and Democrats are quibbling over proposed federal anti-spam legislation. The root of the disagreement is the class action, a specialized joinder rule in lawsuits which needs little or no introduction, and which is prohibited in one version of the legislation. The new anti-spam legislation in Texas, which is to take effect September 1, has a similar prohibition. (See here for an analysis of the new Texas anti-spam law.) It is certainly true that the class action joinder rule can take a relatively frivolous individual claim that an attorney would not pursue and transform it into a lucrative and dangerous claim with a potential for high recovery. However, the measure can be appropriate when large number of individuals' rights are violated by a defendant's course of conduct but the cost of vindicating those rights is too great. With spam, the latter situation seems to be the most logical, as recipients of unsolicited commercial email are harmed, but their economic damages are not severe enough to merit an individual lawsuit on their behalf. Even with relatively high statutory penalties against spammers, the cost of locating the offender and investigating its corporate structure, if any, might dissuade a plaintiff's attorney from pursuing the claim. Plus, it seems the problem with class actions in this context would be practical, not philosophical, as most spammers would be either judgment proof or out of the jurisdiction."
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Still No Federal Spam Law More

Still No Federal Spam Law

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  • It's not a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stargoat ( 658863 ) <stargoat@gmail.com> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:12AM (#6407327) Journal
    It's not a bad thing that there is no federal anti-spam law. I would rather see some thought and consideration put into this than a law that is badly written and allows spammers to get around it. Or worse, a law that allows Ashcroft and Poindexter to get even further into my computer. No, Congress, take your time and do it right.

    • Re:It's not a bad thing (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TopShelf ( 92521 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:16AM (#6407354) Homepage Journal
      Just some extra time for thought and consideration isn't enough, though. What is needed is time for the "laboratories of democracy," the states, to work through the various laws that have recently been passed, and see how they work out. Does the Texas model work better or worse than what's being done in Virginia, for example? Only time and a few high-profile cases will tell, and we should wait until then before enacting something at the federal level...

      • Re:It's not a bad thing (Score:5, Interesting)

        by missing000 ( 602285 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:39AM (#6407505)
        The truth is that none of them work well.

        Laws against spammers just makes the problem more complicated. Sure, it looks like you are doing something. Maybe you even collect a few settlements.
        But the people making spam just change their methods. Maybe they start hijacking machines overseas, or using Trojans to spam from others machines.

        The spam problem is huge no doubt, but the answer is not some silly anti-spam law.

        The answer is a technical one. The systems we use for email were designed without any regard for trust. We live in a different world today.

        Don't invest your time in trying to get laws passed to deal with a problem we ourselves created.

        Lets instead try and move to trust based systems for communication. I don't have the technical expertise to provide the systems, but a lot of people who do are working on such systems right now. Let's direct our efforts to getting those systems implemented.
        • But the people making spam just change their methods. Maybe they start hijacking machines overseas, or using Trojans to spam from others machines.

          All I have to do then is start blocking all messages from asian domains (and eventually all non-us ones if they switch to another continent to send their stuff from).

          I WANT them to start trojaning people's computers to send spam. This will (a) force clueless admins to start securing their networks better, and more importantly (b) as soon as it gets traced back

        • Re:It's not a bad thing (Score:5, Insightful)

          by schon ( 31600 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @12:32PM (#6407804)
          Maybe they start hijacking machines overseas, or using Trojans to spam from others machines.

          And the fact is they're still spamming, and would still be affected by the law.

          The answer is a technical one.

          Why, exactly? Spam is a social problem, just like any other type of fraud. Please list one social problem that had a technological solution.

          The systems we use for email were designed without any regard for trust.

          Why is this an issue? I've seen dozens of papers outlining a "spam-free" email system, and in every one of them, there are two outcomes: email becomes useless, or spamming is no more difficult than it is today.

          To use your own words, all that will happen is that the people making spam will change their methods.

          Anti-spam laws are a good start, because they send a clear message that it's unacceptable. The average computer user finds spam annoying, but doesn't do anything about it, because it's not illegal. Some stupid people even say "well, people do it, and it's not illegal, so I might as well do it too."

          • Re:It's not a bad thing (Score:4, Funny)

            by One Louder ( 595430 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @01:05PM (#6408031)
            Please list one social problem that had a technological solution.Spousal fidelity - chastity belt.

          • The answer is a technical one.

            Why, exactly? Spam is a social problem, just like any other type of fraud. Please list one social problem that had a technological solution.

            Excluding the fact that there is no clear definition to a 'social problem', your argument is still invalid. You advocate the use of laws to fix this social problem, but can you tell me one law that has ever fixed a social problem? The war on drugs is unsuccessful, and a war on spam would be no more so. Technological solutions always ar

          • You're right. The answer is not a technological solution, the answer is a contractual one. Spammers are using the property of the ISPs. They are not permitted to use that property without the permission of the ISPs. Therefore it should be the duty of the ISPs to police spam, not the duty of the government.

          • Please list one social problem that had a technological solution.

            Sure. STDs and unwanted pregnancies. Both can be fixed with proper condom technology.
          • "And the fact is they're still spamming, and would still be affected by the law."

            I think the point of the parent post is that spammers have no regard for the law anyway and by hijacking computers they can remain anonymous.

            You can't even go after the company that hires them because that company can claim that they didn't. Well, unless they're stupid enough to leave a paper trail.

            "The answer is a technical one.

            Why, exactly? Spam is a social problem, just like any other type of fraud. Please list one soci
        • If the law forbids sending spam no matter where the physical server resides, it solves one of your issues. You follow the money. Spam is selling something - a service or product. Money trails are fairly easy for the feds to follow.

          Second, the law needs to address theft of network and computer services - again no matter where the theft occurs. It's ALREADY illegal (in the US and some other countries) to break into a machine and install a trojan.

          While laws don't cover every case (foreign spammer from foreig
    • "Or worse, a law that allows Ashcroft and Poindexter to get even further into my computer."

      Please cut the FUD. Ashcroft & Co. can't get into your computer, nor do they really care to.

      With that out of the way, please explain to me how an anti-spam law would give the Justice Department permission to break into the secure (you are behind a firewall, aren't you?) computer systems of Whoever-The-Hell-They-Want-To(tm)?

      • Re:It's not a bad thing (Score:3, Interesting)

        by pyros ( 61399 )
        By following in the footsteps of the PATRIOT Act, and removing certain due process restrictions, like obtaining a warrant from a judge. Then they would be allowed to just hack in because they 'suspect' your a .
    • I think having a half-assed law would be not at all a bad thing, as long as it was too weak rather than too strong.

      If it's too strong, it does damage while it's in effect. If it's too weak, though, then things are at least a little bit better than before, no damage has been done, and the bill can always be amended later. Taking as long as needed to debate the bill is of course as you said a good and necessary thing, but for my part, I think if the bill wound up being passed without the class-action option,

  • Lets make people more aware. (Score:5, Funny)

    by danormsby ( 529805 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:13AM (#6407338) Homepage
    Can we make more people aware of these law discussions?

    Lets forward it to all our friends, and tell them they have to forward it all their friends.......

    • Re:Lets make people more aware. (Score:4, Funny)

      by bathmatt ( 638217 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:16AM (#6407355)
      Lets forward it to all our friends, and tell them they have to forward it all their friends.......

      Here is a good idea, lets get a huge mail list and send it to everyone in the world. Like some sort of mass e-mailing.

      • Here is a good idea, lets get a huge mail list and send it to everyone in the world.

        But how are we going to get all the e-mail addresses from everyone in the world? I propose we buy it from corporations willing to sell this information, and then include an "unsubscribe" button with each e-mail...we will use the responses from the people who click "unsubscribe" to determine whether an e-mail address is still active or not.

        We also need to format our e-mail in a way that will get past those people with ba

  • ...than a half-assed attempt (see DCMA, Patriot Act, etc).

  • Maybe a little cruise missle diplomacy is needed. (Score:5, Funny)

    by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:14AM (#6407344)
    We just need to connect the word "spammer" with "terrorist" a little more firmly in the Congressional mind.

    • Try this to convince them.. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by avij ( 105924 ) * on Thursday July 10, 2003 @12:37PM (#6407836) Homepage
      Oh yes. Here's an excerpt of an actual HTML mail that I received just a few seconds ago (no kidding!)

      W<!--46jq8c1th8zav-->e c<!--aj9ljc101w7w3-->an conso<!--da7zq11y1s-->lidate
      yo<!--fvuygn1ybyh0e3-->ur bi<!--fadm0927fjcz-->lls in<!--7c04qy2madz6k-->to
      ju<!--c6vh5j2rrxgn41-->s t o<!--69mmaa1pexd-->ne <br>
      mon<!--8abwm21wqapw-->thly pa<!--trnntizw6rn72-->yment
      a<!--592r8h3ym1u-->nd he<!--6lmv9k1zkj17sx-->lp achie<!--5my15e3y59yvl-->ve
      t<!--eoor4v63f2-->he foll<!--m74b39gb19df-->owing:

      When viewed with an email program that understand HTML, the above fragment is displayed as "We can consolidate your bills into just one monthly payment and help achieve the following:". However, notice the random characters inside the comments -- what if they were encrypted orders to detonate a bomb at some specific location?

      And I'm only half kidding...
    • No, what you really need to do is to trick spammers into sending snippets of music along with their messages rather than porn.

      Then we just unleash the RIAA on them and the spammers will be sued for $18,000,000,000,000.39 and all their machines will be hacked into and rendered inoperable. After all we all know that spammy pirates (not the pork-eating swashbuckling variety) are way more dangerous to the world than any sort of hate-filled terrorist or unethical bulk advertiser (that's what the **AA tells Con

  • No more spam (Score:2, Funny)

    by Geldon ( 444090 )
    No more spam? what will I eat in college?!
  • Think about it, we have laws against the following things, and they still go on:
    Murder
    Rape
    Speeding
    What makes them think that this will even make a dent in the spam load? Speeding and murder are easy to prosecute! Spamming, OTOH, is really hard!
    • Speeding, rape, and murder are commited by individuals. Spam is commited by companies.

      ~Berj
    • Perhaps as a (small) deterrent?

      Or how about this ... if you are caught spamming and they do have enough evidence they can prosecute. They won't prosecute everything and maybe they won't even prosecute a lot. But if someone is caught they have a law for it.

      Not everyone who breaks the speed limit is caught ... but I bet you hit the brakes whenever you see a cop with radar setup.
    • What makes you think the illegality of the acts you mentioned does not make a dent? If murder or robbery was not illegal but merely immoral, don't you think their rates would not increase.
      • He did say that murder and rape are easy to prosecute, while spam is not. Therefore, it is logical to make murder, speeding, and rape illegal, but making spam illegal is illogical becouse it is impossible to prosecute wothout spending an inordinate amount of money. And, if you think that spam is hurting the economy, just think how much the increase in taxes from the FBI spending billions tracking down some spammer would hurt the economy.

  • Another law (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stanmann ( 602645 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:16AM (#6407358) Journal
    Despite popular opinion, a US law will only stop domestic spam, and the weaknesses of punishing the actual company hiring the spammer have been made clear before e.g. Hiring someone to spam your competitors product.
    Why not continue working on more effective spam traps and stop legislating morality.

    • Re:Another law (Score:4, Insightful)

      by aborchers ( 471342 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:48AM (#6407553) Homepage Journal
      Despite popular opinion, a US law will only stop domestic spam


      And once that's done, blocking network traffic from countries that refuse to get spammers under control will cojoin it as an effective solution.

      Hiring someone to spam your competitors product.


      I doubt you will see much of that. If the spammers can be located, and the entire premise of a law is that they can, it would be easy to demonstrate that this was what was happening, at which point we could slap the offenders with charges appropriate to corporate espionage or anticompetitive practices as well as spamming.

      Why not continue working on more effective spam traps and stop legislating morality


      Because we cannot afford to tie the entire industry and every system administrator up in an spam vs anti-spam arms race. The fundamental problem that makes spam such an issue (cost-shifting to the receiver) is just exacerbated in this model. Not only do networks have to waste resources processing the spam, they have to purchase additional tools to defeat it? Uh-uh...

      I generally agree that morality should not be legislated, but I don't think that's what's going on here. Spam is an economic problem, not a moral one.

      • "I doubt you will see much of that. If the spammers can be located, and the entire premise of a law is that they can, it would be easy to demonstrate that this was what was happening, at which point we could slap the offenders with charges appropriate to corporate espionage or anticompetitive practices as well as spamming"

        The point is that one of the proposed laws would legislate going after the people who hire spammers, since the spammers themselves can't be located, or are located offshore where US law

  • you may say im a dreamer but im not the only one (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sirinek ( 41507 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:17AM (#6407365) Homepage Journal
    Fat chance I know, but they could model it after Germany's (or was it Denmark's) law banning companies from soliciting to you directly unless you have requested their service or purchased from them recently

    • Re:you may say im a dreamer but im not the only on (Score:4, Interesting)

      by MS ( 18681 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @12:01PM (#6407622)
      It's both. Actually it's valid for all of the European Union:
      • You are no allowed to collect personal data (including e-mail adresses) without prior written consent by the person itself
      • You are not allowed to sell personal data (e.g. CDs containig millions of adresses)
      • You are not allowed to send UCE to people you have no business relation with, or which do not have explicitly requested for it (opt-in)
      And yes, it works. There are virtually no spammers in Europe. Well, there are some who try once in a while, but at least they get sued and put out of business real fast.

      You may argue, you got a lot of spam from EU countries, but did you look at those originating IPs? It's 99% open relays/proxies, which unfortuntely cannot be eliminated by law, beeing the result of amins' ignorance/stupidity.

      Spam usually originates in the USA and is targeted to US-citizens. Europeans have no way to benefit from all these penis-enlargements, cheap viagra, breast-increasements, ...

  • Anti-spam laws and freedom (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lane.exe ( 672783 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:18AM (#6407373) Homepage
    As much as I hate to say it, I'd rather not see an anti-spam law on the books. I think it infringes too much on one of the greatest things about the Internet, which is that the 'Net is by its very nature hard to regulate. It's not owned by any one country, and it can be used by virtually anyone.

    What I would not mind seeing, however, is a system of torts that would allow users to take on spammers the same way that people get to take on telemarketers and junk mailers who do the same things. There are all sorts of scams, frauds, blackmails, etc... that come over the phone and through our postal system. Currently, US law provides for people to be able to sue up to $5,000 for teleblackmail and telefraud scams. Although this number is pitifully small, there does seem to be some interest in raising the bar a little.

    We don't need a law banning spam. It would just be circumvented somehow anyway. What we need is a weapon for the people to fight back against the spammers with, a law that allows us to take them to court for practices already illegal that they have carried over into the digital domain.

    • As much as I hate to say it, I'd rather not see an anti-spam law on the books. I think it infringes too much on one of the greatest things about the Internet, which is that the 'Net is by its very nature hard to regulate. It's not owned by any one country, and it can be used by virtually anyone.

      The hard-to-regulate thing is a problem, because the Internet supports things like news organizations, banks, and companies. The fact that people can just go DDoS a company and affect the livelihoods of the employe

    • Re:Anti-spam laws and freedom (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bfields ( 66644 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @01:15PM (#6408115) Homepage
      As much as I hate to say it, I'd rather not see an anti-spam law on the books....

      What I would not mind seeing, however, is a system of torts that would allow users to take on spammers the same way that people get to take on telemarketers and junk mailers who do the same things.

      You understand that what you propose is pretty much exactly the sort of legislation that groups such as cauce [cauce.org] have been proposing for years?

      Also, it may be just a consequence of my massive ignorance of the law, but I'm finding the distinction you make between "anti-spam law" and "a system of torts..." a bit subtle.

      --Bruce Fields

  • Wow (Score:2, Funny)

    by mao che minh ( 611166 ) *
    It simply isn't possible. A long, well written, grammatically correct and subjective story posted to Slashdot. Amazing. Frankly, that is more compelling to me than the content of the article itself.

    In any event, I find it feasible enough to write up very simple litigation concerning spam that pretty much models the anti-telemarketer bill/law/whatever. That is, make a national registry on the state level. If you sign it, you don't want spam. If someone spams you, you report it, and the people are punsihed

    • the people are punished

      By whom? Interpol? The UN?

      Would that spammers were as US-centric as Slashdot...

      • Re:Wow (Score:2, Interesting)

        by gowen ( 141411 )
        Would that spammers were as US-centric as Slashdot
        But they are. The relays getting exploited tend not to be, but Europe's largest anti-spam activists spamhaus,org [spamhaus.org] estimate that 90% of all spam hitting Europe being sent by American (mostly Florida-based) spammers. [spamhaus.org]
        • Sure, they're smart, they've all clustered in Florida cuz of the gentle tax situation there. Turn the heat up at the federal level and they'll move off-shore with the cable-box-descrambler and porn-creditcard-scrubber guys.
          • Turn the heat up at the federal level and they'll move off-shore with the cable-box-descrambler and porn-creditcard-scrubber guys.

            Virtually all these spammers want you to give them money. And credit cards are about the only viable method. Just freeze their credit card merchant accounts, which must be based in the US to remit US dollars, and you've stopped them.

  • Don't Legislate (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Alethes ( 533985 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:20AM (#6407385)
    Educate the sysadmins who are presumably inadvertently allowing spammers to use their SMTP servers. Educate the users about spam filters. The last thing we need is the incompetent government getting their grubby hands on yet another piece of technology they don't understand.

  • Spam laws suck (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:23AM (#6407400) Homepage Journal

    Spam should be protected as Freedom of Speech (Freedom of Expression in Canada). How else would I have learned about how unsatisfying I am with my small penis? Oh, let me also tell you about the great deal I got on herbal Viagra! And I'm not "seek of spam", thankyouverymuch! If people would quit bitching and actually responded to some of this informative mail they'd be MAKING MONEY FAST! In fact my contact in Nigeria, DR. FRED MBOGO assures me that I'll have millions more in just a few days as I sent my banking details to him!

    Laugh away, cretins, spam made me what I am today!

  • Give me a break... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by avalys ( 221114 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:24AM (#6407403)
    People complain about government intruding in our lives, restricting what we do, not protecting our rights when the RIAA attacks, but that all goes away the minute the same stuff happens to people you don't like.

    Spam is a problem that should be taken care of by the free market, not government. Just because it's easier to pass a law than deal with the actual issues doesn't mean that's the better choice.
    • Spam is a problem that should be taken care of by the free market, not government.

      What is this mythical "free market" beast, and why is it so often a miraculous panacea? Spam is a consequence of having a free market. It is a form of advertising where the tarket market (not the advertiser) bears the majority of the costs, such that virtually any response rate above zero represents a positive return on investment.

      The "free market" does not exist--virtually all commerce is regulated in some way or anothe

      • I pay for spam: indirectly through my ISP's fees

        Are you implying that none of your upstream ISPs have spammers as their downstream customers?

        You pay indirectly for the ads which are sent to you on television, as well, through higher product costs. Should we ban that too?

        Hint to advertisers: your First Amendment would not be abridged. Rent a billboard. Buy a newspaper ad. Set up a website.

        Just because there are alternative methods of communication doesn't mean that your First Amendment rights aren't

        • I pay for spam: indirectly through my ISP's fees

          Are you implying that none of your upstream ISPs have spammers as their downstream customers?

          No, but that isn't exactly on point. Unless those spammers send their mail only to subcribers of the same ISP, then they (the spammers) are deciding that other ISPs--without the express permission of those ISPs--should bear part of their mass mailing costs.

          You pay indirectly for the ads which are sent to you on television, as well, through higher product costs

          • No, but that isn't exactly on point. Unless those spammers send their mail only to subcribers of the same ISP, then they (the spammers) are deciding that other ISPs--without the express permission of those ISPs--should bear part of their mass mailing costs.

            The express permission is provided in the ISPs peering agreement.

            You pay indirectly for the ads which are sent to you on television, as well, through higher product costs. Should we ban that too?

            That's a false analogy.

            It wasn't an analogy, it was

    • Re:Give me a break... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by frankie ( 91710 )
      Except that:
      1. spammers are using a public resource, created and paid for in large part by the US Government.
      2. this is about protecting rights. Your right to spam ends the moment you infringe my network (aka property rights) to do it.
      3. the free market might be able to mitigate the problem (by selling email filtering tools) but it is deeply unlikely to solve the problem (aka new email protocols).

      • spammers are using a public resource, created and paid for in large part by the US Government.

        The internet is a private resource, not a public one.

        this is about protecting rights. Your right to spam ends the moment you infringe my network (aka property rights) to do it.

        Your property rights are not being infringed. How are you saying they are? Am I infringing your property rights by sending this reply? Am I infringing Slashdot's property rights?

        the free market might be able to mitigate the proble

  • The Key (Score:3, Interesting)

    by somethinghollow ( 530478 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:25AM (#6407408) Homepage Journal
    I think the key is "out of the jurisdiction". How much spam do you get from US IPs? When I was actually attempting to figure out where my spam came from, it went back to chello.nl and their sister domains. If it really is a domain that is out of the US, US law can't really do much about it. Luckily, within the US, major ISPs don't allow spam and have methods to prevent it (earthlink makes you send outgoing mail through it's servers, for example, so it can monitor for potential spamers accounts).

    I think, perhaps, the best way to get rid of spam is to find out what ISP has the account that the spam is being sent from, then tell them how much you hate that they let that happen (one letter for every spam may add up). Maybe one day they will take precautions to prevent spam if consumer demand really means anything any more (and, yes, I think there are more people that dislike getting spam than people that want to send it).

  • No, No, No !!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Crusty Oldman ( 249835 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:26AM (#6407410)
    .
    We don't WANT the government to get involved with the internet, EVER!

    Do you really want to hand over all that power? Do you want TONS of crappy legislation? Do you want to conform to guidelines and regulations for all of your messages? Do you want the NET POLICE monitoring your communications and writing citations? Do you want a "War on Spam" that does nothing other than to suck up billions of dollars?

    NO. Keep the Feds out of it! Stupid idea!!!

    • Re:No, No, No !!! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by adamruck ( 638131 )
      I wish I had mod points for you... Mod this person up

      I completely agree... I dont want government involved in internet at all. Lets say that the US makes some legislation --and actually enforces spam laws-- what the hell prevents someone from across the world from still doing the same old thing?

      The ONLY thing that will stop spam is a better protocol for email.

    • We don't WANT the government to get involved with the internet, EVER!

      Yeah, we wouldn't want the "gubmint" to do anything stupid and wasteful, like pay for the internet to be created [zakon.org] and then pay for the internet to be publically available [google.com].

      If it were up to pseudo-libertarians like you, the internet today would be like AOL circa 1985 -- a balkanized mess of incompatible corporate-owned protocols. Governmental standards bodies are probably the most effective way to manage shared communications resour

  • Anti-Spam laws (Score:2, Interesting)

    by StaceyRey ( 687641 )

    If nothing else, I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of ruling against header spoofing and taking over others' server bandwidth. Spammers have been going to great lengths to keep themselves anonymous and to steal bandwidth.

    There's a move afoot to have telemarketers reveal their identities on caller-ID systems, so why can't there be a similar restriction regarding email headers? And, regarding stolen bandwidth and server space...stealing is stealing and should be pursued as such. If they have their own server

    • "If nothing else, I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of ruling against header spoofing and taking over others' server bandwidth. Spammers have been going to great lengths to keep themselves anonymous and to steal bandwidth."

      I agree violently with this. I use my real name in my email address, and won't likely ever change that. "I" have no reason to lie to anybody about who I am. /. wanted a "handle", so thats what they got.

      Now, if it were legislated that the return address of a piece of spam must be to the
  • You'd think that with all of the pork that is usually attached to legislation that taking care of Spam wouldn't be such a stretch.

  • Will it help? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by paranode ( 671698 )
    Laws probably won't do much good when the spammers are using hacked machines to send out their trash. This means that John Q. Neverpatches is going to be in a lot of trouble if this law gets written incorrectly!

    • Re:Will it help? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by andreMA ( 643885 )

      This means that John Q. Neverpatches is going to be in a lot of trouble if this law gets written incorrectly!

      You say that as if it's a bad thing. I'd like to see moderate fines imposed on those people who - for example - still have unpatched IIS and still attempt to spread Code Red. Ditto for those who run an open mail relay.

      Not a complete solution by any means, but it would help. Call it "maintaining an attractive nuisance" and we might not even need new laws.

  • Simpsons and Congress (Score:3, Funny)

    by White Roses ( 211207 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:33AM (#6407460)
    Kent: With our utter annihilation imminent, our federal
    government has snapped into action. We go live now via
    satellite to the floor of the United States congress.
    Speaker: Then it is unanimous, we are going to approve the bill to
    evacuate the town of Springfield in the great state of --
    Congressman: Wait a minute, I want to tack on a rider to that bill: $30
    million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.
    Speaker: All in favor of the amended Springfield-slash-pervert bill?
    [everyone boos]
    Speaker: Bill defeated. [bangs gavel]
    Kent: I've said it before and I'll say it again: democracy simply
    doesn't work.
  • Making laws is equivalent to programming for an open environment, or to an attempt to make a rainforest a better place. Ridiculous on the face of it.

    There are technological and social ways to handle SPAM. Pressure on the ISPs that produce it, lawsuits against spammers for damages (MS/Gates is pioneering here). These use mechanisms from age-old systems of justice. Their embodiment in modern law has probably decreased their effectiveness.

    Lew

  • Opt out...defeating the purpose? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GillBates0 ( 664202 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:38AM (#6407494) Homepage Journal
    In a floor statement last month, he suggested the creation of "an 'opt-in' system, whereby bulk commercial e-mail may only be sent to individuals and businesses who have invited or consented to it."
    Burr, champion of the RID Spam Act, dismissed the idea Wednesday as thwarting legitimate transactions. "We'd like to get the discount hotel offers," Burr said.

    I have nothing against getting discount hotel offers too, as long as they are sent by travel companies which I have signed up with. Companies like Hotwire, Travelocity, and even Airline companies like Delta provide an option to select receiving special travel deals, etc. I don't mind getting routine weekly updates about their webfares, etc...because I created an online account with them. So as such, as business agreement does exist between me and the company. Such mails, according to me, don't even fall into the unsolicited category.

    What I do not want is unsolicited mails from companies or faked email ids when I never signed up for any of their services. An optin option would prove to be most effective in countering unsolicited mails, since the optout option defeats the very purpose by requiring to initiate spam before it can be prevented. Doesn't make much sense to me, but ofcourse the companies would love optout.

  • Who needs more laws? We know our Math! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Pac ( 9516 ) <paulo...candido@@@gmail...com> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:39AM (#6407498)
    After migrating to Mozilla Mail from Eudora and seeing its simple bayesian filter solve my spam problem in a week, I became a firm believer that we can solve this problem without laws, politicians, police or any other bureocracy. All we need is Math and a campaign for filter deployment akin to the innoculation campaigns that erradicated smallpox and polio.

    I think that when most of the userbase has trainned filters installed, the spam problem will disappear into irrelevance. The half-a-dozen renitent spammers that will suffer the pains of creating the bland texts capable of fooling the filters can then be blacklisted. Even the Usenet can be retaken this way. And the beauty of it is that each person will have its own set of filters, trainned locally and directed at what that person considers spam.

    If you think about it, even the shaddy and inneficient centralized web filters can be thrown away and replaced by this kind of filter, allowing each school and each library to filter only the content its local community considers harmful.

    I don't know about the rest of you, but if this dream/wish happens, we (as in "we the people who care about it") will once again have a reason to be very proud, having proved this network is capable of taking care of itself like no previous human technical work could.

    • A lot of people suggest filtering, but it is not a complete solution.

      If you are using your Internet connection for a variety of purposes, then some of that bandwidth is tied up by spammers. Even if your filters are perfect, you are still losing that bandwidth.

      For individuals the BW loss may not be significant, but on a large corporate scale it could very well be. We need solutions that prevent the spam from getting sent in the first place.

      (And no, laws won't work.)
      • Certainly not a bad point--but I'm a pretty firm believer that long term, this would take care of itself. The Bayesian filters are extremely effective--like 98% or better. If everyone uses them--sure, for awhile it will still waste all the bandwidth but the response rates that are currently high enough to justify it will be so low no company would pay the money to spam and the bandwidth issue will go away. At least that's what I hope will happen. I just think that this approach will be more effective th

  • It seems that they all want spam (Score:5, Insightful)

    by derF024 ( 36585 ) * on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:41AM (#6407511) Homepage Journal
    Joe Rubin, director of public and congressional affairs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, disagreed. "I wouldn't be upset to see a cheap airfare e-mailed to me," he said. "If Sears sends me an e-mail regarding a discount on a lube job at Sears, that's something that most consumers probably won't be upset about."

    Who the hell are they kidding? I don't want to hear about cheap airfare or a discount lube job, first because I don't need either of these things (Does anyone randomly decide to go on a trip just because they get a cheap rate on airfare? If you've got 2,500 miles before you need another oil change, would you bring your car into sears now anyway just because it's 30% off? No!) and also because I don't want Sears, Delta or Congress deciding what I'm interested in hearing about at any given time. If I'm interested in a cheap oil change, I'll look for one. If I'm interested in low-cost airfare, I'll look for it. And if I really want them to send me these offers in the mail 15 times an hour, I'll sign up for such a service.

    I can't believe that these congressmen don't feel the same way as 99.9999999999999999% of the american public do about this. Maybe it's because they've been living under a rock for their entire term and they don't know that the rest of the country is under attack from these marketing monkeys. The fact that both proposed legislations allow opt-out mailings is insane. The fact that some idiot decides that there are 100,000 viagra buyers using email addresses under my 1 user domain, and so he's going to cost me lots of money sending gigabytes of mail traffic to them every day, but because he's piping his mail through thousands of open proxies I can't do a damn thing about it is insane. If I were to dump several tons of garbage in his living room every day, he'd call the cops and I'd be arrested.

    • I can't believe that these congressmen don't feel the same way as 99.9999999999999999% of the american public do about this. Maybe it's because they've been living under a rock for their entire term and they don't know that the rest of the country is under attack from these marketing monkeys.

      It's probably because, as Congressmen, they have interns reading their e-mail for them..

  • What about accidental e-mails? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Eric_Cartman_South_P ( 594330 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:42AM (#6407515)
    Much like dialing a wrong number, what if I meant to send an e-mail to a customer about a new product to JOHNSMITH@SOMETHING.COM and I mistakenly send just the one e-mail to JOHNSMITT@SOMETHING.COM

    Am I now going to be fined thousands of dollars because of ONE wrong e-mail?

    • Am I now going to be fined thousands of dollars because of ONE wrong e-mail?

      If you say your name is "Cheap Viagra Now", your email address is "clinton@whitehouse.gov", and you send your email through some AOL users' machine that you planted a Trojan horse on, yes.

      Jay (=
    • Hmm... That reminds me another bad example: I subscribe for a commercial mail-list (product updates, corporate news or something) on your web site and put my address wrong. I guess you'll pay for it.

      That's why I keep saying: From/To RFC822 fields are not enough. We need PKI and we have to sign our email messages with a recognizable key to make messages TRACEABLE. Then and only then some law can be applied.

  • Class action? I can see it now... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Zapman ( 2662 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:42AM (#6407517)
    Subject: You have been selected...

    You have been selected as a recipient of spam. Go to this website to collect your damages. Make money fast.

  • Spam Fam Bo Bam, Bananan Fo Kam (Score:3, Interesting)

    by August_zero ( 654282 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @11:59AM (#6407610)
    The Spam Lobby has spoken. Now that this has been in the headlines for a few weeks, the spam community has gotten it's act together and is gumming up the works.

    I fear that in the end, not much is going to change.

    What is with all this "opt-out" crap anyway, what it needs to be is an "Opt-in" list. It should be assumed by default that consumers do not want spam. If they want to receive exciting information about a penis enlarger that gives you a larger bust size and a fixed 2.8% intrest rate they could send an e-mail to the spammer giving them permission to mail to them.

    A salesman can not enter your home without your permission, why should I be forced to endure advertising that I am not interested in?

  • What is this, 1997? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by skookum ( 598945 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @12:23PM (#6407741)
    I am truly shocked at the level of clulessness that lawmakers show with regard to spam. Or maybe it's not so much cluelessness, but rather shrewd cunning in being able to pass what amount to pro-spam bills under the guise of anti-spam measures.

    First of all, the "opt-in" vs "opt-out" debate was cute and everything in 1997 when we didn't get more than a handful of spam, but it's embarrassing that anyone is seriously maintaining that there's a need for debate on this issue. Opt-out roughly translates to "anyone can spam the living hell out of you and get off scott-free." The notion that it should be OK to send ANYTHING unsolicited, regardless of its advertised removal procedure is simply ridiculous. Imagine if just a fraction of every business (in the US alone) that wanted your attention sent you an email [clifto.com] - email would instantly become useless. But on top of that, rule 1 of spammers is that spammers lie, and hence the burden of trust must NOT be on the end user to trust that the spammer will do what they're supposed to with those removal requests. Sure he'll remove you, from list 12499-B, but add you to lists 12499-C through -Q. Hey, it's a "functioning opt-out procedure", whaddya whining about? Only someone that is either clueless or is backed by advertising money [opensecrets.org] would advocate something as idiotic as "opt out" as federal policy.

    Next is the notion that it's okay as long as you put some token in the subject or promise not to fake headers. Here's where I make some bad joke that ends with "...and which one picks up the $100 bill first? The man-hating dyke, because Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Spammers That Give A Shit About Not Forging Headers are all FIGMENTS OF YOUR IMAGINATION." But seriously, this [Adv] subject line stuff is a joke. First of all, it's a bad way to filter spam because you have to accept the entire message in the DATA section before you can reject it, as opposed to rejecting it based on blacklists or other details of the "RCPT TO " phase. In other words it still costs your mail server bandwidth, time, and space. Additionally, this whole "put a tag so we can block it" makes the implicit statement that EVERYONE wants to block this unsolicited swill... which pretty much means that no marketer that wants to play by the rules is ever going to spend the time, effort, or money to send out email that's been self-immolated in such a way, and no spammer is going to give two shits about what he is or isn't supposed to be doing, otherise he wouldn't be a spammer. Therefore, adding "[Adv]" is a completely worthless idea, a conclusion that most clueful people made, about, oh, 5 years ago.

    On top of that, I would really like to see any of these US lawmakers do something about the anonymous proxies strewn about Korea, China, Argentina, Brazil, Nigeria, and a handfull of other third world places. "Forcing" spammers to not forge headers is like "forcing" a mugger not to stick a knife in your gut and rob you when you stroll down a dark back-alley street with a huge wad of cash bulging out of your pocket.

    What other inane things have congress-critters proposed? A national do-not-email list? Oh that's rich. Did the idea that it could be abused ever once cross their mind? Don't even get me started on this "prior business relationship" loophole either. It's not so much a loophole as a gigantic gaping gash. They've been playing that game for years already: "At some point in time you visited some web site of some affiliate of ours, and therefore this is a previous business relationship." Uh-huh. Riiiight.

    Here's the point of this rant. I'm glad they can at least recognise the need for action but their attempts to do anything about it are so pathetically awful that I'm GLAD no such laws have passed. In my opinion, the best way to effectively combat spam is to force ISPs to enforce their own AUP's/TOS's. Spammers pay good money for so-called
  • It is certainly true that the class action joinder rule can take a relatively frivolous individual claim that an attorney would not pursue and transform it into a lucrative and dangerous claim with a potential for high recovery.

    Not allowing class action lawsuits are not going to stop frivolous lawsuits. Most of the frivolous lawsuits and appeals that waste the courts time, such as the patents suits, the RIAA suits, SLAPP suites, among many others, are filed by firms who wish to use the court system to


  • Instead of sending individual messages to lots of peole, spammers will send one message that has a huge audience. The will also sucker you into reading somthing by making it interesting - MAKE MONEY FAST www.monetfast2002.org!

  • You're totally missing the point, which is probably what the Democrats and Republicans want. The issue isn't how spammer should be sued. Sheesh, is anybody ever going to really collect money from a spammer in Korea? Or from one who works out of a mobile home soemwhere in Arkansas?

    The anti-spam legislation should aim to prevent spam. Is that too controversial? Unfortunately, lawsuits, no matter how structured, are only a disincentive for people who have money. But I don't get offensive sexually orient
  • Anybody who spams in Texas may be shot under the "he needed killin'" clause.
  • I simply want a way
    • to correctly identify spammers
    • to make them pay for the damage they do
    • to be compensated for the hassles they cause me and everyone else
    • to take away the financial advantage of spamming
    • to make an impression on them, preferably with some sort of heavy object
    I had advocated spammer licensing in the past, complete with bright orange eartags. I'd probably even volunteer to work as a tagger.

    ;)

  • is my ISP going to "protect" me from evil spammers by pre-filtering my email for me?

    I use RoadRunner in Texas and they filter my email now for viruses. They say it's for my own good and the common good of the RR community.

    I get several messages a day from RR trumpting the fact that I was protected from an evil virus and that the offending attachment was deleted.

    Whoopty-doo.. I use Linux. I don't need a baby sitter or a Big Brother to protect me from the big, scary world out there. I can do it myself,
  • I don't really wan't my 0.7 cents back, I just want to make spamming expensive.
    Instead of a class action, how about a class punishment?
    I.e. Allow laywers to sue for reasonable fees,
    plus 5% of the punitive damage award that is paid to the the general fund.

    I'm sure congress would get behind that.

    -- this is not a .sig
  • This is part of the Texas anti-spam bill that was linked in the original post. It seems to state that if you bring action against a spammer, but fail to notify the state Attorney General via certified mail of your suit, you yourself will be liable for $200 in damages for each violation.

    That could make trying to recover damages from several spammers a pretty expensive proposition. I wonder how many people who haven't read the law will be sucked into this? Rest assured, the spammers will be on the lookout
  • Hey, let's everyone kill the internet with regulation! Let's make bandwith more expensive because ISPs are getting hounded by lawyers. Let's get rid of some of the freedom of speech and the ability to communicate without borders and lawsuits.

    Antispam laws are a waste of time. They won't stop spam, and at the end of the day, they will succeed in:

    Making the internet more expensive

    -and-

    Making the internet less usefull for communication.

  • It's much, much worse for Spam victims then most state laws. In particular, it's all opt-out, which means in practice that spammers can simply setup shell corp. after shell corp. and Spam the fuck out of you.

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