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Spam

Direct Marketers Association Asks To Be Regulated 334

Posted by CowboyNeal from the promising-to-play-nice dept.
alanjstr writes "Recognizing that with all the spam out there, the legitimate messages don't get through, the Direct Marketers Association (DMA) has decided that they will no longer oppose federal anti-spam legislation, but that forged headers should be illegal."
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Direct Marketers Association Asks To Be Regulated More

Direct Marketers Association Asks To Be Regulated

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  • And in further news (Score:5, Funny)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:12AM (#4519334)
    Hell has just frozen over.

    • Re:And in further news (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rgmoore ( 133276 ) <glandauer@charter.net> on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:21AM (#4519386) Homepage

      Not really. They just want a law that will shut down all of the small time spamvertizers so that the big boys will have the market all to themselves. They want the new Federal law, which would only forbid sending mail with forged headers but not other noxious practices like opt-out only lists- to superceed stronger state laws. IOW, they want a Federal law that specifically legalizes spam with a few trivial limitations. Don't think that this will result in you receiving any less spam.

      • They want the new Federal law, which would only forbid sending mail with forged headers but not other noxious practices like opt-out only lists- to superceed stronger state laws.

        It is still a positive step... Without forged headers it is much easier to know who to boycott.

      • Re:And in further news (Score:3, Informative)

        by dameron ( 307970 )
        They want the new Federal law, which would only forbid sending mail with forged headers but not other noxious practices like opt-out only lists- to superceed strong state laws.


        State laws could remain stronger. Federal law would only trump state law if for some reason the state law was more lenient than the federal. The CA medical marijuana case is a prime example of a state attempting to create a law that effectively legalizes activities federal law prohibits. Likewise states often enact laws that are more "severe", for lack of a better word, than their federal counterparts. Again drugs are a good example. Someone accused of, say, cocaine possession or distribution would likely do better in federal court than in many state jurisdictions. See Clinton, Roger, who served less than two years for a crime often netting 20 plus years in the crusader Arkansas state courts of the 1980s.

        But I'm not a lawyer so your mileage may vary...

        -dameron

        • if you actually read the article you'd have realized that one of the conditions for the DMA to support anti-spam legislation is that it would have overturn the regulations in 20 states. so basically they want "no forged headers" to be the extent of all the anti-spam laws in the country, which will make somewhat of an impact, say maybe 50 instead of 100 pieces of junkmail a day.

          • Re:And in further news (Score:3, Informative)

            by dameron ( 307970 )
            It can "overturn" as many regulations as it wants, and states like Washington can continue to pass tougher anti-spam laws and these state laws will apply.

            Example: prohibition revoked, booze becomes legal at the federal level ---> many counties in the south pass laws forbidding alcohol (dry counties). We could very easily have "wet" spam states and "dry" spam states.

            Plus I wasn't talking about the article at all, but responding to the previous poster, who I quoted directly.

            -dameron
            • It can "overturn" as many regulations as it wants, and states like Washington can continue to pass tougher anti-spam laws and these state laws will apply.

              Well according to the Renquist court states rights mean that States have the right to opt out of federal regulations whenever they choose but not to impose regulations of their own that are tougher than federal regulations.

              The Bush administration are currently challenging the right of California to regulate vehicle emissions despite the fact that the federal act explicitly allows California (but no other state) the right to regulate emissions. This is over California's intention to regulate SUVs as cars rather than light trucks. So a Ford excurion won't be exempt from gas guzzler tax just because it weighs over 6000 lbs.

              So yes you might have a point about states rights in theory but in practice judicial perogative would allow the SPAMers to trump state laws if they can persuade the reptiles in Congress to give them a green light.

              The nightmare for the DMA here is that if Congress ever does something about SPAM they are quite likely to regulate DMA spam as well, like making do not call lists compulsory.

              Targetting SPAM practices like fake headers makes a much more sensible strategy for DMA in this instance than attempting an NRA like 'absolutely no compromise at any cost'. Particularly since their members compete with SPAM.

        • Re:And in further news (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Ioldanach ( 88584 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @08:44AM (#4521065)
          They want the new Federal law, which would only forbid sending mail with forged headers but not other noxious practices like opt-out only lists- to superceed strong state laws.

          State laws could remain stronger. Federal law would only trump state law if for some reason the state law was more lenient than the federal. The CA medical marijuana case is a prime example of a state attempting to create a law that effectively legalizes activities federal law prohibits. Likewise states often enact laws that are more "severe", for lack of a better word, than their federal counterparts. Again drugs are a good example. Someone accused of, say, cocaine possession or distribution would likely do better in federal court than in many state jurisdictions. See Clinton, Roger, who served less than two years for a crime often netting 20 plus years in the crusader Arkansas state courts of the 1980s.

          But I'm not a lawyer so your mileage may vary...

          I have put "effectively" above in bold, because that's really the crux of the issue. The law legalising medical marijuana in California is not an effective one, because the federal government still cracks down on the medical marijuana industry. People believe that they now have the right to grow quantities of marijuana to sell to the authorised sellers, and they regularly get raided and arrested on federal charges [indymedia.org], and have property seized [sfgate.com]. Thus, I'd argue that the law is hardly "effective" at this time, since the federal government needs to alter its regulations as well to allow state governments to make the choice about what drugs are acceptable.

    • DMA: "Oh, spank us!! Spank us!! We've been ever so naughty!"

      - Michael
    • And in further news ... Hell has just frozen over.

      And Iraq has asked for weapons inspectors to return. One shouldn't take these things at face value. It's a tactical maneuver to avoid harsher penalties.

  • Aaaaaaaahahahahaaaaaa! (Score:4, Funny)

    by flacco ( 324089 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:12AM (#4519336)
    The first step is admitting you have a problem, and that you are powerless to face it by yourself.

    SOMEONE PLEASE STOP ME BEFORE I SPAM AGAIN!

  • still doesnt solve much (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PissedOffGuy ( 612092 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:12AM (#4519337)
    from article: But, Cerasale said, a federal requirement that consumers "opt in" instead of "opt out" of bulk e-mail is unacceptable. "We think the opt-in creates a true noneconomic model," Cerasale said. "We don't believe you get a viable economic model in opt-in."

    so the Direct Marketing Association is still a bunch of scumbags after all...
    • ...beware of the guy reeking of oily rags and hiding a blowtorch behind his back offering to help put out the fire...

    • Re:still doesnt solve much (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:21AM (#4519389)
      I don't understand how anybody could expect my inbox to be a part of their "economic model".

      Maybe some of these people have nice cars or swimming pools. If so, I'd like to make those part of my economic model.

      • Re:still doesnt solve much (Score:5, Funny)

        by namespan ( 225296 ) <namespan.elitemail@org> on Thursday October 24, 2002 @01:58AM (#4519741) Journal
        Maybe some of these people have nice cars or swimming pools. If so, I'd like to make those part of my economic model.

        You can't drive or swim in them, but surely they'd have no objection to you placing a flyer in/on them. You and a couple of hundred friends...

    • Re:still doesnt solve much (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jmv ( 93421 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:40AM (#4519479) Homepage
      To me making forged headers illegal is almost the same as forcing "opt-in". The reason is that if you send spam without forged headers to people who don't want it, you're going to get flooded/DDoS'd so badly you'll never try again.

    • Re:still doesnt solve much (Score:5, Insightful)

      by km790816 ( 78280 ) <wqhq3gx02@@@sneakemail...com> on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:52AM (#4519514)
      Ahhhh! The anger swells in me...

      Media Companies, Communications Companies, Oil Companies...they all yell about how new technologies will ruin their business models and how they need to be protected!

      Who fucking cares!?!?

      Governments exist to protect the people, not to forward corporate interests. I'm so sick and tired of companies using legal bull shit to protect their business model. Why don't we have bloody subsidies for horse shoers?

      *Sigh* I feel better now.
      • *Sigh* I feel better now.

        Beware! Giving you methods to blow off your righteous steam (such as the "internet chat room") is how the Man keeps you from becoming so angry you revolt against him! ;)

      • Re:still doesnt solve much (Score:5, Funny)

        by bakes ( 87194 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @03:49AM (#4520061) Journal
        Governments exist to protect the people, not to forward corporate interests

        Ahhh, the naeivity of youth...

  • Illegal forged headers? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sirfuzz ( 233361 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:13AM (#4519344)
    What about when I have one mail address on my server with a lot of aliases pointing to it? Can I still "forge" the headers to say that it's coming from one of the aliases?

    Yes, yes - this really isn't "illegal"... My question is, when does it become illegal?
    • I would like to know why some of these people are not being charged with fraud already.

      I have received notices that mail I tried to send couldn't be delivered. But in fact, the mail was not from me, and some spammer had spoofed the email address and pretended to be me.

      What happens when this is done and spoofed to point at an innocent person and gets them legal trouble?

      And how come these damn spammers don't realize that I DON'T read the spam, and if by some accident I do open the letter, I refuse to ever buy that product because of how they market it.

      SPAM HURTS YOUR SALES!! DON'T SPAM ME!!!

      [/rant]

      • Re:Illegal forged headers? (Score:4, Informative)

        by rgmoore ( 133276 ) <glandauer@charter.net> on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:27AM (#4519421) Homepage
        I have received notices that mail I tried to send couldn't be delivered. But in fact, the mail was not from me, and some spammer had spoofed the email address and pretended to be me.

        The chances are that it wasn't a spammer doing that, or rather that it wasn't the result of a spammer doing so deliberately. Some of the more recent email viruses have adopted the strategy of forging from headers in their propagation letters. They pick two addresses from the victim's computer, one recipient and one forged sender. The theory seems to be that there's a decent chance that the two are likely enough to know each other that it will increase the chances of the letter being opened, while masking the identity of the infected machine. It seems as though some spammers have become infected, so there are lots of people receiving random messages apparently from people they've never heard of.

        • Nope, this is reason 13,793 why all spammers should get the death sentence. The special one, the one where "cruel and unusual" doesn't apply.

          Spammers are now criminally impersonating other domains so they can get past the MTAs that require a valid and resolvable FQDN in the message envelope. This eliminates spam from klsjger@xxagt1kjc34.khz, but it can cause a lot of long-lasting damage (from the especially clueless spam fighters) to innocent parties.
      • Spam *is* their sales. What you say is true for almost everybody. Yet, if 99.99% of people ignore the email, throw it away, and never EVER would look at it, but 0.02% are interested in the product, then they can profit by sending out TONS of email.

        So you are ranting something that every spammer already knows and doesn't care about, unfortunately.

        • Re:Illegal forged headers? (Score:5, Funny)

          by Jester99 ( 23135 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @01:28AM (#4519649) Homepage
          If 99.99% of people ignore the email... and 0.02% are interested in the product, then they can profit by sending out TONS of email.

          Indeed. Such a violation of the conservation of mass, which occurs when 100.01% of people are accounted for, causes galactic rips in the very fabric of space-time, causing TORRENTS of cosmic ether -- sometimes called "UCE" because of it's nebulous Unidentified Cosmic Ether nature -- to be unleashed on mail servers everywhere!

          The lesson learned: If you ever grow interested in a spam-marketted product, think of the world! Think of the children!
    • What about when I have one mail address on my server with a lot of aliases pointing to it?
      There's a big difference between spoofing the from field and setting the reply-to field. Setting the reply-to is totally legit way to handle the situation you're describing, while spoofing the from has no legitimate application that I've ever heard.

      --
      Damn the Emperor!
      • There's a big difference between spoofing the from field and setting the reply-to field. Setting the reply-to is totally legit way to handle the situation you're describing, while spoofing the from has no legitimate application that I've ever heard.

        Oh yeah, I've ALWAYS found that spammers are considerate enough to not reap e-mail addresses from the From: field, and to always send spam to the address in the Reply-To: field.

      • I spoof From all the time, because the email address I use for all personal mail is part of an email-forwarding-for-life service I got when I graduated from university. But as it just does email forwarding, it offers no SMTP service, so I'm obliged to forge if I want to use it.

        Mind you, when I say I spoof "From:" I'm talking about the From: in the message, not in the envelope -- you can still see exactly where my message came from if you read the headers.

        Setting Reply-To: would be sufficient for me, but I think it would just confuse others, especially people unfamiliar with the intracacies of such things (e.g. my parents).

    • Re:Illegal forged headers? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Very Simple
      1) No forged headers.
      2) Legal obligation to respond to
      a) remove address - and all references to
      b) made to say where the bought/harvested your address

    • Re:Illegal forged headers? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ralphus ( 577885 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:23AM (#4519403)
      The laws that are being written these days are very interesting. In Washington state, we have some fairly aggressive anti-spam laws, one of them makes it illegal to alter the headers of a SMTP message. My Symantec Enterprise firewall has the capability in the SMTP proxy to strip header information of internal SMTP hosts as a security precaution on outbound messages.

      Are they going to come and take me away because I'm illegally altering headers but not sending spam?

      I'm getting more and more convinced that we can't make good technology leglislation without infringing freedoms and that we're all doomed.

      "It has become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity." -Einstein
      • "I'm getting more and more convinced that we can't make good technology leglislation without infringing freedoms and that we're all doomed."

        Almost any legislation limits our freedoms in one way or another. I am convinced we can make good technology legislation, without infringing on any freedoms that are outside the intended scope of the proposed law, if lawmakers just stop and think for a bit.

        In my opinion, anti-spam laws should be written in such a way that they specifically apply to spam only (which requires a loophole-free yet narrow legal definition of "spam"). I think a good set of requirements for spammers might be:
        - an obligation to clearly identify the spamming company, i.e. provide valid contact information in the form of an address or preferably a phone number.
        - an obligation to clearly label the mail as being spam, by putting the label "BULK MAILING" in the subject and MIME header. Failing an opt-in law, this would allow ISP's and e-mail users to simply filter out any unsolicited mail. We have a similar system for snailmail here: placing a sticker on your mailbox will "block" unsollicited mailings and/or free newsletters.
        - a strong law against any measures taken to defeat anti-spam filters, such as that random bit of letters that all the recent spam seems to have in the subject field.
        - a strong mandate for ISPs to deal with spammers breaking the aformentioned rules. ISPs clamping down on spammers should not have to fear lawsuits, provided they keep within their mandate.

        Of course the spammers will whine that this would "break their business model" or some such. I have no doubt that it will.
    • While the law will probably enumerate various possibilities, think of the intent of the changed header.

      If you can be easily reached after changing the header field, there's not a problem. This is why that "I had to forge the headers to protect the opt-outs" claim doesn't hold water - if this was a serious concern you could set up a second accuont to handle all complaints yet still protect your outbound account.

      If you can't be reached after changing the header field, then it's a problem.

      And if attempts to reach you result in the harassment of an innocent third party, e.g., the guy whose domain name you forged in your headers, then it's definitely illegal.

      Everything else is just window dressing.

  • Required Related Reading... (Score:3, Informative)

    by TheGreenGoogler ( 618700 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:15AM (#4519349) Journal
    Further information from the Star Tribune can be found here... [google.com]
  • What's up with the 'but' there? There's no contradiction in those clauses. They're both in support of a common goal.

  • Something strange about the "pig" topic icon (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ilan Volow ( 539597 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:16AM (#4519355) Homepage
    The story is about the Direct Marketers Association asking to be regulated by the government, yet the topic icon doesn't have wings.

    Strange...

  • Different degrees (Score:5, Insightful)

    by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:18AM (#4519366)
    Please Mr. Legislator, shut off that spam (which doesn't come from us), so that we may send our spam messages in peace.

  • Bad Publicity (Score:4, Interesting)

    by raydobbs ( 99133 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:19AM (#4519371) Homepage Journal
    I think the Direct Marketers who really want to sell stuff have realized that they need positive marketing techniques, and are willing to realize that the spammers, and other not-so-reputible business establishments have really made consumers sick to death of hearing from anyone selling anything.

    The first step for these businesses is to see that spamming and dishonesty doesn't win customers - customers will not do business with you to spite you if they get ten unsolicitated e-mails from people about your business than if you just put on advertisement on television, or just used word-of-mouth advertising.

    • Re:Bad Publicity (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nomadic ( 141991 )
      No, they realized that everyone hates them, and they're desperate to prevent any real anti-marketing legislation. They probably figure if they give in a little in the beginning they won't have to give in a lot later.

  • opt in by reference (Score:5, Insightful)

    by develop ( 88564 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:19AM (#4519372) Journal
    i've noticed that a great deal of the spam that has the "opt in" notice is by reference and changes on a daily basis.
    1. you opt in on just one, let's say amazon
    2. warner bros makes a "patnership" with amazon. warner bros starts spamming you.
    3. warner bros then makes a partnership with the bestrate loan company who starts spamming you.
    4. bestrate loan company makes a "paternship" with joe's porn palace and before you know it your p*nis is being enlarged!
    • This happens way too much,
      what should be written into law is that they must tell you which partner they got your info from

    • Re:opt in by reference (Score:5, Funny)

      by io333 ( 574963 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @02:10AM (#4519777)
      4. bestrate loan company makes a "paternship" with joe's porn palace and before you know it your p*nis is being enlarged!

      You too?! I've been so embarassed. I've been buying new pants every week but the bulge is getting too large to hide. Today on the bus ride home this little old grandmother kept *looking* at me in *that way*. I'm so freaked out.
  • "We absolutely need legislation," Cerasale said. "So we're going to have to work to get a compromise that'll have enough support so it will pass."

    Really, opt in would be nice, but if they could just follow the common rules and use [ADV] series tags in the subject line, I would be perfectly happy.
    -
    Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind. - Albert Einstein
  • An opt-in list is a publicly available database of verified email addresses likely to be uncluttered by 'legitimate' spam. Won't it just be targeted by offshore spammers?

  • The "Honest Spammer" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Embedded Geek ( 532893 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:21AM (#4519385) Homepage
    The obvious flaw in this scheme is the presumption that the Direct Marketing Association speaks for all spammers. The ease with which one can set up a spamming operation, the exact thing that makes spam so attractive, works against this. After all, if some sleezeball can set up an operation on a few junk servers in his basement, why would he bother joining a "professional" organization and adhere to a set of "ethics" in the first place? (And, yes, I use both terms very loosely in talking about "legitimate" direct marketers).

    Additionally, since a vast amount of spam is fraudulent (or so my Nigerean Finance Ministry contacts tell me), assuming ethical standards for any of these people is absurd.

    Let's face it - spamming is no more a profession than being a heroin dealer. To expect professional standards out of them is equally fruitless.

  • Great! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Shinsei ( 120121 )
    ... now I can get legal spam instead of just the regular... :D

  • Beware -- the Microsoft gambit (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MacAndrew ( 463832 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:22AM (#4519400) Homepage
    The DMA (or the gun lobby or you name it) gets involved when they see that regulation is inevitable. Their purpose? To "shape" the law according to their perogatives -- i.e., eviscerate it. Microsoft uses a similar strategy with "embrace, extend, extinguish."

    The DMA's job is to promote DMA, not to tailor it to our desires or rights -- requiring opt-out is a good example. They provide a limited opt-out for junk mail and telemarketing primarily to silence their critics and head off decisive government intervention.

    Many states already have anti-spam legislation on the books, but it is rarely enforced because of the difficulty in tracking these cretins down. A federal law would provide uniformity and predictability of everyone's rights and obligations. And hey, it might even work.

    A recent article reported with a straight face a major spammer's contention that they HAD to forge the headers because otherwise anti-spam zealots would complain to their ISP and get them shut down -- making opt-outs impossible. Ha!
    • The DMA (or the gun lobby or you name it) gets involved when they see that regulation is inevitable. Their purpose? To "shape" the law according to their perogatives -- i.e., eviscerate it. Microsoft uses a similar strategy with "embrace, extend, extinguish."

      In general, the legislation may be flawed and the opposition and reshaping justified. Personal approval of the goal or the proponents may lead you to support bad legislation, this sadly happens too often. The people writing legislation are sometimes well meaning but fairly ignorant of the subject matter and their proposed law may have far reaching and unintended consequences. For example "anti plastic gun" legislation outlawing anything without a couple of ounces of steel. The flaw is that steel is a specific alloy and a gun with several pounds of metal may not have enough steel. You may dislike the gun lobby but they are correct in reworking the legislation so that it only outlaws things not detectable by current metal detectors. Similarly Microsoft may have the occasional good point as well.
    • Regulation is inevitable? Dude, you've been smoking way too much Brady/HCI propoganda. Once you believe that, any form of "compromise" starts to sound good.

      It's like saying that DRM is inevitable, and that we should start cooperating now with Hollywood/Microsoft/the RIAA to make our slavery more bearable...
  • if spammers can't resort to forging headers, won't this make them easy (easier) to filter?
    • if spammers can't resort to forging headers, won't this make them easy (easier) to filter?

      no, it will make it easy to filter legitimate advertising because they'll follow the rules. While this would still be a good thing, the spammers are unlikely to follow the law and will remain a pain in the ass. unless of course, the penalty is great enough and someone is effectively prosecuted. oh, but then they'll just spam from outside the US and we're right back where we started.

      --Atlantix

  • A bit confused (Score:2, Insightful)

    by afra242 ( 465406 )
    "Even legitimate business' messages are not being looked at because of the get-rich-quick schemes and pornography and so forth," Jerry Cerasale, the DMA's vice president for government affairs....


    Essentially, they are saying "Spam will be sent, but from businesses that we warrant legitimate". Are these pornography companies not legite? Surely, some of them must be...

  • DMA Opt-Out Wouldn't Be Bad (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jratcliffe ( 208809 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:28AM (#4519428)
    If (and it's a big if) SPAM was opt-out, but the opt-out was centralized, and as effective as the DMA's mailing and phone opt-out lists, this wouldn't be that bad. Those "physical world" lists work quite well. Difference is, of course, that, if you hate junk postal mail and telephone solicitations, the DMA _wants_ you to opt-out; why spend postage, phone charges, and staff time soliciting people who aren't going to buy? It's a waste of money. For email SPAM, though, the wasted money is so minimal as to be irrelevant...

  • Also (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ChristopherLord ( 610995 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:29AM (#4519433) Homepage
    Along with such a law, each marketer should have a public/private keyset, and all of their outgoing mail should be signed by that key.

    These advertisers can then pay ISP's a 'distribution fee', which allows mail signed by that marketer's key to pass through the ISP spam filter. This ensures that spam is not free, which will drop the number of spam messages, and will also cause a corresponding increase in quality.

    We are not getting rid of spam, but establishing a reasonable system for permitting its distribution seems fair.

    • Re:Also (Score:2, Informative)

      by Max Romantschuk ( 132276 )
      On a theoretic level your idea is great. There are however two flaws with your reasoning.

      1. Verifying these messages requires processing power. A lot more than plain old mail delivery. Processing power costs money. I doubt any spam-firm would be willing to pay that much.

      2. There are lot's of email servers which don't belong to any big ISP. If there was a law to sign messages surely the law would require all servers to support it? That way all the small-timer and enthusiast servers would not fit into the picture.

      I love the idea though. If it only were a perfect world...

  • of course they want to be regulated (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bugi ( 8479 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:31AM (#4519442)
    If they're regulated, they can point to the legislation and claim legitimacy whenever they do something not explicitly outlawed.

    Not to mention that they'll probably sneak in a clause to outlaw RBLs.

    And besides, I doubt the worst offenders are members of the DMA, much less citizens of the US.
  • This has to be a setup or a trick or something.

    But then again I see MS gave Linus a beautiful giant wooden penquin this morning. Things are looking up
    • Well sure. They knew he was going to delete all of his e-mail when he got back. Therefore, they have to deliver the trojan the old-fashioned way.

  • Secure the software! Don't pass the laws! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rice_burners_suck ( 243660 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:34AM (#4519452)
    The word "forged" does not fit in the phrase "forged headers." I believe a better word is "modified."

    As with all computerized information that can be modified, I strongly believe it should not be illegal to modify headers in an email message. The possibility of such modification is extremely useful for the computer professional in fields including programming, debugging and network administration.

    Instead of having laws passed to dictate what can be done with a particular tool, I believe resources should instead be spent on securing and strengthening software, and on otherwise improving this field technically. To prevent the reception of email messages that appear to come from a trusted source, all email clients should automatically apply encryption. Nearly all mail sent through the postal service is enclosed in envelopes. I strongly believe the electronic realm would benefit from the electronic equivalent of an envelope.

    • Now now, there are compromises. The point is intent. If you are intending to decieve the recipient about your own origins, then yes, forging e-mail should be illegal. However e-mail forging tools should not be, likewise forging e-mail for internal use based on a locally acceptable standard that is not intended to be deceptive to its direct recipients.

      The point is that if an organization has something to tell millions of netizens without them asking to hear it, they'd damn well better be ready to admit who they are when saying it. A legal "anonymous" tag might be implementable, which any server can promply annihilate. Anonymous e-mails are fine (they'd be filtered everywhere). Headers designed to deliberately mislead the recipient should not exist.
    • The word "forged" does not fit in the phrase "forged headers." I believe a better word is "modified."

      When the very first transmission of the message begins at the spammers system with "From:" and "To:" headers that are intentionally incorrect, how can you possibly consider that to be "modified"?

      Worse yet, spammers regularily include "Received:" headers in the very first transmission of the message, to make it appear that it actually originated somewhere else and the system they used to transmit it was actually relaying it instead of acting as the original source. Indeed each system that processes the email adds its own "Received:" header, thereby modifying the message..... but the original transmission from the spammer that has "Received:" headers can't be considered modified, since it was created there.

      Words like "forgery", "fraudlent" and "counterfeit" apply to the case where the original message contained intentionally incorrect headers to disguise the origin of the message, to whom it was send, and who sent it. The word "modified" includes the concept that the message was originally something different, but when spammers spew messages, they ORIGINATE with intentionally incorrect headers.

  • To DMA: You can send me more spam... (Score:5, Funny)

    by UpLateDrinkingCoffee ( 605179 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:34AM (#4519454)
    If you just quit calling me at 8:01 am on Saturday morning telling me that I've been selected to receive a free three day trip to the Bahamas. You see, I like to sleep in so if I've really won a trip, send someone in person to wake me up.

    ...Like a supermodel.

    ...With a 6 pack of Keystone beer.

  • So basically... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dimensio ( 311070 ) <darkstar@LISPiglou.com minus language> on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:49AM (#4519503)
    The DMA is open to the idea of the government saying that some forms of theft of service by conversion and trespass to chattel is unaccaptable, so long as the theft of service, theft by conversion and trespass to chattel that their members want to commit is still legal.

    Did I get that right?

  • credit where credit due (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:50AM (#4519506) Homepage Journal
    I think we should give credit where credit is due. The DMA working with congress on anti-spam legislation is a good thing. While verified opt-in lists would be best, and, for the most part legitimate companies already do this, we know that many DMA members are not really legitimate and therefore such a list is would be against the business model. Nevertheless a national rule would at least set a baseline that will facilitate future discussion.

    What is good news, though falls under 'I will believe it when I see it' is headers that are not forged. To be effective, this will have to go beyond a valid from and return address. It will have include all headers, including all routing information. Such information will be critical if a user is not promptly removed from a list after a request. We have to be able to notify the upstream provider that the company is not following the rules.

    The next question to ask is if forged headers are bad, then why is anonymous telephone numbers for telemarketers good. Mind you, I think it is a good thing because I ignore all anonymous phone calls(none of my friends or contacts are so cowardly as to hide from me), but I wonder why anyone would think a business that needs to hide behind an anonymous phone number would be slightly legitimate?

    • The DMA working with congress on anti-spam legislation is a good thing.

      No, it is an attempt to reject the one and only acceptable rule: OPT-IN. Tell your Congresscritters that you will tolerate nothing less.

  • Much of the spam is relayed through open-relay overseas servers that don't log their originating hosts in Received headers. Such relaying is not only obfuscation, but theft of services as well, and I strongly encourage any anti-spam law to explicitly bar this practice of using insecure third-party relays, as well as forging headers.

  • And this means what? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Alan ( 347 ) <arcterex@NOspAm.ufies.org> on Thursday October 24, 2002 @12:51AM (#4519512) Homepage
    So basically from what I can see, this means nothing? So direct marketting will follow the rules and not forge headers, and they think that it should be illegal.

    Big Deal

    I will still have to filter out the same number of get rich quick schemes, drug selling operations, and teensexwhoreslutlittlegirlswithbigboobs.com type companies from my mailbox. The "legit" spam will be filtered out just the same as always, or at least, I'll try to keep the filters going.

    I can see how this has the same affect as the "you must provide a way to opt out" rule put in a while ago. This meant that now people don't opt out from spam because you don't know if the company is legit and is going to take you off their lists, or if they are just trolling for valid emails.

    Basically spam is spam is spam, it's unwanted mail in my inbox, and if someone says it's legal to do, that's great, I still don't want it.
  • "We need legislation," said Jerry Cerasale, the DMA's vice president for government affairs. "We believe the sheer volume will just swamp the medium and the medium will no longer be useful for marketing."

    When the spammers realise that, then I'll take notice and celebrate!

  • WATCH OUT! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Russ Nelson ( 33911 ) <slashdot@russnelson.com> on Thursday October 24, 2002 @01:04AM (#4519563) Homepage
    When a company asks to be regulated, WATCH OUT! What they actually want is to be regulated, so that they can control the regulations. Then, everything they do will be legal, so there won't be any reason to block them.
    -russ
    • So what you're saying is..I can finally accept those millions of dollars from undisclosed sources (sorry, they told me I can't say who they are) in Africa without feeling guilty? It will be perfectly legal? I don't know about you, but it sounds like this is the right step.
  • It really doesn't matter what they propose or do now, they have ZERO credibility, and the tools to ensure spam of any sort doesn't get through are getting much better. I've gotten used to accepting mail ONLY from those names I choose to and rejecting everything else...
  • 1. Jack
    2. Shi...errr, squat

    Seriously, though...do spammers really care about the law?

  • their so called business model (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rogueuk ( 245470 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @01:14AM (#4519604) Homepage
    If their business model requires me to not opt-in, what sort of business model is that? Just because opt-in isn't in their favor doesn't mean that they should have the right to waste my resources hawking their wares.

    Any time where I have to pay to receive messages, I shouldn't have to receive messages I didn't sign up for. If I get an ad in an email, it's usually a sure fire way for me to avoid that company and it's products

  • Hrmph. Spam is still theft. Still, might help. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dwheeler ( 321049 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @01:22AM (#4519631) Homepage Journal
    Hrmph. Spam (unsolicited bulk email) is still theft, and the DMA is going to do all it can to ensure that the theft can continue (as long the thieves are THEIR members).

    Still, this might help in spite of them. A U.S.-wide law against forged "from" messages from commercial spam would at least dissuade some, especially if it had a stiff penalty. This would make it easier to set up my mailbox so that I raise the priority for people I've talked with before; with stiff penalties, they're less likely to forge friends' addresses.

    This would be REALLY good if the federal law also required the "ADV" convention, and nailed down EXACTLY what it means. It's already in some state laws. If I could automatically reject the messages without having to read them all, that would steal my bandwidth and storage, but at least it wouldn't steal my time.

    Yeah, not everyone obeys the law, there are offsite systems, etc. But it would be a first step, and some legal tools would make it a lot easier to employ technical ones. For example, there's no point in tracking down offenders if they've broken no law. Also, the evasion techniques make it much clearer that they ARE breaking the law. Finally, if nearly all email from some asian countries are spam, then entire continents can blacklist them... and that would be a real wake-up call that would reduce spam. So, a few basic laws can really enable technological solutions, so even a feeble law might help.

    I've written down a few comments and anti-spam techniques at http://www.dwheeler.com/esssays/stopspam.html [dwheeler.com]; some of you may find them interesting. I know many others are interested in stemming this outrageous flood of spam that is threatening to steal the ability to receive email.

  • Half a loaf is better than none. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by InnovATIONS ( 588225 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @01:29AM (#4519654)
    If this gets at least some effective anti-spam legislation on the books then let's look at what an acceptable anti-spam legistlation meeting the DMA's requirement would need to be a good thing. First it would need enforcement with teeth. Long, sharp, pointy teeth. No itty bitty fine and a clear ability to get by the shelters and shell corporations that the spammers set up to distance themselves from their dirty work. Second it would need to have no cascading opt-ins. Nobody has any control over what 'marketing partnerships' (which is really just old-fashioned selling of mailing lists) a company engages in so any opt-in should not automaticaly transfer. Third there should be an option for an enforcable global opt-out. I know that the DMA hates this but I regard it as necessary. We have some e-mail address that just serve business purposes, i.e. info@.... and sales@... amd service@... and webmaster@... and so forth yet these get the worst quantites of spam because they appear on the web site and are picked up by the spiders. But frankly having the DMA not opposing everything means that at least some legislation can be passed (unless the powerfull breast and penis enlargement lobby can block it!)

  • Simple solution (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Tuffnut ( 618438 )
    Is to do what in fact this article says, make it illegal to send spam. Develop a government run system that requires online businesses to register with, and have that system send out the emails to the users registered on the companies lists. Some will say this will cost too much money? So what, make the businesses pay for it. They butchered the use of emails so badly by sending all their junk, they deserve it.

    If someone fails to abide by this new law, then slam them with a badass penalty. No one will want to disobey it if it comes with a severe penalty. Unless of course they think they can get away with it.

  • The irony (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rjamestaylor ( 117847 ) <rjamestaylor@gmail.com> on Thursday October 24, 2002 @01:35AM (#4519673) Journal
    • Direct Marketers Association
    • Asks To Be Regulated
    At least they can opt-in. . .

    A couple of us around here have been assigned to create direct mail programs and some of these programs, while initially billed as using strictly Opt-In, degraded into Opt-Out and even eventually into a simple spamfest. I admit I sent out two groups of "spam" (though clearly marked according to California regulations, blah, blah) on behalf of a failing employer. I have to admit: it was fun to do (one was for a legitimate product the other was for a MLM, the Amway web effort) and we had fun optimizing the script to pump out more spam. But the list we were given was complete junk! Over 2 million addresses (took a while to load into MySQL from the CSV file)--including my own father's email address! It also included harvested email from die.net. Ever tried to send mail to die.net? It's a great honeypot/tarbaby for spammers. But 2 campaigns were enough for my conscience (we sent less than 500,000 total messages).

    When asked to make a Flash/Windows multimedia program that could automatically extract email addresses from a users machine and send them to a central server--on behalf of serious players in the music industry no less--a couple of us around here drew the line and said "no". [The couple of us I keep refering to no longer work for the slimebucket that wanted to move spyware to a new level in exchange for listening to HipHop tracks.]

    Anyway, when complaining about spam realize that someone with technical know-how enabled the peabrain spammer to do his evil.

    • Re:The irony (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dimensio ( 311070 ) <darkstar@LISPiglou.com minus language> on Thursday October 24, 2002 @02:49AM (#4519902)
      When you are told by your employers to initiate a spam run, you should NEVER accept that assignment. The ethical and moral thing to do is determine just who in the company decided upon the spam run and speak to them regarding spamming and explain why it is a bad thing. If, after you explain the situation to them, they refuse to relent and inist upon going through with it, you should have them killed.

      It really is for the best for society.
  • if it was, I'd use the (now useable) headers to send all spammers, say, a tar archive of /var/log, or all my mp3s and wavs, encrypted of course. Nothing too much, just a few 100M to each.
  • ..for anyone who is enough of a shit-head to buy something as the result of receiving spam.

  • It's a little late... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by silentbozo ( 542534 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @02:25AM (#4519828) Journal
    People have been pissed off by spam and associated marketing intrusions (telemarketing, pop-ups, fax sapm), that they're rebelling against all instrusive advertising. This is the DMA realizing that the backlash resulting from spammers exploiting the DMA's blocking of anti-spam legislation will eventually doom all opt-out ads (where you have to tell them to go away, rather than signing up specifically for stuff - ie opt in.)

    But it's a little late. At this point, the big ones, the little ones, they all spam, and being spammers, they deserve what all spammers deserve...

  • I've solved my own spam problem... (Score:5, Funny)

    by G. W. Bush Junior ( 606245 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @02:31AM (#4519850) Journal
    I've got this whole thing figured out...

    This Nigerian chap contacted me and wanted to transfer alot of money to my bank acount... All i had to do was transfer a mere 10K to his account so the money would go through.

    Now I'm just waiting for my 10.000.000,- USD to roll in, and I'll hire a personal assistant to remove all the spam from my inbox manually...

    I've got this whole thing figured out!
    MWAHAHAHAHAH!

  • Spam blockers will continue (Score:3, Interesting)

    by phorm ( 591458 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @02:48AM (#4519900) Journal
    With this in mind, they'll probably be somewhat sad when they realize that without header faking, spam emails may turn out to be quite a bit easier to block via keyword, etc.

    That in mind though, chances are the unless it's applied at an email-provider level, Joe User won't bother taking the time to put these blocks in place and thus may be more incline to view "friendly" spam as opposed to getting annoyed over having his 12-yr-old get one of those "hey, remember me, visit my website" emails.

    Good news for those who do use spam blocking, it should hopefully get easier now. Those strongly active in blocking crapmail aren't likely to read it anyhow.

  • Ah - the sense of relief is palpable (Score:3, Funny)

    by lendude ( 620139 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @04:09AM (#4520104)
    Soon now I will be free to leverage the equity in my home with a new low interest loan on my unlimited credit facility, whacking of to just-turned-18 nubile nymphs and simultaneously increasing the length and girth of my penis, and enjoying the fruits of my newly acquired fortune rolling in from my earn-$10K-per-month-with-one-hour-per-day-work-fro m-home scheme, secure in the knowledge that I have acquired this valuable information from legitimate and reputable opt-in marketers!

  • Spam Primer (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dacarr ( 562277 ) on Thursday October 24, 2002 @04:24PM (#4524805) Homepage Journal
    Those who want to know more about handling spam on the technical level and some very good insight on the topic of spam can go to Randy Cassingham's Spam Primer [spamprimer.com], which at the end includes not only the standard FTC an SEC addresses, but also a place to send the Nigerian 419 scam now, which I'm pleased about.

    (Fine, I'm plugging, but it's a good site.)

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