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Spam

Stronger Anti-Spam Law Proposed 291

NumberField writes "The fight against Spam is making for some strange bedfellows. A new bill sponsored by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and the right-wing Christian Coalition that would let individuals sue spammers for $1000 per message. What isn't clear is how they will define spam broadly enough to outlaw it, but narrowly enough to avoid making it a bonanza for lawyers. For more information, see Schumer's fact sheet (PDF), or his press release." Update: 06/13 14:20 GMT by M : The draft bill (pdf) is available.
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Stronger Anti-Spam Law Proposed

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  • Why bother (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kamukwam ( 652361 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:37AM (#6189150) Journal
    You can propose all the anti-spam laws you want. But if you keep it restricted to one country, you won't go very far. Spammers will use other locations to send their spam from. So it only works if you have an international law.
    • Re:Why bother (Score:5, Insightful)

      by the_bahua ( 411625 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:41AM (#6189155) Homepage Journal
      I think what the poster said about it being a bonanza for lawyers was an understatement. This, if it pans out, will create a whole new basis for practice for many lawyers.

      Funny thing is, it still won't end spam.
      • Re:Why bother (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Pharmboy ( 216950 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @08:07AM (#6189945) Journal
        Funny thing is, it still won't end spam.

        What is MAY do is help reduce new startups for spam, since the potential for lawsuits and charges will reduce the appeal to new spammers. If this narrows down the field, it gets easier to find the hardcore professional spammers.

        One of the more important things that I think it accomplishes is psycological. It finally establishes a legal basis that spam is bad. Many people see spam as an irritant only (ie: my mom, Joe Sixpack, etc.), but once the common perception finally sees that it is a crime that robs resources and costs us ALL money, you will see changes in attitude from ISPs, access providers and rack services. This won't happen overnight, but it IS key to eventually reducing spam from 1/2 to 3/4 of all mail, to just background noise. A small, but necessary start.
    • Not necessarily (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:45AM (#6189167) Homepage
      If the law is drafted in a manner which allows authorities to go after the people benefiting from spam, rather than just the people actually sending it, then they could make substantial progress. Most of the spam I receive is for US-based companies, even if it was actually sent from China.
      • Bad idea (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Skapare ( 16644 )

        Such a provision would make it easy for anyone to cause harm to a company or individual by forging spam that appears to be benefitting them. It's a bad idea.

      • Re:Not necessarily (Score:5, Insightful)

        by SacredNaCl ( 545593 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @06:04AM (#6189412) Journal
        Most of the spam I receive is for US-based companies, even if it was actually sent from China.

        We have a law to deal with this kind of organized criminal activity, it's called RICO. I fail to see any legal reason that the federal government can not apply RICO laws to spam. It's an organized illegal activity, and the people who pay spammers to send it are just as guilty and in my view just and culpable as the spammer who sends it.

        Just draft a basis antispam law at the federal level -- make Ashcroft earn his money enforcing it. Tip ...Tell him most spam is pronographic in nature, he spent most of his career in Missouri hassling libraries and adult film/book stores.

        • Re:Not necessarily (Score:5, Interesting)

          by the gnat ( 153162 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @07:39AM (#6189765)
          We have a law to deal with this kind of organized criminal activity, it's called RICO. I fail to see any legal reason that the federal government can not apply RICO laws to spam. It's an organized illegal activity, and the people who pay spammers to send it are just as guilty and in my view just and culpable as the spammer who sends it.

          RICO is not intended to be used this way. It was created to allow vertical destruction of a criminal organization, where the people at top insulated themselves from the crimes committed by the rank-and-file. This isn't quite the same. It's also rather hard to compare spammers to the Mafia- Alan Ralsky and Ronnie Scelson are shitbags, but until we find the RBL creators dismembered in the trunk of a Cadillac, spammers are still just petty crooks.

          Just draft a basis antispam law at the federal level -- make Ashcroft earn his money enforcing it. Tip ...Tell him most spam is pronographic in nature, he spent most of his career in Missouri hassling libraries and adult film/book stores.

          We have this troubling little thing called "The Constitution", which makes it difficult to pass a sweeping federal law like that. Ashcroft is currently busy trying to destroy the Constitution, but I see no reason to assist him.

          Get it through your head - the government can not help you here. Besides, do you really want our Congress micromanaging the way the Internet or technology in general is uses? That sort of mentality is what led to obscenities like the DMCA and the library filtering act. I'd rather keep bombing the spammers with catalogs.
    • Re:Why bother (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:45AM (#6189171) Journal
      "But if you keep it restricted to one country, you won't go very far"

      Huh... about 70% of all internet traffic happens in ONE country. Contrary to public posturing, this ONE country houses most spammers. Most anti-spam s/w firms operate in this ONE single country, and they make profits. Most porn also originates from this SINGLE country.

      There can be a simple solution to spam originating from outside - a penalty on the beneficiary of the spam (not the conduit). Confusing the issue further only delays a meaningful solution.

      Incidentally the SINGLE biggest software firm operating in this SINGLE country OPPOSED anti-spam legislation. This firm also acquired an anti-virus firm, instead of writing virus-resistant code. Food for thought?
    • by jkrise ( 535370 )
      The ONE country affected and profiting from spam and anti-spam s/w is never known to suffer in silence when other countries cause economic harm to it. In other words, if outside spam was the real problem, this would have been solved a million times by now.
    • You can propose all the anti-spam laws you want. But if you keep it restricted to one country, you won't go very far. Spammers will use other locations to send their spam from. So it only works if you have an international law.

      Considering the fact that I am not from the US, and 99.999999999% of the spam I get is from the US, yes, it will help!

    • restricted to one country, you won't go very far

      A US-only law would still shut down at least half of the worst spammers [spamhaus.org]. But more importantly, Senator Schumer is proposing both a US law and an international treaty [senate.gov].

  • by apdt ( 575306 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:37AM (#6189151)
    That's all very well, but for a large chunk of spam, identifying the spammer if difficult, and to it in a way that would hold up in court would be even harder..
    • That's all very well, but for a large chunk of spam, identifying the spammer if difficult, and to it in a way that would hold up in court would be even harder..

      And hence it would have to be a spammer very confident in his/her anonymity to risk it.

      It might be difficult in court, but it sounds to me like this law would act majorly as a deterrent too.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • That's all very well, but for a large chunk of spam, identifying the spammer if difficult, and to it in a way that would hold up in court would be even harder..

      Why would that be difficult? Virtually all of the spam I receive is promoting a business service or product. For the spam to be anonymous, the spammer would have to remove all references to both his business and his product... so what message is he left with? Nothing.
    • That's all very well, but for a large chunk of spam, identifying the spammer if difficult, and to it in a way that would hold up in court would be even harder..

      One of the Supreme Court Justices (can't remember which) once replied, when asked to define what was obscene, "I don't know, but I know it when I see it". (Those aren't exact words). I feel the same way about spam. If I receive the same message (same pictures, same 5 second HTML job) from 10 different people in one day, that's spam for sure.
  • by jabbadabbadoo ( 599681 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:42AM (#6189158)
    Sorry, but if this ones goes through, all lawyers will be busy for a couple of months.

    They too get spam, you know (or they'll make sure they'll get it.)

    • by Talez ( 468021 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @06:13AM (#6189427)
      To: happy@public.com
      From: david@ironico.com
      Subj: Spammed? You MAY be intitled to compensation!

      Dear Potential Customer,

      Have you been spammed lately by some legimate business owner offering you endless underage pornography, ways to enlarge your small penis and those plans that can make you a millionare overnight?

      If so then call us now! Ironico: Spam Attourneys at Large promises YOU a BIG CASH SETTLEMENT for every spam mail you've receieved. Act now to get this free jar opener!

      Thank you for your attention

      David Mirkoff
      Ironico: Spam Attourneys at Large
  • Did you consider that the whole idea might just BE to make it a bonanza for lawyers?
  • by Max Romantschuk ( 132276 ) <max@romantschuk.fi> on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:44AM (#6189166) Homepage
    I propose the following:

    1. Get local spam under control.
    2. Start sanctions agaist countries / ISPs from which spam originates.

    Not sure this makes any sense though, but if countries like China find themselves at a disadvantage due to a handful of local spammers I would think they would be more motivated to deal with the problem.

    I'm not proposing any tehnical solutions though... anyone have ideas on that?
    • I'm not proposing any tehnical solutions though... anyone have ideas on that?

      An earlier article [slashdot.org] about this. (google [google.com])

      But the best tactic is not having an email, period.
    • by jkrise ( 535370 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @05:03AM (#6189237) Journal
      " I propose the following:

      1. Get local spam under control.

      Er.. how do you define 'local spam'. I got a Nigerian-type mail from a Hong-Kong based system on my Hotmail (More Useless Everyday). The Niegerian account is hosted by an American entity and the beneficiary seems to be an American as well.

      2. Start sanctions agaist countries / ISPs from which spam originates."

      How does one detet the origin of the spam? It could have been added as payload during a virus infection on a Windows PC. Since ALL countries in the world have Winows PCs, and even Microsoft's systems have suffered from spam and virus attacks, whom do you start sanctions against?
    • by Anonymous Coward
      We have 1 & 2, but spam continues to be a problem. Why do you think everybody is complaining about the respective rest of the world as the primary spam source? Spam is rarely sent from the recipient's country. "Local" spam is under control. We also have sanctions against ISPs from which spam originates: There are lists of known spam-friendly ISPs (and their IP blocks). Other DNS blocking lists [moensted.dk] address faster moving targets. Those are collective punishments against every customer of the listed ISPs. Ther
  • by termos ( 634980 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:45AM (#6189170) Homepage
    let individuals sue spammers for $1000 per message
    I don't think many individuals would bother with this, it's easier to just the delete the spam mail than it is to risk loosing money on some lawsuit, and even if they did decide to sue them they would only have "defeated" one spammer (or his team or whatever it could be). 1 down 50000 to go.
  • Scary (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:46AM (#6189173)
    When right-wing religious groups start supporting something I believe in I always have to re-evaluate my belief.
  • Most spam comesfrom OS anyway. CHina etc. In oz we get it from everywhere.
  • by maliabu ( 665176 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:51AM (#6189198)
    do we need to prove that those emails suspected of spamming are truly unsolicited? how do we prove that we never subscribed to a certain mailing list? can spammer 'fake' subscriptions?

    and with the "Do Not Spam" registry of e-mail addresses, wouldn't it make it easier for spammers to request such do-not-spam list and spam it??

    If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. like the article stated, it might endanger legitimate Internet services.
    • by aug24 ( 38229 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @05:16AM (#6189266) Homepage
      Here's the start of a plan - or a 'kernel' if you will :-)

      1) Automatic loss of suit if return/reply address is faked/unreachable or there is no unsubscribe address
      2) Recipient must reply requesting to be removed from list or mail unsubscribe address to become eligible.
      3) If Recipient receives more mail after 28 days have passed then suit is proven.

      Seems easy enough to me. Do it!

      J.

      • 1) this is doable but when a lot of these places are fly by night it might work when they send the mail but not 2 days later and what about an address that suddenly works when you got to court. You would need some impartial third party to verify this.

        2) this just gives them a validated list of addresses for the next round.

        3) A lot of spam companies play shell games with companies making a new company for every ISP they try abuse. 28 Days is a LONG time to legitimatly spam from a front.

        How about this:

        1
    • by Phroggy ( 441 ) * <slashdot3@@@phroggy...com> on Friday June 13, 2003 @05:31AM (#6189311) Homepage
      and with the "Do Not Spam" registry of e-mail addresses, wouldn't it make it easier for spammers to request such do-not-spam list and spam it??

      Yes, absolutely. This is the biggest problem with the idea. Even if the list is only provided in the form of one-way queries (look up a particular address to see whether it's listed, without seeing the whole list), spammers outside the US would be able to brute-force the list and get a list of confirmed e-mail addresses. They'll figure their success rates should be pretty high, since these people aren't getting other spam from the US to distract them from whatever crap they're peddling. And of course once this is done, the resulting list will be for sale for about $500 per CD, and we'll get spam offering to sell it to us.
  • by EvilMike ( 640266 ) <evilmike&houseofwack,com> on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:52AM (#6189199) Homepage

    I don't see the point in having a 'do not spam' list for the US, when the majority of spam the rest of us are receiving on this planet comes from the US. Is the US govt seriously going to compile a list for all 6 billion of us?

    This proposal still makes it a civil matter for the recipient, having to sue the spammer for damages. What's needed is a federal US law making mass junk emailing a criminal offense. Instead they are just pushing it back onto the people to fight in civil courts. The only winners here are the spammers and lawyers.

  • by botzi ( 673768 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:53AM (#6189203)
    Tomorrow I'm planning on start a lawsuit each of the M. N'boko Kiganya, Queen S'tlaka etc.....

    Dude, I feel the Nigerian [slashdot.org] spammers already trembling;o))))....

  • by mental_telepathy ( 564156 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:55AM (#6189206)
    Schumer can sponsor a Bill. The Christian Coalition, at least until they are elected as a body to a senate seat, can only support a bill (And drop fat checks on people to get it passed.)

    If you'd like to see it passed, ask your Senator [senate.gov] to cosponsor

    • Schumer can sponsor a Bill. The Christian Coalition, at least until they are elected as a body to a senate seat, can only support a bill (And drop fat checks on people to get it passed.)

      Except, Chuck Schumer is an Evil New York City Liberal who is only one step away from being a Commie -- at least that's what my conservative Western New York co-workers told me when he was running for senate against "Pothole" Al D'Amato.

      Schumer working with the Christian Coalition certainly makes for strange bedfellows, e

  • by zeekiorage ( 545864 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:55AM (#6189207)
    SCHUMER, CHRISTIAN COALITION TEAM UP TO CRACK DOWN ON EMAIL SPAM PORNOGRAPHY

    Christian Coalition endorses Schumer bill that would for the first time impose tough criminal and civil penalties on spammers; New law would create no-spam registry like highly-effective do-not-call registries that have stopped telemarketers

    Political odd couple find common ground protecting children from obscene emails

    Pornographic pictures appear in 1 out of every 5 spams; 1 in 5 kids are sexually solicited on the Internet; and 1 in 4 had an unwanted exposure to obscene pictures

    US Senator Charles Schumer and Christian Coalition President Roberta Combs announced today that the Christian Coalition is endorsing Schumer's Stop Pornography and Abusive Marketing Act (The SPAM Act), legislation aimed at cracking down on pornographic email spam that is sent to children. Internet and email use among children has skyrocketed over the last few years, with America Online and MSN reporting millions of child users.

    The avalanche of pornography being sent to kids by spammers makes checking email on par with watching an X-rated movie. Parents need to be able to keep offensive material out of the family room and I'm working with the Christian Coalition to do just that, Schumer said. The bottom line is that America's children have been under attack for a long time from violent TV shows, racy music videos, and now pornographic spam. The v-chip gave parents control of the TV. My SPAM Act will give them control over the computer.

    I stand side-by-side with Senator Schumer in the fight against pornographic email, Combs said. Parents need the ability to keep their children from being subjected to lewd material and Schumers legislation will do just that. I am proud to stand with Chuck on this issue and we will continue to work together until this bill is law.

    Purveyors of spam have exploited the popularity of the Internet and e-mail to gain access to millions of consumers from all sectors of the population, advertising everything from herbal remedies to get-rich-quick schemes to adult web sites. The traffic in explicit images is particularly acute according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which reports that pornographic pictures appear in almost one out of every five emails that spammers use to advertise adult web sites. Many of these explicit images reach the in-boxes of millions of young e-mail users.
    In a June 2003 survey by the California-based Internet security firm Symantec, 47% of children reported receiving junk email with links to pornographic web sites. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, one in five kids between the ages of 10 and 17 are sexually solicited on the Internet, and one in four had an unwanted exposure to pictures of naked people or people having sex but only 40% of these children told a parent.

    According to a 2001 Department of Commerce study, 75 percent of 14-17 year olds and 65 percent of 10-13 year olds use the Internet. The same survey also found that forty-five percent of the population now uses email, up from 35 percent in 2000, including millions of children. As of November 2002, America Online had 16 million screen names limited by parental controls while MSN, the operator of the popular free e-mail site www.hotmail.com, had an estimated 3.6 million subscribers under the age of 18.

    Schumer and Combs said that the implications of these studies are disturbing: parents are not only powerless to prevent such imagery from being sent to their childrens in-boxes, they also often d

  • by spakka ( 606417 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:58AM (#6189220)
    Why don't they just pray it away?
  • (from the pdf linked in article):
    Prohibit Harvesting of E-mail Addresses and Dictionary Attacks:
    The bill will also prevent spammers from assembling e-mail lists through the practice of address "harvesting" carried out by software known as spam "bots" that mine web sites, chat rooms,


    I really wonder how one can prevent harvesting, and how that could be enforced without making non-spammers pay.

  • Tax Spam (Score:5, Interesting)

    by philipsblows ( 180703 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @04:59AM (#6189227) Homepage

    Recently there was an article posted here about taxes on cable modems here [slashdot.org], but it occurs to me that spam, like postal junk mail, could help pay for infrastructure just as easily.

    Not an original idea, but like a state sales tax (or one of several European VATs), the onus would be on the merchants, or in this case those relaying spam, to collect and pay up.

    Now, since American companies are being required to collect and disperse VAT for sales made in Europe, surely there will be some sort of reciprocity there, and in general America (or the states therein) would impose sanctions on countries that did not abide by these new spam tax laws.

    With spam in the news as much as it has been lately, surely some government types will take notice, that there is cash sitting in their inbox (or in their filtered spam folder if they're smart). And SpamAssassin catches a huge percentage of the spam I get lately, so if my mail machine has to do a little bit of filtering so that middle America can get cable modems and dsl, and so that maybe the last mile can be fiber someday, well, I'll bite the bullet, as long as I don't have to pay cable modem taxes or any other such things and get this spam.

  • Mission impossible (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Rutje ( 606635 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @05:06AM (#6189241)
    If they are able to legally define spam (not that easy), the spammers will immediately find an alternative which is not illegal...
    It's useless for the same reason P2P can't be wiped out!

    Long live the freedom of information!!
  • open to abuse? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by maliabu ( 665176 )
    would this bill be used to attack people you don't like rather than the real spammers??

    one would think that sexual harassment lawsuit is used when you're fired by your female superior, not when you're sexually harassed :)

  • by ites ( 600337 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @05:12AM (#6189257) Journal
    Hmmm, after the "war on crime", "war on drugs", what's next? A government department with a "Spam Czar" who sends the troops into muddy 3rd world countries because they allow spam?

    Spam is so easy to kill: add authentication to SMTP and create a new email network of authenticated email. Servers won't accept email from unauthenticated sources, and spammers will be unable to hide their tracks.

  • by Goonie ( 8651 ) * <robert.merkel@be n a m b r a . o rg> on Friday June 13, 2003 @05:13AM (#6189261) Homepage
    I haven't read the whole bill, just the fact sheet, but the proposed law isn't great. Here's my take, based on the fact sheet:
    • The first thing it doesn't do is ban unsolicited commercial email, as is the majority position amongst anti-spam campaigners.
    • It *does* create a national "do-not-spam" list. If you're on the list, and you get sent spam, it's a criminal offence. The list will be protect by "military-grade encryption", whatever this means. I'd like to see a few more details on how they ensure that spammers can't get addresses out of this database.
    • It makes it illegal to forge headers and to have misleading subject lines in commercial email. Sounds reasonable enough.
    • Requires be able to unsubscribe. Whatever. What happens when they shut down their fly-by-night company and sell the addresses on?
    • Bans dictionary attacks and "address harvesting". This one I'm not really all that keen on, particularly the bans on "address harvesting". It doesn't seem useful - what's to stop a foriegner doing the address harvesting and then selling the collected addresses to an American spammer? There's no mention of a provision in the bill banning the trading of email address lists. More to the point, it targets more activities than are necessary to stop spammers, IMHO.
    • Increases law enforcement resources and penalties. That's a no-brainer.
    • by Phroggy ( 441 ) * <slashdot3@@@phroggy...com> on Friday June 13, 2003 @05:38AM (#6189331) Homepage
      It *does* create a national "do-not-spam" list. If you're on the list, and you get sent spam, it's a criminal offence. The list will be protect by "military-grade encryption", whatever this means. I'd like to see a few more details on how they ensure that spammers can't get addresses out of this database.

      This is a BAD IDEA.

      1) Take an existing list of 500 million e-mail addresses. While you're at it, guess a few billion more at random.

      2) Check all of these against the super-duper military-grade heavily encrypted top-secret opt-out list. This does not require decryption of the list. Save the results.

      3) Compile a new list of every address you found that's in the opt-out list. Burn this to CDs.

      4) Send out spam, advertising your confirmed opt-in CDs for $500 each.

      5) ???

      6) Profit!
    • If they're serious about this, I'd like to see them require the "[AD] in the beginning of the Subject" rule that I've heard about countless times.
      That way, email filters would catch more unwanted messages.
    • Whenever I read about military-grade encryption I remember this [interhack.net].

  • Bad Idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dr. Sp0ng ( 24354 ) <mspong.gmail@com> on Friday June 13, 2003 @05:17AM (#6189272) Homepage
    It is not the government's place to tackle the spam problem. If they try, they'll just fuck it up, like they've fucked up so many other things in the past. Spam has all the telltale signs of a problem that legislation won't help. It's a relatively victimless crime (or rather, its victims, with the exception of those companies who run the huge backbones, are at most marginally impacted by the problem), it can be done in a relatively anonymous fashion, and any laws banning or regulating it will be very difficult to enforce. Problems like that (drug abuse and so on) are never helped by laws, and instead just get worse with each additional crackdown.

    The problem can never be fully solved by technical means, being a sociological problem, but technical solutions can do a much more effective job in curbing the problem than any legislative solution, and cause fewer additional problems in the process. Rather than try to get the government to pass ineffective feel-good laws, let's fix the problem from our end. It's time to replace SMTP with a less trusting protocol - the Internet is clearly a very different place than it was when SMTP was originally created, and we need a new mail protocol to match the times.

    Keep the government's laws off my Internet, people. It is a medium that spans the entire globe and is not under the jurisdiction of any one government anyway, so laws will never do the job. They'll just cause more problems and never solve anything.
    • Re:Bad Idea (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Ben Hutchings ( 4651 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @06:45AM (#6189510) Homepage
      It's a relatively victimless crime (or rather, its victims, with the exception of those companies who run the huge backbones, are at most marginally impacted by the problem)

      Tell that to the people whose genuine addresses have been used as return addresses by spammers.

    • Good post. Can I take issue with you, however. You say:

      The problem can never be fully solved by technical means, being a sociological problem, but technical solutions can do a much more effective job in curbing the problem than any legislative solution, and cause fewer additional problems in the process.

      The problem I have is with the effectiveness of the technical solutions to date and the likelihood that they'll become much more effective in the medium-term future unless they're accompanied by legislation.

  • fighting spam (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shione ( 666388 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @05:36AM (#6189325) Journal
    heres an article on what Australia along with other countries are doing to fight spam.

    http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/09/105501 09 20208.html
  • by amembleton ( 411990 ) <aembletonNO@SPAMbigfoot.com> on Friday June 13, 2003 @05:38AM (#6189329) Homepage

    I like the sound of this. Defining Spam would be a problem.

    If you could prove that there is either no way of requesting an end to the spam or that it didn't work when you clicked on the link then that might stand up in court.

    If you still get spam then you should be able to forward it onto some Government organisation who would deal with the company with an army of beurachrats.

    Here in the UK, we have a good system for stopping unsolicited phone calls and text (SMS) messages. It is called TPS (Telephone Preference Service) [tpsonline.org.uk]. You basically register your number(s) with this organisation and marketeers aren't allowed to use that number. If they do you can report it, they can check phone records or something and fine them something like £5,000. This system does work.

    • The fine isn't large enough. I suspect it's possible to make well over £5000 by spamvertising a premium rate number before getting caught.
      • Yeah, but that's just the fine for calling an opted-out TPS user. There are other [theregister.co.uk] ways [theregister.co.uk] to [theregister.co.uk] catch [theregister.co.uk] premium [theregister.co.uk] rate [theregister.co.uk] abuse [theregister.co.uk] (examples mix text spam and premium rate abuse). You'll see international examples here, too. With the efforts of Oftel and ICSTIS, I feel someone's doing an adequate job -- and the fines reported in these stories are way over £5,000.

        From my experience, TPS works well -- I now get hardly any telemarketing calls, and those that do get through (c. one a month) are from amateur outfit
  • by spakka ( 606417 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @05:51AM (#6189373)
    A publically available database of addresses, all self-validated as belonging to real people in the world's richest country, will be prime spamming material to anyone outside the US.

    From the fact sheet:

    Anyone who sends spam to these addresses will be subject to stiff fines. The database will be protected by military-caliber encryption to ensure the protection of its contents.

    Nonsense. How can the database be encrypted if all potential spammers are deemed to have notice of every address on it?

  • by Zog The Undeniable ( 632031 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @06:00AM (#6189401)
    Making it illegal will be about as effective as the "Do Not Make Illegal Copies Of This Disc" label on software piracy. Spammers are already on the shady side of the law with a lot of the stuff they're trying to sell (e.g. hardcore pr0n and prescription drugs), so they're not going to be scared by this. Add to this the facts that most spam has its origins well obfuscated, preventing the culprits from being tracked, and we're onto a loser if we try and track them down.

    My suggestion is that the SUPPLIER of the advertised goods is fined, not the spammers. The supplier is, after all, paying someone to send the spam, and they're easily traceable (otherwise they'd have trouble fulfilling your orders for Viagra, septic tank cleaner and goat pr0n).

  • by Alex ( 342 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @06:04AM (#6189411)
    One thing spammers always get correct in spam, is the details of how to buy whatever they are advertising

    Why don't we ignore the spammers and punish the companies who's products are being advertised?

    Spam wouldn't exist if people weren't paying the spammers to spam.

    Target the advertisers contact details, like how BT disconnects numbers advertised on tart cards in London phone boxes.

    "Sure you can advertise by spam it'll cost you $10000 for 2^8 mails unfortunatly within 12 minutes of the 1st mail going out your contact email and website will be deleted."

    Alex
  • by Skapare ( 16644 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @06:12AM (#6189425) Homepage
    ... and create a Do-Not-Spam list of e-mail addresses similar to the FTC's new Do-Not-Call registry that has succeeded in a number of states in virtually eliminating unwanted telemarketing calls.

    How many of my email addresses will I be allowed to register? Let me see, assuming a maximum of 64 characters per username (it's probably more), and 36 different characters (actually there's more there, too), that would be potentially 40119919145476304800650533877024438126904024877418 12225955731622655455723258857248542161222254985216 addresses. Of course no one would have that many and no database could store them all. But spammers could dynamically generate random ones. As more and more mail services support tagged addresses, spammers will likely start adding random tags to make sure they have a defense of "no match in the do-not-spam database".

    I use a different email address for every mailing list I subscribe to. Should I register every one of them with the database? Most of them have already been spammed (probably harvested from online archives of those mailing lists).

    One possibility is requiring that tagged format address be matched with respect to the base address (tag characters usually being "-" and "+"). Another is registering a whole vanity domain making it applicable to every username possibility. I'm sure aol.com will get registered like that, as will just about every domain out there. Mine will be.

  • by asciimonster ( 305672 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @06:17AM (#6189446) Journal
    Spammers are smart people. You are never going to get the definition of spam such that it will block out all the forms of spam. And if there is a hole, spammers will rush to take advantage of it.

    I'll illustrate with a snail-mail example:
    A few years back everybody could get a sticker (the yes/no* an no/no* stickers) which we could stick on our mailbox to prevent "unadressed mail" (read: yunkmail) from flooding your mailbox. Good initiative: saves paper, time, money and irritation. BUT: Suddenly all yunkmail got addresses prionted on them and we were stuck with the same pile of paper we didn't read and had to take out to the paper recycle bins.
    Nice initiative, didn't work. Wait, that's not entirely true; it still has a function: It blocks the local newspapers.

    * yes/no for local (free) newspapers; no for unadressed mail.
  • by neglige ( 641101 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @06:21AM (#6189455)
    IT WORKS!! BELIEVE ME!!!!!! Here is what you have to do: check your INBOX and look for unwanted mail, no matter who send it to you. AND THEN SUE THE PERSON WHO MAILED YOU AND SEND ME A MERE 1% OF THE AMOUNT YOU RECEIVE!!

    Everytime you do this, it adds $990 to your account. I couldn't believe it either until the $$$ started to flow my way! My wife does it, and now we have no more financial worries!!!!!!!!

    Don't feel left out, check your inbox today and start to make money!!!!

    By the way, this mail is not spam. No, Sir. Honest. It just a one-time mailing. Really. Trust me.
  • by ajs318 ( 655362 )
    Spam merchants are brain-dead. Look carefully at my e-mail address {once you've sussed out the auto-munging that Slashdot has thoughtfully provided} and see what you notice about it. Then explain why I keep getting advertisements for products that are only available, or only work, in the USA. Like cable descramblers ..... British cable TV is digital, for crying out loud .....

    Spear the spam-merchants with this [adyx.co.uk]! It won't stop it altogether, but at least it'll give you evidence as to who is harvesting y
  • by Epeeist ( 2682 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @06:47AM (#6189514) Homepage
    This [guardian.co.uk] article in the UK "Guardian" claims that the recent blitz of viruses was done by spammers trying to generate open relays.
  • ...will never work, or so I've heard from so many on /. when it comes to copyright infringement and digital rights management. As long as the internet remains as open as it is and anonymity is so easily attaied, spammers will find a way around the blocks put in place. Spammers will forge headers and utilize open relays in other countries where there are no anti-spam laws. Either live with the spam or start learning to deal with a little less anonymity on the internet. You can't have it both ways.

  • If intdividuals could pool their damages and start a class action suit, spam kings could be sued for more $$$ than the RIAA could dream of.
  • Spam--come on if the christian coalition (caps left off on purpose) want spam stopped so their children do not have to see t&a they should filter their email better and stop having their children sign up for the sex mailing list in the first place.

    As for spam in general. laws will not help but will just serve to allow lawyers, RIAA and others loop holes to screw over the internet. When it is time to err it needs to be in favor of the freedom of speech-take care of spam yourself with a good filter, dea
  • A recent flame fest [google.com] in the gps news group is because I told a major contributor of the group that his ads aren't welcome and I told that to his ISP to get the point driven home.

    Now it seems that there are many supporters of this guys ads but none of these people see where its going if one person is allowed to put up and ad, how about 10 or 100 or 1000 every day?

    A month ago I go down the the local pub to find out a guy there just paid $2000 for an opt-in mailing list that is telling him stories. The guys
  • by cswiii ( 11061 ) on Friday June 13, 2003 @10:22AM (#6191083)
    ..or derivatives thereof.

    Back in 1999, I posted this [google.com] message to NANAE, about getting spammed by a Jerry Falwell-backed ISP. Well, it has been a long time since 1999, and now I get a lot of messages from various CC-related organisations, most of whom are telling me to vote for various RNC initiatives.

    Curious.

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