US Congress gets Spammed by Self 115
Doug Muth writes "There is an
article on MSNBC's website
that talks about a recent bout of spam that seriously bogged down some
of the mailservers delaying message delivery for some users by "several hours". Maybe
now that they got hit in the face with a spamming incident Congress will
finally try to write some decent anti-spam legislation. " Heh - an aide to Rep. Alcee hastings (D-FL) sent out an e-mail to hundreds, potentially thousands of people on an internal mailing list - no BCC or majordomo, so when people hit "Reply All"...well. You can imagine the fun that ensued. The great part is that the letter was apparently recommending a weight loss pill.
Re:Somehow I doubt this will make a big difference (Score:1)
jeeze These people where the ones causing the problem by hitting RTA: Of course the message gets longer and longer! Then someone else does the same thing and the same people whip off another RTA.
Take your hypocrisy and stick it under a rock (Score:1)
I've never seen a spam with anything constructive in it. Most of the ones I've recieved have been for illegal pyramid schemes. Never have I recieved a spam with a valid return address. Often even the domain from which the spam "Originated" is also not valid (That practise has waned in popularity with the advent of mail filters that eat mail with invalid domain names.) Legitimate companies quickly realize that spam alienates potential customers and quickly drop the advertising model for a passive one where the customers seek them out.
Someone once said that your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins. If I were to use your logic, I'd claim that your protesting my right to hit your nose is hypocracy because I'm allowed to swing my fist almost right up to it.
Re:On /., Microsoft is to blame for everything (Score:1)
What could be worse... (Score:1)
Can you say knee-jerk reaction? What if some of these half-dozen sponsors saw their first porn page on the net? Yikes! These people are making the rules for us!
Oxryly
Re:Somehow I doubt this will make a big difference (Score:1)
Hehe... that reminds me of the good old days of 'lame-list'. It was basically an open-subscribe majordomo list where you could subscribe other people that you felt were worthy of this dubious honor.
----
Dave
All hail Discordia!
Re:It's all about education (Score:2)
Re: Micro-slamming (Score:1)
But, I do think that Microsoft should change it's business practices, and perhaps a little less of the diversity training and a little more ethics training is in order, hmmmm?
On linux and the complexity of the command line interface. In last month's issue of Linux Magazine [linux-mag.com] there was an interview with Alan Cox, and he said the following about the future of Linux:
"...the user interface is going to be as easy to use as Windows. But that isn't good enough. Windows is still the Black and Decker power tools of the computing world. We need to have something much simpler than that. A lot of people don't want to learn how to use the computer: you shouldn't ever have to read a manual. You shouldn't have to deal with file managers. Why should you have to understand all this file stuff?"
So, clearly, there's going to be a movement away from the command line interface, thou I'm sure it'll still be an option to run Linux with no GUI...
Re:Let me see if I understand this correctly... (Score:1)
What if they can prove a job-related reason, like researching for low-cost solutions to a government problem? And doesn't the Gov't maintain strict proxy log analysis procedures for just this eventuality?
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:1)
Afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you on this point, Steve. The two points that nahdude812 made are related. Spam is a form of internet communication, albeit a noxious one (like me after eating Taco Hell). Nahdude is pointing out that most people here don't want any kind of restriction on the kinds of communications they can send on the internet, but yet they want to restrict one form of internet communication: spam. He calls it hypocrisy; I call it typical human behavior. Don't touch what I love, but squash that thing I hate.
In that thread I started (Anti-spam legislation is unnecessary [slashdot.org]) we did dance around the issue of judicial expansion of traditional law into the computer/internet sphere (oh lord, I'm starting to sound like a lawyer).
Nahdude has a point, even if you don't agree with it.
It's hard to listen when nobody's talking.. (Score:1)
Re:Stupid origins (Score:1)
geez, people can be dumb.
Hasn't this happened before? (Score:1)
But barring that, I found an old link to a site which can automatically e-mail all elected officials.
http://www.hoboes.com/html/Politics/electednet/
Tell them to get a mail solution that doesn't SUCK.
J.
Read the legislation (Score:2)
They're not regulating at all, they're just giving ISP's the express ability to sue.
Re:Read the legislation (Score:1)
Re:Outlook & MS Exchange server (Score:1)
Anyway, to get the headers in the microsoft mishmash (as per the subject line), open the mail in its own window. Under the "View" menu, select "Options". A small window there will provide you with full headers. Note, you have to perform this series of operations for *every* single email. I don't like microsoft.
Re:Let me see if I understand this correctly... (Score:1)
One of my projects was to develop a networked database/application server. This was to be demonstrated at a major company, the other side of the US. The firewalls at each end, though, made a direct connection impossible, so they considered shipping some rather old, fragile Sparcstations over, but nobody was keen on the idea.
I used Freshmeat and Slashdot to do some research, and showed that the entire system - database, applications, everything - could be put onto some cheap Linux boxes instead. This would avoid risking expensive, vital equiptment, reduce downtime if a problem occured, demonstrate portability, and actually improve performance.
As far as I was concerned, independent research couldn't get any more job-related than that. My boss saw it otherwise, and construed my efforts as gross misuse of GFE. AFAIK, the proxy logs were never examined.
Re:Outlook & MS Exchange server (Score:1)
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:1)
I also think a clause in an ISP contract stating that the user agrees to pay a cash penalty if he/she/it ever spams would be cool - and well justified given the administrative cost in tracking down the spammer. I'd be proud to take my business to an ISP that had such a strong anti-spam policy.
Re:Can Spam Act - overkill? (Score:1)
The one legitimate concern I see is that the rules should be completely content-neutral -- thus, "commercial" should be no part of the definition of spam. The offense should be the sending of UBE (Unsolicited Bulk E-mail), of whatever type.
/.
We have losers like these, too :( (Score:1)
some loser managed to spam tens of thousands
of our employees by sending a scam to several
internal mailing lists.
of course, other losers within our organization
had to check it out and announce to the list
that the scam was a scam. (what a surprise)
then, as pressure on the original losers increased,
they sent out several retraction notices to
basically the whole firm, again. to top it off,
still other losers chimed in to complain
about all the mails, urging them to stop.
(but of course they were too dumb to realize
that they added to the problem themselves).
i seriously hope this experience is either
followed by an intense education effort or
a blocking of these international distribution
lists for normal staff.
Re:Can Spam Act - overkill? (Score:1)
I am in favor of penalties for such behavior. If I want to hear broadcasts from a vendor, I will inform them by checking a box or subscribing to a list. Otherwise I want them out of my face. If I receive a message like this, I usually contact the vendor's upstream provider to ask if they are violating an AUP by sending unsolicited bulk mail, and emit complaints.
Vendors, or anyone else for that matter, should not have the right to use my CPU, disk and bandwidth resources to promote their products, scams, causes, or other bulk-mail foolishness, and I am in favor of penalties for exactly the kind of behavior you describe.
Because the language is so broad, the result will effectively ban from the net all e-mail with even a remotely commercial whiff. Is this what we really want?
Yes. All unsolicited opt-out spam, commercial or no, is an intrusion on my computing resources, time, and attention. A majority of it is fraudulent. A small portion of it is Endless September cluelessness.
I do beleive that the technical solution described is misguided. It should be the other way around: Criminal penalties for sending unsolicited broadcast mail to any machine that does not specifically indicate that UBE is acceptable.
I own my SMTP port. I believe I should have the right to seek prosecution for its misuse. I define misuse as requesting delivery of UBE.
And they make laws about cryptography? (Score:1)
Re:Quotes from Congress... (Score:1)
Of course. His inbox is probably 20 lines - so 20 messages "filled" it. Probably haven't grasped the concept of scrollbars completely. When deleting one of the 20 messages makes another appear: "Oh - more arrived just now!"
I did this once, in absentia (Score:1)
Before taking vacation, I set my email to autoreply the fact that I was on vacation and would not be able to respond to any emails.
While I was away, and automatic system sent me an email saying that there was something that required my attention. This system was also able to retrieve information requested via email, so it was set up to receive emails as well.
My mail system duly sent my 3 line autoreply back to the automatic system. The automatic system tried to parse the email for what it was supposed to do, but since it wasn't in the format it expected, for each line it sent an email saying it didn't understand what it was supposed to do. To each of these emails, my mail duly sent the 3 line autoreply, and so on.
Within a couple of days, the tens of thousands of email messages generated brought our email server to its knees.
They are not alone. (Score:1)
We have something around 2000-3000 users in the network.
So one day someone created her own mailing alias, called it "Group" and sent off a test message.
But unfortunately that alias wasn't created right and instead of being a small alias it consisted of all the users in the whole system. This person didn't know much about computers at all so obviously it was an easy mistake to do.
Now people received an email saying something like To: Group Msg: "asdfsdaf"
And ofcourse what do people do... they hit Reply All saying "Huh?". After a little while a small discussion came up even blaming things on viruses.
Needless to say the servers didn't have much choice but to go to sleep.
Why did it happen?
1. The alias for all users was too easy to create.
2. The "header" (the part that is displayed) showed To: Group, which didn't give any info.
3. People didn't know what they replied to.
I'm a linux user and I'm used to being able to see exactly what the headers look like in a mail. However I still haven't figured out how to get the full header or at least see what that Group was in this system.
What are the company (I refuse to use the word "we" here) running? Outlook & MS Exchange servers.
Re: The RTBL (Score:1)
The problem with things such as the RTBL (and address/host filters in general) is that it doesn't catch spammers the first time. Some `plug-pulling' here: I've made a tool that actually looks at the message to determine if it's spam or not. Mail me (remove the obvious part, of course) to get a prerelease version, if you're interested. (It catches 98% or so of my spam, and close to nothing of `real' messages.)
/* Steinar */
Re:Quotes from Congress... (Score:1)
"Wanna bet they're using Micro$oft?" Well, let's see... (from a real message, trimmed for brevity and their privacy (beats me why))
Received: from (something1).house.gov by (something2).house.gov (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) with ESMTP id (etc.)
Received: by (something1).house.gov with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2539.1) id (etc.)
In those samples I've got there are 4 different "Internet Mail Service" machines, and two different Sendmail machines. I suspect that the political apointees are given their own network to play with and trash as they like, while the real sysadmins keep the backend networks running with a "Real OS".
Re:On /., Microsoft is to blame for everything (Score:1)
Right now, for little the Palm aims to do, it does very well. When something comes out that can do three times as much as what the current Palm can do, at the same price, without trying to fit a square peg into a round hole (ie. WinCE) then the Palm will die. Don't worry though, my bet is that it very well could be a complete revision of the current Palm technology.
It boggles the mind how many people on
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
http://www.house.gov/alceehastings/ (Score:1)
Re:It's all about education (Score:1)
"Sorry for all these crappy laws, but we were busy reading Linux documentation for half of the legislative period."
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:1)
Your argument rests upon a definitional switch, like the old fallacy: 1)No cat has two tails, 2)A cat has one more tail than no cat, ergo 3)A cat has three tails.
Your argument mutates the definition of "communication" in the same way the above example mutates the definition of "no cat". In the first usage ("most people here don't want any kind of restriction on the kinds of communications"), it refers to content -- people quite properly think that governments have no legitimate authority to interfere with access to politics, pr0n, crypto software, etc. In the second usage ("yet they want to restrict one form of internet communication: spam"), it refers to manner of transmission -- spam may be properly prohibited for the same reason we prohibit the tossing of note-bearing bricks through windows, so long as the prohibition is content-neutral.
/.
Re:Quotes from Congress... (Score:1)
It was an AIDE, probably a young person. (Score:1)
We're not doing our job (Score:2)
Congress should be getting thousands of emails each day, making 20 more unnoticeable. Clearly, they don't read their e-mail from us, or we aren't mailing them often enough!
Or maybe they only read "important" mail - those whose subject and body are all caps?
Lose weight now! Ask me how! (Score:1)
This reminds me of something from school... (Score:1)
A favorite pasttime of the CompSci guys was to set both email accounts to foward all received email to the other. Once someone set this up, usually with one of the guest or intro accounts (or that of some freshman with an easy password), he'd spread the word, and both email accounts would fill up with "hello there" messages.
Now, the network traffic alone was enough of a hassle for the admins,but the nifty bit was the way the mail servers were set up.
The unix mailboxes had a set maximum size. When this was reached, the incoming mails would still be fowarded, but not saved to the account's mailbox. But the funny part was that the NT mail server had no set limit on mailbox size, so that one mailbox would eventually take over all the disk space on the NT server. Thus, one peoson could easily bring down the email for the entire campus.
Except, of course, for those of us who were intelligent enough not to use NT in the first place. We'd laugh our fool heads off every time this happened. Cause while everyone else was whining about email being down, it would be business as usual for everyone in CompSci.
Best part was, IT didn't figure it out until the last semester before I graduated. And when they did, they just whined to the unix admin (who worked for the CompSci dept., NOT IT), who promptly told the IT weasels to take a hike (only in less diplomatic terms).
IT couldn't do anything to the unixx guys because that network was owned and run by the CompSci department, whilst IT only had jurisdiction over the NT network. And they couldn't touch the unix admin, as he taught an "advanced unix" class and was thus considered faculty, automatically higher in the food chain than IT, who were only "support staff".
He was a cool old unix wizard who despised mocrosoft and those IT idiots who kept trying to encroach on his territory. And he didn't mind a little extra network traffic so long as it inconvinenced mostly the windiots, and didn't cause undue problems with "his" network. All around an awesome guy.
By my last semester, IT had finally figured out how it was done and put size limits on mailboxes tho. So the pasttime of crashing the windiots email every couple of weeks regretably came to an end.
But it sure was funny while it lasted, and of course, there're plenty of other ways to play with NT networks.
Re:Stupid origins (Score:1)
And these are elected leaders.
Its everywhere. I host a website and act as webmaster for a local organization. The president of this organization, an intelligent, well read woman in her 40's, experiences total brain abandonment when 'operating' her PC. Yesterday she bombarded me with 2 dozen copies of a message, along with another half dozen messages bitching and accusing me of incompetence. She had sent an email to webmaster@herdomain (which is me) and it "came back" to her. She sent it over 24 times, interspersed with the complaint messages. She bitched loud and long about how mail to webmaster should NEVER go to her. The To: field CLEARLY showed that she had not only addressed the messages to webmaster, but also TO HERSELF AT HER OWN ISP MAILBOX. This normally bright person had sent and resent numerous times, AND NEVER ONCE BOTHERED TO LOOK AT WHAT SHE WAS DOING.
I very politely explained this to her, and added that in general, where there is WRITING, there is an intent that READING and COMPREHENSION also occur. And what do you know, there is a LOT OF WRITING ON HER SCREEN, AND IN HER EMAIL CLIENT WINDOW, AND THE SOONER SHE STARTED TO READ AND COMPREHEND THE WRITING SHE ENCOUNTERS THE BETTER OFF THE WORLD WILL BE!
(My work for this organization is charitable and without remuneration, so I could 'afford' to speak to the 'boss' this way!)
======
"Cyberspace scared me so bad I downloaded in my pants." --- Buddy Jellison
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:1)
This one is different. The post office may refuse to deliver, but there is no punishment. A well-configured email server will also refuse to deliver some sorts of forged email.
Making email forging as illegal as other document forging would be useful though.
Spam from Slashdot? Tell me it ain't so! (Score:1)
Here's an email exchange I had with your sales and marketing people. I thought I'd let the pointyhaired folks at SD/Andover at least take a stab at it before post this, but I have heard nothing:
Hi,
Because I have little time to browse Slashdot, I was enjoying having the headlines emailed to me. I regret to say that I have unsubscribed from your service after getting five ads in a row emailed to me. All headlines were discontinued. I'm just letting you marketing folks know this as a courtesy, as I suspect nobody intended this. Who in their right mind would want to subscribe to ad spam? If you rotated the companies, it might even be interesting, if you really liked reading ads. But the same company over and over again?
Very sincerely
[me]
previously...
Hi {friendly chatty first name address to marketing minion of feminine gender suppressed to protect the guilty}, I have been subscribing to Slashdot Headlines and have been getting real articles. Now all I get is the same crap from MacMillan, day after day. Is this the new policy now that Andover.Net bought you? I think not. No articles-- just the same advertisement every day! I am giving you folks one chance to fix the problem, or I will unsubscribe.
Please look into this.
Thank you.
Re:And they were running...? (Score:2)
Personally, I don't buy it. You have to go out of your way to e-mail the entire House e-mail list. While there are only 440 members (5 delegates) there are thousands of staffers. It's not like there is one button that says "everyone" that you hit by accident (if that was the case, this wouldn't have been the first time).
By default, you are set to your own office, but many users change that to a personal e-mail listing). I think the "mistake" was a cover up for a real spam.
Anyway, the House system has a pretty good firewall against the outside, but once you are on the inside, it is, well, "possible" to get into a bunch of systems around the Hill. The encryption isn't that tough and with a dictionary, you can do wonders.
The passwords on a lot of Hill offices are a joke. At one time, I had nearly 300 user ID's w/ passwords onto the old HIS system (they shut it down due to Y2K). With a staff turnover of something like 40% a year (yes, it's that high) system security often falls by the wayside. Amazing how many Intern accounts have passwords of "Intern" "Intern2" "Monica" etc.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:1)
Re:Take your hypocrisy and stick it under a rock (Score:1)
Say Mom just changed email addresses, and sent me a forward. My mom won't put her real name on her email address, she always makes up something witty. Because I don't recognize the email address, I track down the headers and report it to the censorship police who bust down her door and take her to jail for the night. Wow, that sucked, mistaken (or perhaps unknown) identity.
And besies, you are not FORCED to read SPAM any more than you are forced to read unsolicited snail mail. Actually, you are forced to read at least portions of snailspam because you need to legitimize the envelope before you toss it (it wouldn't do any good to toss out your actual notification of winning ten million dollars from Publisher's Clearing House). With SPAM, I can immediately see by the email address that there is a very good chance that it's spam, and the subject will give it away the rest of the time with 99.99 percent certainty (I've never been spammed where the sender and subject tricked me into believing it was a love letter from my fiancee or anything like that).
Although I would wish to never receive another SPAM again, there are also steps you can take to protect yourself. For example, open up a free email account (perhaps with NNI? [insert maniacal chuckle]), and never give your commonly used email to anyone but friends and family. Set that free account to forward to your regular account, and if you ever start getting spammed on it, simply close the account. This is what I do, in fact, if anyone were to reap my email off of this post and SPAM me, it's going to an account that I only ever check when I've signed up for some service online, and I need to get some registration information off of the message. Never once have I received a SPAM in my regular email, but I do receive two or three a week in my antispam account.
In the end, just about everything comes down to "I'm a big crybaby and don't like to be bugged, or take the effort to prevent me from being bugged, so Congress should pass a law so that I don't have to do any exercising of my delete button on SPAM." And while Congress is at it, they will have one more foot in the door of internet censorship.
Re:On /., Microsoft is to blame for everything (Score:1)
I wouldn't trust IBM, Sun or any other commercial company to rescue us computer users. There have been plenty of articles criticizing Microsoft for subsidizing (infiltratiing) universities, grade schools etc. Guess what? IBM used to do the very same thing.
My CS professor just told me that IBM used to sell *mainframes* to schools for $1 back in the mid 70s. Their thinking was that when graduates went into the real world that they would only know one system - IBM.
Sound familiar? Microsoft is doing the same thing today infiltrating the formerly-unixcentric universities with NT servers and Win98 desktops etc. Don't blame them for trying to rule the world - many companies have come and gone after doing the very same thing.
Keep the faith - open source works.
Re:No Hipocrisy (Score:1)
RE: Hyppocricy [slashdot.org]
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:1)
Re:Spam from Slashdot? Tell me it ain't so! (Score:1)
Response:
We did some checking and found that it was caused by a older remote server that was supposed to be offline. It was started and sent the only thing it had...ads. My apologies, but we did hear you and I appreciate the input. We will still be running ads (rotation is difficult as they are hand coded), but they should actually have headlines now.
Re:Read the legislation (Score:2)
This law makes spamming instantly and immediately recognized as illegal and all the ISP has to do is prove that spamming occurred.
Re:And they were running...? (Score:1)
Somehow I doubt this will make a big difference (Score:2)
More than anything it demonstrates how careful you need to be in setting up large listservs, and things of the sort.
A moderated listserv would do far more to solve their problem than an anti-spam bill.
Links, more info... (Score:2)
Here's the actual article [rollcall.com] from RollCall [rollcall.com] (congressional newsletter).
Text of the actual mail:"IF YOU'RE LOOKING TO LOSE WEIGHT PERMANENTLY AND YOU DON'T HAVE TIME TO SEEE AN EXPERT HERE'S THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY. MY FRIEND LOSS 40 LBS. READ THIS! [sic]"
Yeah, uh, real important stuff...
--
Funny? Try Scary (Score:4)
We need to get some geeks elected soon, or at the very least get the 18-24 demographic group into the polls.
Quotes from Congress... (Score:4)
Here's some amusing quotes from the article [rollcall.com] in RollCall.
Wanna bet they're using Micro$oft?
--
And they were running...? (Score:1)
Does anyone know what systems they run for their email? For curiousity's sake...
Any insiders out there reading /.?
--
Your tax dollars at work (Score:1)
Re:Funny? Try Scary (Score:1)
Cunning trick to gather anti-spam support? (Score:2)
hmm..It might be possible that the aide deliberately sent out the spam to gain support for the anti-spam bill.
Re:Quotes from Congress... (Score:1)
Also, whats the difference in the ability of NT and Linux in handling mass email etc. (probly unnoticable?).
Re:Quotes from Congress... (Score:1)
Anyone have first-hand experience of this?
oops (Score:1)
maybe not only acts of defiance start change? maybe mistakes do too
Re:And they were running...? (Score:1)
If Washington insiders read Slashdot, we'd be a lot better off right now. No software patents, looser encryption laws, who knows what else.
take care,
Steve
uh.... (Score:1)
Besides, most smart autoresponders keep a short list of who they've responded to recently, and won't send a second response to them. (Hell, even president@whitehouse.gov will only send one message per day)
It's all about education (Score:2)
I'd like to see some people read this in to the whole story:
"It's all Microsoft's fault. They try to make it so easy for total newbies to use a PC and Windoze that that at least one of the uneducated fools is bound to f*ck up from time to time, and every now and then, in a very big way".
Because basically that's how I see it. That MS guy said "I wan't my mother to be able to use it" when reviewing the W95 OS. Quite frankly I wouldn't trust my mother on my PC. Why? because there is too much that can go wrong when left in uneducated hands.
Same goes here. A little bit of education can prevent a whole lot of trouble.
Re:We're not doing our job (Score:1)
I just typed "congressperson reads his own mail". I guess I need to go to another one of those awareness classes. Tits.
jsm
Re:We're not doing our job (Score:1)
Re:We're not doing our job (Score:2)
It Really Works! (Score:1)
Remember, this plan depends on your honesty to work!
/.
How nice... (Score:1)
Time to amend the Constitution! (Score:3)
Come to think of it, people's brains need to get amended a bit, too. Those may be the age limits, but how many under-30 Representatives are there? I'd say probably not very many. The youngest president we've ever had was IIRC 41, and he wasn't elected -- he was a VP who succeeded a Prez who got shot (T.R., who became President after McKinley's death.)
Even when Clinton/Gore ran for the first time, "are they too young?" was a big campaign issue even though they were in their mid-40s. Sheesh. For all the "Don't Trust Anyone Over 30" buttons, it seems like in practice "Don't Trust Anyone Under 50" is the way politics are REALLY played.
Anti-spam legislation unnecessary (Score:1)
Do you really want Congress to regulate e-mail? Wasn't their last couple of attempts a good enough indication of what kind of law you'd get (COPA and CDA)?
(1) basically it means "you used my stuff without my permission"
Let them eat spam... (Score:1)
in Congress have no idea that spam is a problem.
Now some of them have an *inkling* of an idea.
I'm not sure I want Congress getting involved,
admittedly, but I'm beginning to despair of seeing
the backbones get some backbone.
No Hipocrisy (Score:3)
Unrestricted internet communication IS NOT THE SAME AS HARRASSMENT.
SPAM == HARRASSMENT.
Harrassment is illegal - freedom of speech does not give you the right to scream into your neighbor's windows at 4:AM with a megaphone.
The people who are crying for anti-spam legistlation are only trying to clearly define what spam is, so that existing legal principles can be applied.
But what I'm getting at in the end is that anyone who can say that they want to legislate SPAM while simultaneously stating that there should be no internet censorship of any kind is simply a fool.
So... by this logic, anyone who says "there should be no internet censorship", and also says "kiddie porn should be illegal" is also a hypocrite? Not likely. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
Can Spam Act - overkill? (Score:1)
The proposed law [loc.gov] bans the delivery of all unsolicited commercial e-Mail (UCE) to any sendmail server that contains the string "UCE" in the HELO banner. In other words, your ISP can opt-out for the entire site. (Note the legislation originally had an opt-out for individuals.)
Within months every single ISP will put "UCE" in their banner. Heck, Eric Allman will probably hardcode it into the next Sendmail 9 release. Because the language is so broad, the result will effectively ban from the net all e-mail with even a remotely commercial whiff. Is this what we really want?
Re:Can Spam Act - overkill? (Score:1)
If Linus had spammed the entire of Usenet when he originally released the source for Linux, do you think he'd be a legend or so much dog-food, by now?
However, much as I might want to, I can't tell other people how to think or feel, on this or any other matter. My opinion has a TTL of 1. Having said that, I am going to repeat something I've said a great many times before:
Any Law, however well-meaning, made in isolation, can only hurt those it is meant to help.
Conversely, Any Law, however self-serving, made with the consent and open collaboration of those it affects and those who understand what is involved, can only help the population as a whole.
Re:On /., Microsoft is to blame for everything (Score:2)
This problem could/would easily have happened regardless of the chosen platform of the recipients. This has nothing at all to do with evil Microsoft and everything to do with a lack of training.
Perhaps when you click on the "Reply To All" button and there's more than a handfull of recipients the mail client should pop up a suitable warning?
Re:Stupid origins (Score:2)
No, they're the fresh-faced aids.
but also TO HERSELF AT HER OWN ISP MAILBOX. This normally bright person had sent and resent numerous times, AND NEVER ONCE BOTHERED TO LOOK AT WHAT SHE WAS DOING.
In many e-mail clients there's a setting to automatically add your own e-mail address to the list of recipients on all outgoing messages. It sounds like this is enabled in her e-mail client. She likely made no conscious effort to send this to herself (in all likelyhood the To: line in her client didn't even have her own address in it) and it's understandable that she was confused.
I do agree that if she had been better trained in the e-mail software, this probably would have been averted, but I don't think this was due as much to incompetance as you think. I know lots of educated people that would be just as confused if this setting were enabled and would also make the assumption that they were receiving e-mail via the recipient address they were using. *shrug*.
SO EDUCATE THEM (Score:2)
Write a letter. Make the world better.
Re:They are not alone. (Score:1)
This reminds me.... (Score:1)
Re:Funny? Try Scary (Score:1)
But that seems rather tough, because AFAIK spamming is just a subset of forged emails. So it would take some work to find who it really originated from...
Re:It's all about education (Score:1)
Re:Quotes from Congress... (Score:2)
You betcha. The US taxpayers shelled out an inordinate amount of money a while back to upgrade them to MS Exchange 5, I think it is (from one version down), because flaws in the old version were killing the system.
Not to say automatically that a UNIX box could have handled it better (the implication is sufficient), but it does point out some things, most of which have already been elucidated here, and which will likely be further so once the Exchange/sendmail/qmail/exim/cheeseburger brigates start having at it.
Unfortunately, I suspect that the PR mess may be handled as a "regrettable abuse of government computing resources" and overlook completely that it's happening to the whole network. :)
Most Congressbots have aides whose jobs include summarizing the opinions in their email, as with postal and telephone contacts -- those that don't throw the email away automatically, anyway. Presumably they can't filter their mail, lest some hapless Citizen's Heartfelt Feedback be lost, so I wonder how the summaries go. "450 letters in favor of the new social security reform bill," "275 urging cutting defense spending for this year's budget, 16 notes praising your passage of Yoghurt Appreciation Week, and 520 offers for free porn site passwords, email lists and html programming classes."
Re:Somehow I doubt this will make a big difference (Score:1)
It seems like a lot of the annoying problems, like this one, could be at least minimized if people actually learned how to use the technology. People don't seem to understand how powerful computers & the internet can be, and how much they can get from them if they would just RTFM (Read The F**king Manual for those who haven't done tech support for a software company like me... ). "Yes, idiot user, BCC is your friend, and no everyone doesn't care about the puppy you have to give away."
I'm sorry, I think my bitterness is showing through...
Stupid origins (Score:1)
Re:Funny? Try Scary (Score:3)
They make it a crime to send unsolicited commercial e-mail to a recipient whose ISP has a posted policy forbidding it. Tying in the source ISP might be part of the issue, but this is hard to pass the courts (free speech, prior restraint, all that sorta stuff tends to get in the way). At most forcing the source ISP to submit usage/registration records under force of court order is probably sufficient. Of course for obliging ISPs "conspiracy to commit a felony" (if the crime is a felony) is likely sufficient to keep ISPs from "knowingly" harboring spammers.
As far as tracing spam, yes, Virginia, much of the unsolicited email out there is essentially forged. However, most forgeries are poor, and few forgeries are truly hard to trace. In addition, open SMTP relays are becoming harder and harder to find. In addition to any legislation that exists, resources like the RealTime BlackHole List [vix.com] make it harder and harder for the spammer to even send or relay spam.
Of course this discussion is completely independent of whether I believe illegalizing spam is a good idea. I personally think the government shouldn't have its nose in the issue, and it reeks of censorship. Given a little more time users will be more savvy, tools like the BlackHole List will be more prevalent, and spam-ridden ISPs (like AOL) will be forced to filter more actively or lose a noticeable number of customers to places (like Mindspring/Earthlink) which do more filtering. I have had a Perl source and content-based spam filter in place for over two years now and have filtered over 700 spam mails automatically (about 10 false-positives...). Between that and the judicious use of spam-drops (like the hotmail address listed above) my life is generally spam-free.
Novell & Lotus? (Score:1)
I also know that the DOE is still using cc:Mail, as are quite a few other agencies, such as at least parts of the DOD and EPA.
Re:Funny? Try Scary (Score:1)
I'll be there are geeks up there somewhere, just not in office. Someone's gotta run the networks. This just shows that no geek will ever be able to outsmart the most ignorant users - Geeks have a vision of how the system should be used, ignorant users don't.
Since the actual representatives probably never see or use the email system, congressional aides provide a layer of abstraction and encapsulation, even huge email outages probably won't make a legislative difference.
But Al Gore invented the Internet! (Score:1)
That's why I think Free Software is so cool -- it empowers people to take care of themselves. Of course, it won't help us fight spam, but eventually high quality free software might provide all users with an alternative to crappy software.
Take care,
Steve
Re:Anti-spam legislation unnecessary (Score:1)
A synopsis from Westlaw (for educational use only
Newton vs Palm (Score:1)
Actually, Newton OS v2 had excellent recognition. The real reason that Palm won is that the Newton was too heavy, didn't fit in your pocket (or a small hand), cost too much, and did more than most people needed. If Apple had made a Newton Jr...well that's Palm in a nutshell.
Of course, this entire thread is irrelevant to the Congressional spam question. No matter what email app the end users had, this still would have happened because 1) the original spam was sent off-topic to a large mailing list and 2) the list was an auto-reflector, causing a counter-spam cascade. It's a design that's bound to incur spam flooding every so often.
I love to blame M$ and spammers for the world's evils as much as anyone here, but this case was really just a dumb accident. On the bright side, it gave a boost to anti-spam bills.
Re:We're not doing our job (Score:1)
--
Let me see if I understand this correctly... (Score:2)
This statement is repeated on all login screens on all Government computers.
If a contract programmer reads Freshmeat, without proper authorization, they are liable to be sacked at best, and face the threat of court action from the DOJ for gross misuse of Government-furnished Equiptment.
If a Government employee violates privacy, misuses a list of e-mail addresses, sends spam that's illegal in several States, recklessly puts Congress' e-mail system in jeapordy, advocates a product that may be a severe health risk, violates European privacy law (which may adversely impact relations between the US and the EU), has triggered a scandal in the media which could damage the image of the US Government (if that's still possible), they get a minor telling-off.
You'd never guess I'm a bit pissed-off over this.
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:1)
Forge headers (e.g. pretend you were someone else. Probably a crime of some sort if you tried it with a paper letter).
Use misleading subjects (e.g. You have won $1 million when the mail is actually saying buy this product, again probably a crime)
Use a third party's server without their permission (Again noone would complain if the post office refused to deliver letters without stamps).
and so on. Please note the common trend - none of these laws make any reference to the _content_ of the message just how it was transmitted. None of the laws say (for example) "you are not allowed to send messages advertising adult web sites".
The bottom line is spam is content neutral.
Kithran
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:1)
--
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:1)
Yes. Next combination of two unrelated issues?
Do you see what I'm getting at?
I'd say that you are "getting at" a state of total befuddlement, but that would not be correct. You already have gotten at that point.
Freedom of speech does not mean that you can spray-paint your message on my house. Freedom of speech does not mean you can scratch your message on the side of my car. Freedom of speech does not mean you can blast your message from a sound truck in front of my house at 3 AM. Freedom of speech does not mean you can steal my bandwidth.
What part of this progression eludes you?
/.
Re:Anti-spam legislation unnecessary (Score:1)
/.
First post = pathetic/nonexsistant (Score:1)
Only 40 addys listed in the header? (Score:2)
I'm glad that some folks are putting their poli-sci degrees to good use.
_______________________
Re:Somehow I doubt this will make a big difference (Score:1)
This has happened at Microsoft (Score:1)
Anybody at MS remember this?
I'm going to make a campaign donation right away (Score:1)
But seriously, I think there is an even bigger issue here. I suspect that email isn't the only subject about which the average politician has no clue. For the most part, his or her experience is in politics, law, maybe business management and little else. Helluva way to run a country. Like it says in the Federalist papers,"No man can be a competent legislator who does not add to an upright intention and a sound judgment a certain degree of knowledge of the subjects on which he is to legislate." But these days too many laws deal with so much technical knowledge (The Internet, Economics, Ecology) that even if most legislators weren't career politicians with no desire to learn these things, it would be too much for anyone to handle.
The US Congress needs more than a rebooting with a fresh set of pliticians, it needs some serious hacking to remove two centuries of crufty policy patches that just can't handle the system load any more, something that would shift our "design model" to better exploit the "open source" architechture laid out in our Constitution.
I'd be curious to hear if other countries have done anything in this direction.