FTC Adopts New Rule For Sexually Explicit Spam 243
enforcer999 writes "As you know, the CAN SPAM ACT preempted many state laws that were tougher on spammers. For instance, many of the laws that were enacted by states included a requirement that sexually explicit SPAM be labeled as such. The FTC, in charge of adopting rules, came up with a new rule that will require sexually explicit SPAM to be labeled as such. Hmm? I think the states were already trying to do this before the Federal government preempted them. Anyway, I wonder if it will work?"
It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:2, Informative)
I think having this warning will be great. Just have a rule or filter looking for this in the subject line and then it rejects or auto delete it.
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:2)
Am I the only one who gets spam mail that has absolutely no way to contact anyone about the product? Between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2003 I must have received at least a hundred e-mails for those mini-RC cars that were everywhere that year and not one of them had an e-mail, web address or phone number to contact in case you wanted to actually buy one.
Now I'm getting really weird spam
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want viagra, just ask your MD, unless it's contra-indicated for you, he'll be glad to get you into the office on a regular basis for script re-fills.
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:2)
Mindspring sadly, is gone...
(yes, I know they were combined with earthlink, I still have my mindspring email)
but that would keep it from your 14 year old...
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, what is needed is a clarification of existing computer-cracking law to the effect that any identifiable attempt to circumvent spam filtering is an illegal intrusion just like any other attempt to get into somebody else's computer without permission. The existing penalties for cracking are high enough to serve as a deterrent once a few high-profile scalps have been collected.
The spammer claims that "v1agr4" is just an inn
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're running an SMTP server open to receive mail, you probably want people to send mail to you - which means you are giving them permission to access your system. If you're not running the server, someone is - and they want people to access their
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:3, Interesting)
If you are running a spam filter, you obviously do not want people to send spam to you. If someone sends you spam anyway, and does so in a manner that proves beyond reasonable doubt an intent to circumvent spam filtering (e.g. forged headers, alteration of filter-trigger words, misleading subject lines), he's trespassing.
I'm perfectly willing to allow someone to send spam, provided that it includes no fea
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:4, Insightful)
Well that would've been a better idea. Just force spammers via the law to label all their spam in the subject line with a common word like "[UBE]" or "[ADULT]". Then let the READER decide whether they want to filter that stuff easily or not. The problem is, of course, that spammers don't obey the laws anyway and couldn't care less whether you really want to receive their crap so they'd ignore such requirements. If spammers played fair and clearly labeled their crap I would stop complaining because then I could just filter advertisements that I'm not interested in. It'll never happen though.
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:4, Funny)
I've got a better idea yet. Force all the spammers to label all their spam [SPAM] and we're all set.
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:3, Insightful)
Filters are great for the end user, but eventually we're going to run out of carpets to sweep the spam under. Labelling is not "playing fair".
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:2, Informative)
If ISPs can succesfully filter spam, users will stop getting spam. If nobody receives spam, nobody will respond and purchase from the spam. Thus there will be no money to be made off spam. Thus there will be no more spam.
Sure, until that whole effect trickles through the system, there will be plenty of spam hitting the ISPs. But eventually the market will dry up.
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:2)
If you're still using OE, then may god have mercy upon your soul.
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:2)
Spam isn't any worse than that..
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:2)
As the judge remarked the day that he
acquitted my Aunt Hortense,
"To be smut
It must be ut-
Terly without redeeming social importance."
Personally, I think most of the smut (either arriving as spam or available on the web) is really, really bad for young people to be reading.. but not because of the sexual content. The punctuation, grammar, and spelling is spectacularly bad most of the time-- even more so when the idjits are trying to beat a spam filter. And while I recognize that porn (like
Re:It needs to be a standard label for filters (Score:5, Funny)
I agree 100%. This would make it much easier to skip over all those annoying emails from friends and jump straight to the pr0n.
PICS labels? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe I do want to receive sexually-explicit spam, just not too explicit. I'd like to tune my spam filters to suit that requirement, not along an arbitrary government-specified line.
Place your right hand... (Score:4, Funny)
Finally (Score:3, Funny)
Spam (Score:5, Interesting)
1.) Spammers don't obey the rule of law..
2.) Spammers can go offshore.
The way to deal with spam is to make it so it doesn't pay. Remember the illegal broadcast stations? The way we (in the UK) managed to shut them down was by making it *illegal* to advertise on them.
Do the same to spam and throw in a host of technical measures and we might be able to bring it under control
Re:Spam (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Spam (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm with you on this, but I thought of something interesting. If you made it illegal to advertise with illegal spam, then couldn't spammers extort money from legitimate businesses by threatening to advertise on their behalf?
It's an odd twist, but nothing like this is below the spammers.
Yes, the business would probably eventually prevail in a court of law, especially if they could prove that they were the victim of an extortion attempt, but the hassle would be expensive in and of itself.
Re:Spam (Score:3, Interesting)
But you are right about a few things. The feds need to start going after the spammers (and those that advertise with them - conspiracy charges?) that they can get. Also, state AGs need to start targeting offenders for violating state and lcoal obscenity
Re:Spam (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Spam (Score:2, Insightful)
Requiring a warning in spam mail is clearly a away of explicitly ALLOWING spam.
Re:Spam (Score:2)
Si.
Re:Spam (Score:2)
Re:Spam (Score:2)
And in further news... (Score:2, Funny)
IFSS president Biggus R. Dickus said, "we are a responsible, family-oriented group of businessmen. Anyone who says otherwise can come and complain personally."
The FCC announced itself "very pleased" with the comments from the IFSS.
Re:And in further news... (Score:4, Funny)
They also encourage mass petitions by e-mail. You write a small e-mail with the complaints, forward it to your friends with a cc to IFSS (or even just your favoirite spammer), ask your friends to do the same.
The more people you forward to, the faster IFSS will respond.
What defines sexually explicit (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What defines sexually explicit (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What defines sexually explicit (Score:2, Interesting)
What defines sexually explicit??
"I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I see it."
Seriously, though. If any reasonable person on a jury in a court of law thinks that it's sexually explicit, then that's good enough.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What defines sexually explicit (Score:2)
same thing as XXX? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the same thing that Rated X did for the adult movie industry.
Don't get me wrong, I'm relieved to see something finally being done about this but I think a stronger message should have been sent. Simply put, the email is unsolicited which means the recipient has no way to prevent the mail from arriving. Do you honestly think that curious teenagers who receive a sexually explicit content email (and it's labeled as such) aren't going to take a gander at it?
For that matter, I don't want my 10 year old having to sift through this stuff either. Sure, spam filters can do excellent work now but it's still not 100%.
Re:same thing as XXX? (Score:3, Interesting)
??? That's what filters are for.
Do you honestly think that curious teenagers who receive a sexually explicit content email (and it's labeled as such) aren't going to take a gander at it?
If they're your children and you don't want them to look at such stuff, install filters.
For that matter, I don't want my 10 year old having to sift through this stuff either. Sure, spam filters can do excelle
Re:same thing as XXX? (Score:3)
not necessarily. a foreign spammer is not bound by US law, and doesn't have to label spam.
Re:same thing as XXX? (Score:2)
Of course, if the spammer is overseas it's unlikely they'll be convicted, but it would be great if they were forever barred from visiting because they'd be arrested as soon as they showed up.
SÉXÚALL 3XPL1C1T C0NTÊÑT (Score:5, Insightful)
For one thing, simple Darwinian competition means that spammers who comply will be at a disadvantage to those who do not, and will thus be eliminated.
Regulation does not prevent crime, it just moves it elsewhere. Crime - like spamming - must be prevented by making it uneconomical.
It should be a federal crime to _advertise_ via spammers, via spyware, and via trojans under the basic regulation covering consumer rights. Hitting the advertisers rather than the spammers would have a much greater impact.
Re:SÉXÚALL 3XPL1C1T C0NTÊÑT (Score:2)
In the absence of punishment, kidnapping-for-ransom is very economical. You can make a lot of money very quickly! And yet, no rational person goes around saying that we should make kidnapping-for-ransom uneconomical by equipping every human with some technological anti-kidnap getup. Rather, we use regulation - including if needbe police forces and the threat and reality of
Re:SÉXÚALL 3XPL1C1T C0NTÊÑT (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:sexuall explicit content (Score:4, Insightful)
That is what we want. We want laws they can, and most likely will, break. Then throw them in front of the court facing 200 million counts of breaking this law. Watch the spammer plea bargain a short, 1 or 2 year prison sentence when faced with a possible 700 year sentence.
The U-CAN-SPAM act may have been a watered down compromise, but there is already action being taken against the worst spammers. They might be able to hide their IP address by using trojan nets, but the authorities are finding them by following the money trail, not the electronic trail.
With Asscroft in charge of the New Morality in the U.S., expect to see him going after all those Nasty Pornagraphers the day after this rule goes into effect. You can bet the DoJ already has files ready to go, just waiting for a new rule so they can establish heavier charges. The worst pr0n spammers will end up in jail, and that will be a warning to the others.
the AC
Re:sexuall explicit content (Score:3, Insightful)
We are so worried about spam that we are going to through everything out the window to stop it. The more and more you let the government take over the more and more YOU will also lose in the future.
This law is, again, very narrow. They will get around it. Our laws do not protect what they can do from overseas, with spam relay bots (hijacked, for hire, or otherwise), and with ficticious names (which, BTW, laws concerning the
Re:sexuall explicit content (Score:3, Insightful)
No. We want the existing legitimate government controls (i.e. "Don't steal services. If you do we will throw you in jail.") to be enforced.
Re:sexuall explicit content (Score:2)
To paraphrase Scott McNealy, your liberties are dead. Get over it. Given that we've already paid the cost, can we at least get something in return, such as the ability to read our email again while reading the occasional reports of once-proud spammers reduced to quivering pulpy messes during prison gladiator battles?
Re:sexuall explicit content (Score:2)
Perhaps that will at least get SOME people to think along the lines I do.
Short Answer... (Score:5, Insightful)
No.
The spammers don't care about the laws of the U.S. when they can just spoof the headers into thinking they came from outside the U.S.; and the U.S., despite whatever delusions my duly elected officials may be believing right now, can't enforce something like this on spam originating outside the States.
An issue like spam-- or any 'regulation' of the internet-- cannot be done piecemeal, on a country-by-country basis. Internet laws, in order to be effective, must be issued, interpreted, and enforced by an international body; otherwise the offender can simply research the laws of other countries and find somewhere where his action is either implicitly legal or not explicitly illegal. The U.N. does not count in this regard, as it was not created to be an international police agency. Either a new agency must be created, an existing group like Interpol must take responsibility, or the world needs to collectively shut up and take it.
Re:Short Answer... (Score:3, Insightful)
If the spammer is in America (as the vast majority supposedly are), then the email originates with them, even if the first mail server exists elsewhere. The reason people spam is because it's easy, I doubt
Not good IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
Now it will be easier for kids to get (Score:2)
Another Waste of time (Score:4, Insightful)
Stolen sig below:
Karma: Chameleon. Comes and goes.
Re:Another Waste of time (Score:2)
1. Spam hits inbox.
2. Extract corporate information.
3. Get freindly judge to issue a warrant for the company's accounts, followed by their computer logs
Excellent... (Score:2)
standard /. answer, for your enjoyment (Score:3, Funny)
Anyway, I wonder if it will work?
No way! No law or regulation ever works, nor any solution that doesn't involve Perl.
And you can trust my /. certified predictions - as you know, we've had 15 more 9/11 incidents, and no terrorist has ever been caught, because they all use PGP, and are impossible to monitor or stop ;)
Hear that sound? (Score:4, Insightful)
Until one or more of them are caught and fined HEAVILY or get thrown in jail where they get to be someone's hot, tasty biotch, they will continue to spray their garbage all over the net.
Legislating that someone has to do something is meaningless unless there is enforcement.
Oh, yeah! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Oh, yeah! (Score:2)
Hopefully (Score:5, Funny)
(Yes, I'm being faces... fecaci... feseecious... ah hell, you know what I mean)
Re:Hopefully (Score:2)
They already do... (Score:2, Funny)
Doesn't matter what law (Score:5, Insightful)
They never did stop truckers from using profanity over CB radios regardless of FCC regulations....
If a law is not enforceable, then it just don't matter....
Re:Doesn't matter what law (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was driving a tow truck, there was an incident where one of the dispatchers was worried that he would get fined for swearing. Fortunately, it turned out that he cut off the transmission in time. However, if it had gone through, he (or AAA) could have been fined. Unlike a trucker
It'll never work (Score:5, Interesting)
( ) technical
(X) legislative
( ) market-based
( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(X) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(X) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(X) Asshats
(X) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(X) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(X) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!
Re:It'll never work (Score:2)
Analogous to a partial-birth abortion law (Score:4, Insightful)
Spam is an issue that made it to government because it's a tech issue that everyone can understand on the face of it. And on the face of it everyone opposes it. Much like "war on drugs" or "war on copying" it provides an Evil Target for everyone to rally against that can never fully or truly be banished, and as such can be used as a long-term vehicle for pork projects of even the slightest relevance.
Mark my worthless anonymous words, seemingly-innocuous laws like this will be used as the framework for net anti-porn bills in the near future. Remember, the "innocuous" NET Act Clinton signed into law? Its "only purpose" was to "close a loophole". It yielded the DMCA in half a decade.
MOD PARENT UP (Score:3, Insightful)
Did anyone notice any effect on CAN-SPAM before? (Score:3, Insightful)
Does anyone have information of some kind, if legislators think that this law actually worked?
As much as I would love to see spammers prosecuted, I doubt CAN-SPAM has done anything to reduce spam.
Alex
Re:Did anyone notice any effect on CAN-SPAM before (Score:2)
Re:Did anyone notice any effect on CAN-SPAM before (Score:2)
In CAN-SPAM's defense, the real test of the law will be if it pulls spammers out of circulation. Most of them were breaking the law prior to CAN-SPAM (for example, joe jobs are illegal). The mere presence of the law won't change that. It will take a couple years for the punishments to go through.
Re:Did anyone notice any effect on CAN-SPAM before (Score:2)
The second step was for the FTC to define the rules more precisely, and this recent decision is part of that. This ruling makes it easier to go after a specific subset of spammers (those sending out pornographic spam.)
Pornographic spam presents different problems from plain old spam because just looking at it has what many people consider to be a negative effe
Re:Did anyone notice any effect on CAN-SPAM before (Score:2)
> my filters are still filtering out a very similar number of messages.
That's actually a really good point. Some time late last year, I was getting about 1200 emails a day, nearly all of it spam. It absolutely inundated me and nearly rendered me helpless. I learned how to code mail filtering programs in perl, then I learned how to use stuff like procmail and spamassassin and clamav, and when that stuff is used in conju
hypothesis (Score:3, Interesting)
Suppose a new filter/protocol/etc. were developed which instantly blocked 99.9% of spammers. Might the inevitable remaining few become somehow particularly "lethal", e.g., to a then more credulous public?
(Sure, bandwidth would be conserved. But doesn't Moore's Law render bandwidth an eventual non-issue?)
Anyone remember? (Score:2)
'course that was before we had double jeopardy...
war on spam (Score:3, Interesting)
what I want to know is... (Score:2)
I assume that either:
A.you go to the site, see the "free" cam (not that I would visit these sites) then get sucked into paying if you want more.
or B.you got to the site, see the "free" cam and then get sucked into clicking on some ads on their site (probobly xxx as well)
Here we go again ... (Score:2, Redundant)
( ) technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the m
it's is already a spam... (Score:2)
Danger, Will Robinson! (Score:2)
Oh, thank god (Score:4, Funny)
ms outlook rules (Score:2)
first rule: From Line contains -- add all the email addresses of people you know
Action: stop processing rules.
second rule: All emails
Action: move it to specified folder - Deleted email.
After then can browse the deleteds to make sure they didnt forget any of their friends.
Much later when they are sure they have everyone theyll ever receive email from in their list, they can just modify the 2nd rule to "delete from server".
W
You know... (Score:2)
Though that could scream censorship and all, but still something has to be done when US citizens are exploiting the legal loopholes to fill my inbox with dick enlargment, cheap software, and now the new trend seems to be XM Radio hawking).
There are technological ways aro
Trademark (Score:2)
A Law that everyone uses Mozilla Mail? (Score:2)
What qualifies as sexual? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Jane and her barn animals" - Illegal whether it has a disclaimer or not
"Jane does six guys" - sexual
"Jane's webcam" - sexual, but does it count if they manage to keep the email content itself down to 'innuendo' status (and the actual crappy pr0n being on a linked page).
"Enlarge your breasts/penis/etc. Viagara alternative, etc etc" - probably the greatest in volume of spam in contrast to the above, but does it qualify as sexual? Female/male enhancement tends to deal with sexual organs/performance but is not actually pornographic in content.
Really, it seems to me that the really nasty stuff is already illegal anyways (animals, underage, etc), and the majority of emails I get to my servers are in the nature of enhancements which may or may not count.
Yay! More rules from the US Gov't! We're saved! (Score:2)
Dear Sirs:
Thank you for your interest in stopping spam. That is, spam the unwanted email product, not the Hormel meat substitute product. Though you may feel free to stop that as well, if you like.
Unfortunately, spammers have proven time and again they don't CARE about laws, rules or the wishes of the people. They're doing this to make money, and it's a damned easy way to make money.
Therefore you'll need to alter your attack on these pernicious ver
Preempted not the right word (Score:2)
greylisting + spamtrap RBL == works (Score:3, Interesting)
The result was: only about 2% of the spam would have gotten through. I think I can improve that rate by increasing my local spamtrap database to augment the larger one at cbl.absuseat.org. But even if I can't: 98% of spam eliminated in a 100% automated fashion, no tuning and tweaking and training. Completely automated spam removal, totally driven by the spammers themselves (they tell us what IP addresses they are using today by using them to send spam to a spamtrap address).
Greylisting + spamtrap RBL has some niggling problems, such as dealing with mailing lists that use a different sender address (and maybe even IP address) when they retry a tempfailed message. However, these problems seem manageable compared with solutions such as teaching every user to train a Bayesian filter.
To defeat greylisting + spamtrap RBL, spammers will have to locate all the spamtrap addresses in their databases and remove them. Good luck!
Greylisting + spamtrap RBL may not be a silver bullet, but it sure acts like one on my system.
Re:uh?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:uh?! Its good grammer! (Score:2)
[SPAM] cooperation, can't be that hard. (Score:5, Funny)
Since they are legitimate electronic marketing firms, they will have no problem cooperating.
Anybody know the postal address of any of these legitimate electronic marketing firms so we can ask them nicely to cooperate?
Problem solved
What are you saying. Of course the FTC sent it, the E-mail headers wouldn't lie. That's been illegal since January 1, 2004. Surely, you don't expect me to believe that these legitimate electronic marketing firms are breaking the law!
Re:[SPAM] cooperation, can't be that hard. (Score:2)
Re:Here an idea... (Score:2)
... because that involves actually creating a law that has real balls, and enforcing it.
The chickenshit laws they are coining at the moment have no effect on spammers whatsoever, yet still enable politicians to be seen to be doing something about the problem.
Politics in this day and age is nothing to do with what you're actually doing, just what you are seen to be doing. The current anti-spam laws are nothing more than populist spin campaigns to win votes from the uninformed masses.
Re:Use Unicode, Go to Jail (Score:2)