No Federal Do-Not-Spam Registry For Now 324
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "The AP reports today that the U.S. government has no plans to create a do-not-spam registry in the immediate future. Why not? They argue that the proper technology is not yet in place. 'A national do-not-e-mail registry, without a system in place to authenticate the origin of e-mail messages, would fail to reduce the burden of spam and may even increase the amount of spam received by consumers,' said the commission." The moral of the story is: never try. See the FTC's press release or their report (pdf).
Not yet ready.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Like it or not, we need to come up with more clever hardware or software solutions like Yahoo's "Domain Keys", Meng Weng Wong's SPF (Sender Policy Framework) [pobox.com], or god forbid, Microsoft's Caller ID for E-mail.
But wait (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, when someone does propose an anti-spam solution, people here can't poke holes in it fast enough.
So you want to hear these lame proposals so you can scoff at them and feel superior? Or what?
At least they realize that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Three words... (Score:3, Insightful)
Billions of messages are sent every day, the majority of which are spam. That's different than telemarketing calls, which require a live person-to-person (or at least phone circuit-to-person) connection. Also, even if volume wasn't the problem, the fact that spammers are almost always either outside the US or using compromised zombie PCs is just going to complicate things immensely.
Knee Jerk? (Score:5, Insightful)
Come now, michael. If it is most likely going to CAUSE more spam, its something that shouldn't be done.
Its a "damned if you do, damned if you don't by people with kneejerk reactions that normally hate everything you do anyway" thing, isn't it?
FTC is right (Score:5, Insightful)
Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
The real moral is (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not yet ready.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe there is some intelligence in Washington yet!?...
What the... (Score:4, Insightful)
This ignores the fact that a national 'do-not-spam registry' would provide a wealth of mostly valid email addresses allowing spammers to focus their efforts. Without an authentication mecahnism the registry is a useless list. This submitter is idiotically biased since he ignores a very valid issue that would give any straight thinking individual pause about such a registry.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not yet ready.. BINGO! (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I'd get a little scared if they can legalize away spam. Although a different medium, if they go all-out for spam, it probably makes for a good sign/precident for 'other things' to be eliminated from the Internet. (Be it pirated files, porn, 'ideas that my citizens shouldn't be having', etc.)
But I still wish spam would go away, like everyone else.
Re:Obligatory Simpsons (Score:2, Insightful)
This IS a good thing (Score:2, Insightful)
Think about how successful the Do-Not-Call list is right now.
"Hi, I'm not calling to 'sell' you something. I'm doing a survey for INSERT COMPANY HERE. There is an option to buy, but that's not the reason for our call...."
Right...I said 'Do not call' that means 'No calls'
Please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why pass unenforceable legislation which has a good chance of making matters worse?
For once it looks like a responsible decision has been made, lets not mistakenly equate that with doing nothing.
Imagine the screaming you would have done had they tried and failed miserably, or tried and made things worse.
The FTC got one right (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way to stop spam is to hammer the advertisers. Follow the money. Penalize the folks who benefit. No other law-based solution will work.
Slashdot would be the first to Bitch if... (Score:5, Insightful)
Michael also seems to think that whatever is decided in the US will magically become policy for the whole net. After all, if the US govt says you must comply with a no spam list, we must expect the rest of the world is going to suddenly stop sending spam. Right?
Commentary by Michael (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Michael, it's not. What they said was
And quite frankly they're right. Additionally, it's not in the FTC's jusrisdiction, I don't believe, to change the SMTP protocol. As such, they do not have the ability to actually solve the problem.
Given the degree to which the FTC fought for the Do-not-call registry, I think they deserve more credit than Michael's snide editorial remarks. They also deserve credit for having the courage to admit that they can't solve the problem under the current situation and providing a damned good reason why, as well as leaving bad enough alone and not doing something simply for the sake of doing it. Sometimes, inaction is the best course, and it takes maturity to realize it.
Right now, setting up a do-not-email registry would be as smart as responding to the "Please remove me" addresses. In short, it would be absolutely stupid.
So let's leave the FTC alone, shall we?
The biggest problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I have some asswipe forging my domain right now which is a form of identity theft. I could call the FBI, but who would bother answering my call. Forget the local police department.
Fact is that eliminating spam is a 3 part solution:
- Technical, make it such that it cannot be transmitted or very easily filtered with minimal to no false positives.
- Laws, make it illegal to send spam
- Enforce laws - Ralsky and others like him should hang. They know what they are doing pisses off millions, they are nothing but sociopaths and should be treated as such. Spammers should pay 2-4x the money spent to investigate and prosecute them.
It's sad, spammers IMHO are doing far more damage that Mitnick ever did or could. Yet they are not being taken down as publically or as hard as he was.This is pure flamebait (Score:5, Insightful)
GAAAAAH. Sometimes, Michael, you are the biggest idiot.
Did you ever stop to think that sometimes just doing "anything" is not the best way to go? Can we please give the government a little credit for not jumping in and just "doing something" to score political points?
Creating a do-not-spam list just creates a beautifully maintained list of people to spam.
Re:Not yet ready.. BINGO! (Score:3, Insightful)
I am certain that's exactly what they are looking to do. They do plenty of law making that is questionable but it falls under the guise of protection or something that is "good" for us.
We all nod our heads in unison as they wipe away the rights of terrorists because afterall, we're not terrorists. We all nod in unison as they give us national ID numbers because, afterall, it's so much easier to just use that rather than having this card and that card and that card, right? We all nod our heads in unison as they eliminate our rights to privacy because, afterall, when you're in a public place you shouldn't have the right to privacy -- you should have your every movement tracked by a central governing body, right?
Slippery slope.
One-way hash? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not yet ready.. (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't know about you guys, but I run a bayesian filter on my inbox and I simply do not get any more spam. I have never seen it misidentify email and I am more than happy with it.
With that said, I think the federal government needs to stay out of it all together. I mean, for me, spam is such a minor issue that I'm more concerned about the funk coming from my neighbor's garbage cans! Seriously, if the federal government wants to do something useful, why not eliminate unsolicited mail in my mailbox? I can't tell you how many advertisements and mailers and coupon books I get in my standard mail. That shit pisses me off more so than spam 'cause I must actually bring it into the house and throw it away. At least I can remove spam with a simple click or a well coded filter!
MORONS! (Score:2, Insightful)
wget http://nospam.gov?address=some@address
which would return:
Content-Type: text\plain
NO|YES
Why is that so hard?
Re:At least they realize that. (Score:3, Insightful)
Moral of the story? (Score:5, Insightful)
Um no. The moral of the story is do not kick a dead horse. Email as it is needs a fundemental change. I mean, come on, clear text passwords over a network? You can sniff out 99.9% of all email traffic on the internet easily. Nevermind how easy it is to spam and exploit the vast majority of systems out there. Yes I know email can now be encrypted, blah blah blah, almost no one on the net knows what that means let alone knows how to use it.
I personally do not want my tax money being spent kicking a dead horse. They would spend millions on a system that's unmanagable at best when they could instead spend that money on developing a better email system.
The moral of the story perhaps, is fiscal responsibility. While not kicking a dead horse and picking their battles wisely they will save us tax payers a fair amount of money. This is probably the best news I've heard all week.
Re:Not yet ready.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I Don't Want the Gov't Telling Me What's Spam! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is like arguing that marketing companies or political candidates should be allowed to send people to break into your house to tell you to buy their product or vote for their candidate, and pointing out that you could secure your house by buying better locks and putting bars on your windows if you don't want them there.
If you want to advertise, take out ads on billboards, TV, magazines, or even web sites. But stay the hell off my personal phone, fax machine, and email account.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The real moral is (Score:4, Insightful)
BUT, for somebody who already has an email address they could encode it and check to see if it is in the list.
Re:Role of Government (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no contradiction whatsoever in opposing government interference with private property and free (as in speech) speech while supporting government crackdowns on spamming -- the former do not fall into any of the legitimate concerns of government; the latter alwasy fall into one (theft) and almost always into a second (fraud).
It would be much more productive to work on real technical solutions to the problem of spam, rather than whining that the government should bail us out.
There is no contradiction here, either. Yes, a prudent homeowner should install locks and other technological means to foil burglars. However, this is not a substitute for having police to arrest burglars or prisons to lock them up.
Ah Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Result - Slashdot complains about how ignorant and evil the US government is.
Option 2) The US government concludes a do not spam list will cause more problems and the correct solution is to fix email itself.
Result - Slashdot complains about how lazy and evil the US government is.
Isn't "DO NOT SPAM" implied? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's incredibly silly to make a list and try to maintain it, enforce it, keep it out of the wrong hands, etc.
Just make it completely illegal to send unsolicited garbage messages and start making money trails to follow and nail some people.
They're right... (Score:3, Insightful)
We need SMTP v2.0, and we need it soon.
Re:The real moral is (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea of a do not e-mail list is idiotic. I'm very happy common sense has won out.
Re:At least they realize that. (Score:1, Insightful)
Basically, knuckleheads in Congress saw how popular and easy the Do Not Call list was, heard people complaining about spam, and put 2 and 2 together to get 3.
Thus the impetus for the Do Not Spam list.
Had the FTC *not* done the technical legwork, they'd probably end up being forced to institute a Do-Not-Spam list by ignorant congressmembers.
Re:I Don't Want the Gov't Telling Me What's Spam! (Score:2, Insightful)
Your "right" to do something STOPS the second it causes anyone else tangible harm. To use your examples;
Your "right" to shout ends when you meet the definition of harassment (2 AM shouting) or causing panic (FIRE! in crowded theater).
Your "right" to mail me something costs YOU, the SENDER, money. It doesn't cost me to receive it. and it doesn't cost me to tell the Post office not to deliver it.
Your "right" to send me email costs ME, the RECIPIENT, time and money. It also costs my provider, the intermediate ISPs, and numerous others, money and resources. The second other people have to pay to send YOUR message, you just blew your "right".
In EVERY other medium (radio, billboards, magazines, tv/cable, even the guy on the corner needs a permit) the ADVERTISER PAYS to display/distribute the message.
With SPAM, particularly thru hijacked relays/PCs, the advertiser (and i use that term loosely) pays ZILCH. The cost burden is thrown on the transport providers and recipients, who furthermore have NO SAY in what they receive.
Better, but still bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Publishing such hashes would, of course, not be as irresponsible as publishing the addresses in clear text (provided the encryption is strong enough), but it would still benefit spammers: dictionary attacks would be quite easy to do: just try out common names at common domains. Spammers can, of course, do that now, but it would be more convenient with the hashes than actually sending mail and checking from a valid account whether an error messages comes back. Furthermore, spammers who use dictionary attacks would have better chances to send their spam to e-mail accounts that are actually used. When no error message comes back, it can still be an abandoned or throwaway account, but if it is actually on a do-not-spam list, it is most likely in use and therefore of more value for spammers.
And even if the e-mail addresses are encrypted, I wouldn't trust that the key isn't leaked somehow. Then, suddenly, spammers had their wonderful list of e-mail addresses. I would find adding my e-mail addresses to a list that would be so much scrutinized by spammers too risky in any case.