Anti-Spam Legislation Tries Again...

tuiterwyk writes "CNN is running a story here about the re-introduction of a bill designed to place more control on spam and spammers. A lot more spam seems to be coming from off shore (from a U.S. perspective of course), so how much would some of these remedies help?"

Re:how does postal mailing do it?

[mindstrm]

Because it's not about 'postal' or 'electronic'. Email is an anarchy...

It's about communication.

A company should not be able to 'harass' me with their communications if I do not wish them to, period. Just as a person can't.

Re:Spam doesn't bother me.

[prizog]

>Spam doesn't bother me, because I don't get any.
>One of my e-mail accounts is avaible to my
>friends, the other can be seen here
>([e-mail], come on SPAM me, see if I
>care).

My mom uses Hotmail. She never gives out her address online, follows all the usual precaution. Still, she got so much spam in a 3 month (I think) period that her "Block Sender" list (as if that would work, but she used it) got full - 250 blocked senders. This *is* a problem.

off shore

[emmons]

Spam sent from other countries may be a problem, but if the company that sends the spam has any presence in the US the law(s) will still apply. In fact, even if the company has no presence in the US the Justice Department can still go after them... but enforcement would be a bit of a problem. If anything, prosecution would keep the individuals from ever coming to the country.

Furthermore, once the US enacts strong anti-spam legislation other countries will follow suit- EU countries in particular. I'm sure if offshore spam becomes too much of a problem the US will be able to use its diplomatic clout to get laws passed in most countries (with the exception of some central american and middle eastern countries).

Overall, some regulation of the internet is inevitable regardless of how much we oppose it. Besides, there's precedent for anti-spam laws: junk fax laws.

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Re:My Oppinion

[nomadic]

All it's doing is giving ISPs and users the right to set what's allowed into their inboxes. As far as I'm concerned spam has reduced the usefulness of email by an amazing amount; I for one would like the option to put a no solicitation sign in front of my email account.
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Re:My Opinion

[nomadic]

Um . . . . Procmail ? If you are thinking about this from the ISP's point of view, and want to avoid having to stuff all the spam in people's mailboxes only to have it piped to /dev/null, why not write something that would suck in all user's .procmailrc files and do the filtering up stream (only for the /dev/null rules). Then all you have to do is educate your customers. (Oh no. Now that's a concept!)

But I want it so it never reaches me in the first place. The burden should lie with the spammers, not me, and I don't see how making them put ADVERTISEMENT: in the subject line would be an overbearing thing for the government to do.

And do you REALLY trust the procmail rules of people you don't know. They could use that account as a junkmail catcher, and send everything to /dev/null...
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Re:Spam From Asia

[peccary]

Most spam I get on the mail servers I administer is from Asian open relays. Since it is just me and businesses I know and work with closely, I may just cut of Asia, since none of us do business there anyway. If they can't configure their servers correctly, I don't want to receive *anything* from them. Anyone else thought of doing this?

yep, I automatically turf any mail with a postmark from a Korean or Russian domain.

E vs. Snail mail

[LoonXTall]

You answered your question: it takes money to send out paper junk mail. You can't just write one letter, address it to thousands of people, and have the Post Office make and deliver all those copies.

Re:off shore

[KjetilK]

I think it is very important that US gets proper spam regulations, a lot of things has happened that has convinced me that we need anti-spam laws, as much I was opposed to it in the beginning.

You need something like the legislation we have here in Norway, it's confirmed opt-in or die.

Talking about off shore, I get most my spam, something like 90%, from US sources. Since most of Europe has anti-spam laws, or something coming up, a ban on spam in the US will mean we'll just block the countries who host spammers, the international nature of the internet will probably force them to get good regulations quite fast. I think that's the best solution to the spam problem (which is I think is a rather larger problem).

Re:how does postal mailing do it?

[BigBlockMopar]

is it illegal to actually send unsolicited postal mail?... if it isn't why would it be illegal to send electronic mail?...

Sending junk snail-mail costs the advertiser money. (Printing & postage)

Sending junk e-mail costs the *recipient* money. (Network bandwidth, /var/spool/mail/user space)

I don't like the government in my life any more than anyone else. What I want is the legal right to be able to DoS or in any other way attack the system sending me mail.

By the time spammers learn enough about computers to lock down their systems, it's likely that they'll be inundated with spam themselves.

Re:Spam From Asia

[BigBlockMopar]

Since it is just me and businesses I know and work with closely, I may just cut of Asia, since none of us do business there anyway. If they can't configure their servers correctly, I don't want to receive *anything* from them. Anyone else thought of doing this?

Can't do it in my case, we do business in Asia.

If the sending host (not the relay) is still pingable when I receive the spam, I either send 'em a ping of death (quick and efficient, they're all running Windows) or I portscan the crap out of them so that they can get paranoid.

Oh, and lots of nasty messages to the incompetent mailserver admin.

how does postal mailing do it?

[cryptide]

is it illegal to actually send unsolicited postal mail?... if it isn't why would it be illegal to send electronic mail?... i dunno, registering to be 'blocked' from spam lists, like you do with your telephone number would be cool. but it isn't feasable, most people who spam are little kids trying to make money off banner ads. i mean it costs money to spam through postal, but anybodys grannie can spam through email for free.

My Oppinion

[Xpresso85]

As much as i HATE spam, any regulation of it would be one step closer to total government control of the internet...

Spam doesn't bother me.

[derf77]

Spam doesn't bother me, because I don't get any. One of my e-mail accounts is avaible to my friends, the other can be seen here ([e-mail], come on SPAM me, see if I care). Maybe if people didn't leave their e-mail address lying around or use AOHELL, there wouldn't be so much of a problem. And no, I'm not trolling.

The total elimation of spam

[admyank]

SPAM is never going to go away, no matter what government outlaws it, it will only be effective for those in the states. Most of the spam generated today comes from AOL Time Warner or it comes from outside the states. How can you combat that? I find out who owns the domain through the internic whois and bill them through paypal. Yes, this may seem radical, but how many politicians and bureaucrats are going to put their foot down? Sure I have some who are upset, and some I get an immediate You have been removed notice. But it gets the email addys off all of the lists. Do you think I am being foolish?