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Spam Your Rights Online

California Anti-Spam Law Approved 179

Posted by timothy from the sue-sue-sue dept.
Metroid72 writes "Zdnet reports that "A California anti-spam bill passed the Senate on Wednesday, a first step toward the passage of a law that would give people the right to sue spammers." I guess there's light at the end of the tunnel"
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California Anti-Spam Law Approved More

California Anti-Spam Law Approved

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  • Anti-Spam (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:03PM (#5610963)
    I wonder how Hormel feels about all of this Anti-Spam sentiment.
    • Thats one I haven't heard before ...

    • Re:Anti-Spam (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:28PM (#5611137)
      Heres how they feel about it [spam.com]

    • Re:Anti-Spam (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      LOL.

      My uncle works as a personnel manager at the corporate offices in Austin; I asked him how they felt about 'spam'=='spam' ;-) a while back.

      He said that a small minority of the execs there are pissed about the comparison; most don't care, but that a fair number of them find it hilarious and consider it free advertising.

      *shrugs*

      One thing I do have to say; Hormel doesn't,uh, use spam as a means of advertising. Not sure how true that is, but there you go....the irony is still thick.

      (posting anon b
    • my favorite SPAM acronym: Specially Packaged Animal Matter

      Describes it perfectly

    • How do people feel about scripts to fill website logs with crap? Here's mine, quick and dirty, written in about 30 seconds because I was pissed off:

      #!/bin/bash
      COUNT=0
      while [ $COUNT -lt 10000 ]; do
      lynx -dump http://www.resumeagencies.com/recruiterspage.asp?Y OU_FILL_MY_MAILBOX_WITH_UNSOLICITED_CRAP_AND_I_WIL L_DO_THE_SAME_TO_YOUR_WEBLOGS
      sleep 1
      let COUNT=COUNT+1
      echo $COUNT
      done

      Note the fact that I'm calling what I hope is a dynamic page, so with luck, I'm wasting the

      • The only thing wrong I see is 2 wrongs don't make a right. You have no finincial loss from their spam (your ISP might but you legally don't). They might have a legally recognized finacial loss. SO if you both DO end up in court and are both found guilty...they have to repay the $0.00 they cost you, you have to repay the X numbers of thousands of dollars that they say you cost them. Might not be what you want.

  • How does this work in other states? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sirion ( 579818 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:05PM (#5610979) Homepage
    IIRC, this sort of law exists in a few other states. How simple is it to actually use? Does the spammer have to be in California? Do I need to be able to locate the spammer?
    • IANAL, but my sense is that the violation of CA law happens in CA by your receiving the spam.

      I can't find a copy of the law yet, but it is not a citizen's job to prosecute a crime. You should be able to tell the police or whatever agency has been set up to administrate the problem, and they will find the criminal. If, on the other hand, this is a tort (you can sue the spammer for damages), then you would have to find him/her to serve him/her a summons.

    • Re:How does this work in other states? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Lancer ( 32120 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:13PM (#5611042) Homepage
      The only challenge in California would be if you decide to sue in Small Claims Court, which would be pretty likely as you're going to be going after at most $1500 per violation.

      California requires you to serve the other party in the state - if they're in Nevada, you can't serve them, and therefore you can't sue them in small claims.

      If you have a big enough case to justify higher level courts, you can server outside of the state.

      But IANAL, so don't trust me :)

      • That's the big problem with this legislation. ANY legislation against spam actually. It's utterly useless with spam outside the US. Most spam I get seems to come from Korea, Taiwan etc... While I admire the fact that laws are finally coming into play to get rid of this menance, how can an act in California stop some scumbag in Taiwan sending you spam? (And yes, I know a lot of it is simply routed via there, but a lot also originates from that region.)

        Still, baby steps I guess.

        I look forward to the first d

    • Re:How does this work in other states? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Elvisisdead ( 450946 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:14PM (#5611045) Homepage Journal
      The spamee needs to live in CA. In Virginia, it's realtively simple to file a suit under the anti-spam law. The county clerk is usually very helpful in letting you know what you need to do to file.

      Read a story [purplecow.com] about how a guy here in VA filed and won.
  • I have Mozilla 1.3 with built in spam filters!

  • alrighty then (Score:5, Funny)

    by chimpo13 ( 471212 ) <slashdot@nokilli.com> on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:07PM (#5610988) Homepage Journal
    I'll quit my job and rake in easy money by suing spammers. If you'd like to know how you too can do this, send $5 to...
  • just in time to save us from unemployment claims running out and having to find a real job! small claims court, here i come...

  • Haha, sure, ok. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Exiler ( 589908 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:09PM (#5611002)
    Find a spammer, heck, in the time it would take you to do that you could go out and find 500 bucks on the street.

  • Long way (Score:5, Insightful)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:10PM (#5611010) Homepage
    I guess there's light at the end of the tunnel

    Yes but it's waaaay over there, very tiny. Just a speck.

    Until something like this gets approved at the federal level, at least.

    And I know that won't do much good for overseas spammers and so on, but perhaps it will increase the cost of doing business.

    In those case, we can only hope that other countries will do the same. China and Korea, especially.

    • How would it not help with overseas spammers? Doesn't the US claim jurisdiction over the whole world?

      • Re:Long way (Score:3, Funny)

        by The Bungi ( 221687 )
        Do you have anything of value to add here, or are you just playing "Whiny Liberal Hippie Does Slashdot"?
      • Even if the spam was sent through a foreign mail relay the spammer probably doesn't like there. Unless it's purely a scam, the spammer still needs to sell something and collect payment. That means there's probably a US address from where they're shipping their product (if it's a physical product) and a US based checking account, credit card merchant account, or a Paypal account. Yes, spammers try very hard to cover their tracks, but if they can be traced to California or some other state with strong spam la
    • Well, an interesting thing about the law. If a company does business in the US, they ARE subject to US laws. By spamming people in the US, they are doing business in the US and our laws apply to them. Elcomsoft can tell you that this is the case.

      Collecting on any judgement is another matter.

  • Sounds pretty similar to Junk Fax Federal Law (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Lancer ( 32120 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:10PM (#5611011) Homepage
    This sounds like a similar punishment scheme to the Federal TCPA [junkbusters.com], but with a difference:
    also requires courts to impose an additional $250 civil penalty per spam to be used to fund high-tech crime task forces throughout the state
    OK, it's also a tax - I guess this explains why the California government is gung-ho for it :)

  • Now, what we need is some legal consolidation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bwalling ( 195998 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:10PM (#5611014) Homepage
    No lawyer will sue for something piddly like $500. What we need is for someone to set up a service that we can forward all our spam to. It will root out the sender and lump all violations against one sender together. Then, the guy gets sued to hell and back. We all get our $300/ea ($500 less 40% legal fees) and everyone is happy.

  • A copy of the bill ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Snork Asaurus ( 595692 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:11PM (#5611020) Journal
    ... has been e-mailed to every California taxpayer.

  • What use is the ability to sue spammers (Score:3, Informative)

    by Neophytus ( 642863 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:11PM (#5611024)
    What use is the ability to sue spammers when you dont know who they are or where they live. Sure, The Spamhaus ROSKO Project [spamhaus.org] will give some details on the big players, but chances are they already have their operation sorted out 'legally' offshore already.

    • [C]hances are they already have their operation sorted out 'legally' offshore already.

      What you may not realize is that moving offshore won't do any more. Now that the United States is building a precedence for going after evil-doers, spammers will surely be targeted for 'liberation' after Iraq. Being overseas just makes it easier.

    • suing spammers CUSTOMERS (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Xtifr ( 1323 )
      Technically, this will involve very little suing of actual spammers. What this will involve is going after the spammer's customers - those businesses that are foolish enough to purchase spamming services. The thing is that spamming doesn't make you any money directly. You have to find someone willing to pay you to spam for them. And, while it's pretty easy to set up a spam box somewhere offshore, it's not so easy to set up an entire penis-enlargement firm or "herbal viagra" firm offshore, especially if

    • Not True (Score:3, Informative)

      by Macka ( 9388 )

      I've been getting about 20 spams/day, and did some checking into where most of it comes from. And 90% of it comes from the USA.

      About half of that was coming from various domains that turned out to be owned by emailhello.com. To their credit, I sent them a mail requesting I be removed from their lists, and that I not be forwarded onto anyone else. They replied saying they'd remove me with 48hours, and true to their word, they did.

      This speculation that most spam doesn't come from the USA is uniformed f
  • I don't see how laws on Spam are going to be effective. How can they thwart someone in China?

    No, this is by definition a technology issue, and must be solved by technology. Trusted servers, trusted users, accountability, e-stamps, etc.

    We just don't need more useless laws filling up the books, law enforcement time and money, and user harrassment.

    But I will admit one thing, if ever I expected a useless law to come from anywhere, they left coast is the place.


    • I don't see how laws on Spam are going to be effective. How can they thwart someone in China?


      Bombs. Lots and lots of bombs.

      To quote someone from the discussion of the national do-not-call list administered by the FCC, "I'm looking forward to the national do-not-spam list, administered by the U.S. Army."

      (Note for the humor-impaired: I'm not serious about the above)
    • But I will admit one thing, if ever I expected a useless law to come from anywhere, they left coast is the place.

      The useless anti-sodomy laws come from the conservative south.

      The useless "covenant-marriage" law comes from the conservative south.

      The useless "defense of marriage act" comes from conservatives in the east coast.

      Think.

  • light at the end of the tunnel (Score:4, Funny)

    by stonebeat.org ( 562495 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:12PM (#5611030) Homepage
    is just a frieght train coming your way....
  • I have no love for spam but it did yield me a great email from: grow@yourmember.big. Its almost postmodernly weird.

  • Geeks asleep at the wheel (Score:3, Interesting)

    by johnynek ( 36948 ) <boykin@pobox.com> on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:13PM (#5611038) Homepage
    I don't see why so many people at /. cheer Gov't getting involved in the spam problem. I have been using CRM-114 [sourceforge.net] and SpamAssassin [spamassassin.org] for several months and the result is: it works. I get something like 4-5 times as much spam as non-spam, and *VERY* rarely does a spam message find its way into my inbox now.

    Before we cheer legal solutions (which will have their fair share of downsides) maybe more people should take technological measures.

    Also have a look here: Annoying spammers with OpenBSD's pf [benzedrine.cx]
    Slides explaining how Bayesian email filtering is successful [sourceforge.net]

    PS: I know people might say, but what about the economic cost of spam, blah blah blah. Read the slides. If no one ever gets spam, people will stop sending it, and the economic cost goes away.

    Good luck!

    • I don't see why so many people at /. cheer Gov't getting involved in the spam problem. I have been using CRM-114 and SpamAssassin for several months and the result is: it works. I get something like 4-5 times as much spam as non-spam, and *VERY* rarely does a spam message find its way into my inbox now.

      That doesn't do anything at all to stop spammers. Even if all that spam wound up in your inbox, you'd never give a penny to any of the people who sent it. Neither would 99% of the other recipients. Sp

    • Yeah, until the spammers *REALIZE* that nobody is getting their emails - at which point they change tactics so that the messages get through.

      A while ago, one of my clients was sending out a newsletter that was labelled as SPAM. It took me just over an hour to look up the tags that Spam Assassin found that it violated, and rework it so that the SpamAssassin score dropped from like 16 down to just 3. (The most common minimum threshold is 5-10)

      This is an opt-in newsletter, but don't think that spammers can't
    • I don't see why so many people at /. cheer Gov't getting involved in the spam problem.

      Maybe because we're not all paranoid anti-government freaks? I cheer when anyone helps in the fight against spam!

      Before we cheer legal solutions (which will have their fair share of downsides) maybe more people should take technological measures.

      We've been working on technological solutions for a decade and a half, and the problem is worse now than when we started. And many of the more drastic technological solutio
    • Smart filtering does work, and it's been around a little while now. There's no excuse for Microsoft not including it in Outlook Express, the most common email application by far. They key to stopping spam is smart filtering for the masses. Then it would be hard enough to send spam that few would bother to try.

      Personally, I'm using POPFile, and it works great.
  • ... So now I get my university diploma, and my first check with it?
  • Individuals don't have to see the negative side of spam, if they use something like Mozilla's spam filtering, or any of the unix MTA plugins. A defendant is likely to ask, "well, why didn't you use an anti-spam tool?" which would be a very good argument, at least in front of a jury.

    I expect that businesses will be able to prove their case much more effectively, having to deal with millions of spam messages over very short periods of time. It's much easier for a business to prove damages, what with server
  • Maybe its just me, but within the past two days I've noticed a huge jump in the number of Pro Iraq War or Save Our Troops Spam. All I can say is, "Way to support your cause boys, I know I always get people to agree with me by spamming them!"

    Strangely enough none of the Peace movement organizations have spammed me. Perhaps even more stange, or suggestive, is that all of the peace groups are non profit, while all the pro war psam seems to come from some business hoping to sell some thing or another (offensiv

    • What better way to legitimize spam in the eyes of our politicions than by supporting their rhetoric. See, the spammers are rallying behind Dubya! They're not so bad! ...
  • Email a copy of this article to all of your friends--and tell them to do the same!
  • I don't know much about the laws regaurding fraud and other illegal activities done "through" a foreign country. I was under the impression that it was still prossicutable to "launder" money by way of an out-of-country bank account. Is there any reason why relaying spam or running a spam engine from offshore would be legal for a US resident?
    • Is there any reason why relaying spam or running a spam engine from offshore would be legal for a US resident?

      I don't think the issue is whether it is legal or not, but whether there is any way to catch the spammer. If the spammer's connection to the offshore server is encrypted, there won't be any way to trace the e-mail back to him. As you point out, using offshore bank accounts to launder money is illegal, but it happens every day, because if the countries in question have good banking privacy laws,

  • There is still the problem of tracing the spammer. Even if they're found guilty, what'll happen if they don't pay the fine? Will we send the spammer to a collection agency? Will we send the Mafia after them? C'mon. Why don't we just pass a law fining all ISP's with open relays? This "anti-spam" law sounds as effective as putting a Band-Aid on a compound fracture. Why don't we start a new anti-spam political campaign: "Just say NO to spam!" Define a new email protocol. Elliminate SMTP. Done. If you miss some
    • Perhaps, I'm wrong. Fundamentally the problem is open relays. I like the idea of defining a new email protocol as a means of starting fresh. I don't know if this would count as a new protocol or simply a procedure but the idea that an email message is waiting on the sender's server while the receiver is sent an email notification that "a message is waiting on sender's server" is more along the lines of what I'm thinking. Of coarse, having an 8-bit clean email protocol would be nice too.

      A server with open
  • Last week I got 20,000 spams (I'm the web admin for School.Net) and about 100 of those have California numbers or domains. I would *love* to go after those people.

    What happens when someone like me, or a website postmaster, is the one to sue? Or even better, a major ISP systems administrator?

    Can an ISP use this to sue?

    Imagine an enormous ISP honeypot, all routed to one person, and then that person sues the same spammer again and again, each time making a $500 dent.

    Would this make any difference?

    Che

  • Yes, but which one? (Score:5, Informative)

    by dacarr ( 562277 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:27PM (#5611125) Homepage Journal
    There are currently four - count 'em, four - bills in the California state government system. Based on going to the California Senate page [ca.gov], hitting legislation and plugging in "Unsolicited" as a search term, I came up with twelve results [ca.gov], and the following were related to email:

    SB 342, "Unsolicited email advertisements" [ca.gov] (Florez)

    SB 186, "Privacy: unsolicited e-mail advertising" [ca.gov] (Murray)

    SB 12, "Electronic Mail Advertising" [ca.gov] (Bowen)

    AB 567, "Unsolicited electronic mail advertisements" [ca.gov] (Simitian)

    For those about to rejoice, remember this is simply the first step. It still has to finish going through the state assembly, and then get signed by Governor Davis. Let's get some of this stuff pushed through for the better of the anti-spam community, shall we?

  • Fine and dandy.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pastorBernie ( 629093 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:28PM (#5611134)
    A recent report on spam by Reuters stated that Yugoslavia, in an attempt to bring in more revenue is "harboring" spammers through its new program in which the government sells mass emailing licenses to spammers. These licenses basically exempt these spammers from any kind of criminal prosecution.

    While this article is good news, it will not stop the constant migration of spamming operations to foreign countries who need the money.

    There have been more and more people moving towards a newer solution which is very simple. Just ignore the spam. If more and more people ignore the unsolicited emails, eventually the Spammers will lose revenue or lose interest. By establishing all these forceful "spam attacks" we are just flaming the fire and provoking more spam. This is exactly the kind of media attention these spammers thrive on.

    my two cents
    • Overseas spam is irrelevant unless it is also being generated on behalf of overseas companies. Any well-written spam legislation should make it possible to sue not only the company doing the actual distribution, but also the company on whose behalf they are doing it.

      For example, some U.S. company decides they want to spam the world, and contacts an overseas spam outfit. You get the spam. You may not be able to sue the spam outfit, but you can bet your backside that you hvae the right to sue the America

  • Full Text of anti-spam bill below: (Score:3, Funny)

    by Snork Asaurus ( 595692 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:29PM (#5611141) Journal
    Shut up, bloody Vikings!
  • A: hack them
    B: kill them
    C: hunt them down with intellegent S&D droids with lazer guided missiles?

    Still, I seriously wonder if the ability to sue them for spamming will really stop them... I mean, they can probably find good ways to stay very anonymous.

    But this probably does screw over all the big spamlords.

  • Of course... (Score:2, Informative)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 )
    Of course theres a rather fat line between successfully suing them and collecting money...

    Could be a whole new employement niche, Spam Collection Agent.

    "Hello, you bad old spammer you, I'm here to tow away your server."

  • California has had antispam laws for years (Score:5, Informative)

    by tgeller ( 10260 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:32PM (#5611165) Homepage
    Three laws [spamcon.org] have been in effect in California since 1998. They've not been widely used, but about a dozen cases [spamcon.org] that I know about have resulted in positive results for the prosecutors. You can follow current cases on the Suespammers discussion list [spamcon.org], or read the archives [spamcon.org].

    The new law appears to be more protectionist than previous ones, which required either (a) opt-out by the recipient, (b) status as an ISP, or (c) evidence of fraud.

    --Tom Geller
    Founder, SpamCon Foundation

  • 1337-speak spam? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Dem0sthenes ( 660204 )
    I'm all for anti-spam foo, especially since spammers have recently started misspelling subject lines (ie sex spelled "seks") and hence squirm past my spam filter sieve scripts.

    However, this seems amusingly similar to the evolutions of spellings that led to 1337 5p34k. IRC would filter out some words like "hacker" and disguising these words with numbers and intentional misspellings was a way to get past the filters and avoid breaks in communications. They're using our own cleverness against us. :)

  • I'm hoping this law was written for AOL and other ISPs verus the end-user. One, I don't have time to sue spammers, B) Other then losing some time and be annoyed I'm not loosing the kind of money that the ISPs are trying to fight it and pay for the bandwith used to transfer it.

    It also makes logical sense for AOL or MSN that has huge database of the servers that sent the mail, and the number of people affected.

    If such a law is drafted it should make sure that the end user ends up getting price breaks, or re

  • What if? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mpcarlos ( 633076 )
    If I have 10 accounts at yahoo for example, and I get the mail at all my accounts, will it be $500x10??? What if I have 1000??? I'm going to quit my job, and start opening mail accounts... =)
    • Sure, you too can sit on your ass and wait for a judge to hand you a big sum of money in some lawsuit. It's the new american dream.

      In all seriousness, I don't share the slashbots elation. This is yet another law against communications on the internet.

      Espescially how 'spam' is defined. It's not just the nasty people who stuff your pipe full of porn pages.

      If this trend continues, watch for mailing lists to go the way of 'net radio. It'll be too expensive to run the $OS-project list because some jackass
  • From the bill here [ca.gov] or here [ca.gov].

    Existing law prohibits a person or entity conducting business in the state from e-mailing or causing to be e-mailed documents ...

    ... Existing law requires unsolicited e-mail advertisements to contain a heading of "ADV:" or "ADV:ADLT," as specified.

    This bill would remove delete these provisions and would instead prohibit the sending, as defined, of a person or entity from initiating an unsolicited commercial e-mail advertisements advertisement either from Calif

    • Do you run an ISP?

      When is the ISP liable? When they expressly condone spam, or do it themselves - OK, fine.

      When one of their users spams, and they dont prevent it? Ok, I guess.

      When one of their users 37337 linux box is r00t3d and is used as an open relay? Umm.. ok

      When one of their users is the victim of a joe job, in other words forged return addresses pointing to the ISP? Ok.. (maybe in this case they could prove innocence, but that doesnt save them legal costs and hassles).

      So push that law. Ens

  • California Anti-Spam Law Approved ... A California anti-spam bill passed the Senate on Wednesday, a first step toward the passage of a law...

    So, if it's just a first step, then it isn't really approved then, eh? (All the same, I hope that it is signed by the governor and put into law)

  • Are we maybe taking the wrong approach? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by broken_bones ( 307900 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @07:47PM (#5611259)
    This is totally off the cuff but...

    It seems society may be taking the wrong approach to this whole spam thing. We keep focussing on the guy actually sending us the e-mail. We seem to be overlooking the fact that there is someone out there who is trying to sell something to us (or scam us). If it weren't for this seller/scammer the spammer would have no reason to send us anything. Instead of attacking the spammer why not attack the root of the problem: the guy who is paying the spammer to spam. The way I look at it the spammer isn't doing this out of the goodness of his heart. He's doing it on someone's behalf because they are paying him. The person doing the selling is likely much more accessable than the actual spammer because one would need to actually contact them to buy the product being advertised. In contrast to suing the spammer why has suing the company/person who has hired the spammer been cosidered?
  • Forget sending/receiving email; regress back to the days of the Pony Express.

    rob
  • It might be pure coincidence but I got like 100% more spam today in my yahoo account - someone venting thier frsutration?

  • Sorry (Score:1)

    by dethl ( 626353 )
    Due to funding, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off.
  • ...for California to simply enforce the ADV:-at-the-beginning-of-the-subject-line law rather than create a whole slew of new spam laws? If the state did this, then users could just create mail rules to send those ADV: messages straight to the trash. Voila! No spam in your inbox.
    • ..for California to simply enforce the ADV:-at-the-beginning-of-the-subject-line law rather than create a whole slew of new spam laws? If the state did this, then users could just create mail rules to send those ADV: messages straight to the trash. Voila! No spam in your inbox.

      That still fails to address the real problem with SPAM. Sure its inconvient for it to be cluttering up your inbox, but realistically the cost of deleteing it is trivial. However, for an ISP, or a person running their own mail ser
  • Meanwhile, a new legal framework will be put in place in the UK and across Europe to make the sending of spam illegal. Please read the article [bbc.co.uk] on BBC Online.
  • We need a global treaty to prohibit the activity of spam.
  • Remember, you still have to prove in a civil court that some guy was sending you SPAM. Try mission impossible. The real way to deal with SPAM is to filter out all e-mail from individuals that you don't know.
  • So this means the next time someone screws up when they apply changes to /. and end up sending web messages to peoples' emails, guess who is gonna get a little ringy-poo from Messrs Dewey, Cheatem, & Howe?

    :0 Have a nice day.

  • How long until... (Score:3, Funny)

    by mla_anderson ( 578539 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @09:13PM (#5611723) Homepage

    How long until I start getting spam from lawyers wanting to sue other spammers on my behalf?

  • I can't think of a single social problem that was ever solved by making an activity or type of company liable for civil damages.

    Obviously this is not the same as product liability, which for all its evils, in many cases has made us safer in our homes, cars, and places of work.

    Physicians know very well the nightmare involved in any kind of malpractice action.

    While the Calif. legislature's intentions are good, the problems with this law will prevent it ever having its intended effect.

    The only think it

  • Sue the sender only? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @10:06PM (#5611943) Homepage Journal
    This doesn't do jack people for us people, just another open loophole law that was passed so the politicians have "busy work"

    Most spam is sent out through a 3rd party, who usually hides behind all kinds of nifty little things like hijacked SMTP servers and spoofed IP addresses. My freinds dad was a spammer, so I'm quite aquainted with thier operations.

    Let's say, I recieve a spam from penis enlargement corporation. I try to sue, PEC just points out that the spam wasn't sent by them, it was sent by "insert spam company here" and they're off the hook.

    The law needs to include the customer of the spam house, otherwise it's going to be ineffective.
    • spoofed IP

      I believe you must mean spoofed headers, becaue actually spoofing IP through an entire TCP session is too difficult. Now the SMTP server receiving the message with spoofed headers would still be adding an additional header stating the source address of the message. So it is likely that the IP of the computer where the spoofed header was produced will itself also be in the final header.

      However if an open proxy is used to connect to the open SMTP relay, the original source can be hidden. The pr

  • Law is fine, but could we get a little tech help? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Thursday March 27, 2003 @10:24PM (#5612010) Homepage
    I'd *really* like e-mail coming from domain.com to actually come from domain.com. I.e. No fake-mail. If you have the email-address user@domain.com, you should also have to authorize with the domain.com servers in order to send mail. And mail servers should verify that mail from domain.com actually was sent by a domain.com server (they must know where the mail is to be delivered to that domain, why not if it was *sent* to that domain?).

    Yes, I know that *unless* you do/can authenticate with your email server now, this will break a few setups. And it's not the end-all of spam solutions. But it'd sure be a good help.

    Kjella

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