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Spam The Internet Your Rights Online

Spam And Alston - From Luddite To Pin-Up? 175

Posted by timothy from the what-firm-resolve dept.
templeton069 writes "Alston (the Australian Communications Minister) has been lambasted as the 'world's greatest Luddite' for a long time but the spam bill introduced to the Australian Parliament last week seems to have struck an almost magical balance with everyone from the Internet Industry Association, the Coalition Against Bulk Unsolicited Email and the Direct Marketing Association, suggesting that it is about as good as it gets. So what's the story -- can you go from Luddite to pin-up in one step? And more importantly, does the legislation provide a template for other jurisdictions to implement low-pain anti-spam legislation?"
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Spam And Alston - From Luddite To Pin-Up? More

Spam And Alston - From Luddite To Pin-Up?

Comments Filter:

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:11AM (#7052275)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:major problem.. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Your comment might sound a little whiney to some moderators, but it raises a very important point. There is nothing stopping a team of unscrupulous direct marketers opening a "non-profit" organization that does the actual spamming dirty work on behalf of the parent organization. This is a huge hole in the legislation that needs to be fixed.
      • Presumably the spam would also be required to be related to real non-profit.org business. It would also probably lead to other law suits if they tried it (false advertising, mis-representation, blah blah).

        • Re:major problem.. (Score:2, Insightful)

          by BrokenHalo ( 565198 )
          I can't say I've seen any spam from non-profit groups, but it strikes me that most probably realise that funds are hard enough to come by without pissing people off.

          95% of the spam I've had over the last week has been from http://superrxsalesman.info (prescription drugs) domain registered in Seattle. I can't see our Australian government having any teeth to use against these guys.

      • Per the TCPA (47 USC 227) prerecorded calls may be made by, or on behalf of, non-profit organizations. Since debt-consolidation agencies have to be non-profit there are people that create or run two companies for the purpose of getting around this. Integrated Credit Solutions (Flagship) is engaged in the business of marketing and providing call center support for tax-exempt organizations such as Lighthouse Credit Foundation. Lighthouse Credit Foundation, is the "tax-exempt non-profit organization" in whose
    • spammers who want to sell me placebos to increase my sexual prowess.

      Why do you need the placebos when you could have a pin-up of a government official? Dressed as a Luddite, nonetheless. I don't know about you, but I have a Luddite fetish.

      Oh, shit! I... uh...

      [Narrator: Things are not looking up for Bersl...]
    • Say no to non-profit groups unless there are non-profit sites that want to be based on making me profit. Does that make them non-profit?hmmm. As for the comment about the Luddites being shuned upon by the pinups I am deeply offended as I come from a long line of Luddites. I feel that my great ancestors helped society as if they hadn't protested the advancement in technology Microsoft may have caught on faster and if Gates had any more damn money I can imagine a world where we are enslaved by our horrible

    • Re:major problem.. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by kudos200 ( 698269 )

      Non-profit groups are exempt.

      Sorry, but I don't like spammers that are trying to save my soul any more than spammers who want to sell me placebos to increase my sexual prowess.

      That may be true, but what percentage of the spam you receive is trying to save your soul? If your inbox looks anything like mine, it's full of low-interest loan offers, porn offers, and penile enlargement stuff. If that stuff can be eradicated with this bill, then I'd be all for it. I, for one, don't get much non-profit spam at

      • bertsimpson,The answer to your prayers
        Highten S/p/i/r/t/u/a/l satisfaction, 1 0 0% Safe hgyu5767hgh
        IMMEDIATE ACTION REQ'D: download new soul patch
        bertsimpson,Where you go when you die
        Amazing small digital bible!
        bertsimpson,It doesn't^H^H^H get better than this

    • Covers Political parties.... They explicitly excluded political parties frlom the Privacy legislation.

    • Re:major problem.. (Score:3, Informative)

      by simonbrock ( 710783 )
      The problem is the definition of consent which says: consent that can reasonably be inferred from: (i) the conduct; and (ii) the business and other relationships This is weaker than the notions of opt-in and opt-out being used in Europe and due to come into law this year. If you register on a supermarket's web site for home delivery, that supermarket can send you special offer emails because it might be inferred you are interested in them. The new European legislation requires such emailin
      • If you register on a supermarket's web site for home delivery, that supermarket can send you special offer emails because it might be inferred you are interested in them.

        This sort of conduct is (already) covered by the Privacy Act rather than this proposed legislation. The reason is that it's thought the nature of the problems have enough differences that there should be different approaches to dealing with them.

    • Non-profit groups are exempt.

      No, charities, religious organisiations and political parties are exempt. It's extraordinarily difficult to become a charity in law, and basically impossible to become a charity in such a way as to work around the provisions in this Bill. Becoming a registered political party is difficult too (although I would be surprised if some of the restrictions on becoming a political party weren't ruled unconstitutional if somebody were to challenge them). Becoming a religious organisat

  • Why's everyone so excited? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Erick the Red ( 684990 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:12AM (#7052278)
    I don't see anything about drawing and quartering spammers in that legislation!

  • The Secret (Score:5, Funny)

    by Henry V .009 ( 518000 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:12AM (#7052279) Journal
    The real secret to this Luddite's success against spam is the provision in the bill banning spammers from possessing computers or electronic equipment of any kind. Apparently, he felt that carrier pidgeon would be the the best way to transport the spam of the future.
    • ...and Linux is the only OS to have actually implemented it [linux.no].
    • The problem is running UUCP on an abacus. If you can't even have a computer, IP over avian carriers will not help you.

      Besides, well, ethernet is a switched network, it's functionally identical to the telephone network, and the telephone network is going away. Remember the story about AT&T and Spring moving toward entirely IP-based service? The moment you start using pigeons to carry data to your computer, it becomes just another phone line. Or, so you could argue.

      If you built a difference engine to

  • Worst link ever (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:14AM (#7052295)
    the bill can be linked to directly [law.gov.au]. If you want to get to it using the list liked to in the article then scroll down to number 124.

  • Count your change, daughters and pets (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AndroidCat ( 229562 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:14AM (#7052297) Homepage
    If the Direct Marketing Association likes it, then something is wrong. Odds are, there's a weasel clause that basically defines spam as "that which the DMA doesn't do".

    They don't mind banning those sleezy low-life spammers, but don't wish to restrict the targeted e-marketting of ethical businesses...

    I suppose I should read the article, but I bet it takes less than a minute to find the escape hatch in this law. I'll be back...

    • I bet they are also mostly composed of telemarketers and junk mailers. Naturally, even scum competes with scum, so they've decided to support the ban on spam. :)

    • If the Direct Marketing Association likes it, then something is wrong. Odds are, there's a weasel clause that basically defines spam as "that which the DMA doesn't do".

      Kind of true. Straight telephone use is explicitly excluded (section 5.5). Section 6.7 also allows other messages to be administratively excluded -- which is perfectly sensible, as it allows oddities to be fixed up without resort to a new law.

      However, this is a bill that outlaws spam, not all kinds of direct marketing. Why wouldn't th

      • We already have a national do-not-call list, and it works a treat. The only unsolicited calls I now get are pollsters, and them rarely.
        • I can't speak for anyone else, but telemarketing isn't that much of a bother to me (an Aussie). We get about one call a month, if that. The "No junk mail" sign on the mailbox means that I don't get piles of useless paper in my mailbox; the postie doesn't deliver obvious junk mail and folks delivering advertising by hand respect it.

          Spam I get by the bucketload, even with spamassasin running.

          A lot of the spam comes (apparently) from the US, which is sourly amusing when it's for something where the transpo

          • You live in a very different world than I. There's no way to stop junk mail here, in the states (that I know of). I receive about 3-5 ads in there per day (I receive about 5-8 legitimate letters per month!).

            When I answered my landline I would receive about 2-3 telemarketing calls per day.

            The AU does sound awfully nice. Now if they could get rid of that pesky Internet censorship and monopoly problem... ;-) (winking in case those are already long gone).
      • I didn't have time to wait through all the sub-sub-sub-search-and-rescue-clauses, but they don't seem to be banning spam so much as electronicly harvested lists. So long as the company can get your email address another way, make some claim that you opt'ed-in (ohboy), and have a working opt-out (double ohboy) then they can email you.

        This would favour main-sleaze emailers who have other ways to get your email than "millions" CDs. The DMA sometimes accepts restrictions, but only to preserve your PC as their

        • I would be perfectly happy if spam really, honestly and truly had to have a working opt-out, and spammers who didn't comply were slow-roasted, and more importantly, had to pay me. Not just a fine. I want the money, because I'm the one who has to suffer. I think we'd have to agree to a clause saying that if they were DoS'd then they would be exempt, but then you have to make very sure that they aren't the ones doing it. Still, you can investigate them for fraud, and if you made it a federal law, you could ge
    • Direct Marketing Association likes it, then something is wrong. Odds are, there's a weasel clause that basically defines spam as "that which the DMA doesn't do"

      This is the Australian Direct Marketing Association, not their evil American cousins. The DMAs outside the US have basically come to the conclusion that Bob Wietzen (head of the DMA in the USA) is a world class moron without the first shadow of a clue on what should be done about spam.

  • Heeeelp!!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Best_Username_Ever ( 582302 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:15AM (#7052304)
    That Dingo stole my penis enlarger!

  • Spam bill good, but overall still a Luddite (Score:5, Informative)

    by The Fink ( 300855 ) <slashdot@diffidence.org> on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:27AM (#7052359) Homepage
    This is the same Luddite who, just today, decided that chatrooms should be all but banned [news.com.au]. Remember: this is the same Luddite who not so long ago, in effect decided that broadband was a waste of time [whirlpool.net.au].


    Yes, the anti-spam bill is a good step, but he's still a Luddite.

  • The man is still an idiot (Score:3, Informative)

    by Aussie ( 10167 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:27AM (#7052362) Journal
    On Microsoft closing chat rooms:

    Senator Alston said other firms would have social obligations and legal concerns prompting them to take similar action.

    Article [news.com.au]

    He thinks MS did this for the public good.

  • It won't make a lot of difference (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dbIII ( 701233 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:29AM (#7052371)
    Web cacheing is apparently illegal in Australia too is you take one of the laws to it's logical conclusion. That deparment doesn't have a good history in drafting legislation (or anything really).

    I don't think we'll see anything slow down until the first procecution.

    Maybe we'll all have to put NO JUNK MAIL on our web pages to show we've put some effort into informing the miscreants.

    It goes to show however, that once an IT issue directly annoys a minister it gets results. The more IT issues become mainstream the better.

    • Web cacheing is apparently illegal in Australia too is you take one of the laws to it's logical conclusion.

      If you meant proxying, not any more. This was fixed in the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Act, aka the "Australian DMCA". In the US, this was also fixed in the DMCA. No, the DMCA isn't all bad...

  • (1) For the purposes of this Act, a person does not send an electronic message, or cause an electronic message to be sent, merely because the person supplies a carriage service that enables the message to be sent.

    So.. does this mean that people running and/or responsible for open-relays aren't responsible for the traffic that goes through them?

  • Wow. Bad mental image. (Score:3, Funny)

    by cliffy2000 ( 185461 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:35AM (#7052404) Journal
    "Spam And Alston - From Luddite To Pin-Up?"
    Am I the only one picturing an older man in an undershirt, suspenders and short pants as a centerfold? (Not to mention a dozen broken monitors behind him.)

  • Pinup? (Score:2, Funny)

    by ezthrust ( 564219 )
    I don't know about you, but this [nla.gov.au] isn't my idea of a great pin-up.. but to each their own I guess.

  • Address Harvesting (Score:3, Informative)

    by nfras ( 313241 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:38AM (#7052424)
    It's interesting to note that selling address harvesting software will become illegal, and that selling email lists harvested by software will also become illegal. It will also be illegal to use the list even if you bought it overseas. The problem lies in proving that the list was obtained in this way.
    • Harvesting? HARVESTING? I hate that term because it implies that the addresses are the spammers' crops and they are simply collecting their own property.

      In reality, the spammers are stealing the addresses. So why not use a term that is closer to the mark, such as "address looting", "address pillaging" or "address plundering".

      Dictionary.com says:
      Loot:
      1. Valuables pillaged in time of war; spoils.
      2. Stolen goods.
      3. Informal. Goods illicitly obtained, as by bribery.
      4. Informal. Things of value, such as gif
      • Ooh, I like that idea! I think we should go with "pillaging", mainly because that has a word association with "rape", and that simple association with these scum is going to do them no favours at all. It's kind of like the RIAA associating copyright offenders with pirates, only more gramatically correct since all too often their spiders ignore any "robots.txt" file and plough through the html anyway.

        All in favour...

    • Could make google.com.au Illegal! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by bigsteve@dstc ( 140392 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @03:10AM (#7052747)
      My initial reading of the draft legislation is that it could make web search engines illegal. For example, I can use google.com.au to search for "@student.uq.ed.au", and then use these to create a list for spamming students at the University of Queensland. Under paragraph 20.1.a, this would make Google a provider of address harvesting software.

      While 20.2 says the following, I don't think it helps:

      20.1 does not apply if the supplier had no reason to suspect that the customer, or another person, intended to use the address-harvesting software or the harvested-address list, as the case may be, in connection with sending commercial electronic messages in contravention of section 16.

      The mere fact my search request contained a DNS name and an '@' character could be construed as grounds to suspect that I might use the results for spamming.

  • Alston still is, and always will be, a fuckwit. (Score:3, Informative)

    by The Fanta Menace ( 607612 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:43AM (#7052442) Homepage

    His latest statement is here [abc.net.au], where he claims that after Microsoft's closure of its chatrooms, more scrutiny will be placed on those of other ISPs

    Microsoft's chat service closure was less to do with protecting children than it was a chance to start strangling their IM competition. The child protection thing was just pulling the wool over the public's eyes.

    Alston would like nothing more than to have every unmoderated chat service shut down.

  • Not such a blessing... (Score:5, Informative)

    by gnoshi ( 314933 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:44AM (#7052447)
    As another has pointed out, there are a number of exemptions:
    Eg. Schedule 1, Object, Note 2:
    Designated commercial electronic messages are exempt from section 16 (unsolicited commercial electronic messages must not be sent) and section 18 (commercial electronic messages must contain a functional unsubscribe facility).

    Those 'designated commercial electronic messages' include:
    Government bodies, political parties, religious organisations and charities
    (a) the sending of the message is authorised by any of the following bodies:
    (i) a government body;
    (ii) a registered political party;
    (iii) a religious organisation;
    (iv) a charity or charitable institution; and
    (b) the message relates to goods or services; and
    (c) the body is the supplier, or prospective supplier, of the goods or services concerned.
    Educational institutions
    (a) the sending of the message is authorised by an educational institution; and
    (b) either or both of the following subparagraphs applies:
    (i) the relevant electronic accountholder is, or has been, enrolled as a student in that institution;
    (ii) a member or former member of the household of the relevant electronic accountholder is, or has been, enrolled as a student in that institution; and
    (c) the message relates to goods or services; and
    (d) the institution is the supplier, or prospective supplier, of the goods or services concerned
    Factual information
    (a) the message consists of no more than factual information (with or without directlyrelated comment) and any or all of the following additional information:
    (i) the name, logo and contact details of the individual or organisation who authorised the sending of the message;
    (ii) the name and contact details of the author;
    (iii) if the author is an employee--the name, logo and contact details of the author's employer;
    (iv) if the author is a partner in a partnership--the name, logo and contact details of the partnership;
    (v) if the author is a director or officer of an organisation--the name, logo and contact details of the organisation;
    (vi) if the message is sponsored--the name, logo and contact details of the sponsor;
    (vii) information required to be included by section 17;
    (viii) information that would have been required to be included by section 18 if that section had applied to the message; and
    (b) assuming that none of that additional information had been included in the message, the message would not have been a commercial electronic message; and
    (c) the message complies with such other condition or conditions (if any) as are specified in the regulations.

    After all that, I don't really see how it will help one bit. To my interpretation (wrong though it may be) we can still get spam but we have to know who it is coming from, and if it is from a business (for profit) it may not be more than a business card. On the other hand, from a govt body, political party, religious crazies (or otherwise), and charities, you den't even need to be able to unsubscribe. It must relate to goods or services (uh huh... big protection there. The catalogues in my mailbox do that too) and they must be the prospective supplier. That's what they are hoping, anyway.

    Also, a uni, or school, may cheerfully spam all their students. What fun.

    All seems to be a waste of time to me.
    As for Alston... if anyone sees him, punch him in the face for me, or somesuch.

  • His $4 million website. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sr180 ( 700526 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:45AM (#7052451) Journal
    For those that dont remember, Richard Alston is the Communications Minister that spent $4 million on a website. I dont car how many good deeds he does, he is still the worlds worst luddite. References for those who dont remember: $4 million website [whirlpool.net.au] or $4 million website [news.com.au] And he couldnt even spend that money on the local economy. His view of technology is that it has to be done with the big multi-national companies, local ones dont even get a look in (see the whirlpool link). Obviously the companies prefered are the ones that are likely to hire him as a consultant either now or later on.

    • If a luddite is someone who is anti-technology, named after people who actually broke machinery, how can someone who spends large amounts of money on technology be a ludite.

      Not to defend it, but a $4 million (about USD2.6 million) web site represents a big investment in a form of technology and would seem to infer, therefore, that he is the opposite of a luddite, whatver that is called.

  • Perhaps here [smh.com.au]is a nice summary

  • I'm looking for ways to get hits on my site, and, that $50 for 300,000 targetted opt-in emails is looking better all the time.

    All this legislation does is make it more expensive for spammers, not less likely. Right now, because email is so cheap, eventually spammers will succumb under their own weight because they can't make a profit in an industry where price competition exists.

    But now, with opt in mailing lists, you've created a thing of value for spammers to own, and to sell or rent.

    Way to go spam legisltatures. You've just turned a nuisance into the next mega industry!

  • My only gripe (Score:4, Interesting)

    by StewedSquirrel ( 574170 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:52AM (#7052483)
    I will admit I only read the "Simplified Outline", but from what I saw there, my only grip with this bill is this:

    "Address-harvesting software must not be supplied,
    acquired or used."

    I have no problem banning the USAGE of harvested lists. But banning the software?? hmmmm it reeks of censorship to me. Personally, I'd rather be free and spammed than to be sliding down slippery slopes that are completely spam-free.

    But maybe that's why I hang out here instead of the local pub.

    Stewey

  • Big F*cking Loophole (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nfras ( 313241 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @01:59AM (#7052512)
    You are also exempt if:
    the message relates to goods or services; and
    (c) the body is the supplier, or prospective
    supplier, of the goods or services concerned.

    Holy Shit. That means that I have the right to send you email if I have something that I want to sell you, or think I might want to sell you. I think I might want to sell a penis enlarger. I will now email these 2 million people to see if they would be interested. Hey, the law lets me do it as long as I let you unsubscribe and say who I am.

    • Big mistake (Score:3, Informative)

      by Dusabre ( 176445 )
      You didn't understand the clause.

      In simple English

      If the message comes from one of the listed orgs (party, etc) AND concerns goods or services FROM the listed org, then its okay.

      Still, if your church is producing penile extenders, then its exempt.

  • I'm Australian... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Xenex ( 97062 ) <xenex@noSPaM.opinionstick.com> on Thursday September 25, 2003 @02:01AM (#7052521) Journal
    So what's the story -- can you go from Luddite to pin-up in one step?
    I'm an Australian, and let me assure you - he can't.

    A man that thinks broadband is just for games, introduced unworkable Internet censorship and thinks Telstra is doing a good enough job to become 100 percent public is still a Luddite.

  • Reservations regarding this bill (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lpontiac ( 173839 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @02:03AM (#7052530)

    Lots of organisations are still digesting this bill, and are yet to issue a response. But groups may well come out swinging against:

    • The banning of "email harvesting software." There's a risk of trouble for people legitimately scanning websites for email addresses, for purposes such as research, and maintenance of their own sites.
    • Only covering the sale of goods and services. This would seem to exempt charities, religious organisations, lobbying groups, survey groups and lots of other people who manage to annoy without selling anything.
    • The sections of the bill relating to searches without a warrant.

    It's a step in the right direction, but this bill is far from perfect.

    • The banning of "email harvesting software." There's a risk of trouble for people legitimately scanning websites for email addresses, for purposes such as research, and maintenance of their own sites.

      Uh. What kind of 'research' exactly do you have in mind? The only research I can think of that would require people to have lots of email addresses would be one of 'how do I improve my spamm^H^H^H^H^Hdirect marketing practices'. I don't think I want those.

      • Uh. What kind of 'research' exactly do you have in mind? The only research I can think of that would require people to have lots of email addresses would be one of 'how do I improve my spamm^H^H^H^H^Hdirect marketing practices'. I don't think I want those.

        Stolen blatantly from a fellow calling himself Stilgherrian on a mailing list: Linguistic research into what people choose as usernames. What's more popular, generic 'sales@' addresses, or 'contact sales manager Sarah Jones at sarah@'? What's the propo

  • Interesting clause (Score:3, Interesting)

    by geekwench ( 644364 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @02:15AM (#7052566)
    Looking through the information on what, exactly, implies "consent", I ran across this:

    • (1)For the purposes of this Act, the consent of the relevant electronic account-holder may not be inferred from the mere fact that the relevant electronic address has been published.

    • Exception--conspicuous publication
      (2)However, if:
      (a)a particular electronic address enables the public, or a section of the public, to send electronic messages to:
      (i) a particular employee; or
      (ii) a particular director or officer of an organisation; or
      (iii) a particular partner in a partnership; or
      (iv) a particular holder of a statutory or other office; or
      (v) a particular self-employed individual; or
      (vi) an individual from time to time holding, occupying or performing the duties of, a particular office or position within the operations of an organisation; or
      (vii) an individual, or a group of individuals, from time to time performing a particular function, or fulfilling a particular role, within the operations of an organisation; and
      (b) the electronic address has been conspicuously published; and
      (c) it would be reasonable to assume that the publication occurred with the agreement of:
      (i) if subparagraph (a)(i), (ii), (iii), (iv) or (v) applies--the employee, director, officer, partner, office-holder or self-employed individual concerned; or
      (ii) if subparagraph (a)(vi) or (vii) applies--the organisation concerned; and
      (d) the publication is not accompanied by:
      (i) a statement to the effect that the relevant electronic account-holder does not want to receive unsolicited commercial electronic messages at that electronic address (emphasis mine); or
      (ii) a statement to similar effect; the relevant electronic account-holder is taken, for the purposes of this Act, to have consented to the sending of commercial electronic messages to that address, so long as the messages are relevant to:
      (e) if subparagraph (a)(i), (ii), (iii), (iv) or (v) applies--the work-related business, functions or duties of the employee, director, officer, partner, office-holder or self-employed individual concerned; or
      (f) if subparagraph (a)(vi) applies--the office or position concerned; or
      (g) if subparagraph (a)(vii) applies--the function or role concerned.

    So, in other words, if I don't put a big notice on my e-commerce website saying "Don't even think about spamming these contact e-mails," I can expect to have to muck out the mailbox three times a day, as usual. Oh, wait; per the law, it will all be relevant to my business, and therefore legitimate.

    Sorry, buddy. Spam is spam, no matter how it's sliced.

    • So, in other words, if I don't put a big notice on my e-commerce website saying "Don't even think about spamming these contact e-mails," I can expect to have to muck out the mailbox three times a day, as usual. Oh, wait; per the law, it will all be relevant to my business, and therefore legitimate.

      Sure. Provided that all of those messages are relevant to your e-commerce site. What do you supply that requires such a big penis?

      Note the "the relevant electronic account-holder is taken, for the purposes

  • "can you go from Luddite to pin-up in one step?"

    I will never call this man [smh.com.au] a pinup.... NEVER do you hear me?!

  • It's hard to imagine that he personally understands the issues involved. It seems more likely that he's been given advice, and not gotten involved or objected because it's all gone way over his head.

    It's when he makes off the cuff comments that his general cluelessness about IT is revealed - he didn't earn the title of "Biggest Luddite in the World" for nothing. Aside from the comments on closing chatrooms that several other posters have mentioned, he's also recently been taken to task over comments he m

  • This bill needs to be taken alongside the context of the privacy act.

    The privacy act means that companies can only use information colelcted for the purpose that it was collected, unless the person who's information is collected agrees for it to be used for other specified and explained purposes.

    The SPAM laws are basically enforcing the opt-out option, and making it easier to prosecute people who abuse the privacy laws (eg companies acquiring harvested lists from overseas organisations who are not subject

  • A technical problem takes a technical solution. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jurujen ( 442221 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @07:06AM (#7053332)
    I think the IT industry needs to recognise that standards like SMTP need overhauling. They were never designed with the insight required to recognise potential mis-uses. The world should not go the way of the USA in attempting to fix all problems by turning society into one bit letigious mass.

    Here is a copy of a letter which i sent to the Australian Government in relation to this matter which was published in the the Australia IT.

    This email is intended for Minister Richard Alston, but is applicable to any persons within the Australian government who are responsible for administering, overseeing, and maintaining Australia's Information Economy.

    Whilst I applaud the Australian Government's strong stance on SPAM email and its recent decision to fast track legislation to prevent it, I am gravely concerned by the nature of this legislation with regard to its stance on list-generating software.

    At face value it may seem as though it is a good idea to prevent people from mining email addresses from the Internet, however upon closer inspection I hope that you will come to see it as I do, shortsighted, dangerous, and detrimental to the Information Economy.

    My concerns arise from a fundamental view of what the Internet is and what it represents. Without a doubt the Internet has become much more than its designers ever envisaged, the current day invocation of Internet is as a medium for the publishing and sharing of information and, perhaps more importantly, it is also a medium for free speech and dissemination of data.

    By moving to restrict the ability to harvest this information, the Australian Government will be unwittingly placing restrictions not on what is published, but rather how it is allowed to be received and distributed. This course of action may have far reaching implications and consequences for the Information Economy which the Australian Government is poorly equipped to understand.

    From a technical perspective the Internet is still in its infancy, its current invocation will not last for ever, and so legislation which effects the flow of information needs to be carefully considered for the implications it may have on the future evolution of the Internet and therefore the Information Economy.

    The Internet is an architecture built on flexible and generic standards, for instance an email address is actually a subset of a much wider standard for representing information called a Universal Resource Locator (URL)* which in itself is derived from a wider and even more generic standard called a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).

    * Please refer to http://www.w3.org/Addressing/ for more technical details on the URI and URL.

    By attempting to legislate against software which extracts email addresses from web pages or other content on the Internet, the Australian government is potentially legislating against software which harvests any kind of information based the URI/URL standards. Much of the software which performs such data mining activities is used for generating indexes of the Internet for use in search engines.

    Search engine technology, and therefore data mining, is the most critical and heavily used application on the Internet today. Whether it be individual users, small business, corporate entities, or governments, they are all heavily dependent on search engine technology. Without such technology and the freedom to produce new innovative software utilising Internet standards, the Information Economy would surely be doomed.

    What the Australian Government may not be aware of, and what the legislation probably overlooks is the fact that software designed to support the URI/URL standards will often not distinguish between and Email address (i.e. mailto:oof@foo.org) and a conventional HTTP address (i.e. http://foo.org).

    The Australian Government cannot pass legislation which will effectively stifle existing search engine technology and future innovation in that area. Data mining based on existing Internet stand

  • Some wrong, some right (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ajs ( 35943 ) <ajs.ajs@com> on Thursday September 25, 2003 @10:29AM (#7054585) Homepage Journal
    Ok, so this bill has some bad:

    "Address-harvesting software must not be supplied, acquired or used"

    Making a class of software illegal regardless of its use or usefullness is wrong. Period.

    As to address-harvesting, I've written my share of address-harvesting software that was for perfectly legitimate reasons (statistics usually, though for anti-spam reasons in one case).

    There is good in the bill though. It seeks to regulate a few things oddly (e.g. requiring "unsubscribe" facilities is pointless when almost all mailings are one-time events) but does avoid trying to regulate the way mail is formed and does leave legitimate forgery available to the average mail sender. There is one common form of forgery that this makes illegal, and I might have to have a talk with our legal counsul about it (since the law covers mail originating in Australia, not just mail recieved there). Our anti-virus software may be violating this law...

    Still, it's less draconian and less spam-industry-friendly than many ill-conceived laws I've seen.

    I'd still rather that governments stay out of it, or just fund the open source development of reputation-based anti-spam mail server software, but I guess that's a lost battle and everyone is too spooked by spam to see the long-term anymore.

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