Tim Howe wrote: > Lets see... If the US makes a law to outlaw spam, who actually > thinks this would stop any spam? How are you going to go after > companies that spam from outside of the US? How do you define spam?
The best definition of spam is unsolicited bulk email. The common phrase, UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email), misses the point that spam is a problem not because it's commercial, but it's automatically sent in huge volume. (Not my idea, from Paul Graham's Plan for Spam page. http://www.paulgraham.com/) Security in depth is a good concept. It applies to the spam problem. Different countermeasures will stop different forms of attack. No one countermeasure has to be 100% effective. Laws against spam will keep legitimate but clueless businesses from thinking they've found a good marketing channel. Laws against spam would get Alan Ralsky locked up. > The best idea I have heard so far is to refuse email from networks > that are known to be spam havens. This idea seems to make people > really upset, but I can't understand why. Because it doesn't work. Spammers move around rapidly. The IP that was pumping spam an hour ago is the dynamic IP I'm trying to use legitimately now. Or someone blocks a /24 net because /28 of it has recently been a spamhaus. Or the spammer simply forges IP packets so they appear to come from empnet's mail server. Or somebody forgets that they subscribed to your mailing list, then reports the list server to SPEWS as a spammer. Or somebody sends spam from hotmail and SPEWS shuts out 5,000,000 legitimate email users. > If you are willing to take such a ridiculous (and futile) step such > as making laws, We've already taken the ridiculous and futile step of outlawing child pornography, identity theft, manufacturing crack, and driving over 65 MPH. Why bother? People still do all those things. > This is a market economy, right? So far the market supports > spammers. If we want to get rid of spam, then the market must > become hostile to it. I'd like to see market-based defense too. Specifically, I'd like to see a class of email that requires postage. If it existed, how many people would switch to it from free, but spam-ridden, email? -- Bob Miller K<bob> kbobsoft software consulting http://kbobsoft.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Eug-LUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.efn.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/eug-lug
