On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, Bill Bennett wrote: > 1) I sent the quote below to slug-chat rather than to slug > central (or whatever the name is). Matthew posted it here and > whilst I'm flattered that someone thought enough to do so, > Matthew, you may attract the attention of people who will tell > you not to darken their electronic doorstep and take it hence...
I don't understand what you're saying here. Could you elaborate? > 2) To take the second point first, are you not dealing with a > scale of annoyance here? I'd be one who'd be annoyed because, > without doubt, I'd forget to unmunge the address. On the other > hand, I'm even *more* annoyed at the 567th offer of free Viagra > arriving uninvited. It's a choice you make. If you want people who try to e-mail you to have to rip out the bits you've added to avoid spam, then that's you're choice. I'm simply pointing out potential problems with your idea. > =+-> In general, I feel it is better to go after the mongrels who send > =+-> this crap, by shutting down their access accounts or, even better, > =+-> get their websites shut down. Without their websites to advertise, > =+-> they've got no reason to spam. Slowly we'll track 'em down, shut 'em > =+-> down, and slow the flow of the crap. > > 3) I think you're after an unattainable ideal world. I remember So I should give it up because it may be unattainable? I don't think that's a good way to go. I'd like to try anyway. > the parliamentary debate involving Senator Harradine, the Democrats > and pornography sites. The parties that voted for it did so > because 1) it made good publicity to be seen to be doing > something for the nation's kiddywinkies, but 2) they had been assured > by their technical people that voting for it would not make one > iota of difference to the status quo: the porn merchants would > find some not-too-ingenious way of circumventing the legislation. > > Well, insert spam for porn in the above and the argument remains > unchanged. I'm not talking about a legislative solution. I'm firmly in the camp of the Internet regulating itself - there are enough clued people running places to make it worthwhile. Consider this: as ISPs demonstrate themselves to be spam-friendly, they are slowly being ostracised from the parts of the Internet I tend to inhabit. Now, while the spammers can live in their part, I am living in a whole other part. > I wonder also whether people appreciate the money side of this. > I remember the case of two American solicitors who spammed > something like 2 million addresses and reaped a cyclone of > complaints. They were unrepentant: they had received a 0.05% > response to the spam, they said, and it was well worth the > complaints, being reported to the Law Society and the public > condemnation. The issue of spam is not about content, it's about consent. Anyone who steals from me (by using resources I have paid for without my foreknowledge or consent) will tend to end up not being able to talk to me. I don't go public with lists of naughty people who spam me. I just find out who they are and block them. > Finally, writing as one who has taught some computer classes > at secondary school, I could name at least two students who > were technically quite able to tinker with the scrapeware you > described above to accommodate any changes or (more likely) > simply to write their own. It's easy to write, and easy to modify to strip common munging. But how precisely do you differentiate between someone who's munged as you describe to become [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED]? Ripping animals out of both will screw up the second, and leaving the animal in the first results in an invalid address. The reasoning required to solve that problem is pretty intractable without being able to analyse at some depth the instructions in the message associated with the address - for instance, "remove the animal to reply". The program has to look at that, realise there is an animal, and get rid of it. Basically, it's an arms race between the scrapeware and the recipients, and the recipients have the upper hand here. But munging is not the perfect way, since you're ceding ground to the theives. > Furthermore, they would not take any > notice of threats to track 'em down, close down their websites > etc., They're not threats. Their ISPs either shut the websites down, or be labelled as spam supporters and end up in their own private intranet. > This is not to say that we shouldn't try. Just don't get your > hopes up. I'm not. I have plenty of experience hunting and fighting spam, and have developed my beliefs over the years. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- #include <disclaimer.h> Matthew Palmer, Geek In Residence http://ieee.uow.edu.au/~mjp16 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
