Is the CAN-SPAM Act Working? 280
DynaSoar writes "Lance Ulanoff of PCMag.com offer his opinion on the success, or lack thereof, of the CAN-SPAM Act. It doesn't appear to be working, though spammers have noticed, in that they try to make their spam look "legit". What might make a real difference, according to US Senator Conrad Burns, co-author of the bill, is international standards and enforcement."
No. (Score:3, Funny)
Faster than ever (Score:5, Interesting)
I recently signed up for an AOL 'free trial.' It took about five minutes before spam started showing up in the mailbox. I was amazed.
(BTW, if you're on a Mac, don't bother--the Mac software for AOL doesn't appear to have been upgraded for a couple years--commercials be damned.)
Re:Faster than ever (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Faster than ever (Score:5, Informative)
War on Poverty, War on Drugs (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing I have noticed is that spam to my junk Hotmail accounts has dropped to almost nothing. I think this is due to a change in MSN's filtering, and has nothing to do with the legislation.
Re:War on Poverty, War on Drugs (Score:4, Interesting)
I've noticed a decline in spam in my Hotmail account as well. Hotmail still gives me false positives. In contrast using Yahoo! mail, I've recieved legitimate emails from real people that I know but haven't added to any address list. These emails have always been marked as legit. I recently have gone so far as to not check my bulk mail for false positives. I've also received one false negative. Right now, I think Yahoo! has an edge over Hotmail.
Re:War on Poverty, War on Drugs (Score:2)
I'm not too happy with their filter. I'll mark something as spam and still continue to get things from the same sender (which I mark as spam too, but it just doesn't seem to help).
Oh, well. At least the 200 other spam emails I get each day in that account get sent to the Junk folder.
Re:War on Poverty, War on Drugs (Score:2)
Re:War on Poverty, War on Drugs (Score:4, Informative)
Re:War on Poverty, War on Drugs (Score:2)
20 things I hate about you (Score:2)
Re:War on Poverty, War on Drugs (Score:3, Funny)
- slashdot@users.pc9.org [mailto]
I, for one (Score:4, Insightful)
well duh! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:well duh! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:well duh! (Score:4, Insightful)
Since most spammers are Americans in the United States anyway, your statement appears to be -5 irrelevant.
However, the conclusion that CAN SPAM won't stop spam is in the "well, duh" category. Gee, who'd have thought that a law that didn't ban spam wouldn't stop it?
Usable snailmail addresses? (Score:5, Interesting)
So maybe there was one minor positive point to the law after all. Unless they're simply fraudulent, it's a lot tougher to change a snailmail address than an email or URL address.
Re:Usable snailmail addresses? (Score:4, Informative)
hmmm (Score:4, Funny)
Bring back public floggings or at least the stocks for offenders for god sakes.
Re:hmmm (Score:3, Funny)
Or maybe we could put them in an arena with some lions...
Re:hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)
You're not the only one to hold that opinion.
"What we need is a good old fashioned hanging." FTC Commissioner Orson Swindell, at the 2003 FTC Spam Conference, Washington, DC, on the subject of stopping spammers.
Re:hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
I get thousands of spam messages per day and I don't consider it anything more than a very slight annoyance.
there are a lot of things that should recieve legislative attention long before spam recieves it. think about that next time you complain that your favorite cause isn't getting enough attention.
Re:hmmm (Score:2)
Spammers steal billions of dollars per year.
Flogging is too good for them.
Re:hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Heck, I'd consider that a very *light* penalty, maybe for first-time offenses. For second offense, rubbing their back down in chili-pepper oil before flogging. For a third offense, I'd say they were completely unsalvageable, which would rate a public hanging. (Yes, I'm very serious.)
stealing from who though? they're certainly not stealing fro
Re:hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)
What might make a real difference, according to any intelligent person not tied monitarily to the spammers, is a bill that isn't so forking full of holes, exceptions, and limitations that it does more dammage than good.
It doesn't work, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Free viagra with every order
More wasted bandwidth (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:More wasted bandwidth (Score:2)
At least you have something to train your filters to recognize...
Can we start public exections of spammers now? Pretty please?
Re:More wasted bandwidth (Score:2)
What will work... (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's legit email then they can discuss it. If it's not we should be able to block it. I'm sick of paying for this rubbish.
Re:What will work... (Score:5, Insightful)
What sort of legislation would increase your ability or right to block or filter?
What "power" are you thinking of? Do you have to be born on Krypton to get it?
Do you suggest legislating the structure of the internet? How would you go about doing that and enforcing it? If it can be done by altering the structure of the internet what is the need of legislation?
Yes, I too am sick of paying for it, seeing it, filtering it, having it clog up the whole bloody net, etc.
The spammer's "power" is no different than my own though. The power to use email. The primary difference is that I'm not an asshole.
If one could legislate away assholes, hey, I'd be the first to endorse it. The instant the bill passed there would be a loud sort of "Whoooooph!" inside the Capitol Building, followed closely by the implosion of the dome as a result of the sudden low pressure inside.
Suppose you were an idiot. Suppose you were a member of Congress? But I repeat myself. --Mark Twain
KFG
KFG
Another... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well... (Score:5, Funny)
US gov do something right? (Score:2, Insightful)
Regulating spam (Score:3, Interesting)
Spam is now legal insofar as the spammer includes adv: and a working email address (doesn't even have to check it).
Working state laws have been pre-empted. Many victims of spammers in Michigan and California received judgments, but no longer. Those judgments kept spammers on the run, making them hide their money in offshore accounts and keeping their apparent net worth=0 (excepting Ralsky).
Since spam benefits American companies owned by American citizens, real anti-
No... (Score:2, Informative)
The only chnage I've noticed is that my filters are no longer as effective, now that some of the spams are trying to look legitimate.
Don't wait for the government to fix it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Don't wait for the government to fix it (Score:4, Informative)
Now this is susceptible to guessing. Once I know or guess a user ID, the rest is made up each time. To make this harder, you can set "code words" that must be in the made-up prefix. Further, you can set a "password" that must prefix the entire address (secret.nyt.2.spamisevil@...).
Keep in mind this is geared toward providing temporary throw-away accounts. If someone looks in their logs/database and sees "secret.nyt..." they can sure start spamming you. Change the password or list of code words and they can no longer make up email addresses for you.
Someone would have to be pretty damn desperate to start scanning logs for SG email addresses, especially since they'd stop working pretty soon after they started using them to spam.
I just started using it last week after a similar post here. The thing I like most is that I don't have to go to SG's website to create a new account. You literally make up email addresses with the option to use the extra features to make it more difficult for someone else to do it to you.
Did anyone really think... (Score:4, Insightful)
Eventually people will start using an alternative that is a little more spam-resistant.
weakened bill (Score:5, Interesting)
This bill, as federal, superceded it. Lamely.
Which is pathetic and sad. /me wants to see a spammer get REAL jail time for
stealing computer resources on high-jacked machine
pushing scams that are ALREADY illegal
Real jail time in a real jail with real property seizure. Loudly.
Filtering out spam and black listing email servers (Score:4, Interesting)
What I would like to see is a spam signature sharing, Spam Detection Servers SDS would collect hash per spam email sent within a time period. An email will have to be stopped on any email server and verified against an SDS to see if it is not spam before sending it further. How would these SDSs collect the signatures? Feedback from email users, black lists, good filters etc. All email servers will have to register with SDSs, or they become black listed.
But you probably can tell me why this is not going to work, can you?
Re:Filtering out spam and black listing email serv (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Filtering out spam and black listing email serv (Score:3, Informative)
What I would like to see is some kind of convenient exothermic chemical reaction, which would convert abundant materials -- such as, say, wood, or possibly carbonaceous minerals -- into glowing gases we could use to heat things up with. This would be of great use in preparing food and keeping warm in the winter.
Little hint: Before you say "I wish a thing like thi
Re:Filtering out spam and black listing email serv (Score:2)
This will only work when most email servers participate.
Re:Filtering out spam and black listing email serv (Score:2)
Re:Filtering out spam and black listing email serv (Score:2)
What would help (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What would help (Score:2, Funny)
Man, what an idiot. (Score:2)
Did this guy pay the slightest bit of attention when the law was drafted?
Then again, this is the same "tech" columnist who bitches about taxi lines [pcmag.com] at CES, clearly a major issue in the world of computing.
Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought one of the big problems with CAN-SPAM act was that it said that no one could set "standards" for what UCE was required to contain.
No [ADV] or anything at the beginning of the subject line. Spammers know that requiring them to do that would make it significantly easier to trash Spam at the ISP level. They must have lobbied hard to make sure that the bill says that the FCC is *not* able to set "standards" for that identifying marks Spam must have.
If you are going to write a law that tries to fight Spam (questionable intentions in the first place), at least give it some power to set "Standards".
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Informative)
So it didn't say "all spam must start with [ADV]," but "all spam must start with a tag to be chosen by the FCC within x months of this law going into effect."
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
So it didn't say "all spam must start with [ADV]," but "all spam must start with a tag to be chosen by the FCC within x months of this law going into effect."
You don't quite have it right. All porn spam needs a standard identifier (to be set by "the Commission", not sure which one), not all spam. See the text of the C [spamlaws.com]
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
The actual law says: [spamlaws.com]
(b) LIMITATION- Subsection (a) may not be construed to authorize the Commission to establish a requirement pursuant to section 5(a)(5)(A) to include any specific words, characters, marks, or labels in a commercial electronic mail message, or to include the identification required by section 5(a)(5)(A) in any particular part of such a mail message (such as the subject line or body).
Now, the FTC is required to report back in less than 18 months about the feasibility of requiring ADV: or other indicators, but does not authorize them to require it in the meantime.
Want to try again?
They are basically passing the buck off to whomever has to vote on it in 18 months. [You were right about one thing - it is the FTC, not my idiotic FCC]
No. (Score:5, Funny)
Big unsurprise, no CAN-SPAM isn't working (assuming by "working" you mean reducing spam).
A sample from my spam-bucket this morning (one of those logo design offers) :
[snip]This mailing has been performed by Internet Marketing Solutions, 1719 University Avenue, Bronx NY 10453 USA,in compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003,
approved and signed by the president of
The United States of America on Dec. 16, 2003.
For this reason, this email cannot be considered SPAM.
Re:No. (Score:2)
You should send a note to their upstream informing them of this act of advertising fraud.
Re:No. (Score:3, Interesting)
Dear Fr13nd, This is a *L3GIT* Oppertunity (Score:3, Funny)
Mr. Habeeeb Von Dusseldorf who has been in exile in South Africa for the last twenty-three years has recently passed away, his estate is interested in transferring US$450,000 into an american account for use in the fight against the resistance in the colonies. Please reply w/ your Banking information including ABA routing number and account number. following will be vital information for which to you to transfer the money. Your reward for said actions will be 20%.
Thank-you, Have a great day.
Col. Maj. Fariziq Mouselli Achmed.
How about enforcing the fraud laws? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is this so hard? This will put an immediate dent in spam. I'm not naive enough to think it will end it forever, but if enough people get nailed hard enough (including ISPs, banks, and others through a RICO prosecution) it will be damn difficult and daunting to even BE a spammer, let alone make any money at it.
Instead we'll waste countless hours talking about making spam illegal, when it's the smallest of all the crimes involved in a typical spam message.
Re:How about enforcing the fraud laws? (Score:2, Interesting)
Passing US anti-SPAM legislation is rather like passing laws that prohibit the importation of Cuban cigars into Canada. We'd love to have that sort of control, and we're capable of throwing a lot of political/economic weight around to try and force compliance.
But if a foreign power doesn't feel cooperative(or lacks enforcement r
Re:How about enforcing the fraud laws? (Score:3, Interesting)
As I said in my previous post, I know this won't get operations that are exclusively overseas -- but even following the money trail on this *can* hinder the ability of overseas spam/fraud gangs from getting money out of the US.
How laws can work (Score:5, Interesting)
Follow the cash. How does spam work? It works by getting someone to give the spammer money. Go after the money. Unfortunately, the CAN-SPAM act makes this more difficult, since individuals cannot go after the spammers, only ISPs.
Here's what we need to have in law:
Re:How laws can work (Score:2)
I like your other points. But I have a real problem with this.
I run my own mail server without problems. But in your world, I could not run my own smtp server. Maybe only those who abuse the system should get outbound port 25 cut off. But then what constitutes abuse? Suppose my employer
My spam is canned !! Statistics Follow (Score:4, Interesting)
My spam is canned and put on pallettes now and delivered by semi truck.
Before CAN SPAM.. my SpamKiller trap had about 3100 spam per month.
After CAN SPAM... my SpamKiller trap has about 4200 spam per month. Steadily growing, as always.
Re:My spam is canned !! Statistics Follow (Score:2)
What amazes me is these vermin are going to all this effort to push crap that people are ACTIVELY trying to ignore. Any salesman in real life g
Most spam is international ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I block the addresses at my firewall so I automatically eliminate most of my spam as well as most port scans and scripted exploits (since a lot of them are foreign/rooted systems).
I wouldn't do this at a large company, but you can probably get away with it at a small domestic U.S. business that doesn't need international communication through the Internet.
No. (Score:4, Interesting)
Grr... Okay, the lameness filter has forced me to say more. Fine.
I receive roughly one thousand spam messages per day.
Since the passage of the CAN SPAM act, that has not decreased in the slightest. I have noticed only a single difference, which actually has benefitted me, but won't work for everyone - The proportion of messages coming from "suspicious" foreign domains, like
CAN-SPAM Death Penalty? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would I buy Viagra from someone who can't spell it?
Yahoo's Spamguard (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get spam.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I don't get spam.. (Score:3, Interesting)
one (1) local spammer ran a bot script against the domain name of my isp account and i reported this spam to his isp and to his boss (it was a real estate spam).
his isp (roadrunner) refused to punish him. he kept his account and had a valid list of addresses to sell the big spammers of the world.
within four months of that first spam, the junk in that account grew.
it's now at
Re:I don't get spam.. (Score:5, Insightful)
- Friends or family members forwarding articles to me via the "email this story" link instead of just sending me the URL.
- Same as #1 except with online card sites or some other stupid dot com site that wants your email address.
- Posting to newsgroups before spam existed
- Posting to forums that don't mask email addresses
- Used to have unobfuscated email address on web site
- Email address sold by / misused by marketing folk
- Email address in domain whois records for over a decade
- Email address harvested from mailing lists I post to
That's just what I can think of off the top of my head.All of that combined with the fact that I've had my email address since before the first Canter & Siegal spam on usenet even happened. After having my email address for over a decade I don't feel like changing it now.
Oh, add lazyness to the list. I could make up a new email address for each company or person I deal with but it's too much work. I'd rather let spamassassin sort it all out. That's what computers are for, AFAIC.
Just wait, you'll get spam. (Score:5, Informative)
Be listed as the domain contact for a domain where a working address is mandatory. Failure to have a working address is grounds to have your domain cancelled. (Fortunately many registrars offer filtered address these days, but that doesn't help for the addresses that were visible before and are already on lists.
Post to usenet. I stopped doing that years and years ago, but I got on spammers lists back then and those addresses still circulate.
Have your job require that your email address be on the web. Similarlly, be responsible for a business address (like "support") that has to be on the web.
Post to a publically archived mailing list that doesn't remove email addresses. Posting to said list may be part of your job and can't be avoided.
Have someone else post your mailing address to a publically archived mailing list
Have someone else send you a e-card from a sleazy site that resells addresses
Have a moderately common name and use a moderately popular email host, you might get dictionary attacked
Ultimately, if you use the same address for long enough it will leak somewhere, possibly without your knowledge. Are you sure no one you know isn't posting a "Hey, my friend bob@example.com knows about this, as him" to a publically archived mailing list? Switching addresses isn't a very good option; it cuts off communication with other people. Throwaway addresses help (I use them myself), but to suggest that it's a reasonable option for Joe Random User is silly.
Count yourself lucky that you haven't had a problem. I got a new email address with a new job about two years ago. That address has never been used for personal use, just work. I've always obfuscated it on my web page (I need to have it available as part of my job). But I'm already getting 10 or so spam a day. (Although that's an improvement over the 80 or so a day I get at my various personal accounts.)
Re:I don't get spam.. (Score:2)
exposing spammers (Score:4, Insightful)
i think we should double our efforts.
Can we use the DMCA to our advantage here? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe we can use the DMCA here -- they're trying to circumvent SPAM detection technology...sure it's a pretty serious stretch, it'd be applying a bad law to a bunch of bastards. Bad law (applied to) bad people is just like multiplying two negatives to equal a positive, right?
You'll never learn. (Score:5, Insightful)
Until the spammers money flow is cut off no amount of laws making it illegal will have any effect. What should be happening and I find this RARELY addressed is holding the businesses that spam links to responsible.
Passing laws like that is nothing but a show folks. Put on by our inept governmental leaders (that's a stretch of terms) to say they are working on the issue. Until those businesses that use spam to sell their products are held accountable my tax dollars (once again) are being pissed down the toilet.
I think that it does work... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it's working! (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Everyone is getting just as much as ever - if not more.
2. The spammers are basically protected now. They can do what they want, and corporations have to accept it. And they can't sue either - the US fed govt reserves that right (and will not exercise it, except for show, when the peanut gallery gets a bit too suspicious).
So it's pretty obvious then, that it's working? So what is everybody worried about?
Use the law as our weapon of choice (Score:5, Interesting)
Hell, it's never been tried, so it has a chance, although I still predict failure.
CAN-SPAM works some if you are careful (Score:4, Informative)
I basically tried to sort out which spams were legitimately adhering to the law (which wasn't too hard), and if anything was iffy I would fill out the unsubscribe link with a throwaway e-mail to see if I got spam from it.
long story short 4 weeks later I'm getting about 170 spams/days. A decrease of 60 messages/day or about 25% less. Not a huge decrease, but noticeable.
The big benefit though is that the spam that is left is more "spammy" than before - hence my bayesian filter has achieved a slighly higher success rate which is good.
We won't know until November! (Score:5, Funny)
Getting rid of spam (Score:5, Interesting)
Simply reverse the email architecture on the 'net. Turn the current method of sending and receiving mail around. Instead of messages being immediately sent to the recipient's server, send the recipient a very tiny message saying that a message with this subject is waiting on the sender's computer for the recipient to pick up.
It would require a change in all the email software currently in use, and the only real hurdle that it provides is that people who are no longer on the Internet all the time can't send mail, but I'm sure someone would be willing to provide that service for a fee.
This would also make it much more difficult to forge headers on a mail, since you would need a valid IP address and/or domain name in order for anyone to get the actual mail that you wanted to send them.
Now, if you spam millions of people peddling whatever it is you're peddling, you'll be using very little bandwidth, a hundred or so bytes compared with several K, until those people come to pick up your message.
Furthermore, you won't be able to hide the originator of the mail nor would you have the problem of open relays spewing a constant stream of junk.
Couple this with PKI and you have a very flexible and very fair system.
The problem that I have with spam is that the current email architecture places 99% of the costs of email on the recipient. If you swing that around and make the spammers have their own, high end servers for handling the millions of mails that they want to send, then spamming will vanish in a hurry.
Re:Getting rid of spam (Score:3, Insightful)
User XYZ123@yahoo.com has a message for you.
Subject: Get A BI99ER P3N1S
Probably with date info. attached, including an expiration.
Here's why it reduces spam. For XYZ123 to actually send a message with a URL and the sales pitch, they would 1) actually have to have an account at yahoo.com, 2) yahoo.com would have to store the message until either every listed recipient picked it up or the message expired, and 3 XYZ123 would have to be the actual sender of the message, he
Straight from a horses' mouth (Score:5, Informative)
December 2003
Total messages: 162,564
Total messages blocked by SpamAssassin: 36,927
January 2004
Total messages: 180,375
Total messages blocked by SpamAssassin: 48,661
So what we have is 10% growth in total messages, but a 31% growth in spam.
Making spam illegal isn't working. Not surprising to me.....
FWIW, I attribute the 10% growth to MyDoom and its ilk - my user base did not grow 10%, nor do I think my users suddenly started sending more email - they just received more stuff that got deleted (but counted) by the virus scanner.
Huge Spike (Score:3, Interesting)
Before January 1, I was receiving a fairly steady 90-110 spam messages per day (of which Spam Assassin would catch about 50). Come the new year, it ramped up sharply, leveling off at 250 messages per day since February 1. Spam Assassin only recognizes 30-40 of them per day now.
Let's hear it for more effective federal legislation.
Re:Huge Spike (Score:3, Informative)
Not all of the dns blacklists are created equal, but I have enough confidence in both the spamhaus and spamcop lists to automatically mark a message as spam if either of those tests fail.
The Real Question Is: (Score:2)
Nope... (Score:2)
At last check, I blocked about 700 netsky messages today.
Get a GRIP! (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop and think a minute, people. Where are our priorities? On the evening news last night, I heard a man convicted of killing a two year old by punching her with his fist (seven times!) sentenced to five years. Five years. The two men who beat my brother in law to death got fifteen years apiece. You can sometimes get a total sentence of seven years (with time off for good behavior) when you roll up and shoot someone you don't know in the head.
Spam is annoying, and undoubtedly a drain on resources, and a problem to be addressed - but I promise you that I would accept a thousand spam emails per day if it would save the life of one little child.
Where are our priorities?
Re:Get a GRIP! (Score:3, Interesting)
Clearly they do not lie in making the punishment fit the crime. Five years for killing a baby like that is ridiculous, especially since the bastard will probably be out in two if he behaves himself and doesn't get butchered by his fellow inmates. However I assume that you don't read Terry Pratchett, because he makes a very good point which applies to spammers in the book "Good Omens", co-authored with Neil Gaiman.
In the story the protagonist, the Demon Crowley, is assigned re
Re:Get a GRIP! (Score:3)
If so, I hope the jury is fully informed [fija.org].
It's only forcing changes on the surface... (Score:5, Interesting)
Somebody spidered an autogenerated e-mail address *once* from my webpage (the address encodes the time and IP address of the requester) in violation of the robots.txt file.
This has proven most instructive. I've written up some of my experiences on my weblog [wirewd.com]. That single address has since been sold, resold, and resold again to a variety of folks. At one point, it was sent an e-mail trojan. It's received all kinds of different spam. Interestingly enough, it has not received any Nigerian advance-fee fraud scams.
Lately, there was a removal form with a JavaScript script included that would prevent you from typing in an address to be removed.
One really funny spam is a dating site that said that one of my friends has set me up on a blind date. To an address only known by spammers.
I think it's the backbone providers (Score:4, Insightful)
Backbone providers get paid by the amount of traffic, not the type or quality of traffic. It is in their financial interests to pass any kind of traffic and sign up anyone who will generate alot of traffic. There was a recent Slashdot article about how spammers are just acting logically, in their best financial interests. Isn't this equally true of backbone providers?
While I'd prefer to see a solution in code, like some kind of server authentication/certificate. If we want an effective law, I think it needs to be directed at backbone providers. Spammers are many in number, always moving and hard to regulate. Backbone providers are few in number and more likely to feel the reach of Law. We've all heard of "pink" or spam-friendly contracts that go against the TOS. That's one target. If we wanted someting really effective, how about a law that says ISP's only have to pay for legitimate traffic, or perhaps pay a reduced rate for spam traffic? That would light a fire under backbone providers to do something about spam!
Nothing has changed (Score:3, Interesting)
There are a few dips for holidays, and since CAN-SPAM became effective on New Year's, there was a corresponding dip. But the amount my spam went down was roughly between the Thanksgiving dip and the Christmas dip, so nothing that would indicate there was anything else going on other than the holiday. Afterwards it shot right back up again.
I've also included a line on the chart to show my average spam, only after the CAN-SPAM act, just to make sure the data was not effected by my numbers from last year. And sure enough -- a steady rise.
total spam since 10/19/03: 84,415
most spam in one day: 1,054 (12/3/03, during some kind of wild post-Thanksgiving holiday surge)
percent filtered: 78.05%
total ham since 10/19/03: 1,702
spam to total email ratio: 97.98%
Speaking as a webhost (Score:3, Insightful)
CAN-SPAM is a dismal failure, I would call it a joke, but it is far, far from funny.
Now not only do I have to deal with the usual spammers, and open formmail scripts getting us aggravated by the anti spam groups (will people EVER learn to install formmail.php|pl|cgi securely?) But now I have a new aggravation, people who want to spam citing CAN-SPAM because they are using it to legitimize their spam "But we're following ALL of the rules in CAN-SPAM we are NOT breaking any laws!!!" I'm hearing this quite a bit, and it's pissing me off.
I just point to the part of our AUP that says "no bulk email, period" and send them on their way. But now not only do I have to worry about shutting down spammers and open scripts and dealing with spews and spamcop (et al) about the spam, I have to worry that some damned spammer is gonna sic his lawyers on us because we won't let him spam yet he's staying within the CAN-SPAM guidelines.
Somedays I am tempted to enroll in some junior college and learn how to be a mechanic, or welding, welding is cool, take two pieces of metal, and make them into one! haha
Oh, the irony. (Score:2)
(Double irony, even, since you can't first post on your self-proclamation of your ability to first post in response to an anti-spam article.)
Re:Better than real junk mail (Score:2)
Re:Better than real junk mail (Score:2)
Oh, and spam phones home. I've never had junk mail sent as registered/certified mail.
Re:Better than real junk mail (Score:4, Interesting)
Regular junk mail is a problem to. I discovered this when I moved to a new house. The previous owners were catalog shoppers. I was receiving 110 catalogs a week to the former occupants. I sometimes had to put some of them in my neighbors' recycling bins since mine were always full. Often important mail (e.g., bills) would be jammed in between the pages of the catalogs.
In the past four years, I've sent 450 letters and made more than 100 phone calls to catalog companies to make them stop. I've made a big dent, but I still get a dozen or so catalogs addressed to the previous owners each week.
Opt-out is not an option.
Re:How can it? (Score:2)