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Lawsuits Against Spammers
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Sun Jan 13, 2002 02:30 PM
from the scum-of-the-earth-eat-me dept.
from the scum-of-the-earth-eat-me dept.
apc writes "Pretty good overview of the state of the law
regarding spammers, and some stories about people who have sued them and won. Nice to see the topic getting mainstream attention."
It talks about several different states and several different people who
have won cases. I still think its fairly hopeless, but I also believe forging
SMTP headers should be legally punishable by castration.
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Technical / Social solution please (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of encouraging litigation, why don't we develop (easy) and attempt to gain acceptance (harder) of an authenticated e-mail format?
I would much rather see technical (or social) solutions to the spam problem... laws have a funny way of not going in our favor, don't they?
Re:Technical / Social solution please (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there a technical solution?
Isn't the only advantage of an authenticated email format that the recipient can easily find out who the sender really is?
Knowing who the sender is doesn't prevent spam being sent from spam friendly servers abroad.
If the spam is sent from within your own country, this makes using the law against the perpetrator easier, it doesn't remove the need for the law.
Spam is an abuse of the email sysem. The collective opinion is that some characteristics of the emails are bad - otherwise there isn't much to distinguish it from legitimate mail. Because it is a social problem, laws are needed to combat it.
Spam is behaviour that we can't stop, therefore we need laws to discourage it.
another tactic? (Score:5, Interesting)
Making spammers pay (Score:4, Insightful)
The main thing I see is that the best idea is to somehow transfer costs back to the spammer. So an idea that forces the spamming computer to use up resources is fine.
similarly, a solution that causes you to spend time implementing more technical solutions is costing you time, and probably money.
bottom line: Make the spammer pay.
In my original example, the smtp could also be set to have several levels of trust, with corresponding levels of computional feedback for the sender.
Issues regarding new technology (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, not exactly. You're right in that that's all it technically does for us. However, this leads us to two potential advantages:
- When the spammer is identifiable, they don't tend to last long because the volume of incoming complaints tends to overload the ISP.
- It makes it easier to create a groupware blocking system - for example, 10,000 people subscribe, and the system requires three subscribers to complain about an address before it's blocked. A spammer sends spam and it hits 8237 of the subscribers. The first three to see it click the "this is spam" button, and the system automatically removes the mail from the inboxes of the other 8234 subscribers who got it and blocks all future email from the sender.
You're right, but again, the volume of incoming complaints (and denial of service attacks) tends to make the ISPs balk at hosting spammers. Once they're tracable, the attacks begin, and the ISPs dump the spammers.The problem is, we need a completely new email system with authentication, and we need mail clients that handle both it and the current standard seamlessly... because practically nobody is going to make a hard switch over to a new email system that will prevent most of their friends and associates from emailing them, and very few people are going to be willing to run two separate email clients. It would be best if the server-side software supported both standards as well, so server admins don't have to feel that they're getting an additional piece of software to support. Moreover, everything has to support every major platform and some of the more prominent minor ones so it can support a massive switchover and won't piss off users of any particular platform by not properly supporting them.
Java, anyone?
Re:Technical / Social solution please (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Technical / Social solution please (Score:4, Insightful)
It would also take away everyone else's anonymity. Given the number of people who get sued by corporations for telling truthful but disparaging things, and given the number of "whistle blowers" who end up out of a job, or worse, do you really think that we should give up the ability to send anonymous e-mail just to avoid the inconvenience of junk mail? I sure don't.
Better yet... (Score:5, Funny)
HELO
250 foo.bar.com Hello
MAIL FROM: mom@aol.com
667 foo.bar.com accepts payment of 0 cents
DATA
..
MAIL FROM: unknown_spammer@hotmail.com
250 unknown_spammer@hotmail.com... Sender ok
RCPT TO: foo@bar.com
666 foo@bar.com requires payment of 200 cents
CASH: 82kd0xma893mcos0
667 foo.bar.com accepts payment of 200 cents
DATA
...
MAIL FROM: known_spammer@hotmail.com
250 known_spammer@hotmail.com... Sender ok
RCPT TO: foo@bar.com
666 foo@bar.com requires payment of 1.0e09 cents
CASH: 82kd0xma893mcos0
666 foo.bar.com detects fraudulent/forged e-coin. Forwarding to fbi.gov
Re:Technical solution (Score:4, Interesting)
If you are spam, you should mark your message as being such. If you are a mailing list, you should mark your message as being such.
And then we need to have a network of trust between the mail servers. Something lightweight enough that it works 90% of the time. Servers who are trusted are trusted that they will send out mail with proper headers. Servers who aren't trusted will get their mail bounced most of the time.
Thus, spam can be dropped on the floor at the option of any mail server. And server admins who don't mark spam as spam are marked as untrusted servers. At the option of the country that the mail server exists in, this can be declared as fraud.
I wrote up some notes on it on my webpage [wirewd.com] but I'm not sure how well it would really work in practice.
Cool site (Score:1)
Double standard (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I'd prefer no laws -- even for spammers.
Business opportunity (Score:3, Insightful)
We could donate proceedings of successful spam litigation to open source projects or to the EFF.
What we need (Score:5, Insightful)
The article makes a good point about laws that require spam to be labeled. This isn't a solution, and there are also conflicting requirements between state laws. One law requires "ADV: ADLT" on the subject header, another law requires "ADULT ADVERTISEMENT". This is a perfect example of laws being too specific - legislation has no business dictating changes to the SMTP protocol. This isn't useful either: shouldn't spam laws apply to more than SMTP? Say, ICQ spam? Internal AOL spam?
This is why we need a national spam law. No conflicts, no SMTP requirements, no opt-out. Make spam illegal, period. Spam is harassment, theft of service, and usually fraudulent. It costs ISPs millions of dollars that are passed on to YOU. Companies lose productivity because of workers receiving spam.
If you think this is any different from junk fax laws, you're kidding yourself. Spam and junk faxes both hurt the recipient. Spam is not free speech. Spam is not a constitutional right. Banning spam IS the right answer.
Laws define both sides (Score:4, Interesting)
If Congress debated such a law, I'm sure that the DMA would yell and scream and "compromise" that it is willing to make it illegal to send unsolicited email of a criminal nature. Outlaw the pyramid schemes, outlaw the cock&tit creams that don't have FDA approval, etc.
Meanwhile, in the same spirit of compromise, it's now Federal law that companies can ignore repeated requests that you be removed from their spam lists because you have a bona fide business relationship. It doesn't matter that this "relationship" was a one-time purchase of a Christmas present a decade ago for a person who's long been out of your life - you might need another left-handed bacon turner some day and if they can't sent you reminders, you'll buy it elsewhere!
Likewise the legislation would undoubtably protect affiliated businesses - the reason I briefly got investment solicitations from my car insurance carrier, until I made it clear they were about to lose the latter account. It will even protect attempts to woo you away from existing businesses - you drive, so therefore you should hear about Fly-By-Night insurance rates. And Bob's detailing shop. And on and on and on....
I'm not saying that legislation would never be appropriate, just that it's too early to do it at the national level. Let's get a clear concensus that spam is a problem, then use the federal law *only* to normalize things like mandatory subject lines.
Check out my latest piece of spam ! (Score:5, Funny)
Tired of not making enough MONEY ? HOW ABOUT $3000 PER WEEK OR MORE !
No, this is not a joke, YOU TOO CAN QUIT YOUR JOB AND MAKE THE MONEY YOU DESERVE !
HOW ?
Very recently, I have discovered that anybody on the internet receives "SPAM" emails, and that it is usuall possible to sue those "SPAMMERS". Most often, "SPAM" originates from VERY LARGE COMPANIES who have a LOT OF MONEY MOST OFTEN, and these companies don't want to lose their reputation in the "SPAM" industry, therefore they are usually willing to give plaintiffs A LOT OF MONEY to settle their claims.
I CAN ALREADY HEAR YOU SAY "HOW CAN I SUE SPAMMERS TOO AND RECEIVE A LOT OF SETTLEMENT MONEY ?" !
IF YOU SEND ME A RESPONSE AT THE EMAIL ADDRESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS MESSAGE, I'LL INTRODUCE YOU TO MY NEW BOOK CALLED "HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY SUE SPAMMERS AND RECEIVE A LOT OF SETTLEMENT MONEY". MY BOOK NORMALLY COSTS IN EXCESS OF $85 FROM NORMAL RETAIL CHANNELS, BUT ONLY FOR YOU, I OFFER YOU THIS INCREDIBLE MONEY-MAKING TOOL FOR ONLY $19.99 !!
DON'T PASS UP YOUR CHANCE TO MAKE THE MONEY YOU DESERVE. SEND ME A RESPONSE RIGHT NOW, OR CALL ME AT THE NUMBER BELOW.
THANK YOU DEAR FRIEND !
email: SUCKER_RESPONSE@HOTMAIL.COM
phone: 1-800-YOU-SUCK
**********
THIS IS A ONE-TIME EMAIL, YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO ANYTHING IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO RECEIVE ANYMORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS INCREDIBLE OFFER.
The solution to spam. (Score:5, Informative)
Neither of these things will happen, unfortunately.
-Restil
When will help arrive? (Score:2, Troll)
www.xns.org (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:www.xns.org (Score:5, Interesting)
But I can't see any reasable hope of pursuading people to replace DNS. But I suppose people won't care what kind of name lookup their email software is doing.... Hmm...
Or what about something like ICQ where you can say who you want to be able to receive communciations from. Anyone else you have to authorize before they can send you an actual message. I doubt spammers could be bothered to do this, they'd go find some other way to annoy people.
How about doing this?
Your email program looks at the headers of emails being received. If the message is from someone in your address book, or is from someone you sent an email to *recently*, or is from a recognised mailing list then you get the email.
If it does not fit any of those conditions, it must first validate the sender. To do this it sends back a message to the senders From address with instructions saying under what terms you are prepared to accept the email, and a code to send back saying that you accept those terms. Your client would then accept one, and only one message from that address to be delivered to you. If you want to accept more in future you can add them yo your local address book.
The fact that the "spammer" must explicitly accept your terms for accepting your email would give a lot more legal protection to filtering and blacklists of known spammers.
Hmm. Must think about this some, and implement something!
Re:www.xns.org (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, doesn't sound like it will help stop "dickwads". Its just making new rules that they will break.
Ooh, a slashdot story on spam (Score:5, Funny)
Spam is Free Speaaech (A Troll)
No more government regulation (aynrand666) All problems have a technical solution. Just hit delete.I know more than you do (karmawhore23) I [spews.org] am [ordb.org] cleverer [sf.net] than you [slashdot.org].
Put the ball in the court of the ISP (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Forged headers (SMTP auth would alleviate)
2) ISPs turn a blind eye or aren't as responsive as they should be. Many are repeat offenders which labels them "soft" on spam prevention.
A lot of people have already commented on #1 so I'm going to skip that one.
In short, the accountability should come to the ISP, because they are the ones you inevitably allow this to happen. @Home or similar could implement a per day limit on outbound emails, same for the fre services, Yahoo! and Hotmail. There needs to be a clearinghouse for spam notification, someone who tracks spam and spammers, period. Fines should be imposed on ISPs who allow bulk email to originate from their service. Their choice should be simple: don't let spam originate from your system or face the penalty (steep fines, this could be used to fund the clearinghouse). Leniency could be worked into this, an ISP may have X number of reports per day based on the number of IPs they have. X should shrink every year.
The clearinghouse should also be audited on a yearly basis and the results made public (what ISPs spam the most/least, amount of fines paid, etc)
Re:Put the ball in the court of the ISP (Score:5, Insightful)
YES! Most times that I get spam, I trace down the headers to find the source and report the spam to the ISP hosting the address, and the spam stops.
MOST times. It took a while to get through to hinet.net about their 'tom lee designs' spammer, but even then, when I finally got through to somebody the spam was stopped.
For the last three months, I've been dealing with wads of spam from what I believe to be the same spammer due to the headers:
The ISP in question is AT&T Global. (mail to abuse@prserv.net ends up at postmaster@attglobal). For the last three months or so, I've diligently forwarding the messages, with headers, to abuse@prserv.net (or postmaster@attglobal.net). Until recently, they've been universally coming back with form-letters saying 'this problem has already been reported'. Sometimes the spam stops for a day or two, sometimes it doesn't.
I even looked up their contact number on whois and called THAT a few times (the only human beings there seem to be overworked and underpaid tech support people). The last few days, I've been getting my reports returned in a form letter stamped 'not our domain', as if whoever's getting my messages at AT&T Global is either 'in on it' or just doesn't want to deal with it any more (or perhaps is's just a 'new guy' who's not used to dealing with the headers, or thinks that only AT&T Global user's complaints about spam from their network should be dealt with)....
Point is, with roughly 80 spam messages from the same spammer forwarded, the spam has continued unabated, and I honestly wonder if some salesdrone at AT&T Global's Austin, Texas area POP has an 'understanding' with the spammer and has been willing to re-sign him every time he gets kicked off. Unfortunately, none of the emails I've sent to 'postmaster@attglobal.net' requesting more information about the spammer (including requests on the order of 'who do I contact to find out the proper legal procedure for obtaining the spammer's identity so that I can look into taking action myself') simply come back with more form-letters, or are unanswered...
I called them again today (after last night's two spams came back from them stamped 'not our domain') and for the first time, actually got to speak to someone in the postmaster department. She actually seemed helpful and polite, so hopefully something might finally be DONE about this spammer...
So, anyway, to get back to the point - the ISP's are the ones who have the power to do something about spammers on their network, and if they choose not to, there ought to be some sort of recourse. Small ISP's, you can complain to their upstream provider, but when you're dealing with AT&T Global?....
'scuze the verbosity of this post - this particular spammer/ISP issue has me pretty irritated at the moment...
The Solution: email protocol that stops spoofing i (Score:2, Interesting)
I still think its fairly hopeless, but I also believe forging SMTP headers should be legally punishable by castration.
There is a realistic protocol change that would make it impossible to spam without getting caught.
When the message arrives at the destination server, a confirmation packet is sent back to the alleged source with a checksum of the content of the message and a confirmation code. If the source has sent an email to the server that matches the checksum, it sends the confirmation code back to the server. If the server never recieves a reply with the confirmation code it sent out (in other words, if the alleged sender doesn't exist), it automatically deletes the email after 30 seconds. The whole cycle would last less than a second, depending on lag, so you wouldn't have to worry about losing email that you have sent unless you turn off your computer very quickly. This protocol would make it impossible to spoof IP/email addresses, etc, when sending email. Then the spammers could be tracked down easily and thrown in jail.
Jerry Cerasale can kiss my ass. (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you ban me from this type of medium, you have severely limited my ability to enter into the marketplace," said Jerry Cerasale of the Direct Marketing Association.
God DAMN IT, for the LAST time, spam is not a free speech issue, it's a property rights issue. My computer is NOT a public utility for every sleazy marketing dink in the world to use at MY expense.
If Mr. Cerasleazy wants to "enter the marketplace", he can damn well pay for his advertising.
-jcr
Re:Jerry Cerasale can kiss my ass. (Score:5, Insightful)
You have the right to sell your product, but you do not have the right to break my window during dinner hour, climb in, come to me and interrupt my dinner to scream in my face that "MY PRODUCT WILL INCREASE YOUR EJECULATION 581%!!!!!" without even looking first to see if I'm a women.
Full text of Cerasale interview (Score:4, Funny)
This is revealing, however the real text of the interview is more so:
Interviewer: I'm calling regarding Congressional action on spam.
Jerry Cerasale: If you ban me from this type of medium, you have severely limited my ability to enter into the marketplace.
I: But surely with all the ads for porn, casinos and viagra substitutes that you'd be competing with, it's not going to be of any use to you anyway.
JC: You're not listening. I said if you ban me from entering the marketplace. You can ban everybody else.
I: So you're saying you want to ban everybody except Jerry Cerasale from using spam?
JC: No, I want to ban unethical marketers from using spam.
I: How do you define unethical marketers?
JC: They're the ones that forge stuff and won't honor remove requests.
I: So won't they just start following that law and you'll still have the volume problem?
JC: No, because they're unethical marketers.
I: So who are the ethical marketers
JC: They're the DMA members
I: So if the unethical marketers join the DMA do they become ethical marketers?
JC: Of course.
I: Even if they still forge and don't honor remove requests?
JC: Yes. If they join the DMA, then what they are doing is ethical marketing.
I: Surely all the spammers will just join the DMA then and they can all spam.
JC: That's OK.
I: But then won't email be useless for everybody because of the volume? After all, there's got to be hundred of millions of potential marketers out there who might want to use it.
JC: Yes.
I: So you're opposed to laws that will make spam unusable for marketing?
JC: Yes.
I: But you realise that if the laws aren't passed, spam will be unusable for anything.
JC: Yes.
I: Including marketing.
JC: Yes.
I: So really your opposition to laws banning spam achieves nothing to protect it for marketing, and just succeeds in destroying it for everybody.
JC: That's right - if me and my DMA buddie's can't use it for our purposes, then nobody can use it for any purposes.
I: Isn't that a little childish.
JC: Well since they won't play by my rules I would take by bat and ball and go home, but I don't own the bat or the ball, so the only way I can stop them from playing is by destroying the bat and the ball.
I: Mr Cerasale, thank-you for your time.
JC: My pleasure.
The root of the problem (Score:2, Insightful)
because spammers are spread out around the globe
Because spammers highjack networks to send out their bulk mail
Because a lot of spammers aren't even legit cies
Because it is too easy to spam from a bogus account, or for that matter from pretty much any email account using a bot that anybody can write.
All in all, spamming is as controllable as peer-to-peer, as long as people really want to spam, there's not much you can do against it. As long as there's money to make, people that don't have money will be tempted, and unfortunatly a lot of those people are in countries in which there is little or no legislation (not that's it's better in more developped countries)...
Suing spammers will only stop the big boys (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of these spammers send from hotmail.com or from email addresses that are not in the US. So how would I go about suing them? Even assuming that I could sue them, how could I manage to go about collecting my settlement from them?
I'm afraid suing is not the answer to ending all spam, just a small class of spam.
At least this spam story is better than the last (Score:1)
I have a feeling that should changes be made, the spammer (who shall remain nameless) mentioned in the story will be living in a cardboard box in the streets of Chicago. And for lunch every day, he will only be able to afford cans of SPAM Luncheon Meat
(I wish
No female spammers (Score:1)
oNumber solved the spam problem, and it works (Score:3, Insightful)
RBL and SpamAssassin (Score:4, Interesting)
It can be done, with a little work.
Bernard Schifman (Score:1, Funny)
Don't the porn spammers realize? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry. Venting. Thank you.
The laws in iowa (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the 'university diploma' spams was illegal under Iowa law (invalid return address), but, of course how do you sue for something like that? I tried looking on reverse phone number sites to see who owned the phone number advertised, but nothing showed up.
Are there any ways to find out who sends these out without incurring a large expense?
Hrm, I wonder how long before someone starts sending out "make money suing spammers, call today for your free kit." spam.
Truth in Advertising approach (Score:5, Funny)
You say your product will help me lose weight? We send a rebuttal picture of your naked fat ass to everyone you know.
You say your product will make my penis gain 3"? We get testimonial from your two mercy fucks about how you need to use this product yourself.
You say your product will get me hot dates every weekend? We distribute a copy of your busy social calendar - with a note that you were stood up for the sole entry, your Jr. Prom in 1989.
And lest we forget it, you say your product will net me $50,000 in only 10 weeks? We show your credit card bills, and how even Miss Cleo has cut you off as a deadbeat.
The best thing of all si that this doesn't really require any new laws. (Well, the suggestions above do, but not the concept.) Don't just nail the spammers with small fines for sending spam, hit them with large fines for fradulant advertising, participation in criminal enterprises, etc.
Are the lawsuits worth it? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've won, but it takes more work than the $500 you win is worth even when you do win, and on average it's something you do only on principle and not for money.
And thus few do it. When I have been in court the judges/commissioners have said they don't often (if at all) see these cases.
Laws are not the answer to spam. In spite of what people say it is not just a question of "it's not a free speech issue it's a property issue."
Spam involves rights in conflict. It's a free speech issue AND a property issue AND a privacy issue, all in one. The answers are not so simple as these laws suggest.
Help: Spammers with Fax-Numbers to reply (Score:2, Interesting)
I read alot on pages dealing with spam, many of them were pointing to ftc.gov which one should contact if a company of the US is doing spammings. But besides reporting that guy what can one do. i cannot phone up the telco and ask them to shut down these well known numbers (i saw procmail recipies of other people who in their spamfilters had these fax numbers included)
any hints or help would be greatly aprreciated
What about.... (Score:1)
Companies should be doing the suing! (Score:5, Insightful)
Everytime someone forges an e-mail address using their domain name, and someone forwards it to abuse@something.com then it costs them money to research it. It could also be considered slander if someone sends you an e-mail from something like animalsex@microsoft.com.
Don't they care about their PR? I mean now I think that Microsoft has something to do with bestiality. How do I know that it wasn't really from them?? I'll just keep assuming that till proven otherwise.
Class action lawsuits (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, maybe, perhaps not. Companies will sue if it's in their interest. If their network becomes good enough to handle the congestion from spam, and the amount of spam doesn't vary too much as a customer moves from ISP to ISP, it's conceivable that the providers might begin to view spam as the customer's problem (as they pretty much do now). And even if they do start suing- who benefits from that directly? Besides the obvious value as a deterrent to spammers, there isn't much justice being done if the plaintiffs are all going to be large ISPs. The parties most damaged by spam are the end users and especially the smaller ISPs.
I always thought class action lawsuits by the actual recipients of spam are the most logical way to counter spam if the approach is going to be via the courts. After all, have you ever received a single, individual spam that's caused you to consider taking the case to court against that particular spammer, with lawyers and court costs and all that hassle? With a judge that might ask "well why didn't you just hit delete?" And getting that single spam email message isn't really what you're suing over. It's the degradation of your daily routine, the tedium of having to delete a hundred emails a day year in and year out, the loss of almost a day of your life per year deleting countless messages about herbal Viagara and credit repair software and diplomas from prestigious non-accredited universities and hair loss and government grants info packages and an EZ way to consolidate debt and reducing all payments by 60% and frisky teens. Going to court over a single spam seems to miss the point. And it's expensive and inconvenient to sue as an individual, so a spammer might very well recognize that his individual spam probably isn't going to elicit a lawsuit if it isn't outrageous enough for a spammed plaintiff to choose as THE spam (out of the 10000 in his box) that he's going to go to court over. In fact, people tend to sue when the spam particularly offends them (e.g. when it talks about sex with minors, or has nude photos in it and is received by a minor). Unless things proceed to the point where every spam message sent out results in a lawsuit, a spammer that keeps his emails polite and sticks ADV in the header is pretty much safe from being sued. So you don't even get much of a deterrent effect.
Unless we switch to using class action suits, which don't have these problems if someone with the resources starts consistently nailing all spammers with them. It's much easier than taking a case to court yourself. Someone is doing the suing for you and you get to hang on like a million other freeloaders and enjoy the fruits of your class action. I almost wouldn't mind getting spam if I knew there was a chance that I could stick it to the spammer for a few cents along with thousands of other people. If I even got a fraction of a penny on average per message, we could still be talking about some serious money. And it certainly wouldn't be too hard to set up. In fact (if this were 1999) you could probably build a dot-com out of it somehow, to coordinate the spam submissions, identify plaintiffs and defendants, litigate in court, hire collections agencies, and process the payments back to all plaintiffs. That's more of a business plan than many dot-coms had. I think that if there weren't so many jurisdictional problems with the idea in general (and if there were more spam laws) someone would try this.
I mean now I think that Microsoft has something to do with bestiality. How do I know that it wasn't really from them??
Strictly speaking, even if it turns out the email wasn't from Microsoft, it still doesn't prove that Microsoft has nothing to do with bestiality.
Hash Cash (Score:1)
Here's an interesting method of reducing spam called HashCash [cypherspace.org]:
Basically, you have to spend a certain amount of CPU time to send each message so sending large amounts of spam requires much more work. The reason n-bit partial hash collisions are used "is that they can be made arbitrarily expensive to compute (by choosing the desired number of bits of collision), and yet can be verified instantly." Sounds like an interesting idea, no? They've even produced a high rate of inflation for HashCash [cypherspace.org] because of Moore's Law. Plus it has a funky name
--jobby
Digital Postage is the only answer (Score:3, Insightful)
This would be analogous to the stamps used on snail mail, now. If nobody else steps up to the plate, some corporations will try to do this for a profit, or national governments will try to do it for control. The better solution, however, is some sort standards-based decentralized digital postage, where everyone can issue their own estamps. It is then up to each individual to decide, how much a spammer has to pay to get to their inbox.
Of course to be widely adopted, this has to be well integrated into email clients. It also has to be completely painless to insure that your friends always have enough of your stamps on-hand.
Once in place, the benefits include:
- less spam
- no need for email size limits, because there would be an obvious mechanism to allow billing for arbitrarily large emails
- automatic payment method for email based customer support
Sexist Punishment... (Score:2, Funny)
So what you are saying is that only men can be punished for SPAMMING in your mind? I am sure there are women SPAMMING out there too! What part of their anatomy are you going to cut off? The National Organization for Women would like to know...
You can't legislate against stupidity (Score:2, Interesting)
I know hes been featured here on slashdot [slashdot.org], but Shifman just goes to prove you can't legislate against stupidity
Since congress likes free speech so much... (Score:1, Funny)
Non-domestic cases (Score:1)
That's not the hacker spirit! (Score:1)
Long way to go, eunuchs! (Score:1)
Long way to go, eunuchs!
It has to be said.. sorry... (Score:1)
taiwan (Score:1)
i'm using spamcop but it just keeps mutating and multiplying.
Forward SPAM to spammers (Score:2)
Will this fix the problem? No. Am I adding to the bandwidth waste, yeah. Sorry, but it was the best solution I could come up with.
One of the biggest offenders is a company in San Francisco. I live in Virginia and thought I'd try to sue them under VA law. The problem is collecting on an out-of-state spammer is difficult. So, I spoke to my cousin who is a lawyer in San Francisco and asked him if I could sue them under CA. law. For one thing, CA. allows for 5 times the compensation per e-mail than VA, which was very appealing. Unfortunately he said it probably wouldn't apply to an out-of-state recpient of the SPAM.
So, really, the only way to get rid of it in the States is to make a national law that's tough and easy to enforce. Otherwise, do what I do, pester them.
Relatively inexpensive technical solution (Score:2, Interesting)
Second, about 25% of spam I get is from first-time spamers. Every day some idiot salesman invents this new cool way of advertising. He might quite sincerely not understand the difference between direct mail and spam. He will learn eventually, but we would get spam anyways.
The real solution is to charge sender for sending mail. E-money won't work in the near future - there is no infrastructure for it. Instead, the mail recepient should bill his own ISP for every piece of mail. The per piece price cannot exceed a certain amount (let's say $1 or $5 or even $0.15). The ISP charges the sender's ISP for the cost and processing fee. The sender ISP passes the cost to the sender.
The infrastructure could be built the same way as HTTPS. If an ISP wants to participate, it gets a certificate from a root authority, sets a server for "SMTPS" and for billing. The SMTPS session is signed. There could be some price negotiation between SMTPS servers too. SMTPS would have to be properly amended.
This would be very similar to peering agreements between ISPs. The system could get started if 3-4 large digital carriers agreed on the standard. Others could join later.
Joke (Score:3, Funny)
"If you ban me from this type of medium, you have severely limited my ability to enter into the marketplace," said Jerry Cerasale of the Direct Marketing Association.
Here's the punchline:
Jerry Cerasale
Direct Marketing Association
Washington Office
1111 19th St NW
Washington, DC 20036
UNITED STATES
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fax: (202)955-0085
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Since he considers spam a legitimate business practice, make sure you forward all your "HOT WET PUSSY!" emails to him so he doesn't miss out on any great deals.
-Legion
Lawsuits *will* be effective (Score:3, Informative)
A single lawsuit won't do anything to stop spam, but once fifty or one hundred people start suing, it will get too expensive for many spammers. In Washington State, we've nearly a dozen folks filing lawsuits, some of them going for some serious amounts -- to the tune of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
If you've got spam with a phone number or ordering address in it, you can (usually) track it down to a specific company or person. If it's only got a URL, like those mortgage spams, Washington litigants are filling out the contact forms on the site, then going after the mortgage company that contacts them. When these mortgage companies get hit with a lawsuit, they either want to settle right quick, or they rat out the spammer they hired. I've been focusing on spam with phone numbers, as I find it relatively easy and fun to track down the company behind the number. It may not always be easy to find the spammer, but it's not rocket science either. Anyone can do it given a little bit of time.
The Seattle Times had a good article [nwsource.com] on Saturday about the anti-spam law, some folks who've been using it, their wins, and the troubles they've encountered with the court system. The biggest issue in Washington is that court clerks and judges aren't fully educated about procedural issues like whether one can sue an out-of-state defendant or for punitive damages in small claims court. (The answer to both is yes.) It's been pretty frustrating for us "trailblazers," as the judges are saying contradictory and often quite stupid stuff.
Here's some nifty links:
For a copy of my 24 page zine, Zen and the art of small claims, send some stamps to PO Box 95227, Seattle, WA 98145. You can also just read it online at my site, but any zinester knows that it's just not the same.
What do they eat? (Score:2, Funny)
Just wondering...
Why doesn't Cauce.org have any solutions posted? (Score:2)
Technical solution (Score:1)
My personal solution to unsolicited mail... (Score:1)
I'm having problems with getting too much unsolicited mail too. The idea I had borrows from something I saw at http://www.godaddy.com when I went to do a whois on my records. Here's the idea:
First, I need a mailserver that will *only* accept incoming emails from a certain domain, the domain of my website. Then I set up my website with a form used to send me email. Then, and this is where I borrow from www.godaddy.com, throw up a random number on the screen using
Is this the perfect solution? Well, no. It kind of puts a block to forwarded mail. (Although if I blocked forwarded mail alltogether I think my mailbox would be a lot less messy...)
It's possible that some day somebody'd come up with a spider that can read the numbers and fake it, but my feeling was that if everybody customized their websites with their own fonts etc, it'd be hard to make a general purpose spider that can spam everybody.
If I ever get a static IP, it's something I intend to try.
Websites a good way to avoid spam? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm a member of a forum that talks about a particular interest of mine. Basically, I log in to a site, and my friends that are online (of that particular interest, obviously I won't find my mom on a CG Art board...) show up and I can message them and check out the recent posts. There is a personal messaging system there so I can send private messages to people. If somebody sends me one, I get a notification on the home page.
Basically, I've obscured the method it takes to get a hold of me. A good chunk of my friends are on that forum, a coupla more are on another forum, and the rest including family are on icq. I've basically weined myself from the need for e-mail. I wouldn't have it at all if sites didn't require it for authorization.
This makes it a lot harder for a spammer to reach me. If every site has a different (and constantly mutating) method of sending messages around, then it's so much harder for spammers to get through.
Whatcha think, sirs?
so many solutions, so much bullshit (Score:1)
Laws won't work. Not now, not ever. There's no way in hell you're going to get all 300+ countries in the world to agree - and enforce - anti-spam laws. Many of these countries don't give a rat's ass if you've got a hardon about spam and will tell you to go fuck yourselves if you try to impose foreign law upon them. As is their right.
Your politicians will never use extreme measures to try to get anti-spam laws. No one will ever go to war over spam, or enforce an embargo of any kind. Spam just isn't that important.
Authentication of email, for those who haven't thought it through, allows dictatorial governments to more easily track dissidents. Especially in harsh regimes that tend to put a bullet in a dissident's head. Yeah, real bright solution, authentication is. Of course, those of us in the First World, excepting the U.S. which continues to rocket towards hell in a handbasket, generally don't have to worry about being shot by pissed off government types, so fuck the rest of the world, eh?
Deal with it, like we always have. Complain. Block spammers. Subscribe to blacklists. Find something more important to get your panties in a wad about.
Max
Make spammers pay (Score:1)
Re:Castration? (Score:1)
Re:Castration? (Score:2)
The story was interesting, not because it was a hoax, but because it might NOT have been a hoax.
Re:"should be punishable by castration" (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Forging headers? (Score:1)