North Carolina bans spam

Wansu writes "The North Carolina Senate just ratified a bill outlawing "computer trespass" and transmission of unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail with forged routing information. The law goes into effect December 1, 1999. You can view the bill at the North Carolina General Assembly web site: " What seems much nicer to me would be an institutionalize of spam-even if they just put "Advertisement: Bleah" in the subject line, I'd proc...er...be happy.

It makes DoS, piracy, and maybe Win98 illegal too

Look at the bill [state.nc.us]. Scroll down. Scroll down some more. Stop.

14-458. Computer trespass; penalty.

Read that bit.

"It shall be unlawful for any person to use a computer or computer network without authority [to] temporarily or permanently remove, halt, or otherwise disable any computer data, computer programs, or computer software from a computer or computer network... cause a computer to malfunction, regardless of how long the malfunction persists... alter or erase any computer data... Make an unauthorized copy [of] any printed or electronic form of computer data"

I think this section is far more powerful than the anti-spam bit. Not only can that stuff get you fired, kicked out of school, or your ISP account cancelled, but as of 12/1/99 you can get prosecuted and fined, too. Were it not for the "without authority" clause, installing Windows 98 over a LAN could be classified as criminal. Even so...

The Internet is international, not American

It is worth pointing out here that although the Internet was originally created in America, the Internet is now international. Do not make the mistake of assuming "United States == Whole World". I regret to say that Americans are notorious for making this error: consider World Series Baseball and the World Wrestling Federation: both are domestic American sporting organisations.

If you are going to debate such issues as jurisdiction, you must consider the Internet as an international resource, and consider the matter from the viewpoint of international law. Local laws with respect to the Internet are largely meaningless, and only help to fragment the Internet into a hodgepodge of chaotic regulation.

The world desperately needs uniform international law with respect to the Internet. We already have such laws with respect to such international items as international shipping, international air traffic and so forth. We should push for the Internet to be regulated internationally in the same manner.

Please Don't Advocate Legalising Spam

The only way we can stamp out spam is by a combination of social, legal, technical and economic pressure. But if we allow the legalisation of spamming for the sake of some short term convenience (for the elite who can create mail filters), then that destroys the legal argument and weakens the effectiveness of the other three.

Consider this scenario: after 10 long years of work, the IETF and other standards bodies have finally managed to transition a critical mass of mail servers to use a new spam-proof version of SMTP. But then J. Random Scumbag sues them for violating their legally-mandated "right to spam".

We're in it for the long haul. Spam is not going to be gone next week, or next year. But we're winning the public opinion battle, most spammers go out of business within 3 months, and the technical solutions are getting better all the time. I'd hate to see us win the battle on the Internet only to lose it in the courtroom. Don't give the spammers what they want.