And which of those actually increase the expected cost to the spammers? Most spammers are in second and third world countries that have no enforced laws against this anyways. In the highly unlikely event that one is actually jailed or killed, there are plenty more in the same country who aspire to follow in that person's footsteps.

The investment for the spammer is trivial.

In many cases, no. Spammers are often paid for the number of messages they send out, regardless of how many turn into sales or are even read. The destination addresses generally need to be only valid for the spammers to get paid.

If that were the case then why does the volume of spam - and the wealth of the largest spammers - continue to rise with every passing year? The only times that spam volumes have ever gone down are when botnets are disrupted (which causes a few days' stagnation) or when payments are interrupted (which causes a much longer stagnation).

This is in China, though, where they still have a bit of a "Wild West" attitude regarding human safety.

I don't believe this is an either/or situation.

I realize there is some translation going on here, and that can sometimes lead to misinterpretation - but in what context can this possibly make any sense? Collecting phone numbers from your address book to see if you're online? Seriously?

I voted for him because with him I had at least a meager chance of keeping my job. He does not pay my job himself, but others want people like me permanently unemployed. I do not expect him or anyone else to give me something for nothing.

That makes no sense, whatsoever. I openly and repeatedly disagree with basically every piece of legislation that President Lawnchair has signed. I repeatedly point out that he has been the most conservative president to date in our country's history.

Victim of what, exactly?

Can you show an example that would be better? I have asked you many times and you conveniently cower away when I do.

I hadn't even considered applying for a patent office job before, but now they are definitely on my radar...

I voted for him because it was better than voting for someone who wanted me unemployed.

That said, I would not consider it the same as "defending" him, and it does not appear to be what smitty was referring to, either. After all, if that was it then all I would have to say is "I will never vote for President Lawnchair for POTUS again" and he should be happy. Instead he is going for some sense of "defending" that is vastly more obtuse.

Hey now, it's been getting 33-35 miles to the gallon for as long as I've owned it (since around 2001).

My old beater is getting that mileage doing mostly short jaunts around town. The 85 Subaru I had before it performed similarly. You'd think technology should be improving gas mileage; but, as time marches on, I've had a harder and harder time finding similarly-sized newer cars that don't get significantly worse gas mileage. They are rated at about what I quote for highway, but then also get 8-10 mpg less in the city. It's ridiculous.

Oh, wait, this isn't Car Talk...

You sound like you're 85 years old.

But, in any case, you've got to be kidding me. First, that was a very long stretch to go for a vague anti-American rant. Second, the idea that ABS is somehow only necessary because people aren't driving properly is laughable. Third, antilock brakes were invented in Europe.

Finally - how on earth do you mentally link ABS, stability control, and driverless cars together? Did you briefly consider adding windshield wipers to the list? What about kids and their loud music, or giving women the right to vote?

Which automaker is that? I want to be sure to avoid them.

That is part of it...

I will argue that at the root they actually are the same. A spammer and a drug dealer have in common the motivation to make money. A spammer cares no more - or less - about the condition of the customer than does a drug dealer. For that matter, plenty of spammers effectively are drug dealers, spamvertising for sites that sell (often counterfeit) drugs online.

While spam does not require much for resources, it does require an economic motivator. Spammers very rarely are webmasters themselves, they usually are paid by other companies to send out spam.

That's not entirely true. As I mentioned before, spammers do what they do for money. If they don't get paid, there is no incentive for them to send out spam. Disrupt the money enough and the spam rapidly drops. When we instead keep trying to come up with alternative hardware and/or algorithms for spam filtering and detection, we just encourage the spammers to find new ways around it so they can get paid.

They need to stop encouraging filtering. Filtering email will never resolve the spam epidemic. Filtering only encourages spammers to craft ever-more-obfuscated spam to drive down the signal-to-noise ratio and improve the chances of their spam getting through.

Spamcop and others, if they actually want to perform a valuable service, need to put their profits elsewhere. Namely, they need to start working on disrupting the flow of money to the spammers themselves. Spam is an economic problem. Treating it otherwise is just stupid. Spammers don't do what they do to piss you off (regardless of how some may feel otherwise), they do it to make money. You also cannot solve the problem by exposing, jailing, or murdering spammers (regardless of whether or not it makes you feel better) as it does not resolve the profit motive.

There are demonstrated avenues where one can disrupt the flow of (often illegal) money. If Spammers don't get paid, they don't send spam.

Wait, which side of the argument are you trying to take here? Two messages ago you again reached for your tired and baseless accusation of me "defending" President Lawnchair. Now you claim I am "disowning" him instead.

It is noted that you again abandoned your entire argument and responded to not a single question. I'm sorry that i have angered you so.

Is it an almost-2-pound tablet, or is it a small light laptop with a crummy keyboard? You decide!

(Yes I have used the keyboard)