Ok.. excuse me while I ask "What the fuck".

Does anyone else think a "Personals" functionality on Slashdot is.. well.. kindy creepy? I can see the logic from a social, and (probably closer to the reason it was implemented) financial standpoint. However, it still gives me the willies; much like Fucked Company Porno does... (oh, and Pud also has a "Personals" site).

This is a link to a Reuters story I found on Yahoo regarding a bill going through the Senate Judiciary Committee. I think this represents the start to a fair and balanced method for combating spam while still allowing some sort of responsible commercial email.

Basically what it seems to do is to attack the four methods by which the "penis enlarger" crowd propagate their annoying garbage:

1. Hiding/obfuscation of return email addresses.
2. Sending through SMTP relays
3. Harvesting email addresses from websites, etc.
4. Sending out messages to millions of "dictionary attack" style addresses.

I believe that these "Big Four" will go a long way towards raising the level of accountability of spammers. These methods employed by spammers are what drives people the most nuts - it's like pulling teeth to track down the sender of each and every message. A few who have been tracked down and exposed have been forced to quit due to complaints/threats/etc. If a spammer were no longer able to hide behind layers of deceipt, I'm certain said spammer would think long and hard about how many people he/she were about to anger.

The Internet was never about "anonymity". It does allow use of proxy-by-avatar which is a great communication tool. But true anonymity is too tempting to control the darker side of human nature which lurks in us all.

What is spam?

I recently had an argument with someone, splitting hairs over what we considered true spam.

I considered true spam to be one of no redeeming value (typified by offers to enlarge one's penis, etc.) which typically comes in mass quantities and with no attempt at qualifying the recipient outside of being a "live" address, whereas unsolicited commercial email from a legitimate company would typically be from a highly scrubbed list of addresses, would appear only once, and, based on my demographic, be one which could very reasonably interest me.

My opponent took the view that *any* unsolicited commercial email was spam.

I feel that both views are right, but that in the interest of E-Commerce I'm willing to let the legitimate companies send me what would amount to 3 or 4 honest advertisements per week (similar to what I see in my snailmailbox, and similar to what I used to receive in email prior to approximately 1997).

The trick is, how to define "legitimate" and in such a way that it is difficult for the "penis enlarger" crowd to pervert the regulation.

I certainly don't have the answer, so if anyone is listening and would like to posit, go for it.