Will the Recent Anti-Spam Activity Succeed?

My out-of-the-box thoughts on figting Spam

[cyril kearney]

I am doubtful that much will come of the highly publicized anti-spam activities by either US Congress or the FTC.

The AOL-Microsoft-Yahoo approach, I feel will get more results. They and some other big suits are targeting a small number of people that are dumping 2 billion pieces of spam a DAY. They account for about 6% of each day’s spam.

The major spam problems are caused by a relatively small number of syndicates using many different corporations. Since they are involved in fraudulent or pornographic offerings they are in fact criminal syndicates. Porn has long been the known venue of organized crime. Porn is not a cottage industry. Mobsters run it and the same mobsters run the mass mailings of fraudulent emails. Our RICO statues in the US (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) could be applied to them. The Achilles Heel of this group is that their offerings are illegal. Attack the offering to stop this kind of spam.

The US already has regulatory authority over the major credit cards, MasterCard, Visa etc. Without credit card access the spammers would go out of business. Attack the major spammers through their credit card accounts. RICO statues allow for the immediate freezing of assets. Attack their money and the spammers go out of business.

Other problems need to be addressed. A legal definition of 'spam' must be developed and accepted in the courts. A spammers best friend in court is the lunatic fringe of the anti-spam movement. This group keeps getting laws introduced and passed that fail on constitutional grounds. Well-funded criminal organizations are able to tie up prosecutions for year with Constitutional issues.

The technology can also be improved but that will take time. All opt-ins/opt-outs should be informing the recipient’s email system, which should then white list the senders email address. Everyone should have a first-class and third-class mailbox. (For non-US folks these are US postal terms. First class is personal mail and third-class is advertisements.) Only advertiser on the white list should ever be in a person’s first-class mailbox.
Individuals and corporations could drop all third-class mail if they wanted to. Mail servers like AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo could decide to drop all third-class mail. (Remember opted-in advertisements would be first-class mail because they were white listed.)

[pendanticist]

The Internet, in and of itself, is a constantly evolving entity and it's anyone's guess where this whole thing will actually end up.

One thing is certain, we - as users - will pay for all those past indiscretions and the subsequent inabilities to thwart them.

As I said (in a post the other day) after watching the Sunday morning News show where the reporter stated that (I believe they were quoting someone at Brightmail) 'only one person has to buy something out of 100,000 UCE/SPAM messages for the UCE/SPAMer to make a profit'.

We all know those 'Iraq War' decks of cards and their significance in assisting our troops, right? Well, as far as I know the only place to buy them in via UCE/SPAM. (I don't live in a large metropolitan area.)

That was until I saw a Network announcer say (yesterday) that she'd just bought a set for her husband because he wanted them sooo badly.

When asked 'Where did you find them' she replied "One of those little Pop-up ad thingies, you know you see them all the time."

So much for educating folks not to buy through UCE/SPAM.

Pendanticist.