2 more on US antispam bill is not death to anonymity

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 11:16:14 -0500
From: Rich Kulawiec <rsk () gsp org>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on No, US antispam bill is not death to anonymity
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>


On Sat, Nov 22, 2003 at 09:37:59PM -0500, Dave Farber wrote:
> I am at a total loss to see how one enforces this in a world wide Internet.

Bingo.

> Seems to me that it forces the off shore of the spam industry.  and does
> little to eliminate spam. Australia says 75% of their spam comes from
> China. How would this law help us again?

It has another effect that its authors either didn't intend or didn't
think about -- or something.

One of the things that spammers do is build and buy/sell/trade lists of
addresses.  Obviously, known-working addresses have more value in that
market than unconfirmed ones: that's one of the reasons why web bugs and
other techniques are used by spammers to attempt to confirm receipt.

Now picture an "opt-out database" which accumulates mail addresses just
as fast (or faster) than the do-not-call database.  This bill authorizes
the FTC to build just such a database.

It's the spammers' holy grail: it's lots of known-working addresses,
assembled for them via someone else's labor (paid for with your and my
tax dollars, of course) and available for free.

I can only hope the FTC isn't stupid enough to go through with this.


This bill is one of the most damaging, anti-consumer pieces of legislation
that they could possibly have passed -- no surprise that it was bought
and paid for by the spammers at the DMA and their shills (e.g. Tauzin).

---Rsk

and

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 08:16:43 -0800
From: Dave Crocker <dcrocker () brandenburg com>
Subject: Re: [IP] more on No, US antispam bill is not death to anonymity
To: dave () farber net
Organization: Brandenburg InternetWorking
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Dave,

DF> I am at a total loss to see how one enforces this in a world wide 
Internet.

Spam is a syndrome, not a single problem.  At the least, it is
important to distinguish between:

    Accountable Spam  vs.  Rogue Spam.

    Accountable spam is from legitimate business that are are more
    aggressive in their marketing than folks are willing to tolerate.  The
    businesses can be so aggressive because there are no rules to force
    them to be otherwise.  It is these spammers that a law affects.

    Rogue spammers are the same as hackers who send virii and worms.  They
    are attacking our systems.  They will use any means available to
    succeed.  They do not respond to laws and they are difficult to find.
    These folks need to be controlled in the same way as we try to control
    nasty hackers.

A law does two useful things. One is to create standard terminology and
frame of reference. Given the wide range of definitions for spam that
people use, this is not a small benefit.

The second useful effect of a law is to rein in the excessive of
legitimate businesses. Has the Internet rendered all national laws
irrelevant? No. So we need to view the scope of the new spam law the
same way we would view any other national law.

Hence, no, this does not eliminate all spam. But then, nothing will.
Spam is here to stay. We need to use a range of techniques to make its
presence tolerable. The same as we do for cockroaches and most diseases.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <dcrocker-at-brandenburg-dot-com>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>

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