In <8iA+OxF3cDD(_at_)3247(_dot_)org>
list-ietf-antispam(_at_)faerber(_dot_)muc(_dot_)de (Claus Färber) writes:
Matt Sergeant <msergeant(_at_)startechgroup(_dot_)co(_dot_)uk> schrieb/wrote:
Criminalising spam would have the effect of stopping the mainsleaze
spammers, while giving you an extra weapon in your battle against the
underground spammers.
The main advantage of crimilalisation is that a public prosecutor, who
has more investigative powers, would have to fight spam.
Public prosecutors would be *able* to fight spam, they wouldn't
*have* to. There are tons of laws on the books that are never
enforced. (I personally think that any law that isn't regularly
enforce should be dropped from the books, but that's another subject.)
However, I think that spam laws would be enforced every once and a
while, especially if a spammer is stupid enough to joe-job the
district attorney or something.
In one of the presentations at the MIT spam conference, there was a
slide that showed that there are many different types of spammers,
from the very casual "I'm just trying to advertise my small business",
to the hard core organized crime spammers. The more hard core the
spammer, the less likely that technical solutions will be effective
against them, but the more likely that they can be locked up by
various laws.
From what I know, far more spammers have been hit with violating other
laws than spam laws. People who use pump-and-dump stock scams,
pirated music/software, 419 scams, etc. have all been charged with
crimes other than spamming. However, spam laws could give
procecutors an easy target to get search warrents and such to allow
them to sock crooks with other charges.
-wayne
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