From: Barry Shein <bzs(_at_)world(_dot_)std(_dot_)com>
...
> > If we can conclude that MILLIONS of PCs are PURPOSELY being infected
> > by viruses designed to turn them into spam delivery robots...then
> > there's nothing we can do?
> >
> > Sure we can, for starters we can alert all interested parties that
> > this is underlying the spam problem and more importantly agree that
> > this is the real problem.
Look, it's taken weeks of my harping on the point to even begin to get
it taken seriously in this group of people who claim some expertise in
network engineering and related and spend time thinking about the
problem.
No, those who agreed with you before you said it still agree while
the others have been beaten into silence but not agreement. Those
who perceive no alternative to using insecure-by-design systems will
never be convinced until you provide the applications they want on
some other platform. There are 10's of 1000's of people working hard
in courts and in coding sweat shops to stop you or at least keep ahead
the alternatives. The bit about the Romanian virus filter vendor is
part of that.
...
What if, as I mostly claim, they all have it wrong from the get-go and
the nut of the problem really is the amplification and how it's
acheived and not the rather limited event of seeing a spam message in
your mailbox?
You'll not get much argument about that from anyone who might ever
agree with it.
...
But what might be closer to the truth is we have rather organized,
hardened, and cynical criminals causing the spam plague, many of whom
have already proven themselves beyond the reach of civil law and
probably any regulatory law that doesn't involve coming to them and
putting them in irons and locking them away for a long time.
Again, you're preaching to the choir.
However, I predict there will be laws that will put enough of the
current spammers in irons to make SMTP push advertising safe for the
Fortune 500,000. The recent Congressional talk of criminal penalties
is the start of that.
...
Or a group such as this issuing a statement ...
Which would have even less effect than pointing out the evils of
HTML-by-default. Most people wouldn't mind losing HTML mail except
in special circumstances but they'll all scream about switching to
safer systems...or at least lobbiests will make it seem as if they're
all screaming.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com
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