By contrast, the transportation costs of e-mail are practically nil.
[(No they're not.\nYes they are.\n)*]
As founder and CEO of an ISP for these past ~15 years I actually
provide e-mail systems to the general public and do the budgets etc
so have some actual, current, knowledge about the costs.
So, don't be coy, tell us: what _does_ it cost to transport an email -
let's be generous and say a hundred-kilobyte email - from point A to
point B?
I'm paying CAD 30/month for any amount of data transfer up to something
like 4GB. Of course, that pays for many other things too (like the use
of endpoint equipment), but let's assume that is purely my share of the
transport of up to 4GB of data.
At that rate, transporting that hundred kilobytes costs a smidgen under
CAD 0.0007153 - less than three-quarters of a tenth of a cent. A more
reasonable ten-kilobyte email - this one is maybe 3.5K before addition
of all the Received: goop - would cost about a tenth that, or some
seven millicents.
Compared to all the other costs, notably the human costs, and
especially considering that that's a gross overestimate because my
$30/mo is paying for a number of things other than pure data transport,
I think it's fair to call this "practically nil".
Spammers use zombies for two major reasons:
1. IP mobility - to avoid blacklisting as you say.
2. Free resources - [...]
What reason do you have to think you know why spammers use zombies?
Point 2 is in direct contradiction to what you asserted, that they
"happily paid for phat pipes", can you tell me what you base that
assertion on?
A number of past spamhauser _did_ pay for fairly fat pipes - or at
least I've seen it reported thus, and not contradicted; I've not
personally seen invoices or any such. Any spamhaus that does this,
though, will rapidly find their IP space blocked (and, depending their
upstream, sometimes yanked); I've always assumed that this is the major
motivation behind spammer use of zombie armies. Indeed, the whole
basis for differential routing abuse is "fat pipe out, thin pipe in".
Thus, all spammers are criminals.
Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
You have not demonstrated this. For all your pretty arguments, and for
all that I agree with most of them, you have not shown any point of
criminal law that they are violating. (I suspect there are such, but
your arguments haven't shown so.)
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