Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
On donderdag, mei 29, 2003, at 21:34 Europe/Amsterdam, Tony
Hain wrote:
The fundamental legal issue we need to deal with is the ability to
absolutely identify the originator of the mail. Is that
precluded by
any existing privacy laws? If not, identity would provide
the means to
pursue financial recourse for wasted time and resources. If
so, we have
a non-technical issue that may prevent any solution.
Too bad the bad ideas get much more air time than the good ones.
Yesterday some really good points were brought up, today we're mostly
rehashing the bad stuff.
About the law: current laws are unable to keep spam in check.
I was not asking about spam law. I was trying to be specific about any
privacy laws that would prevent identification of the originator of a
message. As long as there is a legal way to undeniably trace the message
origin, there is a chance we can build a technical approach to bulk
message handling system that will end random spam.
...
The real question is whether the current protocols
exhibit flaws that make the spam problem worse than it would
be without
those flaws; and whether improved protocols can be implemented and
deployed at reasonable levels of effectiveness and efficiency.
I would argue yes, in that it is impossible to nail down the originator
with the current system.
It seems the answer to this was "no" five or six years ago.
In the mean
time, many things have changed. We now have more advanced techniques
and more processing power at our disposal. Also, spamming in general
has become much worse and many more children are online now, who are
subjected to spam that isn't always "child friendly" to say
the least.
Maybe the answer is still "no" but the time is right to at least
revisit the question.
I agree.
Tony