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Re: The utilitiy of IP is at stake here

2003-05-29 16:35:18


On Thu, 29 May 2003, Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:

About the law: current laws are unable to keep spam in check. Is this a
problem with the law? I don't think so. A good percentage of all spam
(but certainly not all of it) breaks existing laws. It seems unlikely
that additional laws will make people who already operate outside the
law change their behavior.

Type 3 spammers are doing most of this.  These abusers are usually also in
violation of criminal federal statutes (viruses and cracking), but the
feds won't pursue them, since it seems to be a victimless, low value
crime.  This doesn't require more legislation so much as it requires Law
Enforcement to focus on the problem.

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.

Yes. But quite obviously, the "spammers" appearing to sell stuff like
child porn are not really selling anything. This is Type 3 abuse (no doubt
by radical anti-spammers) meant to offend people.

Spam volume is up quite a bit over the last year.  But there aren't more
spammers. There are more Type 3 abusers running larger stables of virus
infected machines, and using those stables to send junk that looks like
spam.  This isn't Type 1 or usually Type 2 spam.

The timing of the rise seems to correspond to MAPS loss in Exactis, and
the realization by certain radicals that they have to use illegal means.

                --Dean




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