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On Sunday 20 June 2004 10:15 am, Meng Weng Wong wrote:
The first car chase was in the US. After the suspect came
to a stop, a swarm of officers surrounded the vehicle with
guns drawn. There was a lot of yelling and the situation
was very tense --- naturally, because the officers had to
assume the suspect was armed and dangerous. "Come out with
your hands up" and that sort of thing.
Meng, I think your philosophy is a bit flawed. I think the reason cops in
the US are more careful and more assertive when they approach the car is
that they are much more likely to get shot than they were 50 years ago. It
has nothing to do with whether people have guns or not. We allow people who
shoot at cops to go free. Contrast the US with Switzerland, which I am told
has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world.
Think of the internet as the wild, wild west in the 1850's here in the US.
At first, the place was run by a bunch of thugs and gangs. Then the
homesteaders moved in and they started catching these criminals and hanging
them, replacing the society that the gangs built with peaceful towns and
farms. Eventually, there weren't any more gunmen to hunt down. Today the
west is a pretty tame place (outside of the major cities, that is.)
With accountability in place, we will have more tools to figure out who
these spammers and virus writers are and track them down. When we can show
that we can catch these people and bring them to justice, then people will
be less willing to commit these acts. When we finally root out the last of
these thugs, then the problem will go away. No spammers means no spam. No
virus writers means no viruses. This is why I believe that a reactive
policy (accept all email, and hunt down the criminals after the crime) will
be enough to completely eradicate spam.
- --
Jonathan M. Gardner
Mass Mail Systems Developer, Amazon.com
jonagard(_at_)amazon(_dot_)com
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