JohnP -
Most countries do have criminal laws prohibiting consumer
fraud and theft of property.
I would suggest UBCE, using deceptive header information,
promoting a scam product or attempting to deceive
individuals into revealing vital financial information,
sent from virus infected zombie computers is in reality
consumer fraud and theft of property and the participants
are involved in a conspiracy to commit fraud and theft.
This is why the focus of relying on anti spam laws is to a
degree misplaced.
Sure, it's nice to have a specific law with a narrow focus
which not only prohibits all the really bad behavior, but
also bans UBCE and gives police and other government
authorities lots of clout.
However, New York State put the Buffalo spammer in jail
using its consumer fraud laws.
I appreciate that many countries have more pressing
problems than dealing with spammers.
Fighting those who abuse the Internet for criminal purposes
is an international problem.
We are all highly critical of American efforts to deal with
the problem.
Yet, tell me, has anyone else but the Americans put a
spammer in jail yet?
Ultimately as America continues to come to grips with its
'spam problem' over the next year, at the end of the day
the Americans will in my view turn to other nations and
say, "okay - and what have you done today to fight spam?"
Some nations may not have fighting spam as part of their
criminal agenda.
However, everyone likes to sell goods and services to the
American consumer.
And it is relatively easy for American based internet
service providers to block all email coming from any one
nation.
We live in a global information economy. There has already
been at least one instance where a nation state trading
with the US that was turning a blind eye to its spam
problem, suddenly found they could not send email.
Upon protest to the American State Department, in essence
the response was:
"Gee were sorry, but your email is being blocked by
operators of private networks, who have the right to set
their own policies to stop email. Now, should you decide to
do something about your spam problem, we may be able to
persuade these companies to change their policies."
Lo and behold, suddenly there was a crack down in a far off
land and miracle of miracles, this far off land found it
could send email again.
Today, this far off land is doing what it can to deal with
its spam problem, slowly, step by step.
In July there was a big meeting in Geneva of
representatives of nation states from around the world,
convened by the International Telecommunications Union.
One thing which did come out of this meeting was that
everyone agreed the problem with UBCE is really serious and
we have to start doing something about.
Today a Bulgarian spammer may feel she is immune, along
with Russian criminal gangs and everyone else.
True, it may seem that nothing is happening. And nothing
may happen for some time to come.
But the heat is on. So, a card marked:
"do not collect $200, go directly to jail"
has the potential to be a significant deterrent.
John
P.S. As to running a community based accreditation service
for free, hey ... all power to you. Free is a magic word.
But keep in mind, there are costs which someone has to bear.
John Glube
Toronto, Canada
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