"John Glube" <jbglube(_at_)sympatico(_dot_)ca> wrote ..
JohnP -
Most countries do have criminal laws prohibiting consumer
fraud and theft of property.
Possibly true - but, for example, in the EEC - of which Germany, Spain and
UK are members, with harmonised laws on such things, the attitude to
enforcement varies so widely that it is unrecognisable as the same law.
With that situation in a "community" of countries - what chance do we have
of harmonising such laws around the world? I suggest none, and it would be
a waste of resources to attempt it, given the huge cultural differences
between so many countries -- you know, the reasons leaders give when they
go to war? :-/
We are all highly critical of American efforts to deal with
the problem.
Not at all - I do not intend any criticism of USA especially.
Yet, tell me, has anyone else but the Americans put a
spammer in jail yet?
That was a political move - as you well know. Yes - I do accuse the USA of
"manouevering" the anti-spam issue to suit the current political agenda, but
it doesn't mean anything anywhere else in the world.
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?"
So what makes USA the arbiter of anti-spam activities? It is an internet
problem and the internet community needs to solve it by denying spammers the
opportunity to spam.
Some nations may not have fighting spam as part of their
criminal agenda.
And never will have - there are much more pressing issues for them.
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.
Any spammer worthy of being chased would not get into that situation, and
I'm quite sure that that country's resident spammers are now using zombies
or fraudulently-acquired server space in other countries.
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.
Wow - we've been saying that for years - I wish someone would pay me the
expenses of a long weekend in Geneva to state the obvious :-)
True, it may seem that nothing is happening. And nothing
may happen for some time to come.
SPF and reputation systems - all of which are free - will deal with it long
before the force of law. Look at the progress already - free software like
spamassassin.
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.
Not really - spammers, like other criminals, enjoy it when the stakes are
raised. They have the potential to earn enough to pay the fine and walk
away.
Slainte,
JohnP.
johnp(_at_)idimo(_dot_)com
ICQ 313355492