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Ovid (2709)

Ovid
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http://publius-ovidius.livejournal.com/
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Stuff with the Perl Foundation. A couple of patches in the Perl core. A few CPAN modules. That about sums it up.

Journal of Ovid (2709)

Thursday August 22, 2002
12:53 PM

Why?

[ #7244 ]

Why the hell doesn't congress stop the damned spam? Are the spam lobbyists so wealthy that congress won't give up feeding at their trough? I am sick, sick, sick of it. I wonder what can be done.

  • Keep pestering my congressman and whining? That's how I got Qwest off my back about those bogus charges.
  • Find the "home" email addresses of various congressmen and plaster those far and wide on the 'net? Maybe even spoof my reply address with those and start hitting "remove me from your list"?
  • Send out a mass-mail to my friends that Osama Bin Laden is going to launch email anthrax attacks via spam? (of course, my friends wouldn't fall for that . . . would they?)
  • Auto-forward all of our spam to our congressmen.
  • Become spammers ourselves, but only to our congressmen (similar to the previous point)
  • Spam congressman with anti-spam messages. What are they going to do, tell us "no"?
  • [ insert your idea here ]

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  • Why the hell doesn't congress stop the damned spam?

    Because Congress can only pass legislation that affects the U.S., and the spam will just go offshore (or to .ca or .mx).

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    xoa

    • Because Congress can only pass legislation that affects the U.S., and the spam will just go offshore (or to .ca or .mx).

      I thought that as long as the spam pass through U.S. servers, using U.S. infrastructure it should comply to U.S laws.
      Making spam illegal would allow (force) ISP to block spam* at the border and would mostly provide a ground for legal actions.
      (taxes, fines, fees or whatever...)

      We use the same principle here (in France) to fight things that are illegal here and allowed elsewhere (hate
      • First off, you can't "make spam illegal". The problem isn't the actual possession of spam, like if it were, say, child pornography. You'd have to make the sending of spam illegal.

        So the US can say "It's illegal in the US to send spam", and they may well do that, and the spammers will just pick up elsewhere. And the senders would be out of the jurisdiction of the US. We'd have no way to enforce it. We have no say in what happens in other countries.

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        xoa

        • You won't believe it but the automatic comment notification was spoted as spam (Yes I'm aware of whitelist ;-) :

          SPAM: -------------------- Start SpamAssassin results ----------------------
          SPAM: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been altered
          SPAM: so you can recognise or block similar unwanted mail in future.
          SPAM: See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details.
          SPAM:
          SPAM: Content analysis details: (5.4 hits, 5 required)
          SPAM: REPLY_TO_EMPTY (2.6 points) Reply-To: is empty
        • That's why I'm rather suggesting making 'spam forwarding/delivering' illegal...
          I'm not trying to give weapons against the spammer.
          I'm trying to give weapons against the ISP who don't block the traffic in the U.S.

          When the ISP will be accountable for all the spam traffic they forward, they'll probably start to block it.
          Spam will then disappear in the U.S. and it will then probably die slowly if all its markets become also unreachable the same way around the world...
          (Where could they go to send spam if
          • What ISPs are you talking about?

            If somebody at spammer.co.jp sends me spam to petdance.com, then who are you going to prosecute? Me, at petdance.com? Nobody's doing any forwarding.

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            xoa

            • What ISPs are you talking about?

              I'm talking about about :
              • YOUR (DSL, dialup access) Internet provider.
              • Hotmail, Caramail, Yahoo...
              • All the open relay out there.
              • The people managing all the Internet infrastructure (I may be wrong but It should be ossible to block mail traffic while routing ip packet depending on its source)

              If somebody at spammer.co.jp sends me spam to petdance.com, then who are you going to prosecute?
              Nobody, it's your problem/responsability :-)

              Nobody's doing any forwarding.
              B

              • The people managing all the Internet infrastructure (I may be wrong but It should be possible to block mail traffic while routing ip packet depending on its source)

                I don't want anyone on the net blocking traffic for my benefit. The last thing I need is someone at, say, UU.net saying "Oh, this is a known spammer's IP address, we'll block all traffic." Why should I trust UU.net to know what's good and what's bad?

                Just look at all the realtime blackhole lists for examples of babies getting thrown out wit

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                xoa

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