Posted on 12/09/2003 6:03:38 AM PST by FlyLow
This morning E.D. Hill, on Fox & Friends, displayed an eMail address for ridding yourself of eMail.
uce@ftc.gov
You are supposed to be able to FORWARD all "spam" to this address (with headers) and they are going to shut them down. This is part of the Anti-Spam bill passed yeaterday and to be signed by President Bush this week.
I have started forwarding this morning and it seems to go through so far.
Yeah, I'm worried about myself. I think I can limit myself to just one "feel good" thing--the Do Not Call registry. I'm pretty sure I can stop there....
That is a gross simplification of a serious issue. Under your scenario our options are to bend over and take it or to kill them. I will settle for the "NANNY-STATE" option.
They all get it too :)
I send mine to SpamCop to parse the headers automatically and compose complaint reports to the abuse desks at any and all ISP's used by the spammer, including the owners of any open relays he might have used to inject spam.
A copy goes to the FTC, who was cited in another story/thread as being one of the studying agencies on this issue. I don't send cc. to the FBI as it isn't their area. Chain letters and Nigerian 419 letters go to the Secret Service's Financial Crimes Division.
The problem with Billy Tauzin's bill is that it redefines spam deliberately, to wash the "mainsleaze" spammers who are waiting in the wings. The bill beats up the small-time chickenboners who are responsible for most of the abusive spam, but the bill does enormous damage to our rights not to have to look at unsolicited commercial e-mails, by redefining it as a legal and permissible form of transmission.
Anything that is sent as commercial advertising without your specific consent is SPAM. And anyone who spams, is abusing the Net and stealing your bandwidth, your computer's resources, and your ISP's server time.
Tauzin rewrote the definition of spam, to exclude commercial advertising sent to you by senders who identify themselves. All they have to do is put their own name on it -- and voila'! Tauzin washes them clean. IMHO this was the ulterior -- and venal -- actual purpose of the bill.
The "do-not-disturb" provision is chickenfeed for chumps. It's called listwashing by spamfighters, and it's something spammers do themselves, in order to avoid getting caught in spamtraps set by spamfighters, who then submit the spammers' ISP's to the blocklist operators like SPEWS and SpamCop.
The other effect of Tauzin's bill is that blocklist operators in the US will no longer be able legally to maintain a blocklist of US spammers who play by Tauzin's rules.
I'm telling you, guys -- this is a typical piece of captive, venal, special-interest legislation on behalf of the bad guys!
As if you couldn't tell just by seeing who wrote it, and noticing that it's a congressman from Louisiana, home of the Louisiana Hayride and many other fine, venal, for-sale scandals and congressmen.
Don't worry. I am a prude, but I can take a joke, lol.
I'm told that the only way a fellow gets these solicitations is by leaving cookies at porn sites.
The only time I go to porn sites is when it's an accident. I don't know how it happens, but I've found myself at those sites and freaked out, lol. I remember getting to one once by incorrectly typing in the URL for the Drudge Report.
In any case, I'd love to be free of these e-mails because I have a bunch of kids whom I don't want exposed to this stuff.
Candi
Indeed, I'd like to see a law that would make evidence of a crime victim's spamming behaviors (if any) admissible in court. Would work especially well if judges were courageous enough to let jurors know that they get to decide not only the facts of the case but also what is just (Mr. Smith accused of harassing Mr. Jones, but Mr. Jones sent out 10,000,000 emails? Jury finds Mr. Smith not guilty and thanks him for his public service). How long do you think spam would last in that environment?
Unfortunately, my ISP mis-tags a few things as spam using such criteria. Besides, half the "click to remove" things are really "click to show the spammer this is a real email address".
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