Are Adware/Spyware and Spam Free Speech

[aeallison]

Below are a couple of excerpts of the General Use Policy of the ISP I manage...

Subscribers may not mount deliberate attacks against our systems or use our systems in a deliberate attack on any other systems. This includes, but is not limited to:

Mail bombing (sending three or more unsolicited pieces of e-mail or files exceeding 60K)

"Cracking" or attempting to gain root access

Ping flooding

Tsunami or flood bots

Annoyance utilities like "nuke" or "flash"

SPAMMING - (Unsolicited e-mail or News Postings) Excessive "spamming" in newsgroups or mass email that result in numerous complaints is strictly prohibited. There is no flexibility on this issue. If you are found to be in violation of this policy through 3 or more complaints, your account will be canceled and you may be subject to any applicable local, state or federal violation charges.

This might help to clear things up a bit concerning a small, independent ISP's views on e-mail and our responsibilities. Dishnet has some pretty vague policies, and some very restricting ones too, we allow up to 15Mb attachments, and naturally give 15Mb of storage. We assume that they are using it for lawful use, and it is up to them (the users) to stay within our policies or their account will be terminated. We would rather our customers have a certain freedom of use, and not bog down our system with useless filters. We believe it is up to them to maintain their own filters, AV's, etc. should they so desire. We do scan all incoming and outgoing mail for viri, you all know how effective that can be... MsMittens basically covered all of the bases, we DO strive to maintain a reliable and trouble free connection for our users. I hope this helps.

[Richy]

Thanks everybody.

The bottom line is - Look before you leap ...

I will be writing a couple of tutorials soon, about recovery from attack and attack prevention - Nihil

Waiting ...

[steve.milner]

The problem as I see it is the law.

It doesn't matter if spyware/adware/spam is free speach or not. It doesn't even matter if it has been specifically legislated against.

The spyware/adware/spam will simply move to another country where no such legislation exists and then nothing can be done about them.

There is only one way to stop this. Make it more costly for them to perform these activities than the income they receive.

So for spam if no one ever bought anything contained in spam it would stop - No Income. Reporting spam to appropriate sites can mean moving ISPs - adding to the cost.

So the reall question is how can this methodology be applied to adware/spyware ?

It's not as if someone can legally hack this people and bring them down, because they would then use the laws of the country you are in to prosecute you, even though they have moved away from that country to avoid its laws.

Ever felt you can't win!

[MrLinus]

Reporting spam to appropriate sites can mean moving ISPs - adding to the cost.

Only if open relays were closed. You don't have to be a fancy operation to run a spam house, AFAIK. All you need is an SMTP server with an open relay and your in biz. And there are enough open relays that this continues pretty close to unbated. I mean seriously, how many penial enlargements with beach front condos and low rate mortgages does a chick need?

[steve.milner]

Originally posted here by MsMittens
Only if open relays were closed. You don't have to be a fancy operation to run a spam house, AFAIK. All you need is an SMTP server with an open relay and your in biz. And there are enough open relays that this continues pretty close to unbated. I mean seriously, how many penial enlargements with beach front condos and low rate mortgages does a chick need?

I agree about the need to close open relays, but if you use spamcop, they raise a complaint with the abuse contact of any websites mentioned in the mail, forcing the move of income generating websites.

Steve

[iankestor]

Unlawful entry.
Just because someone tells you up front that looking at their ad gives them the right to install software on your computer. I think my policy now is that anyone who looks at me, talks to me, uses my name, e-mails me, advertises to me or thinks of me is giving me the right to take all their money and do anything to him/her/them/it that I wish. In fact, by simply knowing about me, you voluntarily and without reserve give me permission and authority to complete control of your life, property and anything over which you have control.
Free speech my buss. If I wish to air my opinion, I do not have the right to infringe on the rights of others, including the right to privacy. If Spam (fax/Internet browser/e-mail/cell phone/pager/etc.) is protected as free speech, then I wish to exercise my free speech rights by telling off these so-and-so attholes - in their own bedrooms - at midnight - with a megaphone. HEY! It's my free speech right!

[TheTempest]

just to answer the subject,

NO, SPAM is not free speech, in the same respect that Telemarking it's free speech, they arn't trying to say something, they are trying to sell something. btw, i dont mean say as in literaly, convey a thought, i mean say something imporant...

[thadyquill]

Hi all,

Yeah! I'm an opinionated n00b and this thread is a few weeks old but ...
... it's an important topic and is probably always a live issue for those of us concerned with it security and or personal privacy.

1. Freedom of any kind (speech or otherwise) is always predicated on respect for the rights of others.
2. Spyware/adware/spam/UCE/UBM are internet abuses.
3. They are all consuming my resources (comms, isp, computing) against my wishes and thus abuse my rights commercially.
4. Some or all abuse my right to privacy.
5. Through abusing my rights (and my pocket) the perpetrators forfeit any freedom they might or might not arguably aspire to.

Fundamentally this is the wrong question - apologies to Darkemaster - it shifts the territory onto territory where the perpetrators of these abuses are more comfortable and it is the language of the direct marketing lobby.

The cost - again with apologies to Darkemaster - is more or less always borne by me and my fellow netizens and not by the perpetrators nor indeed by isp's. (ISP's are usually profit making commercial ventures who pass their costs on to me and my likes.)

Last comment until such time as ISP's in large numbers and size join with concerned netizens in lobbying both internet regulatory organisations and legislatures to produce effective and toothed regulations then no matter how many of us small peple lobby our politicos the politicos are always likely to be swayed by the well funded and professional direct marketing lobby.

I'd encourage anybody who is concerned to join lobbying organisations such as www.cauce.org (or regional lobbists like www.euro.cauce.org) which are dedicated to lobbying for regulatory controls against SPAM/UCE/UBM.

Lastly I can live with banner ads and embedded ads when I acess sites whose funding is derived from advertising in the same way as I can live with newspaper advertising or tv advertising but drive-by downloads, trackware and all that other stuff is just too frustrating for most words that I want to use.

Thanks for the airtime.

[gpshewan]

An interesting discussion and one I'm sorry I came a couple of weeks late to.

Spyware and Adware doesn't bother me as I have the filters and checks on (and updated) to ensure I don't see these. Spam is another thing all together. I still have to clear it out of the filters and that annoys me. If I get unsolicited telephone calls trying to sell something, they are told exactly what I think of them and the fact that I am registered to not receive cold calls. If someone comes to my door trying to sell anything - they get told to go away.

What if somebody came to your door everyday of the week to ask if you want viagra, are unhappy with the size of your manhood or wanted to show you dodgy pictures of their college room mates? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that I'd be up on assault charges by Wednesday

I don't think there's going to be a quick solution to spam. I read this article the other day

Spammers, Hackers increasingly feed off each other.

which makes me think it will only get worse.

All other theories and arguements aside....the only thing that still continues to amaze me, is even though it's incredibly cheap to run as a spammer - there are still enough stupid people out there for them to turn a profit I mean, how many perverted, penile challenged and impotent people looking for a good deal are out there??!!...or is it just one very rich, bored one?

[aeallison]

This world is full of "turnips/lusers"... I manage an ISP, I take all of the customer support calls and I am generally the person who gets blamed for my customers computer problems. I do understand their problems, and I do usually find a cure for their dilemas. I am consantly amazed at the number of people who have used their windows system for years, and have never clicked on the little button in their start menu that is labled "Windows Update"!!! Next down on my list are the people who do not know that they have to update their virus definitions, and/or scan their systems occaisionally. They think that if they install Norton AV, that they bought at Best Buy or somewhere, that they are now "safe".

Now back to the subject of this thread...

I have been suggesting to my customers to download and use Lavasoft's Ad-Aware to remove what it was designed to remove. I chose this product because of its ease of use, now I am getting complaints that I am making it more difficult for them... I can't seem to win for losing...