They should just start charging people to send email. And people should stop responding to spam messages. These simple steps would keep the internet spam free.
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They should just start charging people to send email. And people should stop responding to spam messages. These simple steps would keep the internet spam free.
Agreed, laws don't create order, but if an ISP has a law to follow, most will do so gladly (if for no other reason but to save their own money).Quote:
Originally Posted by thehorse13
Looking at the average user on the internet.... do we need to go further. Low port access is a priviledge and the small fee show up on the bill as a reminder of the responsibilty of that priviledge.
The internet itself has a working structure that does do well. It is obviously not perfect and no system is. Rebuilding it from the ground up will not make a difference. In time all systems age and start to show their age. The best approach is to fix what we have and we can fix the existing internet.
Its is a very simple approach that starts with IANA and the registrars. First start by forcing all domain registrants to provide *proper legal* information for whois. If a system is found providing illegal information, cut them off. Simple and quick.
This one small factor will made a devistating impact on the major spam houses that all provide false information to avoid detection.
Second. a real solid fix for the virus and spambot infect users - every time they are reported to their ISP for being infected or spamming FINE THEM. Give one chance for ignorance and require them to read an information packet that provides a source to free antiviral/spam software.
This fine could be a increase in their ISP rates for a period of six months. This cover the issue of knowledgable users not paying for the irresponsibile users. Each ttime this happens, hike the penalty. A good example might be the # of penalities multipled by the ISP fee yeilds that customer's price for service.
These two ideas are just examples of how we can fix the existing internet. They are do-able, pratical, reasonable, and fair.
Sorry, we cannot fix the existing internet .....................it is international and it is global.
There is no international agreement on legislation, let alone enforcement of it.
That is why I totally agree with blocking whole countries................we don't actually need internet communications with them. How did we live before the cellphone? :D
There is still snail mail, fax, telex and the telephone.......... business will still function, believe me ;)
So is charging for sending more than a certain number of emails sent in a day.Quote:
Originally Posted by frpeter
The problem I see with that Moira, is that the vast majority of spam is sent out via 'spambots'. So some poor father is going to be on the hook because his kids machine got owned by one of these bots and sent out a couple of million emails. True, the system should have been secured so it didn't get infected/owned but we all know, if that happened, we would all be out of a job.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moira
Cheers:
Yes, that's the problem now so much spam is being sent by botnets. Like trying to educate people NOT to be tempted by responding to this stuff, trying to implement it in practice just doesn't work.
I agree. Most basic users are uneducated. This is why I feel my approach is a practical and reasonable one. The first incident or "ignorance" incident has the mandatory information packet that must be read. After that, the individual is no longer ignorant.Quote:
Originally Posted by DjM
This is a true fact: There are many computer stores that deliberitly tell their customers they do not need antivirus/spyware. It is a blantant scam by the store that new computer users fall for blindly. When something goes wrong like a virus, the customer is told to bring their machine in and they are charged $85 a hour to fix the problem. I know one store owner personally that does this. The store owner's actions are absolutely disgusting IMHO.
I couldn't agree more.
This is utterly ludicrous!
We start off with a complaint about RBLs, and have now degenerated to punishing private computer owners?
" Well your honour, I have a microwave, a cooker, a TV, a dishwasher, and a washing machine as well............can I have these similar offences taken into consideration?"
[ Sorry Moira, I don't know Scottish Law other than your Companies Act ;)]
Who are the real criminals here?
1. The people who write the scumware that does it.
2. The people that write the exploits that propagate it.
3. The people who use #1 & #2 to distribute the spam
4. Those who are advertising, using spamming, and are benefitting from and financing the whole operation.
Now, people responsible for corporate or institutional SERVERS that propagate spam are guilty of culpable negligence, and in many cases (block China totally?) are possibly corrupt, and deliberately permit open relays and such.
My personal views:
You need to deal with #1 through #4 supra, to really attack the problem.
If you are going to go for "end users" then go for corporates and institutions.... after all they should be able to afford to know better, and employ the staff accordingly.
The real target should be #4; the people who would ultimately gain........... In their case I would have a "guilty until proven innocent" view.
Unfortunately, you now come back to my earlier comment that these laws cannot be enforced globally
:)
Simple economics will squish registrar validation. Places like Verisign do a nice job of it when issuing certs but then again, look at the cost. It's administratively intensive to perform the vetting process. On top of that, as pointed out, there is no international law that requires registrars to do anything. A nasty trend is people now have opted for protected whois records so you can't see who a domain is registered to.
People responding to spam is the validation process for the spammer. A bigger set of problems exist with spambots that raid your address book. On top of that, people entering their email addresses on blog sites, online "YOU WIN!" popups, entering addys in real notation ([email protected]) and what have you and then harvesters come along and pluck (scraping) the addresses. Spam is a problem that exists because of numerous factors, not simply because someone replies to a spam message.
Charging for e-mails is a dangerous game. I could write a book about it but I will leave it alone in this thread.
The internet was designed to share data and to survive if a segment goes down. The proof of this was during the Sept 11th attacks. Instant messaging and internet services were the only reliable communications medium for a good part of the day. The internet wasn't designed for security. We've bolted it on and that's the wrong way to go about securing something. Ask any developer who has to hear from the security team during the functional requirements phase of systems development. No one wants to bolt on security at the end because they understand that it is an inferior approach.
I'm convinced that strapping a rocket engine to a volkswagon beetle to increase speed is a bad way to engineer a race car. I feel the same way about how security is approached in regards to internet infrastructure.
--TH13