[Dixielandjazz] controlling unwanted offers

[Edgerton, Paul A]

I apologize in advance for veering this thread ever further off topic.

Bill Gunter, responding to comments from me disparaging spammers (and in
particular the kind of vermin who write trojans, worms and viruses) wrote:

"The internet is a public forum for the world. To try and stop spam is like 
trying to stop the guy on the street corner with a cardboard sign that says 
'Homeless, please help.'  You can detain panhandlers but the problem won't 
go away."

Perhaps so, but the internet is not in fact a "public forum" in the usual
sense. It is owned principally by private enterprise, and we pay them for
its use. You and I both pay a monthly fee for our internet connection, in
exchange for a finite amount of bandwidth. Thus your emailbox is no more
public than say, the door of your rented apartment: you may not own it
outright, but it is more or less under your control.

One thing that distinguishes the internet from a completely private network
is that users added to the network bring additional infrastructure along
with them. In this way, each user indirectly bears the cost of carrying his
traffic.

As a user of major providers (comcast, hotmail) you may not realize how much
spam and malware is blocked before you even see it. You are paying for the
processing needed to scan and either deliver or delete every message that
comes addressed to you. This consumes quite a bit of processing power and
you are not getting it for free. In my case, more than 80% of the messages
making it through those filters every day are spam, at which point I must
spend some of my time and processing capacity to father filter what I
receive. 

Bill goes on to say:
"Perhaps it is not a problem after all.  I mean, WE OWN THE DELETE KEY!"

In your example of the panhandlers on the street, I can ignore them. It
would require something very near an assault to force me to pay attention to
them or to take action to avoid their "message."

It is especially irksome that spammer's messages are increasingly
constructed to foil efforts to prevent their delivery, given that they
typically promote products or services I would never buy. They often have
deceptive and misleading subject lines and diversionary or obfuscated text.

Malware (virus, worm, trojan) writers devise means of seizing control of
victim's computers, some of which require absolutely no action on the part
of the target. Theft of credit card numbers, passwords and one's fiscal
identity are serious -- and potentially devastating -- consequences of this
type of activity. Yes, it IS a problem!

Bill continues:
"Putting up with spam means 1. exercising caution and 2. saying no (by 
deleting).

"These two caveats are the basic rules of life. We exercise them constantly 
in all our daily encounters."

Perhaps because I work in the computer industry I see more truly evil
computer crime than you do, but a reasonable level caution is simply not
sufficient to prevent an attack. A reasonable level of caution may not
prevent a traffic accident or  burglary, and saying "no to mugger is
unlikely to be an effective deterrent. There are very determined and
persistent people out there who aim to steal from you by means of your
computer.

Bill wraps up his argument:
"Finally, if some effective means of stopping spammers before they reach
your 
mailbox is employed I think it would seriously impair our own abilities to 
communicate freely with each other around the world.

"I will gladly put up with a few unwanted messages which I can easily ignore

so that I can communicate with others without having to run some sort of 
legal techno maze."

As I mentioned above, a great deal is already being done to block spam.
People much smarter than you and I are working to find solutions to this
problem. It isn't as easy just hitting the delete key a few times, and were
it not for the efforts of these smart people you find email nearly useless.

But the bad guys are getting more sophisticated as well, and they are
raising the stakes. It is they who deserve the sort of frontier justice I
recommended. The press carries the stories every time they catch some
teenage "hacker," but these are not the ones doing the most damage. The true
bad guys rarely get caught.

About the only other possible recourse is to cut off their income. I don't
know *who* is buying the products spammers sell, but there are evidently
enough customers to support the business. It seems doubtful that boycotting
will work, but how about some economic sanctions against those who engage
spammers?

Paul Edgerton
Who envisions a thriving trade for the Godfather Corp.