I know. Been discussed before. But this is something new.
I know the spam business is huge because it works. But it’s also a huge drain on the internet. So we have different methods to fight the good fight against unsolicited email advertisers. A recent trend in spam inserts random characters between certain letters in each word in the source code. Example:
Penis Enlargement becomes:
P<kkkodzsnrghn>en<kxtybepcciesgs>is E<kjmpbnzbqucft>nl<kucjxeacxyezh>arge<kmwkppdcbvfuuqd>ment
Pretty clever. Errors in HTML code simply don’t show. But the filters look at the code, not the output. Shouldn’t be too difficult to fix the filters to correct this but right now the filters don’t work when they run into this kind of spam.
Now shouldn’t this be illegal? Shouldn’t it be illegal to send spam out that is designed to bypass spam filters? I mean we use filters because we don’t want any advertisements. We don’t want to buy from email advertisers. I know, some people do. But if we are using filters or we choose to let our ISP to use a filter the spammers should know that they aren’t going to sell anything to us so bypassing the spam filters won’t do any good. Attempting to bypass filters can really only be construed as a form of harrassment. Simply beating the filters to show that you can’t beat the spammers has absolutely nothing to do with business. It’s just showing off or being prideful. And we the spammees are getting screwed in the process. I’ll just bet millions or hundreds of millions of dollars a year are spent on spam control in the US alone so we are talking some real cash here. There should really be some kind of control.
We need to have laws in place to force email advertisers to make filtering their content EASY, not hard, especially adult advertisers. If I had an 8 year old daughter and some scumbag sent her an email telling her she could enlarge her penis, I would freak. Totally freak out! It’s only a matter of time before someone sues. Man I can’t wait for that day! We should have a class action lawsuit against the email harvesting businesses and email advertisers.
Of course then there are the spammers from other countries. That’s another story.
As I undertand it, it is illegal to bypass copy-protection technology, even if the protected content is not itself copied or is copied in a manner consistent with “fair use”. If this is so, then I think that it should likewise be illegal to bypass spam-filtering technology.
These are typical of the type of comments that are made whenever the topic of controlling spam is brought up. It’s also the same kind of fatalism I’ve seen expressed whenever the topic of music sharing or computer viruses has been discussed.
There seems to be an attitude that the Internet is some kind of huge new life form that is beyond our ordinary abilities to control, but that’s not the case. For example, while law enforcement agencies have not been able to stop all viruses, but they have done a pretty good job of tracking down the more egregious hackers. Similarly, while the RIAA hasn’t stopped all music sharing, they have managed to shut down the worst offenders. Same thing with Internet child pornographers.
Enforcing spam laws should be relatively easy compared to the problems mentioned above. For one thing spam doesn’t exist without someone somewhere receiving money from it. The path of the money may be a winding one but in most cases it shouldn’t be that hard to follow.
In addition spammers are conspicuous. Virus writers may do their work all alone, pornographers require only a small number of confederates, and music sharers at least make an effort to hide their identities. Spam is just one big stinkin’ advertisement that screams “Here I am!”
I’m not suggesting that we can ever totally get rid of spam any more than we can totally get rid of viruses (computer or otherwise), child pornography, murder or not coming to a full stop, but I think it’s a mistake to just throw up our hands and do nothing.
Finally, to the OP. I think this should just be one of the components in any anti-spam legislation.
I happen to be a programmer by profession. Not long ago I spent an entire evening trying to set my filters up to catch spam and let the useful stuff through. Most of the spam still gets through and some of the non-spam gets flagged. Now maybe I’m not the best programmer in the world; heck, maybe I’m not very good at all, but still, if I can’t set up spam filters it’s unlikely this approach will work for the masses.
That’s not the question. The OP is about the law, not enforcement of the law. Inability to enforce a law shouldn’t make us agree that the activity (any activity) is alright to do. If an activity (spam, spyware, file-sharing, hacking, child porn, or whatever) is not made illegal, then that’s the same thing as telling those people that do the activity that the government supports the activity. At least they can claim it. Having a law in place at least makes a clear statement to the malicious spammers that the government believes that what they are doing is wrong. [/hijack]
Since spam filters block based on the content of an e-mail, wouldn’t making it illegal to bypass a spam filter be a first amendment issue? That’s the way it seems to me anyway.
No, it’s not a first amendment issue. You have a right to free speech. You do not have a right to make everyone else listen to whatever it is you have to say. Even the mighty television networks must bow to my ability to change the channels and turn off the TV set. Spammers should likewise have to bow before our ability to set our mailboxes to toss out certain classes of mail unread if we wish to. The Feds wouldn’t so much be forbidding speech as supporting people’s right to control what they, personally, listen to.
In the same way I, although I consider myself a strong First Amendment advocate, have no problem with those people who want to block certain kinds of programming from their cable boxes. I just don’t think they have any right to force ME not to watch those programs if I want to.
If the anti-spammers wanted to force us ALL to block spam, then I’d have a problem. But giving us the option to block spam, while leaving us able to enjoy spam if that is indeed what we enjoy, is fine with me.