On Sunday, February 23, 2003, at 01:43 PM, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> 2. I agree with the rest of your comment: (to borrow a bit from what
> you went on to say) I too have great sympathy for the people trying
> to stop the spam -- UNLESS they're also the people responsible for the
> spam.
> For instance, I have no sympathy at all for Yahoo, since Yahoo Stores
> allows spammers to operate with impunity from its space: doesn't matter
> who reports them, how many times, how clear/murky the evidence is,
> etc.:
> they do *nothing*.
You'll want to read this then:
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/000525.html
> And then they turn around and tout their anti-spam
> measures to their subscribers.
They really seem to have been working at closing holes in yahoogroups.
for a while, that was a real pesthole, adn the spam being sent to yahoo
lists seems to be getting under control.
Which doesn't mean they shouldn't be doing this ALSO...
> Part of this may be due to economic conditions: turning off a paying
> customer, even a spammer, doesn't go over well when co-lo centers sit
> mostly empty.
Of course, that's the same reason supermarkets don't enforce 10 items
or less. they only see the customer they don't want to piss off. They
don't see the customers that get pissed and never come back without
complaining...
> others hew with a broadsword. NONE of them would exist if ISPs would
> just Do The Right Thing, because we all have better things to do with
> our time than spend it tweaking the anti-spam stuff.
>
I'm not really sure that's true.
First, define "right thing"
reality: spam isn't illegal. Until THAT changes, "right thing" is up
for interpretation on very many levels. if it's not illegal, it's hard
to take the moral high ground against it.
Second, at a high level, we ALL hate spam, at a more detailed level, we
basically can't agree on what it is, and that seriously splits our
attempts to get anything done, because nobody in the anti-spam world
seems to have figured out it's better to get the easy stuff first and
then make another run at the next set, so nobody really seems to be
trying to get together and solve that first set of spam everyone can
agree on.
Third, thanks to the high preponderance of open relays overseas, it's
not always easy for ISPs to do the right thing, since the place where
the spam comes from isn't within control of the ISP, even if the
bastard controlling those open relays is.
but the big issue is we all may hate spam, but it's not illegal. Until
it is, ISPs will continue to make the argument that it's business. And
frankly, they're right.
--
Chuq Von Rospach, Architech
chuqui@plaidworks.com -- http://www.plaidworks.com/chuqui/blog/
But I can hear the sound
Of slamming doors and folding chairs
And that's a sound they'll never know
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