how-to block ads
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| Spam is here to stay. Deal with it. Its part of the cost of the Internet. Plain and simple.
We've created this thing, now we need to live with it.
When companies were being driven out of business by "dot com" versions, did they sue and complain? No its not the same, I know, BUT the Internet does simplify everyone's ability to access data, and that data can be YOUR information.
Those companies that HOLD YOUR INFORMATION are responsible for not protecting you. Email addresses should not be accessible on some readily available database. However, if they are then spamming is simply another means of advertisement. Nobody likes to sit through stupid commercials and ads while watching tv, listening to the radio or going through a newspaper or magazine, right? This is just something that we are going to have to deal with in order to enjoy the benefits of the media.
I deal with people on the phone trying to sell me stuff on almost a daily basis. Mostly long-distance telephone carriers or credit card companies trying to hitch me onto some program or another. Its all part of having a telephone.
Now, this is not to say that we can't fight spam via technological innovations. Email/SMTP might need some sort of security/auth update so that you only need to deal with legitimate emails. Perhaps software that monitors email patterns, or a Request/Ack process that each person who's not on your contacts/address book list has to go through before they can be approved to send you email. This is not too hard to enforce and implement. The initial contact would NOT be an email, but a secure request for granting email sending priviledges to your box. Etc Etc Etc. | |
 koitsuPremium,MVM
join:2002-07-16
Mountain View, CA
kudos:14
| SMTP has had this for a long time: it's called STARTTLS; certificate-based authentication. The problem is that spammers will just generate certs after every Email they send, so it doesn't do all that much good without some higher intervention -- hence lawsuits, proposed federal bills, etc.
Sadly, I completely and entirely disagree that spam is "part of the Internet." I resided happily during the early days of post-Arpanet ('90-91); there was no "spam." If you said "spam," you were referring to either the physical product or a Monty Python skit. The Internet "worked" then without spam, and it sure as hell can work now without it.
Did "we" -- as in the general inhabitants of residences and owners of telephone services -- demand and create telemarketing calls? Absolutely. I most definitely remember saying to my immediate family, my peers, and the occasional Schmoe on the street: "HEY! Wouldn't it be a blast if we had some random schmuck trying to push a product down our throats while we're in the middle of dinner? What a fantastic idea! It's so fantastic, it should become a pre-requisite to owning a telephone!"
Simply owning a mailbox or P.O. box does not warrant me receiving thousands of unsolicited newspaper advertisements (complete with coupons!) either.
It's all unsolicited, which means it's unwarranted, which means it's essentially rape. I'm out on a limb with that comparison, but it's to the point where it needs to dealt with in the same manner. Spammers do what they do because there's nothing in the way of them doing it -- that doesn't make it right, fair, moral, nor legal.
If you think I'm blowing hot air, check this out. The video pretty much sums up the attitude of spammers: and it's one that needs to be squashed.
(Ed.: Added TechTV MPEG link)
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Making life hard for others since 1977.
[text was edited by author 2003-05-23 06:13:03] | |
 PyrionLiquid Metal Nanomorph
join:2001-12-01
Poway, CA
kudos:1 | reply to DSLTech5
In other words, collect the email addresses of trusted senders, and exclude them from a filter that otherwise automatically deletes any incoming mail message. Let these folks know on your website or whatever that they better damn well get a hold of you beforehand so you can fix your filter, otherwise their messages will never come through.
Problem solved.
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/* You are not expected to understand this */ | |
| reply to koitsu
Thanks for the info on STARTTLS .. looks like it hasnt really been developed for mainstream, and I dont see how a spammer could generate valid certs when you're manually accepting/denying cert requests.
Remember, these would be REQUESTS to be added to a "certified" list, and each email someone would send TO you would have to contain the proper init sequence, which would be very long and impossible to break.
We CAN protect our email system but I don't think ISPs really want to do that, or they wont be able to spam their own customers, as I know very well that they do.  | |
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