SPAM Bill and Junk Mail

[mgidm86]

No this is not a plea for everyone to SPAM Bill...this is regarding the Anti-SPAM legislation moving through Congress:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...1121/wr_nm/tech_spam_congress_dc_12&printer=1

I just question why the government chooses to attack SPAM.

SPAM is a nuisance, but it can be controlled easily by the user. Large companies do not need to "suffer" from SPAM (they dont, they suffer from employees emailing each other and posting on JREF!!!). Any large company that suffers from, or whose bandwidth is severely affected by SPAM needs a new I.T. department. I rarely get SPAM. The delete key is easy enough to use for the little I do get. Even Yahoo web mail sorts out most of the SPAM sent to my Yahoo account. People that get lots of SPAM just dont know how to control it, and/or are careless with their email address.

Once "everyone" is armed against SPAM and people are receiving less of it, the SPAMMERS will find that this method of advertising isn't working and stop. Well theoretically. This would "unclog" the internet (apparently our very way of life is at risk due to SPAM if you read the article). This would be more effective, I think, than any legislation (can you say "loophole"?).

Lawmakers said SPAM has become a top constituent concern, and they also faced hundreds of unwanted messages daily.

...yeah, unwanted messages from the large corporations pressuring them to put a stop to it perhaps? I'm sure they get thousands of "unwanted" correspondence from people wondering why nothing gets done in DC. And they're worried about SPAM? Heh...

Now let's talk about JUNK MAIL......

JUNK MAIL... the kind you get in your REAL mailbox. The kind that wastes natural resources like trees, maybe gas for the mailcarriers who deliver it. My mail carrier would probably be happier if he weren't lugging around 50 extra pounds of garbage...garbage that is being dropped off at my house whether I like it or not. Time is also wasted...my time for needing to sort the junk from my real mail. My time in either piling it on my kitchen table, tossing it out or recycling it. JUNK MAIL need not even have an address, unlike SPAM. It always finds you and there's really not a damn thing you can do about it. It's garbage YOU have to deal with. And it piles up fast man!

So where's the legislation?

If I had to choose between killing SPAM, telemarketing, or junk mail, I'd choose junkmail. I can deal with telemarketers at least to some degree. But with junk mail, well I guess we're just stuck with other people's garbage. Someone told me they tried going through the USPS and filling out forms or some sort of thing to stop junk mail from being delivered, but to no avail. Does anyone know if they offer such a service? From what this guy said, they did offer it where he lived, but it didn't work. Maybe I misunderstood.

I wonder if it's possible to ban the postal service from delivering to ones home? UPS and FedEx don't deliver junk to me. Why is it legal for some guy to walk onto my property and dump stuff in my mailbox against my will? Or is it?

I don't feel the government has any business dealing with SPAM. I think the problem can take care of itself as users become better informed on how to stop it. Again, I wonder why the government chooses to involve itself in this (especially while ignoring junk mail).

P.S. I've had a hard time getting online lately. Hopefully I can participate in this thread beyond just starting it.

 

[Tricky]

My favorite thing to do with junk mail is to tear everything in half then mail it back in the "postage paid" envelope. I don't worry a lot about postmen lugging it around. Heck, postmen are probably glad to have a job.

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

SPAM is a nuisance, but it can be controlled easily by the user.

Not necessarily true. Spam is 40% of ALL internet traffic and rising daily (a rough estimate, but we all know it's a big amount of bandwidth). IMHO the spam producers are basically high-jacking internet for their benefit only.

The only thing I hate more than spam, are people who respond (and purchase the product/service) to spam.

Charlie (the pseudo meat spam: mm mmm good) Monoxide

 

[Iconoclast]

SPAM is a nuisance, but it can be controlled easily by the user.

You seem to have a very naive understanding of the internet.

Large companies do not need to "suffer" from SPAM... Any large company that suffers from, or whose bandwidth is severely affected by SPAM needs a new I.T. department.

Whether or not you actually SEE the spam, it still traverses the internet. As Charlie (insert annoying pithy remark) Monoxide has already pointed out, around 40% of all email traffic is spam, and that reduces the bandwidth available for real traffic. When you consider that just 100 people on the entire planet are responsible for 90% of all spam (sorry haven't got the reference handy), we can see that they are wasting around a quarter of the bandwidth available on the internet. If we could find those 100 people and murder them, slowly and painfully, perhaps with cheese graters, then we'd see an instant inprovement in the performance of the internet of around 25%.

I rarely get SPAM. The delete key is easy enough to use for the little I do get. Even Yahoo web mail sorts out most of the SPAM sent to my Yahoo account.

As I said above, the fact that you never have to deal with spam in no way means it's having no effect on the internet.

Once "everyone" is armed against SPAM and people are receiving less of it, the SPAMMERS will find that this method of advertising isn't working and stop.

This is simply untrue, the Nigerian scam has been going since the 1940s, the sad fact is that marketers will always be able to find enough people willing to pay them money to make their schemes worthwhile. The top spam agents -- who send out 100s of millions of emails daily -- are millionaires.

Well theoretically. This would "unclog" the internet (apparently our very way of life is at risk due to SPAM if you read the article).

As unvelievable as you think this problem is, a consortium of large IT companies, including Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco was recently formed to try to come up with a new protocol for email, these companies believe there's a very real possibility that email as a communications medium may be abandoned if the signal to noise ratio continues it's trend towards zero.

Now let's talk about JUNK MAIL......

JUNK MAIL... the kind you get in your REAL mailbox. The kind that wastes natural resources like trees, maybe gas for the mailcarriers who deliver it.

Well, that's one of the big differences between spam and junk mail. Whereas every item of junk mail a marketing company sends out costs them money, spamming is essentially free.

 

[Ed]

We have legislation against annoying telemarkers. There is also a "do not mail" list that works for snail mail spam.

 

[Judith]

My favorite thing to do with junk mail is to tear everything in half then mail it back in the "postage paid" envelope. I don't worry a lot about postmen lugging it around. Heck, postmen are probably glad to have a job.

Once I saved all my junk mail for weeks like this - stuffing it into the postage paid envelopes.
I was going to send them all at once, but the pile of envelopes got really big - so much junk after a few weeks - and I chickened out. I could just see me getting arrested for obscure mail fraud law.

 

[mgidm86]

...a consortium of large IT companies, including Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco was recently formed to try to come up with a new protocol for email, these companies believe there's a very real possibility that email as a communications medium may be abandoned...

Exactly! These companies are finding solutions WITHOUT the government getting involved. Imagine that! Like I said, "I just question why the government chooses to attack SPAM." I say we should sick 'em on the junk mailers and let the techies work out the internet.

Question: Can the government keep SPAM from coming in from other countries? Doubt it.

My point about the USER not seeing it is that if they don't see it, they don't buy. SPAM doesn't sell, SPAM stops. I work in advertising (and design web apps n stuff) and if something doesn't sell (an advertising idea or scheme), it gets scrapped fast. But as stated SPAM can be cheap to make and deliver and they may keep sending it anyways. I am not so naive about the web, it is a big part of my job.

I mention Yahoo as an example of filtering out SPAM so the user doesn't see it, making the spam ineffective. My knowledge does go beyond Yahoo mail, but I see your points. But between this, and the fact that corporations are taking it upon themselves to solve this problem, I think SPAM is under a heavy enough attack already without the government passing laws that, I'm guessing, will be largely ineffective. Sorry for the poor grammar, I'm tired.

My main point though was just to question the need for government involvement with SPAM rather than junk mail. To me, junk mail is a bigger problem. I may have understated the spam problem slightly

Well, that's one of the big differences between spam and junk mail. Whereas every item of junk mail a marketing company sends out costs them money, spamming is essentially free.

Well to me, the big difference between the two is that for most people, getting rid of spam is free. Junk mail is not necessarily so. Plus the junk mail must be sorted at the post offices, handled, hauled to our homes. Then it is thrown out, hauled away again. Not to mention the resources it takes to make these things in the first place. I'm not too concerned with the big corps email woes.

How about a little poll instead:

What would you rather stop receiving, junk snail mail, or spam?

I vote junk mail

 

[dsm]

I tend to agree that government legislation is going to do little to stop SPAM. It may slow it down for a time, but the spammers will move overseas (out of reach of our government) and startup again.

SPAM is also a technological problem that is difficult to stop with the current internet architecture. Filtering is, ultimately, NOT the right way to combat SPAM as it becomes an "arms race" between the spammers (who can afford to find ways around the filter) and the spammees (who generally cannot afford to keep up in the race).

The way to stop SPAM is to change the SMTP protocol to require communications between mail servers to be validated via (say) public key encryption to ensure each server knows who it is talking to. This way, when you receive a SPAM, the header tells you much more precisely where the SPAM came from (ie. spoofing would be eliminated). Also, by sectioning off the Internet and allowing mail servers to communicate with only other local mail servers, SPAM could be traced back to a mail server and (at least) the section could be blacklisted by other mail servers until the problem is corrected. In this way, SPAM traffic is reduced because spammers would only be able to send SPAM to their local server which could then take the appropriate steps to cut off the spammers (or be cut off themselves if they don't).

This is kind of a moving back to the way email was handled in UUCP days (with added encryption for validation). This would reqquire, though, significant changes to the Internet in that it would require setting up a set of mail servers to implement this and that would not be a money making enterprise so no company wants to step up to the plate (yet).

We'll see what happens in the future.