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  Michael Ward, 25 Jun 2003 @ 10:05am

  
  

  Spammers-Be-Gone

  The current issue of TECHNOLOGY REVIEW has a good article on spam and the (probably doomed) technological efforts to minimize its bad effects on us.
  
  Spamming isn't a technical problem; it's a social problem. As long as there are no social controls on spamming behavior, some individuals will spam. They make money by stealing a little bit from each of us, in our time, our taxes, our telecom charges.
  
  The answer is to establish penalties for spamming that can be enforced on individuals. The interesting thing about spam is that it always includes a trail back to the guilty parties; or else there is no benefit to the spammer or the merchant who uses him. The TR article quotes a spam-fighter to the effect that 200 individuals are responsible for nine-tenths of all spam in the world.
  
  Publish that list. Establish social controls over those 200 scumbags by the use of moral suasion.
  
  Ever read Eric Frank Russell's SF novel "Wasp"? The list is long. Dirac Angestun Gesept.

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    Oliver Wendell Jones, 25 Jun 2003 @ 10:36am

    
    

    Re: Spammers-Be-Gone

    The interesting thing about spam is that it always includes a trail back to the guilty parties; or else there is no benefit to the spammer or the merchant who uses him
    
    I would hesitate to say always - at least 10% of the SPAM I receive has no links, no e-mail address (other than the forged one in the header) and no phone number. Often times there is no clue as to what the product or offering really is. Those are the ones that I really scratch my head over.

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