If you've got nothing else to do this afternoon, I'll be on CNN at 2 pm ET today talking about political spam. Also, I went on NPR's for On the Media this week to talk about political e-mail astroturfing. The show airs on most NPR stations at different times over the weekend: http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/stations.html Previous Politech messages: "Weekly column: Sen. Joseph Lieberman, spammer-in-chief?" http://www.politechbot.com/p-04335.html "Can we stop Sen. Joseph Lieberman from spamming?" http://www.politechbot.com/p-04336.html -Declan --- Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 22:17:43 -0500 To: declanat_private From: Marc Rotenberg <rotenbergat_private> Subject: Re: FC: Can we stop Sen. Joseph Lieberman from spamming? "I'm sorry, Mr. Paine, the British Colonialist Communications Act prevents the publication of Common Sense. You need to get permission from your readers before you write to them with your concerns about British rule." Marc Rotenberg --- Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 21:35:56 -0700 From: "Allen S. Thorpe" <athorpeat_private> To: declanat_private Subject: Re: FC: Weekly column: Sen. Joseph Lieberman, spammer-in-chief? I won't call it spam until I keep getting the same message over and over. Political candidates have a right to contact the voters, and this is as good as any. If it gets to be like the wall-to-wall TV ads ahead of elections I'd filter it, but I think it's more important than the usual spam content. I think the "adventure" theme is poor campaigning, however. Who cares if Lieberman is thrilled to be a candidate? The real issue is what his qualifications are and what his policies will be. If this is for fundraising, I'm not inclined to pay for his excellent adventure. Allen S. Thorpe Castle Dale, UT 84513 Office e-mail: Home e-mail: thorpeat_private athorpeat_private --- Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 04:23:05 -0500 (EST) From: Alan Brown <alanbat_private> To: declanat_private Subject: MEDIA: Re: Sen. Joseph Lieberman, spammer-in-chief? In-Reply-To: <20030120215553.A27870at_private> On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Declan McCullagh wrote: > Since y'all enjoyed my FTC spam article so much, I thought the list would > appreciate my column today: > http://news.com.com/2010-1071-981258.html I suspect large scale political spam may be a good thing, long term. After all, wasn't it misuse of "protected political speech" which led to quite strong laws about the use of loudspeaker trucks? How would some of these politicians react to being served with lawsuits from large ISPs for theft of services? --- From: "Suresh Ramasubramanian" <sureshat_private> To: <declanat_private>, <politechat_private> Cc: <bradat_private> Subject: RE: Brad Templeton on Sen. Lieberman, laws, and overseas spam Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 10:35:51 +0530 On Tuesday, January 21, 2003 9:32 AM [GMT +0530=IST], Declan McCullagh (declanat_private) writes: > Subject: FC: Brad Templeton on Sen. Lieberman, laws, and overseas spam > From: Brad Templeton <bradat_private> > > I think people fear not just candidate mail when it comes to > political spam. Many people feel that dealing with spam must > be done in a content-neutral way, with no special punishments Excellent point. I personally believe in what is an often repeated quote on news.admin.net-abuse.email - "Spam is not about content, it is about consent". "Praise the Lord" and "Vote for me" are as much spam as "Herbal Viagra" or URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSALs from relatives of dead African generals. > (Not that domestic spam laws have much chance of actually working. > We have 25 spam laws now, I think, and none have done a whit against > spam nor shown much sign of doing so. However, the definition of Spam laws are merely an additional stick to beat spammers with. The FTC's efforts against spam that shills illegal products, or the USPIS' efforts against mail fraud through spam (the pyramid scheme / chain letter MLM stuff) are just extensions of offline efforts to nail such crimes when they are sent over fax (or handbills stuffed into your mailbox). > In fact, attempts to regulate only advertising fail, as a good > percentage of spam today is not advertising. (The most common spam > is a confidence trick that offers no product for sale but offers to > give you 22 MILLION DOLLARS hidden in a Nigerian bank.) These are, as I said, online extensions of scams that have been running for decades offline in postal mail, fax, classified ads in newspapers, whatever - these are just online versions of assorted mail and wire fraud scams. The spam that *has* to be addressed is often not covered under any law (indeed, is sometimes specifically exempted in some cases). The spam I am speaking about is "optout" (or "unconfirmed optin" spam by otherwise legitimate companies, the online equivalent of cold calling in the telemarketing industry. The major issue here is not just privacy (though that _is_ the next most important issue). What sets spam (unsolicited bulk email) apart from other intrusive marketing techniques is the fact that it is a transference of cost. The sender bears almost zero cost. The sender's ISP, the owner of whatever server(s) and networks this spam passes through (sometimes, without the server owner's consent, as in spam through open relays / proxies), the recipient's ISP, the recipient himself (you say the net is free / cheap? try reading your mail over a cellphone or blackberry, for example). Add to this the non-obvious cost of spam - such as when a bible belt christian who is a senior executive in a large organization gets spammed with (say) porn advertising "chicks with horses". Her time is worth a *lot* to the company - so any loss the company bears by her being so upset that she has to take the day off, go home and cry. More of the same in this article - http://www.spider.tm/jan2003/coverstory.shtml (sorry for the typos and the missing URLs in the article - none of which are of my making) :( srs --- Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2003 07:25:40 -0700 To: declanat_private From: Charlie Oriez <coriezat_private> Subject: Re: FC: Brad Templeton on Sen. Lieberman, laws, and overseas spam In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20030120223209.02816f40at_private> Good reason content based filtering doesn't work - Spamnix, based on content, decided that your message was spam (see below). If I were blocking instead of just tagging, it would have been deleted instead of read. Yet if the system isn't reliable enough to let me block/delete the spam unread, it isn't doing the job. Spam is not about content, it's about consent. Although I have run for office previously as a Democrat, I reported Democratic spam this year just as quickly as I reported Republican National Committee spam in previous years. A candidate who views theft as an acceptable means of getting his message out lacks the integrity to hold office regardless of his party. People wanting to proactively block the spammer should list 207.44.162.44 as the likely mail server If you want to block the ISP who refuses to take them down for spamming, the range is NetRange: 207.44.128.0 - 207.44.255.255 This will avoid the possibility of their ISP moving them around to avoid blocking lists. If you want comment on why they haven't been terminated already, contact TechName: Williams, Randy TechPhone: +1-713-400-5400 TechEmail: adminat_private ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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