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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: surge in spam email (fwd)
>I think if *everyone* stood up at once and declared that open relays
>were bad for us all then there wouldn't be too much trouble because
>there'd be nowhere for frustrated customers to jump to! ;-)
Ya know, Greg, if everyone in China jumped off a 12 inch stool
simultaneously it'd cause a tidal wave which would sweep over the
entire United States.
Or maybe not.
But it's not worth losing sleep over.
I'm not really trying to be too sarcastic, but I think your world-view
of what the net has become is anachronistic and the idea that some
project like ORBS is going to harass every open-relay in the world,
every workstation capable of forwarding mail for example, into
behaving better is at this point in time kinda like the Chinese
footstool tidal wave (is that from Dr Strangelove? whatever.)
No, we need a legislative approach, with some technical support to
help increase the likelihood that spammers who break the law will get
caught. But first it has to be illegal, or else it's all for naught.
Put it this way: I consider my house locked up even if I do have glass
windows, and even if glass is rather easy to break.
If it were legal for a person of ill intent to break the glass to get
into my house to rob me the first approach would not in my mind be to
board up all the glass unless I really lived in some mad max anarchy.
I'd first want to see it made illegal to break into my property.
Then, with reasonable diligence, I can enjoy the sunshine and spend my
time and money on more important things than trying to engineer it so
it's impossible to break in.
Or at least I can do the cost/benefit analysis from the situation
where it's illegal to break in, rather than just a stupid cat and
mouse game as we're currently playing with spammers most of the time.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "It would be grand!"
"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept for half a year,
Do you suppose," the walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.
--
-Barry Shein
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