North American Network Operators Group
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RE: Is there a technical solution to SPAM?

  • From: Austad, Jay
  • Date: Tue Jul 29 12:23:35 2003 
Make it more of a hassle for them.  Ralsky apparently gets *bags* of
junkmail everyday because mad people signed him up for everything under the
sun.  If everyone faxed a 600 page document of why spam is bad to any fax
numbers in the email, maybe some places would start to get the point.

Fill out their web forms with contact info of someone at the FTC.  Obviously
laws aren't going to stop it, and people are making money off of it.  If it
gets to the point where the harrassment just isn't worth it, some spammers
will stop.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob German [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 8:45 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: RE: Is there a technical solution to SPAM?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I disagree.  While you're right that it is a social problem, 
> it is also
> a technical problem in that those of us charged with protecting our
> networks and equipment need to be able to discuss methods of 
> engineering
> our networks to counteract SPAM while the social, political and legal
> issues are being played out in their arenas.
> 
> And I doubt that career spammers give a rat's ass about proper network
> etiquette.  Education may help prevent newbies and brick-and-mortar
> converts from becoming spammers, but it will take some combination of
> legal and technical measures to deal with the career spammers.  Laws
> alone won't work, because laws have loopholes.
> 
> Bob German
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On 
> Behalf Of
> [email protected]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 9:24 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Is there a technical solution to SPAM?
> 
> 
> 
> Anyone who believes that SPAM can be solved by technical means should
> try 
> googling one of the following:
> 
> sms spam
> i-mode spam
> IM spam
> 
> It should be clear that spam is really a social problem, not 
> a technical
> 
> one and therefore the solutions will be found in the social, political
> and 
> legal spaces, not in network engineering. Some combination of 
> education 
> and training, new laws, arrests and public trials will be 
> needed to get 
> rid of it. 
> 
> I'm betting that we get the biggest bang for the buck out of education
> and 
> training. Part of it will come from teaching people network 
> etiquette, 
> part from teaching them that spam is not a way to make money, and part
> of 
> it from teaching website owners how to provide effective 
> advertising so 
> that website ads can dominate the cheap mass advertising space and 
> displace the spammers.
> 
> In any case, I suggest that we should ban all future 
> discussion of SPAM 
> and spammers from this mailing list since it is not related 
> to network 
> engineering or operating an IP network. 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Michael Dillon
> Capacity Planning, Prescot St., London, UK
> Mobile: +44 7900 823 672    Internet: [email protected]
> Phone: +44 20 7650 9493    Fax: +44 20 7650 9030
> 
>