spam control again

[josephc at etards.net]

On Mon, 14 Jul 2003, Derek Martin wrote:

> Well, IANAL, so this isn't a legal opinion based on an authoritative
> understanding of constitutional law, but nevertheless I heartily
> disagree.

We can throw out your reply right there. The US constitution should have 
NO BEARING on the Internet. The Internet is more than the US, and if we're 
going to start applying a country's laws to it, I think we would be 
better served looking beyond our borders.

> > Companies have come along in the last few years and begun to use the
> > Internet for their own benefit, we must be careful not to allow
> > government to do the same.
> 
> Eh?

I don't see what's so hard to understand there. Compare the Internet today 
to the one from 15 years ago. You don't think capitalism has left it's 
mark? Isn't this thread about SPAM, which is the perfect example of what 
profiteering has done to the Internet?

> You know, this really highlights something that I've been thinking a
> lot about recently.  Should non-person entities be entitled to the
> same constitutional rights as individual humans?

Maybe, maybe not. But what does that have to do with the Internet?

> > SPAM is NOT so big a problem that we need the governemnt to step in
> > and help.  I've had the same e-mail address for almost a decade, and
> > have used it on usenet and the web alike. But with proper filterring
> > the amount of SPAM in my e-mail box is comparable to the amount in
> > the mailbox in front of my house.
> 
> I mostly agree here too, but this philosophy overlooks the damage that
> spam does to the Internet infrastructure.  Mostly I'm talking about
> bandwidth problems, but one could make a case that since each bit (as
> in binary digit) of spam represents a circuit that will be turned on
> and off in every piece of hardware through which it passes, causing
> those circuits to burn out faster, it causes the whole internet to need
> more maintenance sooner.  Though I fully expect that most people would
> shrug off such arguments, and that includes me.  But I think it's
> at least worthy of mention, if for no other reason than to keep this
> post vaguely on-topic...  ;-)
>

I think the amount of life taken off my companies equipment due to SPAM 
could be measured in milli-seconds
  
> > If you leave your front door wide open, then perhaps you should
> > consider locking it before calling the police and complaining that
> > people are stealing from you.
> 
> Now see, that's an attitude that I always thought was bullshit.
> Complete and utter poppycock.  If people wouldn't steal from me, I
> wouldn't need locks.  I find the assertion that I should have to take
> some measure to protect myself from the misdeeds of others before I
> have a moral right to complain about them to be extremely disturbing.
> 

No, you have no right to complain about locking your door to minimally 
prevent the criminal element from coming in anymore than you can complain 
about having to put a roof over your head to keep from getting wet in the 
rain. Weather and crime alike are natural occurences. While the effects of 
both can be minimized, any attempt to gain 100% control of either will 
fail.

> I really don't understand where this comes into play in the topic at
> hand though...  However, along the same lines, I think a more
> appropriate analogy would be, "If you don't bother to put up a 15'
> electrified fence around your property, perhaps you should consider
> doing so before calling the police to complain about people littering
> your yard."  And of course, everyone can see how utterly absurd that
> is.  So why is being forced to spend my time implementing
> spam-blocking software any different?  Maybe it's because 15'
> electrified fences are ugly as sin and cost a lot more...  And that
> seems to be about all most Americans care about these days:
> aesthetics, the almighty dollar, and little else.  Sigh.
> 
Taking measures for preventing SPAM have become so elementary that for 
anyone to NOT have taken them on a mailserver they run I would almost call 
negligent. I would sooner support criminalizing admin's who run open 
relay's before censoring (and yes, it is censoring) SPAM.

-joe