Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Sun, 17 Nov 1996 15:15:09 +1100 | From | Richard Gooch <> | Subject | Re: News gateway problem |
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Michael L. Galbraith writes: > On Sun, 17 Nov 1996, Richard Gooch wrote: > > > "please don't spam" message together with a uuencoded copy of > > /usr/bin/emacs to the follow addresses: > > > > ab.general@atlas.uniserve.com > > ktechsys@interport.net > > decicco@ix.netcom.com > > > Answering spam with spam sounds like an absolutly childish reaction to me. Why > not just set procmail up to trash anything from these addresses instead. > > Don't get mad, don't get even, don't waste bandwidth with trash like this.
No, I don't think it's as simple as this. We are faced with a mentality that views the Internet as gold mine, ready for the plucking. When you consider the number of advertising agencies that exist worldwide, most of whom do not (yet) spam, I think we are faced with the tip of the iceberg. Imagine wading through a thousand junk mails per day, searching for the ten messages you actually wanted to receive. A number of spammers and their ISPs have already developed techniques to get around automatic filtering. If the Internet community were to filter out spam en masse (with filter lists maintained by each recipient), we would see the widespread use of these techniques by spammers (such as random From: and Reply-to: addresses), and we would be back where we started from. This is not about getting mad, or even. This is about creating an Internet environment where spamming is not profitable. At the moment spammers put the costs of advertising on the victims^H^H^H^H^H^H^H recipients (we spend time wading through junk and pay for receipt of said junk). We need to place the costs back on the advertisers, by forcing them to manually read each message they receive and determine which is a genuine potential customer and which is not. Sadly, as always, the most effective measures are economic. Anyway, let's not clutter up the list with this discussion.
Regards,
Richard....
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