[lug] linux firewall, popup windows spam blocking

[Bear Giles]

D. Stimits wrote:
> Bear Giles wrote:

> I've been told that the companies that sell spam lists are now selling 
> spam software to use popups to directly trespass on machines. In this 
> case, www.byebyeads.com is essentially doing a criminal trespass to 
> directly invade the user's machine, and paste a note that says if y ou 
> pay them their software fee (extortion money), that they will stop 
> attacking the machine. I call it an attack because it has caused machine 
> lockup and failure multiple times in the last day or two.

Have you contacted the state Attorney General?  Maybe nothing will 
come of it, maybe the AG is looking for a test case for popup spam 
and their message is so poorly phrased that they can piggyback it 
on a basic extortion charge.

 > ask that it
> become an official criminal trespass to invade a port on a machine after 
> being specifically requested to stop doing so.

Don't hold your breath for that one.

The problem is illustrated by your own problem.  Let's say you set 
up a firewall rule such that any popup message from them triggers 
a standard email cease&desist order send back to them.

So they order you to make on further attempts to send them email, 
on penalty of criminal trespass charge.  Yet they continue to send 
you popup spam.  Now what do you do?

We all see a huge difference between sending out something from a 
spamming list and responding to an intrusion, but how do you 
codify that into law?  It's a lot harder than you might think, and 
if it's not done right the solution may be worst than the problem.