[lug] off topic, spam laws

[Ferdinand Schmid]

"D. Stimits" wrote:
> 
> One addition. I also find that 90% of these spammers use throw-away
> accounts from places like hotmail.com, yahoo, or lycos. Having them shut
> down is trivial, but the same spammer gets a new name and spams again
> within minutes or hours of being shut down. A lot of people probably
> hate this, but I would also suggest a need to make a legal requirement
> of providers of free email accounts to gain proof of identity, e.g., via
> fax or mail or even a scanned driver's license, before offering the
> account. I do not suggest that it has to be any form of "strong" proof,
> but there needs to be some way to mark individuals that do this repeated
> throw-away spam-and-get-a-new-account-within-minutes routine. Having
> some requirement that would even delay the free account for 24 hours
> would be a great upset; having a way to remove individuals who violate
> this from any throw-away account sources would also be a benefit. Adding
> a cost to free account companies would certainly get their attention,
> not so much by passing such legislation, but by merely having it show up
> as a possibility. The fear of this kind of legislation would itself be
> some motivation to have the free account people take some kind of
> preventive action instead of waiting for the same person to violate spam
> rules over and over.
<snip>
Interesting - I hear that you need to confirm your identity in Germany
if you would like to obtain a webmail account (webmail.de).  If I
understand it correctly they use snail mail for confirmation - you get
your password via snail mail.  Low tech - but it works.

> 
> D. Stimits, stimits at idcomm.com
> 
> "D. Stimits" wrote:
> >
> > I am considering trying to get some legislation passed that would make
> > it a criminal offense to forge headers during commercial advertisement.
> > I am also thinking that due to the amount of foreign spam that is
> > invading with no means to cut it off (along with accelerating
> > quantities), which breaks local spam laws, there should be a means to
> > submit these spammers to backbone routers at entry points to the USA and
> > have their domains blocked. Basically, the toothless laws need some
> > means of adding weight to those who ignore them, and there needs to be
> > some form of non-civil recourse against those who purposely forge
> > headers intending to use it as a pre-planned evasion of spam laws. The
> > Constitition says one of our most fundamental rights is the right to be
> > left alone, I do not believe the issue is as trivial or petty as it
> > sounds. It is already a right of the state secretary of each state to
> > deny all business operations to any outside business which would be
> > against the welfare and laws of that state, and I don't think this
> > requires any fundamental change in existing laws, but it does require a
> > way to gain recourse.
> >
> > If I were to try to do this, does anyone have any advice on where to
> > look up the procedures related to this? Or advice URL's on how to do it
> > successfully? What makes a good proposal format?
> >
> > D. Stimits, stimits at idcomm.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Web Page:  http://lug.boulder.co.us
> > Mailing List: http://lists.lug.boulder.co.us/mailman/listinfo/lug
> _______________________________________________
> Web Page:  http://lug.boulder.co.us
> Mailing List: http://lists.lug.boulder.co.us/mailman/listinfo/lug

-- 
Ferdinand Schmid
Architectural Energy Corporation
Celebrating 20 Years of Improving Building Energy Performance
http://www.archenergy.com