[linux-elitists] Spam spam spam spam

[Martin Pool]

On 17 Feb 2005, Aaron Sherman <ajs@ajs.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-02-17 at 17:07, Rob McGee wrote:
> 
> > http://spamkings.oreilly.com/archives/2005/02/protest_brewing.html
> 
> > Vinton G. Cerf, Senior Executive VP of MCI and a co-creator of the 
> > TCP/IP protocol suite, is scheduled to be honoured for that creation by 
> > the ACM ( http://www.acm.org/ ) in June. Dr. Cerf has paid lip service 
> > to anti-spam efforts whilst his company provides the largest source of 
> > "bullet-proof" spam hosting on the planet. When confronted, Cerf makes 
> > lame excuses for this inexcusable corporate behaviour.
> 
> Neither the article nor the mail you sent have any specifics. Assume I
> don't know anything, but am unwilling to simply be a gun, pointed at any
> Internet-related personality and fired.... explain to me exactly what
> this company is doing. MCI claimed "spamware [is not] a violation of its
> terms of service"... what does that mean? Is this company sending out
> UCE in bulk, originating from MCI IPs? If so, I can't imagine why MCI
> isn't terminating their contract, as it is a clear violation of the
> ToS.

No, as I understand it they are hosting a site, send-safe, that sells
software for sending spam, and also access to a list of zombie
machines through which it may be sent.  On the other hand, there is
something almost admirable in publishing unpopular speech.

I think I would rather see a criminal case against send-safe and MCI
for aiding violations of unauthorized intrusion and computer crime
laws.  (Assuming the allegations are substantiated; I haven't
personally checked.)  Relaying through a zombie in Australia for
example should, in theory, get up to 10 years per offense.

It is interesting to imagine what would happen if send-safe were
publishing something that annoyed the copyright cartels rather than
ordinary people.

--
Martin