all the involved parties. Since no one is getting physically injured and no money is being stolen, I think they are just waiting to see what
Who says no money is being stolen? Every time a UCE is delivered to my server, someone out there has stolen resources from me. Resources *are* money. Everytime a network is smurfed, network resources have been stolen. It's just like as if someone out there set up an auto-dialer to tie up a businesses fax machine, or busy up all their lines.
But you should note that both authors also indicate that (from Cheswick and Bellovin, page 205): "Computing and electronic communications service providers are more limited in their right to monitor user activity. Just as the phone company personnel may not, in general, listen to your calls, employees of a public electronic mail service may not read your messages, whether in transit or stored." There will be more detailed information in our spam policy.
Yes, but if the phone company wishes, they may decide to block certain "rogue" exchanges from reaching their network. I know of no such cases because you have to be a licensed CLEC, and the Internet has no such equivalent. But I have a real hard time swallowing the idea that use of the RBL (for example) might be considered illegal.
Get people to stop illegally blocking spam,
Not a bloody chance. I block 500 spams every 24 hours at the system level (procmail based filtering) and I don't even know how many more at the IP level so it never makes it to my mail server. I have a right to protect my business from those who wish to steal resources from it without paying. But, believe me, I (as would most others) like nothing more than to be able to turn off all my filtering.
and then get the spammers to stop illegally using relays.
Relays aren't the only problem. The problem is that SPAM is an acceptable form of advertising in the eyes of the US Government (and others). Much of the spam we receive comes from hotmail, msn, ATT worldnet dialups, etc. It's not sent through a relay, but sent through the original dynamically assigned IP. Spam software gets smarter all the time. As it's been pointed out several times, including the last NANOG, there are no technical means available to eliminate SPAM, only reduce it.
Once the network and online providers obey the law, you can ask the spammers to obey the law, too.
That's a pretty interesting comment. How many spammers have you interviewed that support this theory? Dave -- Dave Siegel dave@rtd.net Network Engineer dave@pager.rtd.com (alpha pager) (520)579-0450 (home office) http://www.rtd.com/~dsiegel/