At 01:52 PM 10/30/98 , you wrote:

At 05:33 PM 10/29/98 -0500, Scott Gifford wrote:

...

An interesting answer to the problem you discussed above was suggested by somebody from the EFF at a spam BOF at USENIX this summer. He suggested that by default, you filter on port 25. But if somebody needs access for legitimate reasons, or even if they don't, have a letter they can fill out, sign, and send in which states that they will not send spam, subject to a $500/message penalty. Then if they do, just bill them.

One problem is that the wholesale provider may not have permission to do this. You must obtain permission from a party to the communication prior to interfering with it, unless it qualifies as an abuse.

Only if you have a really narrowly and poorly worded AUP/TOS contract. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act forbids looking at the contents without authorization, but carriers are protected in certain circumstances some cases and moreover most carriers have provisions in their contracts that fill in the gaps. I would be very surprised if blocking port 25 would be covered by ECPA... filtering it for content without authorization is a different matter.

You should be aware that the pro-spammers have a bill in Congress to explicitly define spam as a legitimate activity, ie not an abuse. It will likely be passed in this session. I tried to tell people a year and a half ago that spammers were closely associated with an advertising lobby that would be effective on this is issue, and that they needed to try a more reasonable approach. But they insisted "I was wrong".

So "Spam fighting" is now a lost cause, which should not be discussed on Nanog anyway.

--Dean

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Plain Aviation, Inc dean@av8.com LAN/WAN/UNIX/NT/TCPIP http://www.av8.com ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Um... well you're wrong, at least on the subject of the pending legislation. The anti-spam lobby was successful in getting it stripped from the legislation which passed the House, and although Sen. Murkowski was interested in putting it back during the conference committee process, it languished there and wasn't finished before Congress adjourned. So all the pending spam legislation - both anti and pro - is dead for now. And yes, it is off topic for Nanog. :) -Ray -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Ray Everett-Church (RE279) * More info: <http://www.everett.org> Attorney/Internet Consultant * Opinion(REC) != Opinion(client(REC)) This mail isn't legal advice. * Outlaw Spam = <http://www.cauce.org> --------------------------------------------------------------------- My Spam total for 1997: 6,037 pieces at 41.6 Mb. What Spam problem?

On Fri, Oct 30, 1998 at 01:52:19PM -0500, Dean Anderson wrote:

One problem is that the wholesale provider may not have permission to do this. You must obtain permission from a party to the communication prior to interfering with it, unless it qualifies as an abuse.

Don't start again, Dean.

You should be aware that the pro-spammers have a bill in Congress to explicitly define spam as a legitimate activity, ie not an abuse. It will likely be passed in this session.

Wrong. It died. Unfortunately, the telephone anti-slamming bill died with it - the spam rider was attached to the anti-slamming bill.

I tried to tell people a year and a half ago that spammers were closely associated with an advertising lobby that would be effective on this is issue, and that they needed to try a more reasonable approach. But they insisted "I was wrong".

You're still wrong. The DMA and its members seem to be adopting a wait-and- see attitude, although they seem to be moving towards action...

So "Spam fighting" is now a lost cause

Whatever.

which should not be discussed on Nanog anyway.

Which doesn't stop you from whining about spamfighters every few months anyhow. -- Steve Sobol [sjsobol@nacs.net] Part-time Support Droid [support@nacs.net] NACS Spaminator [abuse@nacs.net] Spotted on a bumper sticker: "Possum. The other white meat."