[extropy-chat] Depressing Thought. from Laurence of Berkeley

[Harvey Newstrom]

Spike wrote,
> Most of my spam has been coming from individual
> huge corporations in Nigeria, asking me to help
> them loot the country.  This government action
> you call for, will that be in the form of dropping
> nukes on Nigeria?

Surely you must know that none of these really come from the government of
Nigeria.  They are all frauds.  In fact, I believe almost all spam are
frauds.  They fake their addresses so you can't trace them to their real
source.  They fake headers and subjects to make you look at them even though
they are off-topic.  They fake remove-me links to collect more e-mails to
spam.  They insert nonsense words to deliberate get past your filters.  They
sell lists of names to other spammers of supposedly interested people who
are not really interested.  In short, they know you don't want it and they
are trying to force you to take it anyway.  This should be an illegal form
of harassment or abuse.

If spam had accurate subject lines so we could filter out what we didn't
want, there would be no problem.  Likewise, if declining really worked and
prevented future spams from that source or about that product, there would
be no problem.  Spammers are criminals who deliberately try to circumvent
other people's wishes.  "No" means no!

Whether you believe government should enforce laws or some other solution
should be used, spammers should be considered illegal and shutdown as
stalkers who are knowingly harassing unwilling victims.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, CISA, CISM, IAM, IBMCP, GSEC
Certified IS Security Pro, Certified IS Auditor, Certified InfoSec Manager,
NSA Certified Assessor, IBM Certified Consultant, SANS Certified GIAC
<HarveyNewstrom.com> <Newstaff.com>