> Did you miss the part where they say that they send a warning first?
> If you've been framed by the spammer, you'll have a chance to let them
> know that it was a forgery. This should hopefully forestall the
> attack.
First question: why do you expect that legitimate websites will
cooperate with what is in essence a protection racket? ("Nice web site
you've got there, better do what we say if you ever want to see your
home page again.")
Second question: why do you expect that spammers will not say "we
didn't send that, it's a joe job"? Do you think that Blue Frog can
tell if they're lying with perfect accuracy? If not, what happens
when BF DOS'es an innocent site?
Anyone who thinks that Blue Frog is a good idea hasn't thought through
what they're doing.
R's,
John
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I wonder if anyone besides me has
noticed how this whole thing has deteriorated from evil nasty spammers
as the _true_ villians to evil nasty netizens trying to harm a good
and pure web site; for how many ever years, when filtering was thought
to be the answer to everything, so many netters would say 'ho hum,
lets crank up the filter a little more' to desparately try to
eliminate them. Now that we are close to the hundred percent
saturation point with spam (as some of us predicted long ago) and
filtering has been shown to be a dismal failure, at least among
netizens who have to shovel it out by the truck load each day, and
thought has been given to taking a more agressive deterence posture,
these same guys who were so, well, almost _casual_ about installing
more and more filtering are now getting desparate in their paranoia
as they defend the spammers and their (spammers) 'right of free
speech' as it were.
Tell me this John, is there some sort of 'Spammers Legal Defense Fund'
you guys sponsor or contribute to? When spammers (ever so rarely) get
sued by a government agency do you guys hire lawyers to help defend
them? Why did ICANN (and its cheering squad on the net) fight so
vigorously against the federal government's CAN-SPAM proposed
legislation; making up all sorts of mumbo-jumbo about 'how it will not
work, so do not waste your time on it'? Why does ICANN interject
itself, with its so-called 'expert testimony' in all these cases where
legislation is pending, when instead of giving expert testimony they
merely want to hawk their own agenda? It all really amazes me. Why do
you guys object so vigorously when netizens try self help? If our
ideas are such a damn fool waste of time, then please, __let us find
it out for ourselves__; quit trying to save us from ourselves.
Obviously your passive filtering solutions have not worked; why can't
we try our way instead? What is your _real objection_ anyway? PAT]
John Levine (johnl@iecc.com)