Re: Why spam is a problem.

["Perry E. Metzger" <perry at piermont.com>]

Adam Shostack <adam at homeport.org> writes:
> The problem is pretty clearly economic in that sending spam is close
> to free; it probably makes sense to look at economic solutions.

I agree that this is the core of the problem. It costs money to send
junk physical mail so people don't try to send an infinite
amount. Spam is free.

However, I'm not sure that knowing the cause points to the
solution. A brick may have broken your window, but the solution
involves skill with a putty knife and glazers points, not skill with
bricks.

In particular, I'm far from convinced that adding synthetic economic
structures to pre-existing systems like this helps. You can't get
around the fact that it is "free" to spam by trying to artificially
charge for sending email or some such. It *is* cheap to send email --
inherently so, and it is not even clear that it is desirable to change
that.

I think a real problem is that we frequently view the spammers as
adversaries rather than as criminals. They are, in fact, largely
criminals. They really *have* broken the social contract. They hack
open relays and ports on machines to send out their drek, they forge
email addresses to avoid mechanisms people have put in place to
prevent them from sending you mail. Indeed, they refuse to pay
attention to clear signs that someone does not want to receive their
crud and try to impose it on people anyway, in the manner that a
person might harass you by telephone. They almost universally send out
messages advertising fraudulent and near fraudulent schemes far more
frequently. I think that, as such, a large fraction of them are
perfectly worthy of legal remedies. The problem is that it is nearly
impossible to get law enforcement to do anything about them, even when
they violate existing law.

-- 
Perry E. Metzger		perry at piermont.com
--
"Ask not what your country can force other people to do for you..."