PCs unknowningly sending spam will lose internet access

[rklenseth]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5269732/?GT1=3584

Just some food for thought and something you might want to consider making sure your e-mail ain't sending spam or you might lose your internet access.

[Thomas Pickert]

Since anyone can send mails with anyone's address as a sender without much effort, I don't think, that losing internet access is a measure that will be taken.
I agree, though, that spam is a problem, and should be stopped. It should be stopped at the expense of ISPs that open up their servers for spammers for $40K+ payment, though, not at innocent and unsuspecting users.

[rklenseth]

I agree with you, Thomas, but there are many people who have a problem with spam. I never had that problem as I have my e-mail go though my regular service and then through MSN and then through some e-mail program that suppose to detect spam mail and then to my Outlook Express and by the time the mail gets there it has already been caught by at least one of the programs and deleted. So there is very little spam mail that gets through to my PC.

I also try to get rid of spyware any chance I get but you're never sure if you get rid of all of it because some of it can't be detected unless you really know what you are doing.

I think spam mail is one of those things that will never be stopped. Like viruses, spyware, and adware, spam mail will always be around because there are people who like to do that stuff.

[Revanael]

And as long as somebody pays them to do it.

[Pirog]

I think it's horrible to blame the unsuspecting victims...how will such a solution stop spamming? Crazy...

(To be fair, the link was broken when I tried to open it...so I haven't read the actual article...)

[Ash]

!! SPAMMERS STARTED SPOOFING OUR DOMAIN ON 9/20/2003!!
You or your company may be next
As of 9/20/2003 spammers started forging email with from addresses using our domain. It has nothing to do with us and has destroyed our ability to use the internet in our business. We can't us email anymore because we get about 100 bounces from bad spam email addresses for each real email message we should get.

Take a look at http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/email_spoofing.html for information on what these spammers are doing.
Anybody with information on the identity of the spammers is asked to contact us through alternate means. Information allowing us to identify and prosecute the spammers will be used.

For those of us who have been using the net for a long time (20 years in my case) this is frustrating and sad. Spamming is a serious crime (as if destroying a 13 year old business isn't a crime) and in the case of forged addresses an even more serious crime of identity theft.

For spam to stop, spammers must be exiled for life. In addition it has to cost something to send email. Email should have a cryptographically secure identity attached to it so that it can be verified before it is accepted or relayed by a mail server (if the maintainters of the mail server want it that way) or by an email client. In my case I would choose not to accept any anonymous email or any email at all whose origin couldn't be validated by one of the trust authorities that I chose to accept.

Another result is that spammers have destroyed free speech via email on the net. It would be nice to allow anonymous email from non-spammers, but it might have to cost more to send anonymous email. Sadly this gives big brother more control over us, but that's what a relatively few bad apples can do to all of us.

If you have a better idea, and can figure out how to contact us, we would love to know what it is.

Looking at Google turned up: www.eprivacygroup.net/teos/. But smart people are not hopeful about this, see a critique explaining why this won't work without prosecuting spammers at http://www.politechbot.com/p-04939.html


-rich

Already happened to some-one.

[Psycho Pixie]

Can one of you wonderful guys give me a link to a good free anti-virus site? my virus detector is seriously outdated! We ran a check the other day and found 6 virus! oh my god! kill me now!!!!!


PsPi

[Mavsfan911]

heh, reminds me of a time we had the same virus 13 times over..
we still managed to make the computer work...

[Thomas Pickert]

Can one of you wonderful guys give me a link to a good free anti-virus site?

Try AVG.

Already happened to some-one.

No. What is described in that article is, that the massive amount of bounced mails they get makes it virtually impossible for them to use their e-mail any longer, because they can hardly find the one 'real' mail among the hundreds of bounced mails.
I don't think that they are talking about having their ability to use e-mail been taken away from them by their ISP.

[Ash]

Can one of you wonderful guys give me a link to a good free anti-virus site?

Try AVG.

Already happened to some-one.

No. What is described in that article is, that the massive amount of bounced mails they get makes it virtually impossible for them to use their e-mail any longer, because they can hardly find the one 'real' mail among the hundreds of bounced mails.
I don't think that they are talking about having their ability to use e-mail been taken away from them by their ISP.

Burnt.