[Mimedefang] Re: Lycos Screen saver that attacks Spammers, Ah more off topic...

[Ian Mitchell]

> Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 14:50:18 -0800
> From: Kenneth Porter <shiva at sewingwitch.com>
> Subject: Re: [Mimedefang] Lycos Screensaver that attacks Spammers
>
>> Democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
>> Guess who gets eaten.
>
> I've always loved that quote.

I'm going to remember that one... Sometimes as a consumer, I definitely
feel like the sheep!

>> No, we're not vigilantes when we filter spam.

Perhaps not vigilantes toward other organizations, but it would be
arguable that doing things like removing and modifying attachments, and
restricting inbound/outbound content because it doesn't meet a huge set of
rules isn't in some form vigilantism toward the members who use your
server.

> Again, it's what Lycos is doing (arguably illegal), not the fact that it's
> Lycos doing it, that's the problem.

I don't think what Lycos is doing is illegal. Allowing the RIAA and MPAA
to hack into your computer when you run a P2P is illegal (Thank goodness
that bill died), making web requests to a public web server is in no way
illegal. The only time that this could remotely be argued as illegal is
when its done with crafted packets to spoof sources and corrupt TCP
stacks, for example DDoS's. But a legitimate packet asking for information
from a public web server isn't and should never be illegal. Think about
it, if you made a rule that would ban automated systems from requesting
information via a public web server, you may stop Lycos, but you'd also
stop Google. All Lycos is doing is making a whole lot of legitimate web
requests for information that gets tunneled to /dev/null. The worst it
will do besides clog up the web servers of companies that arguably deserve
it, is that it will skew the statistics for companies that use things like
web bugs to build profiles. Frankly, if I start getting banner ads for
home mortgages and the V word instead of computer related stuff, I'll
likely ignore them just the same. The only other issue I see besides the
morality one is that if everyone on a consumer network (DSL/Cable Modem)
decided to participate, then the overall bandwidth consumed by the company
may start to raise overhead cost which translate into higher monthly
bills.... again.

Honestly though, what can legislation do to prevent spamming? Ohio passed
a nice little bill that provides prison time if you spam someone in Ohio.
Oh hell, I guess this email can be considered Spam since it's off topic,
and there's likely someone who lives in Ohio reading this now... Well, I
guess I'll just have to live with the warrant. Honestly, I don't see Ohio
having the ability to extradite someone from Bangladesh because they sent
someone an email that the recipient didn't ask for. Can you see the state
department for China now? "You wanna what? ummm... No."

Lycos is right in what they are choosing to do, they are not hacking into
other services, they are simply utilizing publicly accessible services on
a voluntary basis. The morality of what Lycos is doing is very similar to
the morality of P2P networks. Both are brilliantly conceived solutions to
dilemmas presented by the Internet as a whole. However, they both have
dark side consequences that make people think...