Neil Schwartzman

Montreal, Canada

Consumer Advocate

I posted this recently to an anti-spam discussion group:

"
with all of these spammers dropping off of late ... especially this Russian guy who got unbelievably lucky on a Saturday night and brought two Natashas home for a quick bout of getting beaten to death before having sex, you have to wonder if the spammers are now looking at us with some new respect and a bit of apprehension.

I say we cultivate a real badass persona:

Spamcop converts to a logo featuring a .44 Magnum

CAUCE begin to fly the skull and crossbones ...

Brightmail could change their name to DeathToSpammersMail

We could leak rumours about when Smell-o-vision comes into being, we'll be sending out genetically-modified sinky viruses of our own that will only infect those who deal in illicit mail.

Have Steve 'Spamhaus Project' Linford move from a 'houseboat' (far too whimpy) to a refurbished SWIFT Boat.

And lastly, throw support the BlueSecurity people with the power of Akamai.
"

This was meant as a parody. Apparently your writer has some terribly misguided ideas with uncomfortable synchronicity with my joke post.

First off, two wrongs never make a right. Anti-spammers are the whitehats - any 'counter attack' can only hurt our professional credibility profoundly, and to our detriment. To suggest death as a penalty for email is well beyond the ken, and lacking any kind of perspective.

Secondly, as to the all-too-common tactic of dismissing legal approaches in lieu of technical solutions, I have to say the techies have had a decade to find the ultimate solution to spam. My personal spam load has doubled every year since 1996. The technical solution has failed miserably.

I'd urge you to take a look at the Australian legal model <http://www.noie.gov.au/>, which put severe penalties onto spammers, wherein their problem all but dried up. Even the much-maligned CANSPAM act in the U.S. has seen some initiatives with middling results; and American spammers moving offshore to places with no such laws - like, unfortunately, Canada. <http://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/listings.lasso?isp=telus.com>

Carefully crafted laws that are applied stringently, along with public education and technologic solutions are what is needed - it is not an either-or situation.

What is either or is not negotiable - any illegal act by anti-spammers will bring disrepute upon us all, and besmirch the good work we have been doing for a dozen years. I won't have any of it. The dDOS of BlueSecurity is so inane that they have lost a handful of connectivity providers since they came up with their harebrained scheme.

For a more rational approach, I suggest you take a look at what we are proposing to do in Canada: http://stopspamhere.ca

And drop the hyperbole. Death to spammers? Get a grip.