From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Date: Wed Feb 03 1999 - 10:45:14 MST
> >does anyone know: when you get a spam with a remove button,
> >should you reply remove or just play dead and not reply? spike
>
> The current urban legend is that replying to this link will only
> get you more spam...
It's not a legend, as can be verified by a simple test: create a
unique email address that's never been on any web page, any usenet
posting, or any legitimate email. Send a single message from that
address to the "remove" address given by a spammer. You will
start getting spam at that address, since you've conveniently
verified to them that it is a valid address they can give or sell
to other spammers.
Arguments for spammer tolerance--with which I philosophically
have some sympathy--would be better recieved if the reality were
not that spammers have demonstrated at every opportunity that they
are liars, cheats, and thieves. They continually complain that
"opt-in" systems (where a user must request mail /before/ it is
sent) do not work, despite the fact that many such systems are
working quite profitably. Technical solutions do make an
impact; things like the MAPS blackhole, tarpits, and user-level
filtering software make a dent, but a lot still gets through.
A spammer is like someone who sees a dish of free mints at the
counter of a coffee shop, so he daily empties the dish into
his pocket until he accumulates enough to sell back to the
restaruant at a profit. It's hard to define that as "theft",
really, but it's clear that he has violated the intent of the
free service. As a free speech absolutist (I don't even
believe in copyrights or slander suits) and a dedicated
anarchist, I nonetheless don't see any problem with an implied
contract approach to legislation. Legally define an open SMTP
server as an offer to send limited, relevant, personally-
directed mail to the people served by it. Other uses can
then be treated as torts. It's really not as hard to make
those distinctions as it seems; a jury can handle it easily.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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