Re: Virus authors produce open spam relays (long digression on

Hadmut Danisch wrote:

>Hi,
>
>just as a background information:
>
>
>The german computer magazine c't and a german student of 
>computer science found that authors of computer viruses are 
>making business with viruses designed to turn infected computers
>into open relays for spammers. One of these Viruses was found to 
>install a socks proxy server (thus forming a general application
>proxy), and c't could buy a list of infected machines from the virus
>authors for abuse as spam relays. c't has forwarded this information
>to Scotland Yard (virus author is british), and allegedly several
>people have been arrested in several countries.
>
>As a Scotland Yard officer said in an interview, they believe that
>this is just the beginning and that the virus authors are currently
>turning themselves into professionals.
>
>See http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/44869
>
>Isn't that a good argument for sender verification? (I we still need 
>arguments...)
>
>regards
>Hadmut
>  
>
Hadmut,

    You've probably thought of this already, because you strike me as a 
pretty clever person, but let me ask it anyway.

    I want to send an E-mail message with sender verification.  So I 
verify myself.  Then somebody breaks into my computer and sends a bunch 
of spam, using my sender verification.  The spam appears to come from me!

    Once somebody has broken into my computer, I am sunk.


You also wrote about the American Constitution and its free speech 
guarantees.  While it is true that the US Constitution does prohibit the 
congress from passing a law abridging freedom of speech, there are 
federal laws which effectively prohibit certain forms of speech.  These 
topics are classics from American civics classes:

1) Do you have the right to stand up in a crowded theater and yell 
"Fire"?  (The consensus is No)

2) Do you have the right to protest in front of an Abortion clinic (The 
consensus is yes)

3) Do you have the right to intimidate somebody going in or out of an 
abortion clinic (The consensus is no)

4) How do you balance (2) and (3)? (There is no consensus yet, but the 
trend seems to be drifting away from the rights of the protestors, 
simply because they get really emotional, and because the people going 
in and out of the clinics are already in a fragile emotional state both 
because it is a big decision and because the processes involved in an 
abortion create a biochemical emotional roller coaster).

5) Is commercial speech constitutionally protected free speech? (The 
consensus is No.  So, for example, american television networks do not 
advertise contraceptives during hours when it is likely that children 
will be watching.  They do this voluntarily because they know that the 
legislature will Do Something About It if they do not.)

6) Are depictions of nudity constitutionally protected free speech?  
(The consensus is No, but... the City of Seattle was forced, by freedom 
of speech considerations, to allow a number of nightclubs where there is 
nude dancing.  The neighbors of such establishments want them closed 
down, because the patrons of such establishments are unruly.  However, 
the City has a "temporary" moratorium of granting new business permits 
for such establishments.  Ironically, by artificially limiting the 
number of nude dancing clubs, the establishments that remain are more 
profitable.

7) Is conspiracy to commit a crime protected speech?  (No)

8) Is lying protected speed?  (No.  Lying in the course of a commercial 
transaction is Fraud, which is not a crime (unless you defraud the 
government) but is grounds for a civil action, i.e. a lawsuit.  Lying 
while talking is slander, Lying in print is Libel, both of which are 
civilly actionable also.)

9) Is releasing information deemed classified by the government 
constitutionally protected speech? (No - but there have been cases where 
people with accusations of wrong-doing by the government have been 
effectively silenced by appealing to national security considerations).

10) Is Comcast buying Disney a free speech issue? (I think so - from my 
point of view, this is horrible).

The founding fathers anticipated that the government might try to 
silence opposition political parties through legislation.  To our shame, 
the United States has tried to do so on several occaisions.  The first 
ammendment is supposed to protect us against that sort of thing.  It is 
ironic that purveyors of penis enlargements, health supplements, and 
usurous loans should hide behind such a nobel shield, but that seems to 
be the way of things.

The bottom line is that free speech issues are very complicated and 
reasonable people could disagree with them.  I do not believe it is 
feasible for us to address free speech issues in the context of this 
group (although I enjoy arguing these questions and would entertain such 
a discussion in another context).  It is not, and it cannot, be our goal 
to protect free speech rights, nor can we function as censors.  Our goal 
is to return control of E-mail in-boxes to the clients of those 
in-boxes.   It is not a free speech issue.  It is a "we have this asset 
that we own, and we want to control it" issue.  Please note that any 
idiot can get a website, sell whatever they want to, and salt the search 
engines to lead people to their site.  The difference between using 
E-mail to sell and using a website and search engine to sell is the 
question of who has control of the process, the vendor or their 
potential customer.

I'm sorry this mail took so long to read and I hope the list feels that 
it was worth the electrons lavished on it.



Jeff