Edupage, September 15, 2003 (fwd)

Subject: Edupage, September 15, 2003

TOP STORIES FOR MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2003
  Anti-Spam Law Working in South Korea
  Paying Off the Spammers
  Research Says Movie Piracy Starts with Insiders
  Yoran to Lead U.S. Cyber Security


ANTI-SPAM LAW WORKING IN SOUTH KOREA
Toughened anti-spam legislation in South Korea is credited with a drop
in that country's incidence of unwanted e-mail. The law was
strengthened in December, raising the limit for monetary damages and
instituting criminal penalties for spammers. The law also forbids
automatic generation of e-mail addresses, harvesting addresses from Web
sites, and circumventing spam blockers with technical measures.
According to data from surveys conducted by the Korea Information
Security Agency, users in March of this year reported that more than 90
percent of commercial e-mail was unsolicited. By July, that number had
fallen to about 70 percent. The survey indicated that in July, each
South Korean user received an average of 41 spam e-mails per day, of
which 35 are considered illegal and 23 are obscene. These numbers
represented decreases of 18 percent, 20 percent, and 27 percent,
respectively, compared to data from March.
InfoWorld, 15 September 2003
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/15/HNkoreaspam_1.html

PAYING OFF THE SPAMMERS
Founders of San Antonio, Texas-based Global Removal believe that the
way to end spam is to offer spammers an economic incentive not to send
unwanted messages. The company offers a subscription service by which
consumers who pay Global Removal $5 will be removed from the mailing
lists of all of the company's partnering organizations, which include
around 100 spammers and legitimate e-mail marketers alike. Partnering
organizations can earn $1 for each new subscriber they draw to the
service. Tom Jackson, CEO of Global Removal, argues that senders of
commercial e-mail would prefer to know who on their lists is not
interested. "They can make more money for less effort through our
program," he said. Critics of Global Removal's approach said it is
flawed because it does not guarantee effectiveness and has no way to
enforce the agreement. Julian Haight of SpamCop.net compared it to
"curing the disease by killing the patient," and Denise Howell, an
intellectual property lawyer, said it was like "paying protection money
to mob bosses."
Wired News, 15 September 2003
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,60431,00.html