Re: bulk postage fine (was Re: non-censorous spam control)

[Charles <apache@bear.apana.org.au>]

   ? the Platypus {aka David Formosa} said:


>The best soultion given so far is Cause's suggestion of modifying the fax
>law so that we can sue the spammers.

Thus giving gubmints the toe in the door they are so desperately looking 
for to regulate/license/control the online world.

The first thing you would see after passing such a law (if indeed the 
original legislation itself didn't contain the provision) would be a 
requirement for identification of all accounts and account holders. 
Anonymous email and anonymous remailers would be the first victims.

Then there would be a license fee introduced to cover the costs of such a 
system (internet drivers license?), followed by calls for censorship 
which would now have much greater pseudo legitimacy. This would be only 
the crest of a very big wave. 

Spam is conveniently dealt with using procmail and other filtering tools. 
Admins generally will deal swiftly with denial of service attacks.

I'm having a problem with leaves from the neighbours trees blowing onto 
my front lawn. I think the government should DO SOMETHING.