[Mailman-Users] The economics of spam

[Bernie Cosell]

On 23 Dec 2008 at 14:55, Barry Warsaw wrote:

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> On Dec 23, 2008, at 2:24 PM, Mark Sapiro wrote:
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> > And how does this work when the actual spam message is sent by a
> > malware infected computer belonging to an arguably innocent user and
> > is sent by direct SMTP to the recipient's MX?
> 
> Bill the OS vendor of the infected machine. :)

Maybe, or the customer's ISP [which permitted the outgoing SMTP 
connection].

It is actually, I think, an interesting legal question: who should be 
responsible [in a get-sued way] for damages caused by [what is arguably] 
a user's negligence in the use of their computer?  Or the vendor's 
negligence in selling a defective/toodangerous product?  And not just for 
spam: what about the zombies in a bot net that cause *real* financial 
harm to a third party: should the owners of the infected machines bear 
any responsibility for the damage that's caused?

  /Bernie\

-- 
Bernie Cosell                     Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com     Pearisburg, VA
    -->  Too many people, too few sheep  <--