Why does this group have so much spam?

[David]

Il Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:06:54 -0700 (PDT), r ha scritto:

> Is the car owner not a victim too? :). i am ok with the filthy
> insurance company paying as long as the owners rates don't increase.

He is, unless he left keys in the cockpit, but he is 'less victim' of the
people involved in the accident. Since it is impossible to protect both kind
of victims the law protects the 'most victims'.

I'm not sure but I think that the increases.


> But why can't we force the criminal into hard labor to pay back the
> lost monies? Seems like that would serve justice to all parties...

I'm not saying that criminals shouldn't being prosecuted, but we are talking
of something else: creating and environment that discurages criminals,
because present enviroment is pretty wild and criminals have a big
advantage.
The mail-tax proposal aims to change this situation.

>> That's a problem of the computer owner. Why should the rest of the world be
>> charged of *his* problem while keeping him safe from suffering any
>> consequence?
> 
> No, why should spammers feel safe while doing their crimes? I say put
> the pressure on criminals, and NOT the victims. I really doubt much is
> being done to fight spam now that is why it is so prevalent. Two FBI
> hackers can't keep up with billions of spams.

This is a misunderstaning maybe caused by my poor english.
When a person gets his computer infected and becomes zombi machine, well,
*he* has a problem. At present, consequences of *his* problem are spread on
me, you, people reading this discussion and the rest of internet users,
while the infected computer's owner gets only a tiny fraction of those
consequences. 
He has no reason to check his computer periodically, clean it, being cautios
when surfing the net, do not install software to see free porn, etc etc
because he doesn't get an evident feedback of the damage he is (even
unconsciously) doing.

Do you really think that things should go in this way?

> Only if that tax was given to highly trained US Marines who where
> given a green light to use any and all methods to brutally kill the
> enemy and make an example of him with no worry of prosecution by their
> own government.

You did a mataphor and I've answered in the same metaphor. 
Let me say again that spammer and cyber criminal *must* be prosecuted with
all means, but we know that present environment helps bad guys instead of
good guys because most of the 'neutral guys' are just unaware (*and they
want remain unaware because it's comfortable*) of being used by bad guys.

> 
>> The mail-tax would be really small, if you send 1000 mails at month (a real
>> huge traffic, for a non spammer!) the bill would be about 10 cents.
>> Do you really think this is too much to get rid of most of the spam?
> 
> I don't think that will stop most spammers since they must be making
> more that a 10c a month profit or they would starve to death! I say
> why not put a 1000.00 fine on any idiot that responds to a spam! What
> about that?

Spammers work with tenths of millions of mails/posts each month because they
get revenue only from a tiny fraction of them, about 1 over several
thousands.
The monthly cost for such a volume of traffic would be intolerable for them. 

> The system is definitely flawed. I am no internet expert so i don't
> really know what we could do to fix it. I do fear goverment or
> corporations taking over of the internet and robbing use of our
> freedom of speech under the pretense that they will *somehow* save us
> from the spammers. Something must be done however.

I definitely agree with you on that point, that's why I'm making this
proposal: the target is to reduce the spam *without* using armies of
cybercops patrolling all over the net. 
If we let the situation get worse, goverments will respond in the only way
they know: by restricting freedom.
At the opposite, if they realize that the problem is under control and even
they get a little revenue, they'll be happy to let us live in peace.
(I hope my english is correct enough to expose this concept...)


regards
David