On Mon, 1 May 2000, D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote:
> Thus spake Anthony DiPierro
> > > The ISP incurs costs at two points. One is the amount of time
> > > spent dealing with spam complaints. The second is the cost associated
> > > with having to scale mail services above what would normally be required
> > > so that the mail system can process a spam run of 30,000 messsages sent in
> > > a 15 minute period without buckling like a belt.
> > >
> > Any good mail system will detect and block a spam run of 30,000 messages
> > sent in a 15 minute period.
>
> As long as the admin has spent the time (feel free to substitute "money"
> for "time") to set this up and monitor it for problems. This is a cost
> that would not be necessary if not for spammers.
>
IMHO it is always necessary to protect your machine against a denial of
service attack, with or without the presence of spammers. Besides,
spammers are always going to exist, legal or illegal. If we focus on
creating technical solutions now we can save the costs of lawyers and
judges and legal documents, etc. now and in the future. Even with these
legal (and as is now instituted, mob rule) solutions, it is impossible to
even show the originating party of many spams. Even worse, because we
have reverted to mob rule enforcement of spam "rules" instead of legal
ones, parties aren't given due process, but are presumed guilty until
proven innocent. I agree with the assertion that it is better for 1000
people to get away with spamming than it is for 1 person to be permanently
blacklisted or shut down for no fault of her own. Feel free to disagree
with me, but it is a base assumption of mine.
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