[clug] [OT] Australian anti-spam bill passes the senate

Alex Satrapa grail at goldweb.com.au
Thu Dec 4 09:50:38 GMT 2003


On 3 Dec 2003, at 00:44, Alan Sanderson wrote:

> http://www.codefish.net.au/modules.php? 
> op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=490
>
> Die spam, die!

Not quite.  Try, "Opt out, spam! Opt out!". And *that* only applies to  
spam that originates from  Australian companies in Australia. Find one  
open relay overseas, and any Australian company can pretend it wasn't  
them that sent the spam in the first place.

This "anti-spam" measure is just more useless legislation that will  
have about as much effect in the real world as those stupid decorative  
ducks hanging on most peoples' walls. Someone made the mistake of  
fighting a technical problem with a legislative solution. The spamming  
companies will simply provide the *working* opt-out measures, then  
legally add your name back into the database when they "buy" their list  
from another spam company who has "vetted" all the entries. No doubt  
this will be part of some kind of reciprocal deal.

However, it does add more ammunition to the "ISP as a lifeguard" side  
of the "block port 25 or not" debate ;)  If I (the ISP) block port 25  
outgoing, I'm just doing what the law tells me to do (see amendment  
21).

Which reminds me, time to figure out how SpamAssassin, AMaViS and Maia  
all work together...
Alex


"We never have definite knowledge of what needs to be done until we're  
finished and discover how wrong we were."
   -- Dan Burke and Alan Morrison, "Business @ The Speed Of Stupid"



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