Dave Siegel writes...
Every time a UCE is delivered to my server, someone out there has stolen
resources from me. Resources *are* money.Everytime a network is smurfed, network resources have been stolen.
And just because you have not secured against it doesn't mean it is any
less of a theft. Case law already exists that holds that a theft is
still a theft even if the house was unlocked. The ordinary person would
not assume it to be right to take something just because it happens to be
easy to do so. Spam is probably more equivalent to shoplifting than it
is to burglary; just as illegal.
Relays aren't the only problem. The problem is that SPAM is an
acceptable form of advertising in the eyes of the US Government (and others).
Much of the spam we receive comes from hotmail, msn, ATT worldnet dialups, etc.
It's not sent through a relay, but sent through the original dynamically
assigned IP. Spam software gets smarter all the time.
And all of it through the SMTP server for that dialup? Wow! It must be
horrendously clogged up.
As it's been pointed out several times, including the last NANOG, there are
no technical means available to eliminate SPAM, only reduce it.
A vision hit me of that little game with the heads popping up at random and
the kid with the big plastic hammer pounding them back down.