FTC vs. Porn spam

[Almighty Colin]

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The Federal Trade Commission plans to require that pornographic e-mail spam carry explicit messages in what amounts to an electronic version of the plain brown wrapper, a person familar with the plan said.

The commission will issue a new rule ordering marketers issuing porn spam to put the words "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" in the subject line of any e-mail with raunchy content, the source told CNN.

Supporters said including those words will help e-mail filters keep spam away.

But critics said the rule may be ineffective and unenforceable. It may also be challenged as unconstitutional.

[RawAlex]

Well, it didn't take long for people to fuck with this one. I got an email this morning with the subject:

SEXUALLY EXPLlClT:

Note the subs for the I's with | instead.

Talk about playing with fire. What a fuckwad.

Alex

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by RawAlex@May 20 2004, 10:46 AM
Well, it didn't take long for people to fuck with this one. I got an email this morning with the subject:

SEXUALLY EXPLlClT:

Note the subs for the I's with | instead.

Talk about playing with fire. What a fuckwad.

Alex
haha.

[Mike AI]

Originally posted by RawAlex@May 20 2004, 10:46 AM
Well, it didn't take long for people to fuck with this one. I got an email this morning with the subject:

SEXUALLY EXPLlClT:

Note the subs for the I's with | instead.

Talk about playing with fire. What a fuckwad.

Alex
That's a good idea....

Taking notes!

B)

[Dravyk]

I've got my spam filter setup to take out the one's that legimiately follow the rules for capitalizing, spelling, hyphens, semicolon.

So far, 5 deleted "SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT:" spams and around 87 "accidently modified" variants that got through. LOL!

[RawAlex]

yeah, people need to be careful, the law VERY clearly spells out the exact wording (and I think even character codes) so as to avoid exactly this shit.

I guess I will have to start filtering the accidental mis-spells as well.

*sigh*

Alex

[SykkBoy]

Anyone up for some corporate sabotage?

Hmm, I wonder how much one could charge someone for spamming their competitor into the ground?

[Biggy]

Originally posted by RawAlex@May 20 2004, 07:46 AM
Well, it didn't take long for people to fuck with this one. I got an email this morning with the subject:

SEXUALLY EXPLlClT:

Note the subs for the I's with | instead.

Talk about playing with fire. What a fuckwad.

Alex
doing that to get around the filters.. its ok though, eventually all the major filters will have all possible variations of "Sexually Explicit"

[chodadog]

It's rather amusing. "Legit" spam will get blocked, while those breaking the rules will continue to get past the filters. Well done, FTC.

[Feynman]

That's the Law of Unintended Consequence.
These clever spelling are only one of the few consequences of this law.
There will be many others.

Also, since the US hasn't yet convinced the whole world of the extraterritoriality of his legislations and diktats, how do they expect to "protect" the people ?

This legislation was motivated and justiified by several fallacies, e.g.

1- that the government can protect you
2- that it is the job of the government to make the world safe for you
3- that with a few more legislation, we'll live in paradise
4- that the parents are not responsible for closely monitoring and supervising what their children are doing
5- that you have a right to put a gun-by-proxy (govt guns) to the head of someone who does something that you find tasteless, even if that someone does not go out of their way to harass you.

Interestingly, the true sin of spam, theft of ressources, seems not to have been adressed, since they deemed it OK to spam, as long as you disclose it in a certain way.

The tags might partially reduce the theft-of-ressouces aspect, but the improvement will only be a side-effect.

In short, they gave a moral sanction to the thugs at the expense of the productive people.



Last edited by Feynman at May 20 2004, 05:56 PM

[Peaches]

Originally posted by chodadog@May 20 2004, 09:36 PM
It's rather amusing. "Legit" spam will get blocked, while those breaking the rules will continue to get past the filters. Well done, FTC.
Kinda makes you wonder about the logic of outlawing guns. :rolleyes: