[my comments below have nothing to do with list management.  This is an
off-topic posting]

On Thu, 16 Oct 2003, Vivek Khera wrote:

> With spam being such a political hot-button these days, I'm sure a
> very public "outing" of these offenders will be very effective at
> getting it to stop

That will only work for candidates who have something to lose.  But as a
last ditch effort of a candidate who will very well behind in the polls,
it might seem like a risk worth taking.

> Last fall, I had some local candidate spam me.  After my second
> complaint to his ISP, his web site was yanked and all access cut off.
> This was two days before the election.  Needless to say, he was not
> pleased. ;-)

The same thing happened to Bill Jones who was running in primary elections
to be the Republican party candidate for governor of California last year.
He was a distant third behind Bill Simon (who won the primary) and Richard
Riorden.  I think Jones was polling at about 10%.

At first I thought that the Jones campaign was subject to a joe-job.  They
used a criminal spammer, hijacking vulnerable relays in S. Korea.  As soon
as I got the spam, I called the campaign and offered to help track down
who was "joe-ing" them.  After a few phone calls and faxes, it became
clear that it had been authorized by the Jones campaign.  I was one of
many who reported it to their hosting company, along with a large number
of recipients in Canada. (Most hit addresses were in the .ca TLD)

One of the many articles about the incident is

 http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/2996334.htm

Anyway, sorry for the off-topic rambling, but I do believe that we will
see more spam from desparate politicians, but not from those who have a
lot to lose.

-j


-- 
Jeffrey Goldberg                            http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/
 Relativism is the triumph of authority over truth, convention over justice
 Hate spam?  Boycott MCI! http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/anti-spam/mci/

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