Hi, On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:58:37 -0800 "Gary Smith" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> As with all all other attempts we really need to see the proof in the > pudding... If the zombies start using it then who do you sue? The same people you always sue: the people with the money. :) > Then we receive 8400+ per 8400+ emails. Not to sound bad but I think that > Habeas has an uphill battle trying to hit the spammers. As does everyone... Then again, Habeas' mission is not to stop spammers, it's to ensure delivery of their customers' email. > They need to get some better laws on their side that make it criminal > (as opposed to civil). They don't need more law, they need more lawyers. Habeas is playing a subtle legal game with intellectual property, one that's fairly successful at dissuading spammers from forging their mark. 528/55146 ham (0.957%), 1/8371 spam (0.012%). That's 80x more likely to show up in ham than spam. Still a pretty good ham sign according to my corpus. Results aren't instantaneous but as they say, the wheels of justice turn slowly but they grind exceedingly fine. > Then the spammers will have something to fear because then the > legal issue isn't a joke. You can be fined but never truely have to pay > but 10 days in jail really screws with people :) So, back to lobbying > for better protections... Just my $0.02 The spammers' lawyers will need to be paid and legal time is not cheap, especially if you are being sued by (or defended by) competent counsel. Spam is at it's core an economic crime; increase the costs to those benefitting from spamming high enough and it suddenly becomes unattractive. Comparatively, the deterrence value of jail time is laughable. No judge is going to jail a spammer when he's got a docket full of mandatory jail time drug 'offenders', the local jail system is already overcrowded, and the electorate doesn't feel like paying for more prison space. At worst, the spammer will get probation and a slap on the wrist, assuming you can find anyone willing to prosecute, and assuming you actually can prosecute under the (YOU-)CAN-SPAM Act. Civil court has lower standards of evidence and you can do much more economic damage with it. Prosecuting someone for spamming is dicey; judges don't want to deal with it because it's new territory and it's hard for most people to see it as a crime (or tort or whatever.) Judges _do_ understand well-tread areas of civil law like copyright infringement and trademark dilution and if your company was founded and run by lawyers (as was Habeas), it's a trivial matter to start the legal wheels turning to protect your mark and other IP. Remember, the point is not to sue and win, or put people in jail, or even fine them; the point is to stop their behavior, in this case forging Habeas mark. Until I see rampant abuse of the Habeas mark, I'm not going to worry about it. YMMV. :) -- Bob (who is not a lawyer but has watched arguments about Habeas on SPAM-L since Habeas' foundation several years ago and who spent quality time sharing an office with a real live lawyer who worked on real live intellectual property disputes. Tip: You can give certain lawyers horrible migraines by interchanging the words 'copyright', 'patent', and 'trademark'. It drives them utterly batty.) ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Perforce Software. Perforce is the Fast Software Configuration Management System offering advanced branching capabilities and atomic changes on 50+ platforms. Free Eval! http://www.perforce.com/perforce/loadprog.html _______________________________________________ Spamassassin-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk
