Wonderful tale! I can see that -- maybe, just maybe -- AOL or another targeted online community (a semi-moderated mailing list or even a semi-moderated newsgroup) could be slapped for just bouncing the SPAM back at the sender. I bet they could get away with it, however, if they appended a brief polite notice that this mailing exceeds some (anti-spam) perimeters that the subscribers of AOL (or other online community) agreed -- in their intial subscriber contracts -- to have AOL refuse for them. (Which text, of course, would add to the reply mail burden for the Spammer's IAP.) The only meaningful control on SPAM I can see is to start enforcing a chain of contracts that forbid it (without reference to content) from the backbone back through the IAPs to the users. (I think Long-Morrow at Yale had a nice paper on this a couple of years back.) But this sort of auto-return mechanism could make a dent on the super-Spanners now. Yea for AOL! Suerte, _Vin
On Nerd AOL using explosive mail, this Cyberia-L pointer:
http://infolawalert.com/stories/061496a.html
[Excerpts]
Cyber Promotions sends a collection of short ads, written as if they were newspaper classifieds, to upward of 900,000 recipients, 600,000 of whom are America OnLine subscribers.
America OnLine contends that its computer systems have been swamped by Cyber Promotion's mass mailings, especially when 5,000 undeliverable messages start to pile up each day. ...
When the mailings continued, an AOL employee collected a bunch of Cyber Promotions's undeliverable messages and redirected them to UUNET, a large Internet service provider used by Cyber Promotions.
According to Cyber Promotions' complaint, this "stunt, known as an 'e-mail bomb,' was knowingly and maliciously sent to UUNET by AOL in order to severely tie up and/or bring down UUNET's computer system." UUNET subsequently cancelled Cyber Promotion's account.
According to Cyber Promotions' complaint, AOL bombed another service provider used by Cyber Promotions. ...
Vin McLellan +The Privacy Guild+ <vin@shore.net> 53 Nichols St., Chelsea, Ma. 02150 USA Tel: (617) 884-5548 <*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*><*>