Nigerian Spammers Using TDD/TTY Telephone Relay Service

Tim May timcmay at got.net
Tue May 27 18:10:32 PDT 2003


On Tuesday, May 27, 2003, at 04:41  PM, Roy M.Silvernail wrote:

> On Tuesday 27 May 2003 09:01 am, Tim May wrote:
>> On Tuesday, May 27, 2003, at 04:23  AM, Roy M.Silvernail wrote:
>
>>> Frankly, I'm surprised I haven't yet seen incidents of spammers
>>> following up
>>> via another comm channel to find out why their spam was ignored 
>>> and/or
>>> repeat
>>> their pitch.  For that matter, with all the First Amendment blather
>>> heard
>>> from spammers, I'd almost expect one of them to argue for proactively
>>> enforced delivery and some sort of "obligation to read" statute.
>>
>> No, absolutely _nothing_ in the First can possibly imply any "enforced
>> delivery" or "obligation to read." I assume you are semi-joking, but
>> this bears repeating, especially for those here who seem to be unclear
>> on the concepts.
>
> I understand the limitations of the First, but I wasn't exactly joking.

I guess I nailed it when I said "I assume you are semi-joking." Too 
bad, as there is certainly nothing which supports an "obligation to 
read" or "enforced delivery." More on this below.


> And
> while I agree that the First cannot be said to imply such obligations, 
> it
> seems to me that, on the surface, it would not preclude them, either.

??? The First quite clearly says that government can't be in the 
business of writing law about words, speech, etc. This then precludes 
any such laws by any branch of government. In other words, if the State 
of Georgia passes a law saying that recipients of letters or e-mails 
have an "obligation to read" them, this would rightly be struck down as 
a violation of the First. And if some radio station or printer were 
told he has an "enforced delivery" requirement, e.g., that he must 
print something or broadcast something, this would also be struck down. 
Ditto for e-mail. Granted, most ISPs will not pick and choose which 
e-mail to deliver, for various customer  happiness and practicality 
reasons, and because they don't typically examine content. But there is 
no "obligation to carry" traffic. Nor should there be. In fact, some 
ISPs throttle traffic when too many e-mails have been sent or received.

(By the way, speech laws about advertising, FCC rules, pornography look 
like counterexamples to the general point, allowing speech regulation, 
but they are not. One involves "commercial speech" (though I disagree 
completely). One involves allocation of the broadcast channels. And the 
pornography case has been contentious in First Amendment cases for well 
over a century. And to real First Amendment supporters, such laws are 
anathema. Of the three examples, only the FCC rules have any 
plausibility, having to do with scarcity of the broadcast 
spectrum...and there are some interesting free market/auction ideas 
there. With nonbroadcast channels, whether cable or fiber or DSL or 
whatever, there are no such scarcities: the owner of the channel 
charges for use of the channel. This is important to the spam problem.)



> "Obligation to read" does not directly infringe upon the right to free
> speech.  A deeper examination would probably show that it would 
> infringe on
> the implied "right to be left alone" that is usually referred to as the
> "right" to privacy, but I don't think that would be enough to prevent 
> such a
> law from being enacted.

A law requiring that words be read _is_ a law about speech. Whether the 
law requires or forbids the reading of words, it is a law about speech 
and thus an abridgement of the freedom of speech. Nonspeaking and 
nonreading are precisely isomorphic to speaking and reading.

As a reminder:

--AMENDMENT I
  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or 
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of 
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to 
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

>
>> Secondly, most if not all of the "anti-spam laws" are, in fact,
>> directly in contravention of the First Amendment.
>
> Does this include descendents of the junk-fax laws?  (are there any of 
> those,
> or haven't the lawgivers made the connection between fax paper and CPU 
> cycles
> yet?)

Of course. Much as my personally dislike receiving faxes I did not 
expect to get, any law about "unwanted speech" is a law restricting the 
freedom of speech. If it becomes a criminal matter for someone to 
receive an unwanted telephone call, or e-mail, or fax, then the First 
Amendment is lost.

(This space reserved for Choate to claim that I am saying people can 
stand outside my bedroom window at 3 a.m. sending me speech messages. 
No, I am not saying this. This is covered by other laws, and is a 
reasonable limit. But "unwanted communications" when no public 
disturbance is involved is not the same thing.)



>
>> The First does not allow government to be in the content examination
>> business. Those who think otherwise need....well, you all know what
>> they need. I am serious. I am fucking sick and tired of bureaucrats,
>> legislators, and even people on lists like this thinking that they 
>> have
>> some authorization to examine the letters or e-mails I receive.
>
> How about simply holding companies absolutely responsible for the 
> methods
> used to distribute their advertising? Couldn't Truth In Advertising be
> extended to email solicitation?

You are well and truly lost. Their should be no "truth in advertising" 
laws whatsoever. Advertising is just speech. Government is not, and 
cannot be, in the business of determining which speech is true and 
which is not. Will praying to the baby Jesus bring salvation? Will 
using Bowflex make you a babe magnet? Will eating Twinkies increase 
your sex drive? None of these are matters for government to decide.

> The one thing that *all* UCE has in common
> is the attempt to sell something, and that requires an identifiable 
> business
> presence.

Anathema to nearly every technology we advocate, notably remailers and 
proxies.


>  After all, people can't buy from a company if the company doesn't
> provide *some* method of contact to accept orders.

You are oblivious to the technologies we discuss here. I cite my own 
system, BlackNet, from 1993, as a counterexample to your claim.

Practically, even physical items can be shipped when no identifiable 
legal nexus exists. A lot of porn companies work this way, with cutouts 
and shell companies to escape regulation, taxes, etc. This doesn't mean 
customers don't receive the DVDs they order, though, even if the legal 
nexus is unreachable. Again, a matter of continuing repuational 
capital, however imperfect.

I know there are a lot of statists now on this list, but, really, at 
least try to relate your proposed statist laws to technologies we have 
discussed (and even implemented) here so many times.

UCE laws _are_ speech laws. Period.

The solutions are technological and economic. And, no, they don't 
necessarily involve some HashCash token. In fact, this flies against 
fundamental economic principles of markets, to establish arbitrary 
schemes and rates.

The fundamental ontology is what needs fixing. If a Nigerian spammer 
can pay his 100 oogaboogas per month (equivalent to $6.50/month, or 
whatever) and then send ten million messages out, this is between him 
and his ISP and all upstream carriers, a la standard economies, a la 
the silk road, a la the Digital Silk Road. That his ISP offers him this 
free access, or that someone he connects to does,  is no different from 
having a broken ontology where paying 100 oogaboogas a month entitles a 
Lagos-based shipper to fill as many cargo ships as he wishes with 
product.

And the solution is NOT to regulate the cost of either cargo ships or 
ISP rates. This is not my problem, not my government's problem, and not 
the U.N.'s or WTO's problem. This is the ontology of that particular 
market and those players will solve it in time.

See Greg Egan's "Permutation City" for a near-future scenario, as a bit 
of background to the main story, where spammers use sophisticated A.I. 
methods to try to get past the A.I.-based filters of customers. Egan is 
wise enough to realize that none of the ill-considered A.U.C.E. schemes 
are going to make any real difference, long-term.

Filters and systems where people _voluntarily_ charge to look at 
incoming messages, will be the main approaches. I don't know precisely 
what the rates will shake out to be (in fact, they will vary widely) or 
how many other measures (filters, A.I.) will be used in conjunction 
with payment schemes, or how bandwidth providers will charge (and how 
much), but I sure do know that this free market approach is both more 
practical and more constitutional than the statist approaches are.

--Tim May





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