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Please just jail spammers

aj continues our discussion about email postage as a solution to spam/viruses, charging that “from someone whose Orkut profile lists him as a ‘libertarian’, [it] seems odd” to want criminal remedies for spam.

(I am not accurately "libertarian". I'd rather be small-l-liberal but translated into American "libertarian" was the closest match.)

I think it's entirely consistent for moderate libertarians to want the government to enforce laws against fraud, trespass, theft, etc.

People can get so wrapped up in the technical fight against spam, or so used to thinking of it as just a nuisance that they forget almost every message represents evidence of a felony.

Spam is fraud and theft of service on an industrial scale, activities which are already illegal. No new spam laws are required. At the very most, perhaps the illegality needs to be made more clear in the law, but I don't think that is needed.

A majority of spam messages are sent through consumer machines that have been compromised through Windows worms or similar means. Unauthorized access to a computer system is illegal in Australia and punishable by up to ten years in prison. I would like to see that law enforced.

(I'd like to see criminal negligence charges against people who knowingly allow their systems to be used in commission of fraud.)

Spam usually involves unauthorized access to a computer system on the sending end. It also involves unauthorized access on the receiving end: if unsolicited advertisements are specifically disallowed by the terms of service of a computer system, then posting them is also unauthorized insertion of data, and possible a breach of the law.

A large volume of spam advertises products that are likely to be either illegal or fraudulent. In a random sample: bogus pharmaceuticals, child pornography, bogus home loans, unlicensed software, fraudulent invoices, 419 scams... Even if spam was sent legally, the majority of people sending it are involved in some other criminal enterprise.

There are reports that great volumes of spam are sent by organized crime gangs also involved in credit card fraud, illegal pornography, drug trafficking, theft, and so on. This single point I can't verify for myself, but it does seem like it ought to motivate police to investigate more energetically.

You have to go pretty far out on the scale of anarcho-libertarianism to say that there should not be laws against theft and fraud, or that those laws should not be enforced by publicly-funded police. Interesting late night thought-experiment though that may be, it is practically irrelevant.

If I only received spam that did not fake its sender, was not sent through compromised machines, was not advertising criminal or fraudulent products, did not contravene terms of use and did not breach any other laws then I would see far less need for government involvement. Oh happy thought!

I don't see the point in introducing a new email postage system. Existing laws are being flouted on an industrial scale by hundreds of perpetrators. Any new system will be abused too. If you cannot have at least a shade of a threat of sanctions against fraud and theft, it is hard for a free market to work.

I can imagine there are practical problems in enforcing these laws globally. But let us, at least, punish every spammer and con-artist in Australia and the USA. If that works, but we are still being attacked by criminals in China or Nigeria or Russia then let us handle that through some international process.

Stealing a car for use in a robbery is, and should be illegal. Stealing control of a computer for use in fraud and theft is illegal, but seems to be rarely prosecuted. Send a few spammers to prison for five years, a punishment they richly deserve, and the spam problem might start to go away. Failing that I would like to see more civil suits.

posted Fri 14 May 2004 in /issues/spam | link

Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Martin Pool.