Oh, great Commonwealth! I salute thee.

Hail Virginny! What are the parameters for determining spam, though? I want to send my chain letters. (Not.)

About time the courts began using common sense!

Wow. I hate spammers, but I think that was a really bad ruling. It does regulate behavior outside of VA, and it does have a chilling effect on legitimate speech.

A whole lot of penii are going to get a whole lot smaller.

Read that as Vagina appeals court at first.

Clarence Thomas: "..."

Pathetic old angry man.

I look forward to using this law against the political campaigns that keep sending me unsolicited appeals about their candidates.

V14gR4!! CH34P!!

t3knomanser: Wow. I hate spammers, but I think that was a really bad ruling. It does regulate behavior outside of VA, and it does have a chilling effect on legitimate speech.

alas, you might be right. maybe we'll have to after the spammer with baseball bats (domestc) and viruses (foreign).

t3knomanser: Wow. I hate spammers, but I think that was a really bad ruling. It does regulate behavior outside of VA, and it does have a chilling effect on legitimate speech.

That would depend on the wording of the ruling. If it is too openly or vaguely worded, then yes, it could be dangerous to free speech. If it is very specific about spammers only, then I don't see a problem.

t3knomanser: Wow. I hate spammers, but I think that was a really bad ruling. It does regulate behavior outside of VA, and it does have a chilling effect on legitimate speech.

Only if you send email to a server in Virginia, however...

That's great news.

That's too bad. I don't particularly want my inbox regulated.

torpid_beaver: Clarence Thomas: "..."

Pathetic old angry man.

you do realize that thomas doesn't belong to the virginia appeals court? his saying anything about a case that could easily come before the supreme court would actually be improper. yes, he's a useless hack, but less get the facts right.

Wow, the Commonwealth did something useful for a change. Doesn't happen often.

rekoil
Only if you send email to a server in Virginia, however...

Can a person really control what servers an email goes through on way from Point A to Point B?

Shoot, if spam goes away (Ha! Ha!), how will I continue to contribute to my text file of gross distortions of the English language used to trick the filters?

Case in point:
" Thank you much you granted to me festive discounts and
your special proposals that save time and money,
proposing only best quality medications.
You're among my minions,
I shall tell about your drug-store without fail all my buddies!

Now if they could just do something about mailbox spam as well, it would be sweet. My mailbox gets filled with crap every week. Credit card offers, car sale flyers, pennysaver stuff. Why not get rid of that?

SuperCatBarf: That's too bad. I don't particularly want my inbox regulated.

what about your outbox?

jjorsett: I look forward to using this law against the political campaigns that keep sending me unsolicited appeals about their candidates.


Only if the email is sent anonymously. If there is an identifiable sender, you just have to deal with it or filter it.

Well if all spam is not free speech, then shouldn't all advertising not be covered too?

soulglow: Shoot, if spam goes away (Ha! Ha!), how will I continue to contribute to my text file of gross distortions of the English language used to trick the filters?

Case in point:
" Thank you much you granted to me festive discounts and
your special proposals that save time and money,
proposing only best quality medications.
You're among my minions,
I shall tell about your drug-store without fail all my buddies!

Are you using subliminal messages to try to convert me to Satanism?

/all hail Smiling Bob

This is a good ruling. There is an obvious distinction between unsolicited spam and expression of ideas that any reasonable person can make. Also, spam hurts freedom of speech by crippling one of the best mediums for it. The ruling is consistent with the intent behind the 1st amendment.

Head-On: Apply directly to the forehead
Head-On: Apply directly to the forehead
Head-On: Apply directly to the forehead
Head-On: Apply directly to the forehead

I got a spam that had this in the subject line:

'Mistahtom!, bruise her womb with your humongous rod.'

Free speech does not give you the right to come up to my window and shout religious messsages, or advertise Cialis for that matter. Spam is the electronic equivalent of exactly that.

I think the interstate commerce argument is valid though. This should be a federal issue, not a state one.

If I can block someone from speaking by putting up a "No Solicitation" sign on my door, I should be able to do the same with my e-mail, phone number and mailbox. A voluntary opt-out of unsolicited sales pitches should be one's right, and does not affect the free speech of others.

///Also, I should be able to opt out of political messages as well.

SuperCatBarf That's too bad. I don't particularly want my inbox regulated.

You misunderstand the ruling. It does not regulate your inbox. It regulates your outbox.

This is absurd. It goes against 200 years of settled First Amendment law. Let's look at the actual text of the Constitution.

AMENDMENT I:

Congre$$ sha|| mak e no llaw [...] abridging FOR HER PLEASSURE the TOTALLy FrEEdom of spééch, r of the pre$$; or the GIANt FloPPY C•CK$ of the peo plepeaceably 2 assemble ROLEXX SE|K0 ARMAN|, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Seems pretty clear to me.

mistahtom: I got a spam that had this in the subject line:

'Mistahtom!, bruise her womb with your humongous rod.'

The best I've seen was "Paradoxic on crowbait the reservoir!"

In my spam box:

Yóµr woman |oôves big ma|e machinne but the trouble is thät you haàvee smaäII one.
Dont wôrrÿÿ! You häåvë unique chance to soöIvê thiïs trouble.
Today you can enlarge ýÿõuür shlong length.
You'll be a kíïñg of bed promptly.

In the last 14 days, I have received 5,512 spams. This is considerably lower than usual...normally I get about 30,000 spams per month.

My domain, which has about 8 total accounts (one for me, 7 role accounts like hostmaster@, all of which forward to me) gets about 300,000 attempted spams (mostly dictionary attacks) every day.

When I ran my own server, most of my bandwidth went to dealing with spam, including checking DNSbls. I ran a local caching DNS server which forwarded queries to OpenDNS to cut down on queries to the DNSbls and use cached answers where possible. I set up some country-level zones in BIND and rbldnsd to block mail from China, Korea, Taiwan, most of Africa, Eastern Europe, South America, etc. While that cut down 90% of the inbound spam (and cut my remote DNS queries by the same percentage), a considerable amount still got through. Not good.

I'm now having Google Apps provide mail for my domain, so they get to deal with it all now. Their server-based spam filtering is pretty good. I like their webmail and huge storage, but I miss SquirrelMail. Oh well.

Spam is a massive waste of internet resources, almost always involves sending mail through zombied computers in foreign countries, and generally steals resources from users and administrators...all for the sake of selling dubious goods and services.

I applaud any effort, technological, legal, or otherwise, that will act to effectively reduce spam while still preserving free speech.

/also, I recommend that people participate in Project Honeypot to help detect the connections between harvesters and spammers.

Can'tLetYouDoThatStarFox: This is a good ruling. There is an obvious distinction between unsolicited spam and expression of ideas that any reasonable person can make. Also, spam hurts freedom of speech by crippling one of the best mediums for it. The ruling is consistent with the intent behind the 1st amendment.

Not sure I agree with it entirely. This can be used as a basis for a state's right to regulate internet anonymity. Not sure I like where that could be headed.

If they kept it to "undue burden on the receiver" like junk faxes, it'd be a lot more acceptable but Virginia would still have to rewrite its law.

The best spam subject line I ever saw was "Greedy Suck Horse Penis".

Bucky Katt: SuperCatBarf: That's too bad. I don't particularly want my inbox regulated.

what about your outbox?

nice one,i loled

Most of the spam to my company comes fron China, followed by various other countries in Asia, Africa, South America and Eastern Eurpoe. I imagine these countries won't be affected by the ruling.

t3knomanser: Wow. I hate spammers, but I think that was a really bad ruling. It does regulate behavior outside of VA, and it does have a chilling effect on legitimate speech.

Yeah, but think of it this way. Some spammer had the gall to claim that his actions was what the Founding Fathers wanted to protect.

xennex: Most of the spam to my company comes fron China, followed by various other countries in Asia, Africa, South America and Eastern Eurpoe. I imagine these countries won't be affected by the ruling.

Yeah, those Eastern Eurpoes can kiss my First Amendment murdering American ass.

The Eastern Europeans are fine in my book, though. :D

xennex: Most of the spam to my company comes fron China, followed by various other countries in Asia, Africa, South America and Eastern Eurpoe. I imagine these countries won't be affected by the ruling.

It's the excuse for invasion we've been waiting for.

Arkanaut: Yeah, but think of it this way. Some spammer had the gall to claim that his actions was what the Founding Fathers wanted to protect.

Of course they'd want to protect those actions. With a huge schlong and a cart full of v!agr@ none of the womenfolk would think twice about showing a bit of ankle.

mistahtom: Well if all spam is not free speech, then shouldn't all advertising not be covered too?

Oh, if only.

/whistful

A lot of people would take nine years in prison for the amount of cash that guy brought in.

waiting4godot: rekoil
Only if you send email to a server in Virginia, however...

Can a person really control what servers an email goes through on way from Point A to Point B?

I don't know, but consider this: If you send out enough unsolicited e-mail to bring attention upon yourself, then wouldn't it behoove you to figure out how *not* to go through a resource that could get you popped?

It's not necessarily about free speech, it's about misusing resources.

So we re-direct all spam to Vir-gina where they take care of it? Sweet.

Huzzah! You're next, Mr. Phelps...

Oh, and for kicks and giggles, I just looked in my inbox. Excerpt from a random piece of junkmail. Apparently someone in Russia wants me to invest in Pepsi? Eh.

Тренер: Дмитрий Левин - бизнесмен и преподаватель с более, чем 30-летним опытом работы в СССР, США, Западной Европе, Израиле, России и Украине. Имеет степень МБА со специализацией в Международном Менеджменте и Маркетинге из Школы Бизнеса имени Джозефа Вортона Пеннсильванского Университета (США). Имеет огромный практический опыт управления собственным бизнесом и руководства отделениями международных компаний таких, как McDonald's, Pepsi-Cola, SC Johnson и Cydcor. Преподавал курсы по менеджменту и маркетингу в Университете Феникса (Аризона, США) и в Университете Метрополитан (Флорида, США). Провел десятки закрытых семинаров по менеджменту, м

Ringshadow: Huzzah! You're next, Mr. Phelps...

Oh, and for kicks and giggles, I just looked in my inbox. Excerpt from a random piece of junkmail. Apparently someone in Russia wants me to invest in Pepsi? Eh.

Тренер: Дмитрий Левин - бизнесмен и преподаватель с более, чем 30-летним опытом работы в СССР, США, Западной Европе, Израиле, России и Украине. Имеет степень МБА со специализацией в Международном Менеджменте и Маркетинге из Школы Бизнеса имени Джозефа Вортона Пеннсильванского Университета (США). Имеет огромный практический опыт управления собственным бизнесом и руководства отделениями международных компаний таких, как McDonald's, Pepsi-Cola, SC Johnson и Cydcor. Преподавал курсы по менеджменту и маркетингу в Университете Феникса (Аризона, США) и в Университете Метрополитан (Флорида, США). Провел десятки закрытых семинаров по менеджмент

Hero? 4-3? Barely. That's like calling a firefighter a hero for rescuing a little over half a kitten.

So that didn't work. What I wrote was:

My Russian's old and crappy, but it looks like the bio for a management seminar leader.

Dmitrii Levin, businessman, 30 years working in the USSR, USA, Western Europe, Israel, Russian, Ukraine, got his MBA in some kind of management and marketing from the Wharton School at UPenn. Teaches seminars for University of Phoenix and Metropolitan University.