Microsoft owns hotmail, which is one of a number of mail systems such as aol and wanadoo that spammers heavily use to abuse the rest of us. Hence, Microsoft's interest and incentive in stopping spam.

If I knew that none of the people my firm does business with uses these carriers, I'd be tempted to use the nuclear approach and have the corporate mail server reject any mail coming from these domains. I would be scrupulous to provide alternative means of communication to the general public: (1) if you want to write us, please fill out these forms on our website; (2) if you'd like to apply for a job, then attach your resume to that form on our website, and so on.

I don't think that spam can be suppressed anymore than crime in general can be suppressed, but both can be brought to a manageable level through a variety of approaches. I disagree with Timothy Mullen that such a technically illiterate ham as Senator Orrin Hatch would fit in on any committee that devotes itself to technical issues: at best, we will experience extensive collateral damage. At worst, we will be deliberately and wrongly targeted. Never underestimate the capacity of the ignorant to do harm, especially when their ignorance is leveraged by their high position.

This is not to say that there is a rationale for some legislative approach: since spam orginates from a profit motive, knocking the bejesus of the profit motive is part of the solution. Spamming should be treated as grand larceny (a felony), and those businesses that hire spammers should be pursued relentlessly. Fines should be assessed to the point that spam becomes a distinctly unappealing option. In a sense, solving the spam problem is very simple: cut the flow of money to the spammers, and the problem will solve itself. I have nothing against mass mailings involving non-commercial speech. I have nothing against mass mailings involving commercial speech either, provided that specific criteria are met: everything must be above aboard.

I use a free mail service for all my personal communications, and 90% of my mail comes from spammers. Spam is at best a theft of network bandwith that strains the network backbone and I use the word "theft" advisedly, because bandwith abuse on such a scale cannot be described accurately in any other way. At worst, it is a security issue because unwanted packets that make it through routers, gateways, firewalls and spam filters have to be considered a security issue: their very presence in your mailbox creates a negative perception of your firm's security in the minds of employees and customers alike.

I suggest that www.securityfocus.com create a topic for spam: while Microsoft's help is welcome - let's see what they can do, the spam problem is far larger than Microsoft.



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