Theodore Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu> writes: > On Wed, Aug 14, 2002 at 03:19:34PM -0400, stanislav shalunov wrote: > > P.S. If people complained more to the ISPs it would help. > > http://www.internet2.edu/~shalunov/uce/reporting-spam.html > > This is a myth. Reporting to ISP's can't possibly help, since so many > spammers use (as you yourself point out in your web page) throwaway > $20 accounts. By the time you complain, and the ISP closes the > account, the spammer has moved on to some other account. I didn't claim that complaining about spam solves the problem. Clearly it doesn't -- spam gets reported today and we all still get spam. It does help: it helps cut off ways for the spammers to benefit from spam (this only works against spammers that have something to sell directly, but they send a sizable franction of all spam) on one hand and it encourages ISPs to make it harder to spam from their networks (like charging a clean-up fee) on the other hand. In addition, processing spam complaints is a cost. It is a cost to be born by those who willingly or unwillingly abet the spammer. It helps shift the economic balance -- if only to a small extent. If no-one ever complained about spam, the problem would be worse than it is today. -- Stanislav Shalunov http://www.internet2.edu/~shalunov/ Religion is the opium of them asses. --Karlm Arx