On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 20:57:58 -0800, Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the Dark

I don't know where you're at, but (the U.S.) congress had the foresight
to include a clause in the act that requires the Federal Trade
Commission to report back to congress in 18 months or so with how well
the law is working. If it finds that the law isn't effective, then it
can change the law, hopefully the worse for spammers. Perhaps when the
FTC reports it will tell congress that there is insufficient funding to
do the job. Then congress can put up some money and hope it helps.

But someday all the i's will get dotted and t's crossed and the spammers
will not have any way to hide. That may take IPV6, which seems like it
should have been implemented long ago, but still hasn't. Don't hold
your breath.

I've tracked down a summary of the alleged "anti-spam" law:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquer...108&sel=TOC_0&
---excerpt---
Calendar No. 209
108TH CONGRESS
Report
SENATE
1st Session
108-102
--CAN-SPAM ACT OF 2003
JULY 16, 2003- Ordered to be printed
Mr. MCCAIN, from the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
submitted the following
R E P O R T
[To accompany S. 877]
The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, to which was
referred the bill (S. 877) to regulate interstate commerce by imposing
limitations and penalties on the transmission of unsolicited commercial
electronic mail via the Internet, having considered the same, reports
favorably thereon with an amendment in the nature of a substitute and
recommends that the bill (as amended) do pass.

PURPOSE OF THE BILL

The purposes of this legislation are to: (i) prohibit senders of
electronic mail (e-mail) for primarily commercial advertisement or
promotional purposes from deceiving intended recipients or Internet
service providers as to the source or subject matter of their e-mail
messages; (ii) require such e-mail senders to give recipients an
opportunity to decline to receive future commercial e-mail from them and
to honor such requests; (iii) require senders of unsolicited commercial
e-mail (UCE) to also include a valid physical address in the e-mail
message and a clear notice that the message is an advertisement or
solicitation; and (iv) prohibit businesses from knowingly promoting, or
permitting the promotion of, their trade or business through e-mail
transmitted with false or misleading sender or routing information. ---end
of excerpt---

Let's analyze this.
(i) prohibit senders of electronic mail (e-mail) for primarily
commercial advertisement or promotional purposes from deceiving
intended recipients or Internet service providers as to the source or
subject matter of their e-mail messages

In other words, if you don't overtly lie about your product, you're OK,
you can legally send all of the spam that you want to.

(ii) require such e-mail senders to give recipients an opportunity to
decline to receive future commercial e-mail from them and to honor such
requests;

Yeah, the ever-popular opt-out clause. This does a lot of good, at the
bottom of megabytes of popups.

(iii) require senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCE) to also
include a valid physical address in the e-mail message and a clear notice
that the message is an advertisement or solicitation;

Valid Physical Address. There's a vacant lot just down the street from me.
Include a clear notice? How about not send it at all, huh?

and (iv) prohibit businesses from knowingly promoting, or permitting the
promotion of, their trade or business through e-mail transmitted with
false or misleading sender or routing information.

So, you can't use your anonymizer. Big deal. It still gets sent!

So I tend to agree with this guy:
http://www.angelfire.com/blues2/blowschunks/index.html

I believe I might start spamming with The Boulder Pledge.

Ah Seen Tha Light!

Thanks,
Rich