That's right, folks. This is my strongly held personal opinion.

Since Fall 2002, about 90% of my email has been spam -- unsolicited bulk commercial E-mail (even though the Direct Marketing Association denies it). I hate spam.

And I hate the folks who send spam: the spammer-jackasses such as Alan Ralsky, Howard ("Buffallo Spammer") Carmack, George Allen Moore, Kahn C. Smith, Sanford "Spamford" Wallace and Charles Carboneau.

Filtering only works to a point, before false positives occur. And spammers are constantly devising ways to evade filters. So I don't think filtering is going to work.

I don't think challenge-and-response will slow down or stop spam, either.

Finally, I don't think blacklisting ISPs will slow down or stop spam. (And I agree with what Brad Templeton has to say regarding putting the burden of fighting spam completely on ISPs, as I myself have had web sites shut down unlawfully by ISPs acting upon false accusations.)

Hash cash *might* slow down spam somewhat, but if and only if it is widely adopted. Maybe.

Instead, I say we need a federal law defining what spam is -- even if it's a narrow definition to start with.

And I say we need hard-core federal penalties for spammers:

• 1 year in maximum security for each 1,000 (one thousand) spam messages.

• and the DEATH PENALTY for 1,000,000 (one million) spam messages!

That's right, folks, you read it here first: This righteously angry priest wants the federal government to PUT TO DEATH major league spammers as:

• Alan Ralsky d/b/a Additional Benefits LLC of Michigan.
• Howard "Buffallo Spammer" Carmack of Buffallo, New York.
• George Allen "Dr. Fatburn" Moore, Jr. d/b/a Maryland Internet Marketing Inc. of Linthicum, Maryland.
• Kahn C. Smith of Tennesee.
• Sanford "Spamford" Wallace.
• Charles Carboneau of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

(A partial list of major-league spammers can be found at ROKSO. Another list can be found at Spam Reaper.)

While I think the death-penalty is way over-used in this country, there are three scenarios where I think it may be appropriate:

1. For those guilty of genocide.
2. For those too dangerous to keep alive in jail.
3. For those guilty of economic crimes that severely affect a large number of people. (In the old days, this would have meant "horse thieves". These days, "Enron executives" and "spammers".)

A federal death penalty for spamming, liberally applied, might be enough to disuade most spammers from continuing to spam.

And for spammers outside American jurisdiction: either pay their countries to extradite them here, or put some of our CIA hit-men to use to slay these foreign spammers in their sleep. (This includes all those African buttheads sending "Nigerian" 4-1-9 scam emails.)

May spammers go to jail or die! And that's the truth!

(NO vigilantes, please!)

Some related links:

• Hash Cash.

• Camran's Hash Cash.

• 2003.05.07, Lycos: Earthlink Wins $16M from The Buffallo Spammer.

• Poetic Revenge against Alan Ralsky.

• Address of "The House That Spam Built".

• Privacy Digest

• 2003.01.15, The Internet News: Spammer Exposes Customer Data (George Allen Moore).

• 2003.04.07, The Washington Post: Spammer (George Allen Moore) sues anti-spammer (Francis Uy)

• The SpamHaus Project.

• Spamhaus ROKSO (Register of Known Spam Operations).

• 2003.05.14, Politechbot: TidBITS editors warn readers that antispam Challenges-Responses will be ignored.

• 2003.05.13, ZDNet News: SEC settles with leading spammer K. C. Smith.

• 2003.05.14, ZDNet News: 'Buffallo Spammer' nabbed in New York.

• Spam Reaper.

• 2002.08.04, The Detroit News: Junk e-mail foes target spam king.