Newsgroups: alt.current-events.net-abuse,alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.flame.canter-and-siegel,news.admin.misc From: rnewman@media.mit.edu (Ron Newman) Subject: _New Scientist_ (UK) on spamming, C&S book review Message-ID: <1995Jan16.174449.20546@news.media.mit.edu> Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: MIT Media Laboratory Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 17:44:49 GMT Lines: 346 I received the following from Charles Arthur, a writer for _New Scientist_ magazine in the United Kingdom. He told me to "Repost freely in cyberspace". He wrote two articles on these subjects. The more recent, published this month, is a review of Canter & Siegel's book. The earlier one, from November 19, 1994, is a general survey of the spamming issue. Both follow. His e-mail address is: new.scientist@stirling.ac.uk ------------- from _New Scientist_, January 7, 1995: Spam, spam, spam, spam How to Make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway by Laurence A. Canter and Martha S. Siegel, HarperCollins, pp 234, $20; Cyberspace and the Law by Edward A. Cavazos and Gavino Morin, MIT Press, pp 205, $19.95 review by Charles Arthur LET'S begin with what's good about Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel's book. The title is a publisher's dream: that hot topic, the Internet, mixed with the promise of riches. A surefire hit, though they could probably have pressed a few more buttons: "How to Lose Weight, Increase Your Sex Appeal and Make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway" would outsell the Bible, at least briefly. Well, that's it for the good things. After this, you have to open the covers, and everything goes rapidly downhill. I don't think that I've ever come across a more badly-argued set of prejudices in my life. Canter and Siegel gained astonishing notoriety on the Internet in April by advertising their services as immigration lawyers on every one of thousands of "newsgroups", the electronic noticeboards on the Internet--a technique known as "spamming" (see "A spammer in the networks," 19 November 1994). This went against the ethos of the newsgroups, not only because it was advertising, but most of all because it was irrelevant. It meant users had to make more effort sorting the worthwhile messages from the rubbish. Only a tiny bit, in this case, but big oaks that obscure the view grow from little acorns planted by immigration lawyers. If every company, from tiny to huge, decides to post "For sale" and "Your chance to get rich!!" notices to every newsgroup, I for one will quickly seek out other, advertising-free sources, on or off the Net. The advertisers will have defeated themselves. As an example of Canter and Siegel's flawed reasoning, they argue first that there are no rules on the Internet, so you can do what you want. But when the systems administrators who run the networks connected to the Internet acted together to wipe out the lawyers' "spam", they then complained that this violated their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech. There's also the assumption, which runs through the book, that everyone on the Internet is, or wants to be, American, and subject to American laws. Perhaps we should expect this attitude from lawyers who earn their living dealing with people who want to immigrate to the US. But it is not true. All right, what does the book provide? It splits into two chunks, personal and technical. The personal bits, written in a chatty style, laced with bile for anyone who has ever disagreed with their point of view, form the start and tailpiece, and describe how Canter and Siegel got onto the Net and how they feel at ease annoying everyone who thought that they had found somewhere free of advertising. These sections are full of factual errors. For example, they claim that the term "spam" was invented for their posting tactic (it predated it by years); they confuse private bulletin boards with the wider Internet; and "libel" is spelt "liable", a wonderful mistake for a pair of lawyers. And then there are the opinions: "By the time you read this, some of the [electronic] protesters we encountered may have been gathered up and locked away where vandals and the like belong." The quieter, middle section of the book is more technical, with stuff about SLIP, PPP and other Internet protocols. This is so sensibly written that I'm tempted to think that Canter and Siegel did what they recommend later in the book--"hire a geek". A geek is someone who knows much more than you about technical things. Canter and Siegel seem to regard "geeks" in the way that some people view Filipino maids: plentiful, cheap, easily fired once they've done what you want--and not to be socialised with. But rather than cleaning the kitchen, geeks set up computer programs that let you spam the newsgroups. The book is blighted by the lack of an index, though a small plus is that it gives some brief explanations of Internet terms such as e-mail, ftp, gopher and World Wide Web. Does the book offer a good way to make that fortune? Well, yes and no. Certainly the techniques described-- spamming, junk e-mailing, using the World Wide Web home pages- -would work if you were the only one doing them. But the systems administrators are sharp: software called Cancelmoose rapidy deals with spamming; junk e-mailing earns endless dislike, as well as retaliatory e-mail. Generally, once capable computer people begin to dislike you, anything can happen. And, if everyone starts advertising on the Net, then you can bet that it will be charged for. Life will then turn in to a war where advertisers like Canter and Siegel try to avoid paying, and offspring of the Cancelmoose hunt them down. It'll be entertaining to watch. Turn thankfully, then, to Cyberspace and the Law, which is a well-argued excursion around "Your Rights and Duties in the On-Line World". It has an index. I learned a lot from it: about copyright of e-mail (who really owns it?), how obscenity is defined in the US, where "freedom of speech" laws do apply (only on US government-funded systems), when online contracts become binding, how interstate laws apply to the Internet, and what wiretapping means for Americans. Though short, it's far more useful than Canter and Siegel's effort; certainly worth buying if you're thinking of marketing through the Internet. This is where I would spend my $20. ------------------------------------------------------------ from _New Scientist_, 19 Nov 94: A spammer in the networks: Millions of people who chat to each other on the Internet fear they are about to be deluged by spam - the electronic version of junk mail. Charles Arthur investigates (1813) By CHARLES ARTHUR In the early hours of 12 April, Laurence Canter set a program running on the computer at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona. By morning, this simple action had brought the culture of the American entrepreneur into irrevocable conflict with the global anarchy of the Internet. The program started by Canter, who with his wife Martha Siegel runs the law firm Canter & Siegel, sent a message over the Internet offering the firm's services to anyone who wanted to take part in a US government lottery of 'green card' work permits. He posted the message to around six thousand of the electronic forums known as 'Usenet newsgroups', on which people round the world exchange information and opinions with others who have similar interests. By doing so, he breached the unwritten rules of the Usenet and provoked an almighty row. When cultures clash, the result is rarely a draw. Canter and Siegel believe they have discovered an untrodden road to riches. Advocates of the Usenet claim that if others copy the couple's actions, the Usenet will be swamped and rendered useless. After Canter sent his message, anyone who logged onto a Usenet newsgroup hoping to find the latest gossip about their chosen topic - which range from Amazon women to the Vietnam war - would have been greeted by a message headed: 'Green Card Lottery 1994 May be the Last One!! Sign up now!!' Most of the estimated six million readers probably just deleted it. But many were infuriated. Blanket posting to all newsgroups breaches the informal 'netiquette' that has evolved to govern behaviour on the Usenet, which says that postings should be relevant to the topic of the newsgroup, and that you should give back as much to the Usenet as you take out. This does not preclude advertising. There are occasional 'for sale' notices in relevant newsgroups, and many business-oriented forums offer items for sale or carry advertisements for jobs. At least one newsgroup, which discusses US visas, would have been a perfect site for the message. Others may also have fitted the bill. But to many people the message was just an annoyance, the electronic equivalent of junk mail. In Net parlance, Canter & Siegel's posting was 'spam' - a term that stems from the Monty Python sketch in which spam, repeated again and again, is the main ingredient of every meal on a cafe's menu. Spamming has been used to describe widespread, unwanted postings since about 1990. Last year an evangelist spammed the Usenet with a long message proclaiming that 'Jesus is coming'. Minor incidents happen almost daily, usually from pyramid marketing schemes or chain letters. Spamming is unpopular because it clogs the Usenet, obscuring its purpose, which is to let individuals communicate with each other about subjects that interest them. The typical response of disgruntled readers is to e-mail an insulting message or 'flame' to the writer, or send a 'mail-bomb' - a huge, useless program that takes up large amounts of the receiver's disc space. Such actions usually prompt an apology, if only because it becomes hugely time- consuming to sort out a few positive replies from the hundreds of angry ones. Two things set Canter & Siegel's April posting apart. First, it was legal, unlike pyramid marketing schemes or chain letters, which are illegal in many countries. Second - and more important to those who want the Usenet to stay as it is - was the two partners' reaction when their breach of netiquette was forcefully pointed out. They did not, and do not, apologise. The response to their posting was unprecedented. They received 20 000 flames and reams of junk faxes. Mailbombs sent to them clogged the computer system of their 'service provider', Internet Direct Computer Services, which linked their PC to the Internet. After that system crashed more than 15 times, the company terminated Canter & Siegel's account on the grounds that its actions were interfering with the service to its other clients. The couple promptly switched to another service provider, called Netcom. But on 20 May, Netcom also cut them off after Canter boasted on a TV show that he would spam again. John Whalen, Netcom's president, likens his decision to turning away a would-be customer at a restaurant for not wearing shoes. 'Being a responsible provider entails refusing service to customers who would endanger the health of the community,' he says. Canter and Siegel are unrepentant. In their book, How to make a Fortune on the Information Superhighway, to be published in January, the couple pour scorn on the concept of a 'community' on the Internet. 'Someone may tell you that in order to be a good Net 'citizen', you must follow the rules of the Cyberspace community. Don't listen,' they advise. 'The only laws and rules with which you should concern yourself are those passed by the country, state and city in which you truly live. The only ethics you should adopt as you pursue wealth on the (information superhighway) are those dictated by the religious faith you have chosen to follow and your own good conscience.' The couple say that amid all the flames and bombs, they also received 20 000 requests for information. They claim to have taken on 1004 clients, who were charged between Dollars 95 and Dollars 145 each. In their eyes, the revenue - more than Dollars 100 000 - generated by their message more than compensates for the inconvenience and notoriety suffered in acquiring it. Their book outlines an overwhelming commercial case for spamming by comparing the cost of reaching an individual through TV, radio and the Internet. A 30-second advertising spot during a top daytime soap would cost Dollars 45 000, equivalent to just over Dollars 20 per thousand people per minute. A 60-second local radio slot costs Dollars 285, or Dollars 14 per thousand people per minute. On the Internet, Dollars 1000 buys a connection to around 30 million computer users, or 3.3 cents per thousand people - and for a whole month. People who regularly participate in the newsgroups worry that if enough companies begin spamming, the Usenet's essential quality as an unregulated source of ideas and opinions will be destroyed. Jim Gillogly, a computer scientist with the research organisation RAND in Santa Monica, California, says that if lots of people follow Canter and Siegel's example, the proportion of meaningful messages to irrelevant ones 'will drop even further than it already has, and the Net will become unusable'. If vast numbers of advertisements are sent to newsgroups, people will no longer be able to filter out what they want to read, says Howard Rheingold, a journalist based in San Francisco who has written extensively about electronic communities. 'What if you went to your traditional mailbox every day and got a letter, two bills and 60 000 pieces of junk mail?' he asks. The few people who defend the lawyers in messages to newsgroups tend, like Canter and Siegel themselves, towards impatience with what they see as a reactionary response to the wave of commerce now sweeping the Internet. 'This so-called spam is from people who are trying to be entrepreneurs, which is what made America strong,' wrote one supporter. This posting prompted a swift reply from Jon Noring of the publisher OmniMedia, based in Livermore, California. 'So you'd have no problem with people putting up billboards in Yosemite National Park? How about billboards at the top of every mountain and along all the ocean beaches?' he wrote. 'There's room in Usenet to do business and commerce, and to also provide the 'parks' and freedom from advertising that we all like sometime. It's a balancing act, and what you propose is not a balancing act. It's a bulldozer, and will work against the business that you so cherish.' Canter and Siegel say that staying out of those 'parks' would restrict them too much. 'The responses we got indicate that the broad posting was right,' insists Canter. Others on the Usenet argue that if only a few people respond to a message that is accurately targeted, that's just too bad. Making a fortune has never been easy, and doing it by trampling on other people's sensibilities is sure to arouse resentment. Canter and Siegel counter that the violent reaction to their message comes from a small elite that has had the Usenet to itself for years, and resents other people using it to make money. Siegel goes further by suggesting that people who discourage spamming are opposing the right to freedom of speech. Vocal Usenet users dismiss this as a red herring. Their protest is not against the content of the posting, but where it is placed. 'It's rather like they stood up in the middle of a movie and yelled about their next product, then went to the next theatre and yelled about it there; and in fact did it in theatres all around the world simultaneously,' says Gillogly. One of the hottest debates in newsgroups that discuss the administration of the Internet is the best way to stop spamming. In April a Norwegian programmer devised a 'cancelbot' - a program that automatically detects postings from Canter and Siegel and deletes them. But some people, though implacable opponents of Canter and Siegel's methods, say this would be contrary to netiquette because it amounts to censorship on the basis of name. Others suggest that service providers should impose some sort of restriction on anyone who joins the Internet and posts more than, say, 30 messages in a day or sends the same message to more than 50 newsgroups. Alternatively, such articles could simply attract a general cancelbot. Another group of people have set themselves up as 'Net judges', to whom copies of widely posted messages are sent urgently (This Week, 1 October). If they agree that a message has been spammed, they may issue a cancelbot. This has, however, led to accusations that the court is behaving dictatorially. The argument continues on the Usenet around the clock. Ultimately, Canter and Siegel expect their viewpoint to prevail. 'Every time something new happens on the Usenet, somebody there predicts it's going to destroy it,' says Canter. 'But it doesn't.' Ron Newman, a programmer at the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, believes that many companies will think twice before spamming, though not everyone will stop. 'People with no reputation to think about - ambulance-chasing lawyers, get-rich-quick scam artists, sellers of worthless products - will continue to infest the Net unless some concerted effort is made to keep them off.' The stage is set for a fight, possibly to the electronic death. New Scientist Volume 144. Issue 1952. COPYRIGHT (C) IPC MAGAZINES LTD. 1985 - 1995 -- Ron Newman MIT Media Laboratory rnewman@media.mit.edu