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Date:      Tue, 27 Oct 1998 22:39:39 -0800
From:      Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
To:        "Jason C. Wells" <jcwells@u.washington.edu>
Cc:        FreeBSD-chat <freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG>, jmb@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: First SPAM prosecution in Washington State 
Message-ID:  <199810280639.WAA00998@dingo.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 27 Oct 1998 22:29:17 PST." <Pine.BSF.4.05.9810272221170.805-100000@s8-37-26.student.washington.edu> 

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> The Project.Manager email is curious. It states compliance with new bill
> (not law) of some unknown governing authority's unknown law book. I smell
> HOAX all over it.

It's a common tactic, referring to the probably soon-to-be-passed 
legislation here which will make spam about as legitimate as physical 
junk mail.  The Direct Marketting Association have lots of lobbying 
capital.

> It reminded me of something though.
> 
> The State of Washington is prosecuting a spammer under our new anti-spam
> law. The penalty can be as much as 2,000 USD per email sent.
> 
> One of the items needed is a legitimate return email adress. Let me ask
> you, Is Project.Manager@freebsd.org a legitimate address? (I really doubt
> it but must ask.)

No, it's not.  I didn't study the headers carefully, but I believe it 
also fails in that it made some attempt to conceal the true origins of 
the message.

> If not, then this spammer might be prosecuted under Washington State Law.
> This would be interesting to see how our law handles "mailing lists".
> Since I am a resident of Washington, every single spammer who hits
> FreeBSD-whatever could face charges.

I believe there's probably a case there.  The act of delivering to the
list@freebsd.org address counts as delivering to you, a Washington 
State resident; the law doesn't, to the best of my knowledge, stipulate 
where the mail has to be held, merely to whom it is sent and the 
fashion and form in which it is sent.

-- 
\\  Sometimes you're ahead,       \\  Mike Smith
\\  sometimes you're behind.      \\  mike@smith.net.au
\\  The race is long, and in the  \\  msmith@freebsd.org
\\  end it's only with yourself.  \\  msmith@cdrom.com



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