Fighting Abuse with Abuse is a Terrible Idea

Opinion — David Cary Hart

---

In order to address this issue I must – unapologetically – indulge in some generalizations about those who send spam.

1. Much of the spam that we receive is sent in direct violation of various federal and local laws. Many purveyors of spam are, simply stated, criminals.
2. A significant percentage of spam is transmitted over resources that do not belong to the sender. I have seen spammers openly claim that exploitable computers and proxies are "fair game." Nevertheless, I call it theft of services. It's no different than an illegal cable TV hookup or suggesting that it's acceptable to steal a car if someone leaves the keys in the ignition.
3. Medicine is one of the hottest spam trends. All on-line pharmaceutical sales to residents of the USA constitute the criminal sale of prescription drugs or controlled substances. There is little difference, under US law, between selling Viagra on the Internet and selling cocaine on the corner. Furthermore, a certain percentage of the prescription drugs sold on the Internet are inert, past-date or untested substitutions that could put the buyer's health at risk.
4. Some spammers are providing, or complicit in providing, criminal pornographic content that exploits children.

The bottom line — Most spammers are criminals.

However, if you linger in spammer forums, they generally regard themselves as unfairly maligned and misunderstood. They are just hard working folks who are trying to make an honest living through on-line marketing. They may consider themselves to be iconoclastic outlaws but not criminals. They regard anti-spammers has ham-fisted vigilantes. They actually embrace the notion that most people want spam.

Now, along comes something like Blue Security which attacks spammers by creating a distributed denial of service (DDoS). Then their CEO announces "agreements" with spam organizations. Blue provides the Do Not Intrude Registry and the spammer washes their lists. I don't negotiate with criminals and neither should Blue Security. Moreover, it is a reasonable certainty that list washing doesn't reduce spam; It just redirects some of it. It has no effect on the demand side of the equation.

It should also be noted that it is almost impossible to precisely target a DDoS. This will almost certainly create collateral damage such as a reduction in connectivity for many others which punishes non-spammers.

More importantly, fighting abuse with abuse is unethical, hypocritical and, possibly, illegal. In doing so, we surrender the moral high ground. Ultimately, by participating in these activities, the participant must adopt the idea and concede that the end justifies the means. In a civilized and moral society, we do not engage in bad behavior to stop the bad behavior of others. Societies have learned that doing so blurs the line delineating what is, and what is not, acceptable. We teach our children, in simplest terms, that "two wrongs don't make a right." There is no "except when someone sends us spam" in that phrase.

Spam is a serious problem but that does not provide an excuse to be above the law or to be above societal standards, regardless of the cause for doing so. In turn, this serves to provide the spammers with some degree of comfort that those who oppose what they do are no better than they are.

Personally, it occurs to me that worse than spam is to allow criminals to cause my behavior to become unethical or even unlawful. What do you think? Write a thoughtful opinion, in agreement or opposition, and I'll include it on our site.