Why do they put MP’s in charge of things that they have no knowledge of?

Take this guy, Derek Wyatt, Chairman of the Associate Party Internet Group. Check out their report on spam here, it’s a bit long and I’ve only scanned it.

They tell us what spam is and how it is sent, either from throwaway ISP accounts, open mail relays, or as is happening more often these days, viruses, or rather trojans. They also mention mass marketing outfits with their own machines connected to the internet, but forget to mention savvy geezers that can run a simple program, from their shell accounts, that spoofs the address and IP’s. Here’s more on how they do it.

So, how do the propose tackling it?

Make an email cost 1p or 1c each.

Yeah, like that will ever happen.

Have an opt-in or opt-out programme where you can opt-in or out of receiving spam, sorry marketing emails.

Righto, I can really see Queen Haji W. Omomo, the widow of His Royal Highness, King Ibru Omomo IX of “Mendes Kingdom” or Captain Kitili Alaumars, the corrupt chief officer of the Central Bank of Sierra Leone taking notice of those.

It’s OK though, Derek has the answer:

Current email address is:

derekwyatt@AOL.com

New address would be:

derekwyatt@AOL.swiaoaa.co.uk

Sw1aoaa being his postcode and .co.uk so that we know where the email has come from so an end to .com though .com.uk would be fine.

Since some, especially children, might balk at giving their postcode in an email the postcode can be exchanged for a pin number so:

derekwyatt@AOL.123456.co.uk or derekwyatt@AOL.123456.com.uk

The pin code is held by the Information Commissioner’s Office

ISPs would have to be persuaded of the need to resolve jurisdiction of email (14th Amendment US constitution) and if they can’t then EU and other governments would legislate.

So spammers would be traceable by postcode or pin number and country of origin.

Er…..how will that ever work? How? FFS!!!!! How? How will that stop people spoofing email addresses? Egads!

More info and wittier comment from The Register.

The Register tells us to think of the admin involved as well. Change every email address in the world to contain a postcode or some centrally located PIN (privacy anyone?). But how about countries without post or zip codes, Hong Kong for example.

Is there a solution to spam apart from blocking it on the client side? Probably, but the spammers will always find a way around it. The deep geeks figure everything out in the end:

DVD encryption - done
CD copy protection - done
Windows security - the list is almost endless