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November 18, 2003
Tuesday Tropism
Abandon All Hope. What if there were no effective technical solution to spam? There are those of us who still think the majority of the people do not mean to cause harm to the Internet. But then there are the spammers who once again prove the Tragedy of the Commons. That is, there is an individual economic incentive to destroy the thing that is providing for your very existence. At least, this is the argument that I think DiveIntoMark is trying to make when he says spammers will win the battle of comment spam on content management systems like MovableType.
It seems Jay Allen, of MT-Blacklist fame, is starting a global effort against comment spam. DiveIntoMark apparently feels it won't work. That, in fact, the spammers are faster and more agile than any individual trying to stop them. That they will turn and attack Mr. Allen. That since there is no way to "win" the war against spam Jay should, I guess, just roll over and play dead.
Maybe DiveIntoMark is right. There are many instances of where the tragedy occurs. We see it here in Hawai'i where the fish which were in such abundance are now completely gone. Where the rolling hills were once covered in green trees are now completely gone. Where the fresh waters once ran clean and clear are now either completely gone or so polluted it has to be infused with poisons like chlorine just to drink it. But that does not mean it has to be that way. The solution, if not technical in nature, can and perhaps should be, economic.
What that economic solution would look like I can't say. But as far as I'm concerned, I think Mr. Allen is at least trying to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
On the Other Hand. According to an article from CNN, the end of pop-up spam may be in sight. Now that Microsoft, who sells pop-up ads in its HotMail site, is saying they will include a pop-up filter to disable such ads in their Internet Explorer, it may decrease the utility of said ads. Of course, never believe that the advertisers will just sit back and do nothing. They will, I'm sure, try to program around filters by using javascript (another reason to disable javascript) or other means to fool the filters. But at least, we hope, the change to IE will make a major economic dent in their revenues.
Aloha!
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Comments
I don't think the MS solution is going to make much of a difference.
To me it sounds as if they are saying 'now you can choose to use our seive with or without the handle' IE remains a seive.
Posted by: sjon at November 18, 2003 11:22 AM
While Mark may be on the right track when it comes to eliminating global spam, the MT Comment spam which Jay Allen is working on stands a very good chance of being eliminated. Comments are a very simple medium where there is simply no room for tricks with html and the like. At the end of the day the comment can be reduced to plain text, and that levels the playing field a lot.
Sure they'll try tricks, but they'll make the message less readable for the intended target and will still be easier to remove.
Global spam. Different kettle of fish.
Posted by: Phil at November 18, 2003 08:56 PM