China Signs Anti-Spam Pact

Iphtashu Fitz writes "The Chinese government has joined an international anti-spam effort started by the U.S. and UK. Over the weekend China stated that it would join international enforcement efforts against spam by adopting the London Action Plan on Spam Enforcement Collaboration. The London Action Plan was launched after a conference on spam enforcement hosted jointly by the UK Office of Fair Trading and the US Federal Trade Commission in London in October 2004. It was the first international forum to focus exclusively on spam enforcement. China is well known for being one of the biggest origins of spam, with as much as 20% of all junk e-mail originating from within its borders."

Re:Easy Solution!

[grub]

I'm assuming your friend's school has no Chinese students that would never need to keep in touch with family and friends back home? If I tried that at my workplace I'd be keelhauled (on a junk, but keelhauled nonetheless)

China signed = good. BAD for spammers :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that is cool. At least there we can hope for the death penalty for spammers. Go on, admit it - YOU want to wring their filthy necks every time your mailbox fills up. China will DO it, instead of the PC slap on the wrist the US/UK/Euro courts impose.

Ulterior Motives?

[twifosp]

I wonder how much of China's decision had to do with actual spam, rather than an additional form of information control.

Spam could potentially provide China's citizens with additional knowledge the government doesn't want them to know about.

It also cuts down on the amount of bulk China has to process to know what's happening with "its" internet. If China doesn't have to contend with spam, it can devote more resources to scanning their citizens software for disent.

Hey, I just thought of something: Maybe spam isn't a malicious, egregious and unsolicited marketing technique after all! Maybe it's just those countries trying to clog the internet filters with junk so they can disguise their normal communications. Spam is freeeeedom! If you try to squash spam, you're just one of them!

The revolution exists in penis enlargers and pain killers and we didn't even know it!

But they're in first place where it counts --

[commodoresloat]

the brutality of their human rights situation. While American spammers get off easy with a mere 9 years [slashdot.org] of taxpayer-subsidized television and weightlifting, we can expect Chinese spammers to receive the torture and hard labor they so richly deserve...

Yeah, like China really cares about the rule of la

[ShatteredDream]

And how many extrajudicial executions still happen in China? How about the laogai [laogai.org]? Buy something at Wal-Mart lately? Well it could have been made with slave^H^H^H^H^Hprison labor. Tibet, the Uhigurs in Western China, the censorship of the internet, their bellicosity toward Taiwan, aborting babies because they're girls and more. Oh and they pretty much let their hackers take pot shots at the US' infrastructure with maybe a slap on the wrist.

The US, EU and Japan aren't perfect, but they are a lot better than China. For my money, I blame it on the "middle kingdom complex." Let's be realistic, China doesn't even really pretend to care about any law other than what it creates, and even that is flimsy as there are numerous loopholes for the state to get out of trouble with. China isn't going to really do anything to stop spammers unless it means they might not get the 2008 olympics or they might lose their MFN status in the US and neither of those will happen over spam.

Move on kids, this is just another feel good thing by the politicians. Nothing to see here that you couldn't see on C-Span.

Re:China is only 4th (or so)

[Rei]

Per capita, China is a net saint (1/4 of the world's population, 1/7th of its spam). Per net user, it's pretty bad (China has about 40 million internet users; America has about 190 million). All in all, it is about what you'd expect for a newly-emerging net-connected nation (only about 2.4% of the population, last I checked, had net access).

Re:so the spammers..

[Tackhead]

> > so the spammers.. sign a pact to not spam? How does that work? The Chinese government is having enough trouble censoring normal internet traffic as it is. With 100 million internet users in the country, how big do those gateway mail relays need to be to be effectively blocking spam?

It's even less than a "pact not to spam".

Read between the lines of the "protocol" they've signed onto. It's basically an agreement between a bunch of bureaucrats to get together with fellow bureaucrats and gab at each other about how spam's bad, mmmmmkay. Not a damn thing on the list that could possibly result in the slightest hint of policy, let alone legislation or any other form of action.

> 1. Designate a point of contact

"which in the case of our country, happens to be /dev/null".

> 2. Encourage communication and coordination among the different Agencies...

"Hi Joe, how's things in your neck of the bureaucracy? Pretty cool too, huh? Great! Kthxbye!"

> 3. Take part in periodic conference calls, at least quarterly, with other appropriate participants to...

"See #2. Well, see #2 in 90 days. Reading this post out loud means we're already done for this quarter."

> 4. Encourage dialogue between...

"When we talk, we'll even say we'd like other people to talk to!"

> 5. Prioritize cases based on harm to victims when requesting international assistance.

"This guy pissed off a campaign contributor of a buddy of mine, so his folder goes to the top of the stack of papers in the disused lavatory at the bottom of the stairs with the sign on it saying 'Beware of the Leopard'. But it's due to get our attention faster than the ones at the bottom of the stack."

> 6. Complete the OECD Questionaire on ...

"If we can host one conference call per quarter, I suppose we can also approve funding for a #2 pencil."

> Encourage and support the involvement of less-developed countries in spam enforcement cooperation.

I could read that as...

"J0IN N0W! MAKE L0BBY1ST FA$T! WOR-K IN UR OWN PVT GOVER|\|MENT OFF1CE! All u need is 2 fill out paper and be SITTING IN ON ONE FONE CALL EVRY 90 DAYS!"

...but you might think I'm cynical or something. *sigh*

Re:Weird idea...

[taustin]

Given that virutally all spam is already criminal - advertising products that do not exist, that do not do what is claimed, that are blatantly illegal on their face, like drugs or child porn - and the criminal laws being broken are almost completely unenforced, given all that . . .

Why would you think that a new law would be enforced?

Re:China is only 4th (or so)

[Rei]

Actually, 40 million was a typo; it was supposed to read 30 million.

2.4% penetration, 1.3b people = 30m people. A reference for China's net penetration is here [financialexpress.com]:

"In the case of internet connectivity, South Korea once again comes out with flying colours. Twenty six out of every 100 South Koreans are connected to the world through internet while 12 out of every 100 persons in Malaysia have internet connection. Around 2.4 out of every 100 Chinese have internet access but India again is at the bottom of the list with a net penetration of just 0.4 per 100 persons."

Where's your number of 94 million coming from? Perhaps my ref (from Nov. 2004) was using out-of-date info. And does that 94 million number sync up with the timeframe of the spamming data?

Enforcement Issues & Sleazy ISPs

[mabu]

According to Spamhaus, whom I completely agree with based on my own experience, 80% of all known spam originates from no more than 200 "spam gangs" [spamhaus.org], most of whom are in the United States. If China cooperates by providing U.S. Authorities with the missing logs to track the illegal activities of these groups so that law enforcement can prosecute them, that will be a good thing. But it still comes down to law enforcement going after the spammers, which is something that's not being done. If just a few of these 200 spam gangs were criminally prosecuted, we'd probably see spam levels drop dramatically. So everyone should contact their District Attorney and demand that they pursue and prosecute these cases.

And then you have big corporations that are deliberately sabotaging anti-spam efforts. AT&T for example is hacking their nameservers to be authoritative for anti-spam RBLs [blitzed.org] so their users are unable to filter mail based on these services. That's unconscionable, and reason # 87,343 why you shouldn't do business with a provider like AT&T who is not only being ambivalent about spam, but actively interfering with their customers' own attempts to find superior solutions.