Should we use DDoS to fight spam?
comment On April 12, 1994, spam first entered the Internet world in the form of an unsolicited Usenet advertisement, sometimes referred to as the “green card lottery” posting. The day this infamous message began making its rounds, I knew that the era of commercial-free communication on the Net had ended. Over the next decade, unsolicited e-mail would flourish into a lucrative underground industry, helping to create a global cesspool of electronic junk. Ask any group of computer users how they feel about junk e-mail, and the vast majority of responses will surely be negative. But ask that same group of people how they think we can stop junk e-mail, and few, if any, will be able to offer a feasible solution. Literally dozens of methods exist for fighting unsolicited e-mail, but none are completely effective. The key is to stop spam at the source. A Virginia court recently sentenced one junk e-mailer to a nine-year prison term for violating a state law about e-mail marketing. While this c
