Read the "Fine Print".  As an ISP, We were very active it trying to get laws passed ... but not this one!  We were ignored.  The "Spam King" himself was there and he won.  Billy Boy Gates was there and he had a good solution but it was constructed to bring BILLIONS more into Microsoft so Congress saw through that. The bill is leaving it up to the ISP's to hunt down, and PROVE the source ... not the server that happened to deliver it.  Congress claims that "The ISP's are more equipped to trace and therefore report the original source of the offending messages".  If we could do that, we would have already beat the Spammers.

What our small "consortium" of ISP's were requesting was that laws be passed imposing some regulations on ISP's at a National level. Here is the 30 second version:

1 Make it illegal to accept mail from unqualified senders (no RDNS)

2. Review ALL RFC's, toss out the ones dating back to the tin can and string days, re-write them and turn them into RULES ... not "Suggested Standards" as they are now.

3. Establish a legally responsible committee to create a UNIFIED, NON SUBJECTIVE dnsbl list that is publicly accessible via zone transfers and maintains a SMALL monthly fee to use ... i.e. free to individuals, (no zone transfers), and no more than $10 - $100 / month for ISP's.  Not to make money but to pay for the equipment and people.

4. Impose strict logging and archiving regulations

5. Set up regulations on how List Servers are REGISTERED and regulate their header constructs.

Remember ... WE, THE ISP's want these "imposed" on us so we have something to stand on when our customers complain about not getting mail from China.

Once the above was in place, We (the ISP's) could block using dns, & dnsbls.  Our belief it that once zero USA mail servers will accept mail from unsecured off shore servers, the admins of those servers will be forced to fix them or not do electronic email to the US of A.  We felt that after a VERY short time, the vehicle of SPAM delivery would dry up and then the bill they passed may work for what is left over.

Programs such as SpamFilter will still be required to catch the dregs and still be required at the corporate level where they want to block stuff that is legal, but just plain obnoxious.

Need to get some sleep.

Dan S.

I think we can leave this discussion for some other forum but just a quick comment.   I am not trying to "brag", if that is the correct word, but I know how to trace source networks and in fact, the InfraStruct department of the FBI uses my services to unscramble headers and track source IP's and spoofing attempts so I do know where nearly all of my 100Kmessage/day traffic is being transported from.  As a result of my security involvement with the FBI & 20 years of VERY high security work directly employed by the US Government, I am "anal retentive" about logging and tracing.  How do you think I got so cynical about our Government's ability to understand and properly deal with Spam issues?  They can't even tie their own shoes without a six month debate.

My only desire it to have my customers be able to do their business via email without being distracted by body part enlargement adds.  The anti-spam bills coming out of the White House won't accomplish that.

Dan S.

PS:  Let's find some political forum to continue this!