Re: Spamming in VN

Hello Hoanh,

At 10:34 25.04.2002 -0400, Tran Dinh Hoanh wrote:
-------------------------
>Dear Stefan and All,
>
>Spamming is indeed annoying, Stefan. But if we want anti-spam regulations,
>we need to have someone work seriously on freedom of speech and freedom of
>expression issues.

I do not want to get into that discussion. There are fairly clear
definitions about spam. And some of those "freedom groups" in the US are
definitely one of those who qualify as spammers. I have more than one angry
customer who gets pissed off because they continue to send unsolicited
mails to them.

> Any kind of restriction on the flow of information and
>freedom of expression should have some experts in these areas look at
>carefully. Otherwise in our passion to fight a nuisance, we may
>inadvertently create a more serious problem.

If I want to get "freedom of expression", then I can go to London's Hyde
Park or to similar sites on the web. If those Hyde Park preachers blare
their sermons with a megaphone into my living room, then pls. allow me to
get rid of them.

>Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are usually orphans. They will
>need some custodians to take care of them seriously.

Let the Vietnamese HERE take care of them. We do not need somebody from
outside tell us what we have to want. If you would live here, you could
probably experience what very encouraging changes are right now going on
here. Let it grow in peace and don't pull the plant, because you cannot
wait to get it larger fast enough.

>Thank you for your efforts, Stefan. Good luck, brother.

Good success to all of us!

Stefan

>Hoanh
>________
>Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
>Attorney at Law
>Washington DC
>hoanhtr@erols.com
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Stefan Probst <stefan.probst@opticom.v-nam.net>
>To: VNIT mailing list <vnit-l@coombs.anu.edu.au>; [ksd-vn discussion group]
><ksd-vn@vn-gw.anu.edu.au>
>Cc: VNITI mailing list <vniti-l@coombs.anu.edu.au>; <WG-Spam@isoc-vn.org>
>Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 12:43 AM
>Subject: [ksd-vn] Re: [vnit] Spamming in VN
>
>
>sent to ksd-vn by Stefan Probst <stefan.probst@opticom.v-nam.net>
>
>Dear All,
>
>as many of you have got aware of, spam is getting more and more annoying -
>and costly - in Vietnam. If not stopped now in the beginning, it might
>become a serious reason for private people not to use the Internet very
>much in the future. It is time that we try to stem the flood.
>
>This is to announce the formation of a mailing list to fight against spam:
>
>It looks to me, that there should be a four-pronged approach:
>- Educating the public about spam.
> Many Vietnamese are not aware that spam is a "bad thing" to do.
>- Working together with Internet Providers to include anti-spam regulations
> in their customer contracts, and to enforce them, if necessary.
>- Helping postmasters to block spam from their servers.
>- Trying to get legislation passed in such a way, that spamming
> is a legal offense and can be dealt with by law enforcing agencies
> (e.g. the police).
>
>In order to co-ordinate those activities, we've setup a new eMail list.
>Everybody interested in the matter is invited to subscribe, e.g. by using
>this link http://www.isoc-vn.org/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi and then selecting
>the "WG-Spam".
>If you have difficulties, you may mail directly to me and ask for
>subscription.
>
>Postmasters of Vietnamese ISPs have been in the past very responsive about
>spam complaints. I get repeatedly praise for their prompt actions in the
>past from my friends abroad. I do hope very much, that they will be also
>part of the list. It is usually in the very own interest of every ISP to
>stop spammers.
>
>We will produce also papers etc., which will be published on the ISOC-VN
>website.
>
>Looking forward to your subscription and active participation,
>
>Cheers,
>Stefan
>
>
>
>At 15:06 06.04.2002 +0700, Viet Tran wrote:
>-------------------------
> >Attached is an interesting article related to Spamming.
> >Our really painful experience related to spamming in VN is still going on
> >daily.
> >Everyday we received at least 40-50 unsolicited emails introducing new
> >products,
> >sales brochures, specials, etc... from many irresponsible Vietnamese IT
> >companies (mainly hardware). Many of these emails included nasty
>attachments
> >which are prone to viruses (Doc, HTML, Excel, ... None of them uses PDF),
>and
> >huge graphic files. It takes us no less than 20 minutes to down load these
> >emails, 10 minutes to sort out and delete those useless ones, and then
> >save 3-4
> >of our business related emails. Recently, one big name hardware vendor
> >sent us 3
> >emails in 3 days which took us 15 minutes to down load each of their email
> >(4-5
> >MB with graphic brochures). I did use harsh language in my replies to them.
>At
> >last I contacted the MD for this group and it was stopped. What if I did
>not
> >know anyone there ???
> >
> >We have informed our ISP, VDC, but there is no way spamming can be stopped
>at
> >the delivery end of the VDC email server. So, we continue receiving and
>paying
> >wasteful telephone, internet costs and our extra time in sorting spam out
> >of our
> >real emails. Imagine after a long holiday, you end up with a few hundred
>(450
> >emails) to down load and sort out. It was quite an effort. Sometimes the
>down
> >loading was broken in the middle and we had to start from scratch again.
>This
> >is a real revenue generation device for ISP and VNPT !!!
> >I guess, this is a common problem for most companies. Anyone else has
> >complained
> >about this ? Let's form an anti-spamming list ?
> >
> >Are these spamming activities supported by ISP ? This probably generates a
>lot
> >more traffic than the normal non-spamming emails. Furthermore it is based
>on
> >coercive users-pay principle ! i.e. the target had to pay for the seller's
> >advertising campaign. There is no way for tartget users to stop it, no way
>of
> >getting out of this hassel and wasteful costs.
> >My question is:
> > 1. Is there any VN law related to online advertisement control that can
>be
> >used to sue these spammers ? Believe me I will sue them !
> > 2. Can ISP do anything about this, considered this is an essential
> > service to
> >their customers ? I will switch to the one who can stop this spamming at
> >source
> >or at their servers end.
> > 3. Any software that can be used effectively to solve this problem
> > with and
> >without ISP involvement ?
> >
> >Regards
> >Viet Tran
>
>
>Knowledge Systems in Development - Viet Nam
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>
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