And I addressed that, Jerry. It is clear that spammers have no problem sending spam from home, that the risk of losing an account is not a major cost in spamming. But buying a laptop, an AC adapter, a wireless card and so on -- that *is* a major expense.

Your argument applies equally well to libraries, Internet cafes, kiosks in airports and bus stations, and so on. Should we be worried about what people are getting up to there?

I specifically said, Cory, that it might not make sense for a spammer to look for an open wireless network, but if someone already knew where one was -- say, perhaps someone put up some warchalking symbols -- it'd be mighty tempting. For one thing, an unsecured corporate network probably has at least a T1 behind it, which would sure beat sending millions of messages over a dial-up line. And, while losing a dial-up account is only a minor inconvenience, it's still an inconevience, and if you can get someone else blacklisted instead of yourself, all the better, no? Especially if you can pick up their signal from where you live, then you can do it from your couch.

My point is merely that if you let people use a resource for free, some of them are going to use it for unsavory things. If you know you're providing the resource for free, then you can take steps to prevent abuse, but I'd wager that most people who are providing public wireless access don't know they're doing so.

PersonalTelco just blocks outgoing connections on port 25.

"Losing an account for a spammer is the most minor of inconveniences."

Losing an online email account is nothing, but what if they report you to your isp? I live in an area with only one source for broadband access, I would not risk losing that for anything.

Nic, what makes you think that that DNS indicates an open wireless AP (do ISPs contact their customers and determine whether they are running an open wireless AP and then change their DNS?) as opposed to a fixed wireless broadband connection or a 3G or other cellular data system? In fact, rmci.net is a division of Velocitus, which offers fixed wireless broadband to rural customers, indicating that your spam originated with what amounts to a DSL customer, not a mythological "drive-by spammer."

Jerry, that argument doesn't hold water. Losing an account for a spammer is the most minor of inconveniences. Spammers have *no problem* spamming from home, using desktop PCs that cost a tiny fraction of the cost of laptops; compare that to switching to a laptop, buying a cigarette-lighter charger, getting into your car and driving around aimlessly -- why sould you do this, when you can just use well-understood techniques for locating open SMTP relays or other means of spamming?

Should the risk that someone, somewhere, someday *might* use a new beneficial technology to do something you don't like preclude using that technology at all?

Spam wouldn't exist without bulkmail software, but we don't ban bulkmail software. Other tools that are used in the production and dissemination of spam include perl, Python, Google, TCP/IP *und zo weiter*.

Printing to remote printers over IP networks is old news, and you don't need a wireless AP as a launching point for this sort of "attack" -- at best, you can use up some toner and paper, and doing so hardly threatens the safety of the free world.

Indeed... why risk losing your own Internet account when you could use someone else's and bring spamcop down on their heads? It might not be worth trying very hard to find an open wireless network, but if you know where one is, and you're a spammer, it's gotta be a no-brainer. I used to be able to get on someone's WAN from where I worked and it was all I could do to keep myself from printing porn on laser printers all over the country. (Open the Chooser, pick a city zone, select one of a dozen laser printers that appear, then print...) And I'm a nice guy, it's just THAT tempting. Imagine how tempting it is for people who aren't so nice.

I dunno - one of my dialup users just got spam with these headers:

Received: from mx20b.rmci.net (mx20b.rmci.net [205.162.184.38])
 by mail.angel.net (Postfix) with SMTP id D574625142
 for <xxxxxxx@angel.net>; Thu, 5 Sep 2002 15:49:59 -0400 (EDT)
Received: (qmail 2771 invoked from network); 5 Sep 2002 19:50:45 -0000
Received: from wireless-216-222-100-96.boi.rmci.net (HELO SMTP) (216.222.100.96)
  by mx20.rmci.net with SMTP; 5 Sep 2002 19:50:45 -0000
Subject: Brutal Rape galleries! Dweiss, it's your personal invitation!