[TriLUG] NC spam laws?

[Bradford Powell]

<IANAL>

Unless there is something more current, I believe the relevant bill to be
S288 from 1999
<http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/html1999/bills/AllVersions/Senate/s288vc.html>.
(Unfortunately that link wasn't working when I tried it, but the problem
may be temporary).

Section 1-539.2A of the General Statutes covers the recoverable
damages. Unfortunately it is only $10/email + the costs of the suit (up 
to $25,000/day). I think the law is probably more useful for people who
host sites rather than individuals.

</IANAL>

But bringing this subject up gives me a chance to talk about a honeypot
idea for spammers who harvest addresses from web pages (will only work for
someone who routes mail):

I saw somewhere online someone else's idea to create a script that makes
random email addresses to non-existant domains to cause excess work for
programs that send spam.

My idea is slightly different. Somewhere on your site, place a page or
portion of a page that would not ordinarily be visible to someone reading
it (perhaps text same color as background, with text something like:

	The following address: 3jkjsa at mindspring.com
	is not a real address, and you shouldn't send email to it.

Then, whenever you get email at that address, you have a strong indicator
that it is spam and you can seed your "certain to be spam" file or spam
blacklist or whatever.

Probably not a unique idea, but I have not seen mention of it elsewhere.

-- Bradford Powell