We dusted off our old Weird Al album, and I noticed that his song It’s All About the Pentiums (lyrics) is suprisingly technically accurate.
Anyway, one line (“I never feed trolls and I don’t read spam”) got me thinking that the spam vigilantes (aka email censors) should go after the people who respond to spam, not the people who relay it. At least that would be effective (if less people respond to spam, there’s less incentive to send it) and might actually be positive (one has to suspect that most people who respond are scammed or fooled or something). Not that I endorse them, of course.
(For more on the stupidity of censoring people who relay mail, see John Gilmore’s story.)
Update: After posting this, some arsecandle blasted me with relay tests. Get a clue.