Squeaky Wheels

This is how terrorism works in the real world.

An unusual spam war has erupted on the net, pitting an apparently irate spammer against an Israeli antispam firm that claims it's making junk e-mailers think twice about bugging its customers.

Blue Security's controversial method uses reverse spam, if you will, returning massive quantities of opt-out messages to companies it identifies as spammers.

Apparently the companies on the receiving end don't like it one bit.

In an escalation of hostilities this week, Blue Security customers began receiving thousands of messages demanding that members either drop the company's service or continue to receive an avalanche of unwanted e-mails. In addition, U.S. internet users were unable to access Blue Security's website Tuesday. The company said it is still investigating the cause, which may have been a distributed denial of service attack.

"We have devised a method to retrieve your address from their database," one message states. "So by signing up and remaining a Blue Security user not only are you opening yourself up for this, you are also potentially verifying your e-mail address through them to even more spammers."

The very idea that spammers have the gall to contact customers and threaten them to drop Blue Security is nearly beyond understanding until you look at our current culture of terrorism. Terrorists are increasingly getting their way. Terrorism has created the idea that nobody will stand up for themselves anymore. All you have to do is make trouble and anybody will give in to illegal, immoral, and even immature behavior. France has been great at giving in to rioters. Not only did a bunch of Muslims burning cars last way longer than it needed to, but now companies there have to put up with a mess of whiny youths with a warped sense of entitlement. Even here in the U.S., hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants have thrown enough of a hissy to turn the debate into some kind of racial issue rather than an issue of legality. It's so easy to be swept up in their rhetoric that you have to stop yourself and say, "Wait a minute. Shouldn't you be in jail instead of on CNN?"

The rule of law is old and stuffy while terrorism is becoming a chic. The gushing sympathy Hollywood, some pundits, and supposed leaders have for terrorists will be analyzed by future historians in the same manner current historians struggle to explain European appeasement during Hitler's rein. People watch the constant criticism against authority figures who try to enforce the rule of law. You would think every police officer and military member was part of an evil conspiracy to oppress minorities and get rich. The negative discourse about the War on Terror, law enforcement, and those who really don't like terrorists has turned intellectual debate on its head for trendy sound bites and in-your-face arguing (á la cable news debate shows). In addition to the lack of respect for law, there are also attacks on Western culture. The spineless flopping from the U.S. State Department trickled down to the U.S. news organizations, bookstores, and even Comedy Central over showing the image of Mohammed. So now everybody knows that businesses are easily intimidated.

So what's a seedy business to do in this modern world? That brings me back to Blue Security's attempt to give spammers a dose of their own medicine. Blue Security is not really doing anything illegal in the same way that spammers are not. Anti-spam laws are vague and have little in them to actually solve the problem. Spammers are a major annoyance, but they do not kill people. So I'm not implying they are terrorists. But what they are doing in response to a single company's defense strategy is to employ terrorist-type behavior. That behavior is this: "If you don't do as we say, we will make you miserable."

The world needs to pay attention to the people who are paying attention to the terrorists. They are learning what works and learning how to intimidate.

Popularity: 1% [?]