There is this old saying "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth". Well this idea goes beyond that. Some pesky marketing firm sends you unsolicited spam, you click on a button in your email software to send them a virus. This virus will basically remove your email from their list, disable their mass emailing system, and sends an email to the Better Business Bureau reporting the violation. This would be a good way of getting even. I am sure you will never hear from that marketing company again. Guaranteed!
-- NXM, Dec 28 2002

you are absolutely correct...however there are traceroute capabilities you can use to determine the source of the spam email...
-- NXM, Dec 28 2002


The email is only the tip of the iceberg. Once you know where the email originated from in terms of ISP, then you can take action against the ISP. The ISP would then pressure those marketing companies to abide by their anti-spam policies.

Viruses may be illegal...but so is unsolicited spam. Now which of the two evils would you have? the lesser one perhaps? the question is which one is the lesser one?
-- NXM, Dec 28 2002


If I were a spammer, your ‘sent’ virus would not make it past my firewall. Sorry, no incoming mail to the spam server allowed (and just about everything else denied also).

Besides the obvious legal issue, leaving the transmission of viruses to individual discretion would certainly lead to worse problems. Suppose you didn’t care for the last mailing you received from your bank?
-- Shz, Dec 29 2002



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