Fine the zombie owners?

The anti spam legislative options workshop was very good (except that the webcast used me as their static image when ever there was a pause!).

One of the interesting ideas proposed was that owners of computers than get infected with viruses and become spam zombies (where the spammer sends spam through their infected machine to disguise the spammer’s identity), should face possible penalties. An analogy was made to the user of a faulty car which causes an accident.

I was interviewed by Radio NZ on this, and other spam issues. I didn’t advocate liability for zombie users (preferring education) but did note it may become more of an issue in the future. The interview was on Checkpoint last night which is online, but it is around 45 minutes through the programme and there is no fast forward.