Disgusting defeatism
If they can't do anything substantive about the spam problem, why don't they give US better tools to help fight spam. Something like SpamCop on steroids, with more rounds of analysis and human confirmation, and targeting not just the ISPs and webhosts, but EVERY other resource exploited by the spammers, such as reply addresses, fake opt-outs, link shorteners, slandered brand names, and especially the registrars.. Don't bang heads on the strongest defenses the spammers have (the sadly robust spambots), but go after them everywhere with some serious collective intelligence. Anyone else want to join an army of "ANGRY Good Samaritans Against Spam"? (Call it AGSAS?)
Reasons why I think this would be more effective in reducing spam:
1. There are lots of people who hate spam and only a few suckers the spammers are hunting for.
2. Whatever else the spammers automate, they can't automate the suckers.
3. However they obfuscate, they can't obfuscate beyond the suckers understanding.
Just for the obvious example, if Gmail included such a power spam-fighting tool, would you use it? Would the spammers even spam Gmail if they were certain of aggressive and intelligent countermeasures against ALL of their spamming infrastructure?
No one would have to participate, but even a small number of volunteers would be far more numerous than the suckers. Me? I want to be a spam-fighter first class.