Like most of the other people I know I now receive more spam than ham. I was interested to read that in the state of Virginia they have raised the penalties for sending unsolicited e-mail. It is now possible to be given a prison term of one to five years and to be fined. It also permits seizure of ill-gotten profits and income from the sale of spam advertising, similar to antiracketeering laws.

I realise that this is old news now as this law was passed in March but Communications of the ACM printed an article called Ending Spam’s Free Ride in this month’s edition.

Spam is now a felony in the state of Virginia, as long as the unsolicited messages contain falsified information about the sender. With the harshest anti-spam law in the United States recently passed, Virginia