On Tue, Mar 04, 2003 at 07:01:40PM -0500, Alan DeKok wrote:
Brad Templeton <brad(_at_)templetons(_dot_)com> wrote:
My concern was that dropping the amount of spam by 3 orders of
magnitude isn't enough. There are ISP's getting 100's of millions of
spams a day. Even at 1/1000 the rate, 100,000 spams a day is
problematic to deal with.
Surely no more than a couple of ISPs get that sort of volume?
However, the key test is this -- what's the volume compared to that
of normal mail. If, for example, it's 1% of normal mail, there
really isn't a server load question of significance. If currently
spam is 80% of all mail, a factor of 1000 would make it .4% of all
mail. Is spam now over 80% of all mail?
I just pulled 3 orders of magnitude out of a hat. I'm not sure
we can get it, but I would like to try. I don't think we can hope
for more, nor should we.
We're not dealing just with spam delivered to end users. We're also
dealing with about the same amount of traffic again, which is
undeliverable mail. That has a cost, too.
In theory, though not yet proven, I think if you dropped the
effectiveness of spam by 3 orders of magnitude, the spammers would
actually cut back their activites. Just not worth it. However,
I am not including that drop in the 3 orders. Though we might do
ok if we can block 99% of spam and that causes 90% of spammers to
give up to get the same result. In that case the effectiveness logic
is somewhat different.
There definitely comes a point where if we are successful, the
spammers have no reason to keep going. It does cost them something
after all -- both money, and risk, and reputation if they have any
to start with.
I agree that's not the problem. The problem is the 10,000 other
companies who are clueless, and who are trying to get your business.
You have no relationship with them, and don't want one. But they have
the time and money to drive you crazy with spam attempts.
Well, so you are saying whatever rule we set, people can break it.
And that's true. Thus we want a way, I believe to shut them out,
and/or punish them when they break it. No matter what rule we
define.
Under the definition I propose, they can't trade mailing addresses,
unless you consent to this.
Why would they care?
They would not care. The system has to care though, it has to
decide what to punish, what has to be sent a different way.
I think we're talking at cross purposes. The spam *I* get is from
people wanting to sell me something. I don't know how they got my
address, and I don't care. I just want it to stop.
We all want that to stop. Some of us however, resist any reduction
in the open designs of E-mail that is more than absolutely necessary
to fix the problem.
You could make it stop any number of ways that you would agree are
far too drastic. The goal is to stop it without blocking legitimate
mail, the kind we built the e-mail system for.
It's the *other* 10,000 companies that I don't want to do business
who are the cause of the problem. They're hidden behind layers of
paperwork, and are nearly impossible for the average person to trace
(technically, or legally). I'm not convinced that legislation will
help.
That I fully agree with. So what are you arguing against that I
said?
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