On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 at 08:11:39AM +0000, Mark Delany wrote:
Okay. You'll need to use small words and short sentences for me. We
don't change MUAs, we don't change the inbound MTAs, we don't change
the ratware used by spammers, yet somehow by changing just the MTAs
used by legit bulk mailers we reduce spam? I've obviously missed
something.
I'm saying that I think getting all the users of the world to get a
new MUA is not possible, except over the course of many years.
I mean even with many companies offering MUAs that block 95% of spam
or more, including free ones, what is the adoption rate? These are
highly motivated people?
I think even getting all the MTAs upgraded is a major project. Yes,
desire to get rid of spam is huge. However, any new protocol asks
the _sender_ to get new software, not the recipient of the spam.
The only way you get the sender to get new software is if the sender
sees all his mail bouncing, which is a pretty dramatic step to take.
To one day get your MTA to say, "Sorry, you don't speak the new
anti-spam ESMTP. We don't take mail from you until you get a new
MTA!"
As I noted, there are people running old, wide-open versions of
sendmail out there.
Nonetheless, I think if we came up with a really workable solution
that people could endorse in this fractious community, and a way
to make the changeover take place over a year or more, it could
be done. It would be hard, but it could be done, and when the
final cutoff came, it would be very very hard, and a lot of
people would be very angry. Like a million small businesses where
some consultant installed Microsoft Exchange or Sendmail for them,
and they don't have the slightest idea how to upgrade it, and aren't
happy about paying $500 to get another consultant to come in and
do it. You're not thinking like the joe ordinary computer user,
most of whom are like the above small biz.
Sure, the big ISPs would put in the new MTAs, but that's not the
issue.
My view is, if we do it only for bulk mail, that's OK because that
small business is probably not hosting a mailing list. If they run
a mailing list the probably host it somewhere else. I would be
curious about stats on this, though.
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