On Sat, Mar 22, 2003 at 03:07:57PM -0800, william(_at_)elan(_dot_)net wrote
I'v thought about all this before. I think it might be worth our time
to define standard "mail-filter configuration" protocol. I imagine
this being as something that would be located on some central database
server and it would have "user configuration" update queries and
"mail server check" read-only queries.
Why a central database server ? I could understand it if you mean
central for the ISP, but not available to the entire internet. If a
spammer finds out which domains and addresses you've whitelisted, you're
in for a whole bunch of spam.
Yes, central to ISP. It would need to have authentication as I already
mentioned (authentication may very well be ip check for read-only).
Actually this info might be "shared" with authorized outside servers in some
way too, but we should be carefull on that and I'd not go so far just now.
For client side they could have special program just for filtering
configuration, it could be built into mail client or could be web-based,
but all would be able to access same configuraiton database. Also when
users moves from one isp to another, he could retain his settings, which
is very usefull.
Let's put the horse before the cart. If we have a standard protocol
for defining filters, that requires that we have a standard list of
filter features available. The set of available features is going to
change over time. And not every ISP is going to implement them. A
"user-friendly menu-driven" configurater will help, but it's going to be
different at different ISPs. Or are you asking instead for consistent
"look-and-feel" for the menus?
Don't really care about menus, that up to MUA or filtering client. But
some standard menuing choices might be noice. I mean we do have fairly
standard list of features in any word processing - like Theasaurus, Insert
Table, etc.
----
William Leibzon
Elan Communications Inc.
william(_at_)elan(_dot_)net
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