ietf-asrg
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [Asrg] Ban the bounce; improved challenge-response systems

2003-04-06 14:43:40
At 08:42 AM 4/6/2003 -0700, you wrote:
I think the problem here is that some people think there is some sort of
obligation to remain tie to the lowest common denominator.

99% of internet users cannot send to UUCP. I see this a geek-tweak rather
than a serious constraint.

I find the third world argument unconvicing. I seriously doubt the nigerians
are sending their stuff over uucp. If uucp is no longer viable people wil
soon find a alternative.

We should make smtp work as well as it can. I seriously doubt that will
affect gateways to obsolete protocols, if it does, deal with it.

I agree.

I believe that if we come up with a new protocol that avoids SPAM, that doesn't mean that it shuts everyone else out or that we should tie ourselves to the lowest common denominator as you point out. If we worked towards the lowest common denominator, then I suspect finding a solution will be much more difficult if not impossible.

Instead, I would like to see a new and better protocol. The new mail programs could take advantage of it and its new capabilities. (I for one would like to see a References: header just like in NNTP for article threading though that has nothing to do with spam in itself.)

I believe that with a new protocol, people will switch as time allows. First inside the corporate world and who are primarily communicating with their co-workers. Then slowly the rest of the world. Meanwhile, I suspect the old techniques and protocols will fall by the wayside simply because of the spam. If people want to keep it that is ok. However, most everybody else would have moved on. In fact, I believe the analogy of the alt.* groups to be a good one. More freedom than the regular newsgroups but that same freedom has made the signal to noise ratio such that everybody more or less hangs out on the regular newsgroups.

Furthermore, I don't think we need to worry about blocking all spam. All I want to do is have it go into a "spam folder" or some such. So, some have worried about mailing lists etc. and being able to send confirmation messages to the mailing list server and how to handle automated systems such as this. Well, in this case, if all the old SMTP messages go to a special folder, I can check it when and if I subscribe to a mailing list. Meanwhile, I can / could simply ignore it and all the other spam that is in it.

So, quite frankly I don't care if I get spammed -- as long as I don't see it. If I see it then that is another matter.

-Art
--
Art Pollard
http://www.lextek.com/
Suppliers of High Performance Text Retrieval Engines.

_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg



<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>