The kind of logic and the style of discussion which are shown in
the note below from Vernon Schryver are unfortunately becoming the
standard for this list. The result is, I believe, that the utility of
this list has all but been disipated. No matter what is proposed here,
there always seems to be a flury of comments, typically from the same
small group of high-volume contributors, that are much more focused on
trying to find problems than on helping to craft a solution. The result
is that progress is not being made.
Basically Vernon's argument below is that "We can't know what
spammers do unless we are they and even if we did know, if we took any
action based on that knowledge, then they would simply work around
whatever we did." If this kind of logic is accepted, then this entire
discussion is a waste of everybody's time.
I think the problem here is more the style of the discussion
than it is anything inherent to the problem space.
bob wyman
-----Original Message-----
From: asrg-admin(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org [mailto:asrg-admin(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org] On
Behalf Of
Vernon Schryver
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2003 10:00 PM
To: asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
Subject: RE: [Asrg] TitanKey and "white lies"... (Faking SMTP hard
errors "improves" C/R utility?)
From: Yakov Shafranovich <research(_at_)solidmatrix(_dot_)com>
[..]
It would be really swell if people proposing or criticising
mechanisms would pay attention to what they know (e.g. there's a lot
of spam), what they strongly suspect (*some* spammers do or do not
remove in response 550's), and what they wish (*most* spammers do or
do not respond to 550's).
Is there anyone out here that has some info on what spammers actually
do
with "550" and other error codes?
Part of paying attention to what one knows, strongly suspects, and only
wishes ought to be distinguishing what can be known from that which
can't.
Only spammers know what they actually do with SMTP error codes, and they
only know what they and their closest colleagues do. A description of
what "spammers actually do" in this context makes less sense than the
report of the committee of blind men describing the elephant, because
elephants don't change. Whatever spammers do today, if they need to,
they might switch tomorrow.
What does it mean to talk about "spammers"? There are only 500-1500
serious spammers today, but they use many different tools. They often
use their tools quite differently.
Say you found that 87.345% of all spammers today respond to 550's. You
could not conclude (or know) anything about yesterday or tomorrow.
Would you count "spammers" by counting spammer noses or spam email? What
if one of the "leads clubs" manages to recruit 100 new "home workers"?
(Yes, I'm mixing species of spammers). Whether you count noses or spam,
your percentage would surely be invalidated by whatever the new spammers
do.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com
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