ietf-asrg
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RE: [Asrg] Two ways to look at spam

2003-07-01 14:31:31
At 03:30 PM 7/1/2003 -0400, Barry Shein wrote:


 At 03:35 PM 6/29/2003 -0400, Paul Judge wrote:
> >Just as in any other business, the profit in spamming is equal to revenues
 > >minus costs. In spamming, revenue is equal to the number of spam messages
> >received times the response rate times the profit per item. Expenses include
I will point out that the hard evidence for this is lacking.

[..]
More to the point I would assert that if we don't endeavor to nail
down hard evidence and work forward from there we're in great danger
of shadow-boxing with our own imaginings about how we would like to
think spammers operate.

I realize the urge to show progress is great and fact-gathering sounds
like a frustrating impediment to some, but...how bad would it be if
our efforts turned out to be foolish and disconnected from reality,
research into a June bug*?

Great, what kind of evidence or things should we be looking for? From (http://www.irtf.org/asrg/asrg-work-items.txt):

---snip---
2.a. Spam Measurements. This works needs to be focused on immediately. This data will help us understand the current weaknesses in the system and where efforts should be focused. Requirements need to be set and then we have to gather the data. I see two separate paths here: One is based on user survey input. Ted Gavin has volunteered to conduct this. The other data is based on real spam measurements. Once the requirements are gathered, Brightmail, CipherTrust, CloudMark and MessageLabs have each volunteered to contribute information. Any other volunteers?
---snip--

As you can see Brightmail, CipherTrust and a bunch of others agreed to provide data. All we need is to define what we are looking for.

Yakov

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