On Thu, Oct 23, 2003 at 07:23:08PM +0700, Brad Knowles wrote:
At 4:01 PM -0400 2003/10/22, David Maxwell wrote:
If the choice is between 'all mail servers are open, and all users must
accept spam' and 'mail servers authenticate connections in some way, and
activists need to create their own infrastructure to get messages out' -
I'll pick the second.
Would you be willing to bet your life on that? The life of your
family and friends? Would you be willing to have them tortured to
death while you watch, because you made this bet?
I can separate the emotional issues in that situation from the technical
problems caused by spam which are affecting all users of email. Can you?
Instead of using your energy to try to prevent progress in solving the
spam problem, why don't you use it to develop a system that supports a
solution to this problem you feel strongly about.
To _whom_ are the activists sending their messages? Are they spamming
them to random recipients, or to known contacts? If to known contacts,
why can't they use encryption to hide the content. If they're spamming
to unconsenting recipients, how is that any different (technically) from
commercial spam?
Encryption is usually highly illegal (as in, a capital offense)
in those places where the human rights workers are most likely to be
needed. Yes, they can use steganography techniques to try to hide
the crypto, but they're still taking a serious risk.
You get caught with this sort of stuff, and you get declared an
enemy of the state, guilt of spying and high treason. And then you
get executed.
That's after they torture you and make you watch while they
torture your family and friends to death.
You did not answer my question. You then followed with a statemen that
these activists who are already at risk due to the content they are
communicating would be at risk for using encryption... that seems to not
contribute to the discussion. Then you got emotional again.
If someone _consents_ to receiving mail from these activists, they can
configure an SMTP (or other protocol which might be less likely to
be sniffed!) server to accept connections from anyone, anonymously.
That in no way implies that everyone on the planet should be FORCED to
'consent' to accepting mail from anyone, anonymously.
--
David Maxwell, david(_at_)vex(_dot_)net|david(_at_)maxwell(_dot_)net --> Unless
you have a solution
when you tell them things like that, most people collapse into a gibbering,
unthinking mass. This is the same reason why you probably don't tell your
boss about everything you read on BugTraq! - Signal 11
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