I don't want to make filters unworkable - but I wish they were
unneccessary though.
If you're expecting authentication to obsolete filters, you've got quite
a surprise coming =) Like I said before, spammers will only find a way
to operate within a "trusted" environment (which as long as it's public,
will never truly be trusted). As long as domains are $8.95, this will
never happen.
Without the presence of some 'filter developer union' organization, and
its statment "We expect email will always be anonymous", any statement
by an individual can't be taken as the point of view of the 'industry'
as a whole. Many people can do the same thing (write filter systems) and
still hold different beliefs and philosophies.
1. There is a rather large group of filter developers, called the
spamfilt group. It is a private list, however, just for developers
which is probably why you may not have heard of it. This is how I was
able to craft an internet draft with the author of CRM114, along with
the input from several other filter developers such as those from
Bogofilter and SpamProbe.
2. The _foundation_ of statistical-based filters is that the real
pudding is in the content, and not the sender. They are designed by
nature to operate with the philosophy that headers are forgeable and all
mail is "untrusted"...even if you apply some type of semi-trusted
environment for email, these filters will continue to look at all mail
as untrusted.
So, I'd conclude:
Filters -> No dependence on anonymity (presence or lack of)
That doesn't seem to support any form of statment about filter writers
expectations for the future of email - only about their choice to design
tools which are independent of that future.
Real Paul's explanation of "the emails of the future". It is based
around content, not your incorrect belief that an authenticated method
of mail exchange will affect spam in any way.
It's very easy to sit here and criticize filters for ignoring things
that we think are important, but I would rather focus my attention on
the individuals who are actually coding these spam filters as they [we]
are far more familiar with what works and what doesn't, what will work
and what will not, and why the things that you think are important may
not actually be...rather than sitting and talking about theory, lets
take a look at the people who are actually accomplishing something at
fighting spam on the front-lines. In other words, it is the filters
that are already succeeding that validate your requirements doc....it's
not your requirements doc that validates the spam tools.
Jonathan
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg