ietf-asrg
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RE: [Asrg] 0. General - Define Spam

2004-01-04 21:47:31
What IS warranted, with complete deference to your analysis of the 'political' 
nature of a definition of 'spam', is a definition of the 'problem.'  Jon has 
started the ball rolling again I think in that vein, however as we know a 
precise definition of the term 'spam' is not feasible the term "unwanted e-mail 
messages" is overly broad, IMO.  I think "indiscriminate e-mail messages" is 
more precise.

in-dis-crim-i-nate (in di skrim'uh nit)  adj.
                  1.  not discriminating; lacking in care,
                       judgment, selectivity, etc.
                  2.  not discriminate; haphazard.
                  3.  thrown together; jumbled.
             [1590-1600]
   Derived words
             --in dis-crim'i-nate-ly, adv.
             --in dis-crim'i-nate-ness, in dis-crim i-na'tion(
               -nay'shuhn), n.

-e

On Sunday, January 04, 2004 9:46 PM, John Levine 
[SMTP:asrg(_at_)johnlevine(_dot_)com] 
wrote:
The new charter seems to define spam as "problematic email".

Right.

An exact definition spam is a political topic, not a technical one,
and is not within the purview of ASRG.  If you look at all the halfway
plausible definitions of spam, such as UBE, UCE, or mail that users
complain to their ISPs about, they all describe about 95% the same
mail, so for most purposes any definition will do.

For any proposed anti-spam topic or technique, it would be a good idea
to describe what it deals with.  For the various LMAP proposals, for
example, it appears to me to be "mail sent from hosts other than ones
authorized by the owner of the domain in the envelope return address."

The question of a precise definition of spam has been beaten to death
at such length in so many places that I'm surprised to see it coming
up again.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl(_at_)taugh(_dot_)com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
http://www.taugh.com


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