ietf-asrg
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [Asrg] Usefulness of wholesale blocking of attachments for SMTP?

2004-04-22 06:53:21
mathew wrote:
On Apr 19, 2004, at 19:28, Yakov Shafranovich wrote:
...
I am refering to the issue of hijacked computers. With an e-postage system nothing stops a spammer from stealing Aunt Mary's computer via a virus and sending out spam with her e-postage account. Who is going to pay in that case? The usual response to that example is that her e-postage account will run out. This is basically the same as rate limiting and can be done today without resorting to e-postage. But rate limiting is not always possible such as when an ISP rents out the underlying connectivity from a third party. There was also a suggestion in one of the subgroups to write up a BCP describing how to do rate limiting.


Your logic here seems to be "having a limited supply of funds to be used for e-postage is a bit like rate limiting, and rate limiting is sometimes difficult, hence limiting e-postage funds is difficult". Needless to say, that doesn't follow at all. A dolphin is a bit like a fish, and fish can't breathe air, therefore dolphins can't breathe air.


What I am trying to say is that if the whole intent of e-postage is to do rate-limiting, then just do rate limiting and skip the e-postage.


Otherwise, I do not see what the ASRG or the IETF can do for or against e-postage - it is simply not within the scope of standards at this point.


Well, it might be useful to set out some requirements. Or is that not within the IETF's remit? (Serious question.)


It is more of an IRTF issue at this point, so if sufficient people want to pursue discussion on it, we can spill it off into a separate ASRG list.

However, what I am really interest in seeing about e-postage is discussion on how it can stop spam. Perhaps we can look into why people think that e-postage will stop spam and carry over those principles into other proposals. I want to isolate the principles of why e-postage will help from the actual technical problems involved with making e-postage work such double-spending.

Yakov
-------
Yakov Shafranovich / asrg <at> shaftek.org
SolidMatrix Technologies, Inc. / research <at> solidmatrix.com
"Some lies are easier to believe than the truth" (Dune)
-------

_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg



<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>