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Re: [ASRG] 0 - General, Reliability of Transport

2004-05-23 23:23:15
[Replying to two different messages here, but both from "Chris"
<asrg(_at_)rebel(_dot_)com(_dot_)au> and in the same thread.]

[Chris (replying to me)]

I doubt there is anyone here in camp 1; they can just turn off their
SMTP servers and go home, their goal achieved.  (There may be some
who _say_ they're in camp 1, but if they haven't just shut off their
mailers, they apparently don't actually mean it.)
I disagree some seem to agree with RTBL's and that is a camp 1
initiative

Let's go back and check out just what camp 1 is.

1/ Those that believe Spam should be stopped at any cost

You appear to be confusing "at any cost" with something more like "at a
cost I think is unreasonable".

[six lines quoted from Chris replying to "Daniel Feenberg"
<feenberg(_at_)nber(_dot_)org>]

What you are describing is group 1.
(1) To rule out spam detection at the MUA is to say "we know better
than you" to the recipient. so is firmly group 1.

I personally see group 1 as a holier than thou approach.  [...] it
assumes that the filter writer knows better than the end user as to
whats good for them.

This is not an issue of which camp someone falls into, but rather an
issue of whether the mail admin chooses to give users control.  _Every_
spam filtering technique has false positives - yes, even DK, SPF, etc;
people make configuration mistakes and software has bugs, even if the
procedures are theoretically perfect (and while I don't believe they
are, I can't cite examples off the top of my head).  Strictly, thus,
camp 2 ("Those that believe Spam should be countered but not at the
expense of losing possibly important messages") must do no filtering at
all, including human JHD filtering, because any such filtering will
eventually lose a "possibly important message".  (Such people will
presumably be taking non-filtering tacks on spam, such as legal
approaches; while such things have value, I'm not sure this is the
place for discussing them.)

"At any cost" means "at any cost", and the simplest, easiest, and most
effective way to stop spam is to stop all email.  There, problem solved
- for people who really do mean "at any cost".

RTBLs are not camp 1.  They are for people who think some costs, like
dropping all email, are too high, but who also finds find the costs of
not risking any ham stoppage to be too high as well, and are trying to
find a point that stops enough spam to keep them happy at a low enough
cost to keep them happy.  That they find that balance point on the side
of rejecting or dropping more mail than you do does not mean that they
want to stop spam "at any cost".  Just at a cost you find unacceptable.

As Daniel pointed out, there's a third group, those who believe that
spam should be SMTP-level rejected, never silently dropped, thereby
avoiding losing ham.  I hold myself to belong to this group.
[see below for why I quoted these three lines in full]

There's a fourth group, too, those who believe spam should be
countered to the point at which the chance of the defenses mistaking
a ham for a spam is less than the chance of a human, deleting spam,
making the same mistake.  I hold myself to belong to this group as
well.

Well lets call this 1a, You are saying drop all spam that ...

No.  Go back and reread my "third group" (this is why I quoted it in
full above).  I am arguing for dropping _nothing_.  Reject, or accept
and deliver; do not drop.  (And I believe that's what my filters do.)

In view of my "fourth group"'s description, I can see how you made this
mistake, because I was comparing the chance of ham being _lost_ due to
human error to the chance of ham being misidentified as spam, and thus
dropped, bounced, or whatever, due to software tripping on ham.  Unless
all identified-as-spam is silently dropped, contrary to my position
(per my self-identification with my "third group"), these are not
really as comparable as I made them sound; my apologies for the
confusion.

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