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Re: [Asrg] Spam Ecomomics - WHITELISTING FEES.
2004-12-31 09:35:29
While I agree with the economics presented here generally. I believe we
can go one step further and only inflict payments for those that want to
pay for insurance they will not be blacklisted.
The worse the spam crises becomes, the more valuable whitelisting is.
In effect, advertisers are paying for the delivery costs so that they
will not be blocked.
If for example, any of the over 4 million IP addresses I am now blocking
would pay a tenth of a cent for each email, I would be happy to unblock
them. All that is missing is a standard for them to discover what
payment I will accept, and how to make payment.
This fully decentralizes the process down to the individual email
server. It requires setting not standards for what is spam or how many
email anyone can send or receive. It lets each provider set their own
standards.
Providers can restrict emailing activities of their users and pay not
whitelisting fees, or they can pay for whitelisting.
While every advertiser paying every server could become rather huge, it
is more likely SMTP relays would pay servers on behalf of all the
advertisers they provide SMTP servise for. In any case the transaction
volume would be small compared to the spam traffic.
It is the end user is who is ultimately important, and the end user can
filter or block anything they wish. The end user should also be allowed
to charge for whitelisting advertisers, independently from their email
server and network server whitelists. I expect many advertisers would
be willing to pay the end user as well, if they could be reasonably
assured the email is actually received. Free internet could be a
reality for those willing to accept targeted free advertising in a free
and open global market.
My spam policy, "Spam me once, sham on you, spam me twice shame on me.",
is a hard line against spam, not by choice, but by necessity. With a
whitelist payment standard advertisers have a choice, they can be
blocked, or they can pay. Currently, the spam crises means that all
advertising on the net must suffer because there is no way to pay your
way. Advertising should pay the bill for our public networks.
Whitelisting fee payment standards could provide a means for them to do
so voluntarily without regulatory restrictions in a free market.
Jim
(i copied my prior thoughts below as supporting material)
Hannigan, Martin wrote:
I'm not sure how my thoughts earlier this/last week turned into
"pay per", but let me try one last annoying time to clarify.
End User (Ease of Use)
The end user sees no change in the operation of email services
on the Internet. They do see a chance in the service offering
where they are now allowed to send and receive X number of emails
per month based on the service plan that they have subscribed to
with their provider.
The Provider (Email)
The provider email operations establishes a real cost based on
the fractional sampling of settlement(IP)data they use to determine
payables or receivables on their peering contracts. They take this
cost, apply it to their product, and determine what the value of
email is and apply it in the form of "the cap".
The Provider (Billing)
A chance to the mail receipt and delivery mechanism must be made in
order to generate an acceptable accounting record so that a fair
determinatioin can be made when a user is in overage, and, what the
amount the user will owe. The mechanism for determination is up to
the provider i.e. counts in SS7 reachable databases, CA dips, or
whatever mechanism is cost effective for them.
The Provider (Network)
Provider will have to extrapolate the cost of SMTP traffic vs. other
traffic from their peering data. The cost is then in turn broken out
by customer. In the case of 'always connected' customers, they too are
alloted a specific amount of SMTP b/w and are charged for overage based
on normal usage patterns i.e. 95th percentile, etc. This is doable today.
The Spammer (Inclusive)
The spammer is now just an end user and they too will pay. Since they
don't spam from their own connections, it has little impact on the,m.
The End User (cost)
End users incurs no additional cost unless they violate their
plan. In the case of "stolen" SMTP traffic, the end user pays
since they didn't "do the right thing".
Rational: Does anyone mount a dialup line on the outside of their
home and label it "DIALUP LINE"
Does anyone leave their cell phone in a bar with a label that
says "USE ME" on it?
If your kids pickup the phone and start calling 900 numbers, who's fault
is that? The telco? The CLEC? The government?
The End Result
Spammers incentive is rapidly decreased. It now becomes a hard job.
This drives up rental costs. This discourages some. The costs rise
as time goes on until the spammers start collapsing and "going out
of business" [ Remember, the spammers are now NOT the originator,
someone else gets paid to do the spamming ]
Best case, the spammers return to their old methods of using their own
hosts and trying to find places to run them. Fine, but they are paying
or driving up the ISP's cost and they are charged accordingly. It is
un-profitable.
The spammer dies a painful and noisy death, deprived of the income he was
once enjoying due to reversal of SPAM economics and the SPAM sponsors
(botnet
customers) have little recourse.
The Big Picture
We can then move on to signing emails, authentication, etc. things that
are very important but because SPAM destroys all hope for the future of
email, are not taken as a priority by the majority.
SPAM EcoNomIc Model "SPAMEMIM" (Like "Eminem")
NSP -- LAYER 4 IMPORTANT
ISP -- LAYER 3
SPAMMER -- LAYER 2
ENDUSER -- LAYER 1 LESS IMPORTANT
At layer 3 and 4, economic attack.
At layer 3 and 1, technology attack.
Relationship Matrix
Layer 3 and 4
Layer 3 and 1
There's never a relationship top Layer 2 i.e. noone spends
time on "getting" the spammer, the efforts are focusing on
fixing the user.
-M<
--
Martin Hannigan (c) 617-388-2663
VeriSign, Inc. (w) 703-948-7018
Network Engineer IV Operations & Infrastructure
hannigan(_at_)verisign(_dot_)com
It is unfair that a few network abusers consume much of the bandwidth.
But we want profitable use of the network. Those that use an obscene
excess of our shared resources should pay.
My comments are more of the philosophical and PERSONAL MOTIVATION side,
on how should spam be paid for in a free market.
I block IP addresses after just one spam. I block groups of 256 IP
addresses with 3 or more offending IP addresses.
I punish them to protect my systems from overload. But it they would
pay me, I be happy to unblock them.
It would be good, in principle, for those who used an excesses of our
resources would pay those using less than their share. In the spirit of
commercial television, the advertisers could pay for the whole system
We all have the power to block or unblock, but there is no standard for
payment for unblocking.
Many advertisers now balking at email advertising may use it if they
could be assured they will not be blocked or sued. There is a social
cost to spam, our time, our computing resources and networks.
Advertising on the Internet saves money and resources. An added cost of
a penny for an add the recipient actually received, for example, would
still be a small fraction of printing and postage costs.
What does it cost? The only reasonable choice is free market value. I
am currently blocking over four million IP addresses from reaching about
400 real email accounts. I have no choice really, except to upgrade my
email server. If I were to open the flood gates, my server will become
overloaded by spam filters and crash. Everyone we get to this point if
spam continues to grow exponentially.
I doubt many of the IP addresses I block are legitimately following the
can spam requirements and should be blocked. But some of them, and many
other businesses wanting to reach our users pay to get theory message
across. To make the system scalable they must pay for the resources
they utilize.
I could handle about four times as much email with about a $500 per
month upgrade. That come out to about 3/10 of a cent per added email.
Your millage may vary, but unless these economics are provided for the
system will fail. Scalable economics will promote growth and
stability. We all have the power to block and unblock, and do so
profitable for advertisers and networks collaboratively. There should
be a standard, but it will be the marketplace that decides ultimately.
Some system like this must emerge so that our networks can sustain growth.
Jim
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