On Apr 03 2006, Seth Breidbart wrote:
Laird Breyer <laird(_at_)lbreyer(_dot_)com> wrote:
On Apr 03 2006, John Levine wrote:
Not really. I get spam complaints all the time for mail from lists
that I know perfectly well that they signed up for and confirmed.
"Oh, I don't want that any more." For the ones that aren't totally
redacted, my setup turns them into unsubs so they don't get any more
mail for that particular list, but I don't think it's fair to count
mail as spam if it depends on reading the recipient's mind in
real-time.
Isn't that perilously close to saying that if they decided something
in the past, they're not allowed to change their mind?
No. If someone asked for something, they're certainly entitled to
change their mind and request (and enforce) not getting it. They're
not entitled to change their mind and decide they never asked for it.
That's because you're using the "consent" version of the spam definition.
You're not using the "spam is what I don't want" definition. Reread
John's paragraph, he wrote "Oh, I don't want that any more".
My position is that there's absolutely nothing wrong with the "spam
is what I say is spam" definition. It's workable, provided you keep
spam filtering at the ends of the network, ie the desktop.
You can't actually _filter_ according to that rule.
As I said, it's a matter of obtaining timely feedback. But you are
entirely right in saying that some systems, especially large
multi-user heavy traffic systems today can't possibly do this well.
I'm not pushing the definition on anybody, I'm defending it as valid and
freely admit that it's best applied to filtering at the MUA level.
Describe how you'd test greylisting without perturbing the system.
I already have outlined it several times now. The greylisting system
logs all the events which enter into the final decision. When a mail
is rejected, the record of evidence which triggered that rejection
(call it R) is kept.
Later, during QA, some volunteer users are sent a fraction of
rejection records R for mail messages that were intended for them, to
be approved. When the definition is "spam is what I say is spam",
these volunteers are the final arbiters of mail intended for them,
whether other people think they could do a better job or not.
Finally, you measure the number of records R which the volunteers say
are incorrectly rejected by the greylisting system. In this way, no
heisenberg effect occurs.
If you like, you can also implement a tool which automatically derives
other information from the record R, such as reverse IP ->country
mapping, or inferring the sender domain, to make it easier for the
volunteers to arbitrate. In principle, a volunteer could implement
such a tool himself, or just go on WHOIS etc. Since the recipient is
the final arbiter, he can do anything he likes.
Again, if you're secretly (or not so secretly) using a different definition
of what spam is, then you'll find this bogus.
--
Laird Breyer.
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