ietf-asrg
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [Asrg] FeedBack loops

2008-11-14 14:02:24

It's astounding to me how for over 30 years we've been trying to turn
email into a general purpose application without actually trying to
own the problem. Believe me, I've been sitting right here for all
those 30 years.

As an analogy replace "email headers" with "tcp packet headers" and
imagine trying to shove unsub and so on into those year in and year
out.

THAT SAID, maybe an approach would be, instead, a fairly strictly
defined mime body type for operations like unsub which would tend to
frustrate a spammer from adding their own spam load. That is, spam
wouldn't conform so it could be easily rejected at various levels
(MTA, MUA, manually.)

I suppose such an idea would have to allow certain other mime body
parts, email signatures come to mind.

Or maybe "there madness lies"?

But just as with other protocols (e.g., tcp packets) some superficial
notion of whether it's even conforming, and restricting
conformationaltude to what it claims to be (e.g., an unsub) would seem
to help, along with other practical suggestions made.

Well, far be it for me to suggest that one way to avoid abuse of a
protocol is to define that protocol.

BUT MY REAL POINT IS -- design by open-ended enumeration of specific
examples tends to go poorly.

Maybe some more general purpose mechanism limiting a functional email
message like an unsub to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, helps in general.

Hmmm...

    and what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    slouches towards EDI to be born?

One gets the creepy feeling this is slouching towards something
EDI-like wrapped in XML wrapped in MIME wrapped in email.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

The World              | bzs(_at_)TheWorld(_dot_)com           | 
http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD        | Login: Nationwide
Software Tool & Die    | Public Access Internet     | SINCE 1989     *oo*
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)irtf(_dot_)org
https://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg

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