ietf-asrg
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Re: [Asrg] attention bonds, was Email Postage

2008-11-25 11:21:48
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 9:17 AM, mathew <meta(_at_)pobox(_dot_)com> wrote:
On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 10:55, John Levine <johnl(_at_)taugh(_dot_)com> wrote:

Gosh, I love beating my head against the wall.

Well, the feeling's mutual. It seems that there's a community of people on
this list who believe that:

- No system is acceptable if it allows me to say what I consider spam.
- No system is acceptable if it can be bypassed by completely compromising
machines.
- Systems like SMS where people are billed 10 cents a message are
economically impossible.
- No system is acceptable unless it will gain widespread adoption
immediately.
- No system is acceptable unless it is usable by everyone on the Internet.

...and so on. Offering nothing positive, these naysayers shoot down every
proposal with the same tired objections that have been addressed over and
over and over as unreasonable or out of touch with reality.

As one of the naysayers, please allow me to encourage everybody who
thinks they can build such a thing to go do it. I think it's possible.
It just takes many millions of dollars, and it won't cover all email,
leaving some pretty big gaps.

Look at Goodmail....Daniel did it, is doing it. He didn't spend a
month of Sundays debating it with geeks on a list. Notice a difference
in approach there? Look REALLY closely. (DID IT, vs CRYING ABOUT HOW
PEOPLE ARE SO MEAN ABOUT IT NOT BEING A GREAT IDEA.)

Look at DNSBLs -- an example of a spam filtering mechanism that is
commonly accepted as best practice, even though it is heavily debated
by geeks and non-geeks. SORBS, Spamhaus, etc., they just went ahead
and did it. They decided the rules and decided to sell themselves, see
if they can drive recipient sites to agree and use their filters. To
varying degrees, of course, and some DNSBLs are run by morons. But
again, what's the difference there? Less debating, more doing.

Lessons to learn: There is no need to announce an e-Postage system on
this, or any other, geek-laden discussion list. If you do, you will be
pelted with eggs. If you want to make something happen, go make
something happen. Build it, then try to get people to come.

Regards,
Al Iverson
-- 
Al Iverson on Spam and Deliverability, see http://www.spamresource.com
News, stats, info, and commentary on blacklists: http://www.dnsbl.com
My personal website: http://www.aliverson.com   --   Chicago, IL, USA
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