--On 26 June 2009 06:07:36 -0400 Rich Kulawiec <rsk(_at_)gsp(_dot_)org> wrote:
On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 11:53:00AM +0200, Alessandro Vesely wrote:
That paper thickens the ranks of anti-anti-spam trenches. It is good as
it avoids an excess of proposal that would possibly result in a waste of
time for evaluating proposed techniques that don't come quite close to
the point. However, I think an it could, and should, go beyond that. For
example, why is it not in the scope of that document "to attempt to
distinguish or justify any more detailed definition of [the term spam]"?
The canonical definition of spam (in the context of email) was settled
on a very long time ago ("unsolicited bulk email") and is NOT in need of
tinkering or refinement. It's served us very well -- and one reason
why is that it's *deliberately* silent on a number of points. It would
be a very serious mistake -- one that would greatly assist spammers --
to change that situation.
Frankly, I don't like that definition. Specifically it misses an important
class of spam - well targeted, individualised, unsolicited marketing
messages which are necessarily unique (and hence not bulk).
The problem comes with trying to define spam succinctly. It's like trying
to define "mammal" succinctly - the more succinct the definition, the more
likely it is that you'll get false positives or false negatives.
---Rsk
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Ian Eiloart
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