--On Tuesday, December 24, 2019 07:24 -0800 Dave Crocker
<dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net> wrote:
On 12/24/2019 7:11 AM, Keith Moore wrote:
Well, maybe it's time to raise the bar a bit, and maybe IETF
can help.
For this to be a useful exercise, there are two, foundational
actions that need to be taken:
1. Recruit significant participation from the folk in the
anti-abuse industry who have been working on this topic for 25
years.
2. Get everyone else who participates to be far more familiar
with that 25 year history and the pragmatics and real
challenges of current anti-abuse efforts.
Only then will beginning such a conversation be anchored in
messy practice rather than appealing theory.
Dave,
Yes, but...
Pursuant to my disclaimer/rant at the end of my last note, we
should also not lose track of what you have quite properly
called an industry and others have characterized as an arm race.
Everyone I have met and talked with in that industry has been
absolutely sincere about reducing or stopping spam. But
business models do depend on it and, like other types of arms
races, the pattern is one of escalation, increasingly complex
(and expensive) measures, and rarely, if ever, long-term
reductions in the problem (at least by many measures).
If we want to see mechanisms that focus on the spam originators
and spammers, rather than the receiving end, focusing on people,
and especially mechanisms, that have characterized efforts for
most of the last 25 years of effort may not be the best answer.
I agree that trying to develop new approaches without
understanding the old ones would be unwise but, if one wants new
approaches, getting over-focused on the older ones may be unwise
too. That is, IMO, completely consistent with your suggestion
about familiarity with pragmatics and real challenges of the
efforts, but also with the pragmatics and real challenges of the
underlying problem.
best,
john
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