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Re: Why spam is a problem.

2002-08-13 14:52:52
From: Valdis(_dot_)Kletnieks(_at_)vt(_dot_)edu

The problem is that ARIN is sending a bill to the owner of a /8 that it
has to forward to the owner of the delegated /15 who sold bandwidth to
a /24 - and the activity isn't violating the AUP of the /8 (remember,
they only sell connectivity - and you do NOT want to get into content-based
stuff - there's a reason why 17 USC 512 gives a safe-harbor to ISPs regarding
their users).

I was not thinking very big bill, say $100-500. Size would not depend
on the ISP. What it would actually cause, that when they delegate or
sell forward, they would probably require a deposit that covers the
bill from each customer. ISP would pay up, but pass the buck
downward.

Also, maybe modification: the bill would not be sent for each spam
incident. It would be sent when a spam incident is detected. ISP would
have a week or some other predefined time to close the "leak", before
another bill would be sent (if spam continues).

Again, the problem is that you're sending a bill to somebody who may be 
legally
unable to do anything about it - if I run an open relay, and my contract with
my ISP doesn't say anything about what the packets are, they don't have much
right to turn it off if my bill is paid.  And how does the ISP tell the
difference between an "open" relay and a heavy e-mail user? 

It doesn't need to tell. Spam is detected when receivers complain, and
at least currently, SPAM is easy to recognize just by looking at the
content. (And, if sender claims it was requested, they better be able
to prove it). The contract must have the SPAM clause and require the
deposit to cover the bill.





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