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Re: The utilitiy of IP is at stake here

2003-06-01 18:51:09
My comment below is offered honestly (unlike the snippy comments
I posted earlier today)...

--- Iljitsch van Beijnum <iljitsch(_at_)muada(_dot_)com> wrote:

                                                   and
hopefully and
anti-spam wg. First order of business for this wg: analyze
the spam
problem and then see if mechanisms can be found to reduce
the amount 
of
spam by 1 - 2 orders of magnitude. After that, we can
decide if it's
worth it to write a protocol and try to have it deployed.

That sounds more like research than protocol documentation
and
standardization.  Why have you rejected the repeated
pointers to
the IRTF/IETF ASRG research group?

Because I'm not interested in researching the problem; I'm
interested 
in solving the problem. (I've been doing "spam research" for
several 
minutes a day for many years now.) I believe the IETF is
capable of 
creating new protocols that would move the spam problem from
something 
that is completely out of control to something that is easily 
manageable. If this turns out impossible after all,
documenting why 
would be a very good thing. Then the researchers can have
another go at 
it.

If you (not just Iljitsch, but anyone else as well) care AT ALL
about dealing with spam via protocols in your lifetime, you
really SHOULD be following the ASRG in IRTF. I've been somewhat
disoriented because we've been discussing an SMTP replacement in
the IETF while the ASRG in IRTF has been heavily focused on
mechanisms that work within an SMTP framework - seems backwards
to ME, but that's the way it's working.

ASRG isn't perfect, but the signal-to-noise ratio is a lot
higher, the "research" focus is a lot nearer-term than some of
the other IETF RGs, and it does have the advantage that
discussion of spam is ON TOPIC for that list. Vern Paxson may
hunt me down in Vienna for diverting traffic to ASRG, but ASRG
really DOES look like a place where something MIGHT happen.

As distinct from the IETG main discussion list. Oh, my bad, I'm
back to snippy again...

Spencer Dawkins

p.s. Anyone CAN request a BoF, you know. And I would think that
ASRG would be a reasonable place to look for accomplices for a
BoF, and for an eventual IETF WG. I'm not the Genius of IETF
Processes, but I have done two BoFs - if you still have
questions after reading
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1bof-procedures.txt, please contact me
via private e-mail and I'd be glad to help.