Re: Principles of Spam-abatement

Vernon,

Much as I am reluctant to get into this debate, let me try tomake some distinctions that might be at the root of where youand Nathaniel are not communicating...


        * Your analogy to the phone system is exact as long as
        the system is end-to-end (see below).  You have no
        obligation to accept a call from Nathaniel (or anyone
        else) and can be as rude as you like --within extremely
        broad limits -- if someone manages to ring your phone
        whom you don't want to talk with.  But your carrier is
        generally required to accept a connection from
        Nathaniel's carrier: except in very rare and highly
        selective circumstances, neither is permitted to decide
        that you and Nathaniel should not communicate.
        
        * I run my own mail server(s) as, if I recall, do you.
        What I choose to accept or reject at that server is my
        business and my problem only.  As you suggest, I don't
        believe that anyone has the right to tell me what I must
        accept, or how I am permitted to make those decisions.
        I also pay my ISP extra (relative to their cheapest
        accounts that offer essentially the same bandwidth,
        etc.) so that they don't get in the way of my servers or
        filter my incoming or outgoing traffic (at either the IP
        or applications level).  I resent paying extra,
        especially since I am painfully aware that their base
        operating costs are lower for the kind of
        static-address, no-filters service I am buying than they
        are for various "protect the users" or "drive up the
        price" arrangements, but, until someone comes along with
        a better deal, that is how it goes.
        
        * But, when the victim^H^H^H^H^H^H consumer is
        essentially faced with a monopoly --buy the ISP's
        service with whatever conditions it comes with or be
        stuck with dialup-- and is not permitted to run mail
        servers, has no real control over whatever filters the
        ISP decides to install, etc., the situation is a lot
        closer to the classic "middlebox with no control by
        either endpoint" one (and produces variations on the
        same arguments).  At least in the US, at bandwidth
        levels lower than a fractional-T1, there is typically
        very little choice of providers (or at least of terms
        and conditions).  In the Boston area, as far as I know,
        there are a number of consumer aDSL providers, but none
        of them provide fixed addresses and most prohibit
        servers of any sort, etc., without "upgrading" to much
        more costly "business services".  Few, if any, will
        permit outgoing mail except through their servers, so,
        if they get blocked, all of their customers get blocked
        ... and have little choice in the matter.  For SDSL,
        several ISPs offer the product but, as far as I can
        tell, they all do it through the same last-mile
        provider.  And cable... well, not a lot of choices
        there, at least choices that don't require changing
        one's residence, either. Go 100 miles north of here, and
        the options get even fewer -- buy the cable modem
        service (if it is even available) at whatever terms and
        conditions (and incompetence) the cable provider wants
        to offer, or put in a DS0 or above at (last I checked)
        $6 / air mile/ month, for 30 or 50 miles above and
        beyond whatever the ISP charges.  "Switch carriers" is a
        possibility, but only a theoretical one.

Where the disagreement you and Nathaniel are having leads, Ithink inevitably except for timing, is into the state that youassume Nathaniel is assuming: sufficient governmentalintervention to turn anyone who operates a mail relay into acommon carrier, without the "right" to filter mail except inresponse to government-approved rituals. For many reasons, Ihope we never get there, regardless of its potential advantagesfor controlling spam and various other sorts of bad behavior.But we don't have a free market here, with consumer choiceoptions among ISPs who filter and ISPs who don't, at least withreasonable price differentials.


 regards,
    john

--On Friday, 12 March, 2004 07:22 -0700 Vernon Schryver<vjs(_at_)calcite(_dot_)rhyolite(_dot_)com> wrote:

From: Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb(_at_)guppylake(_dot_)com>

...
  When each ISP makes its own rules and metes out its own
vigilante-style punishment, that's not civilization, it's
anarchy.  And  I find it considerably scarier than the
underlying offense of spam  itself.  -- Nathaniel


Your repeated misrepresentation of the use of blacklists by
one party in a prospective SMTP transaction as vigilantism is
as offensive as it it is a familiar complaint of senders of
unwanted mail, including spammers and kooks.

Regardless of what governments or anyone else might do about
spam, and regardless of whether you and anyone else other than
the targets of your mail consider it spam, your implicit claim
to a right to send is wrong and scarier than any sort of
Internet vigilante-style punishment. Some of us are bothered a
lot more by the notion that you might be able to appeal to any
third party to force the target of a prospective communication
to "shut up and eat your [mail]."

Your right to send mail stops at the border routers of your
ISP. Whether your mail gets any farther depends entirely on
the sufferance, whim, and caprice of others.  If prospective
targets of your mail reject it because your IP address is
divisible by 91, that is entirely fair, appropriate, and not
for anyone but the owners of your targeted mailboxes to judge.
Customers of ISPs that want to receive your mail but can't for
any reason, whether the use blacklists, the prime factors of
your IP address, or standard incompetence, have and should have
only one recourse, changing mail providers.

If the targets of your mail reject it because you have chosen
a spam friendly ISP or an ISP with the wrong number of letters
in its domain name, your only recourse is and should be to
change mail service providers.  The consequences of your
choice in hiring an ISP that subsidizes its rates by serving
spammers are no one's concern but yours.

The incredible notion you have repeatedly, albeit indirectly
advanced, that you have a right to have your mail delivered
that should be enforced by governments or at least the IETF,
would surely apply to backhoe fade, power problems,
misconfiguration, and all of other things that cause mail to
be lost or bounced.  Having governments or the IETF dictate
rights of mail senders to be be heard by their targets would
be BAD!

Next you'll be telling me that if you telephone me, I can't
hang up on you.  not that I would, but I reserve the right.


Vernon Schryver    vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com