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Re: Apology Re: Principles of Spam-abatement

2004-03-15 19:57:27
On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 18:12:22 -0800, Ed Gerck wrote:
BTW, how can we talk about "actions that have consequences" in terms of a 
technical solution that the IETF can pursue?


The whole point is there are NO TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS and never will be.
(There are some technical aspects to improving traceability, however.)

IETF would not apply the consequences; the victims would apply the
(behavioral) consequences using  established guidelines, employing
technical measures already established in RFCs.

IETF and other standards bodies can bless agreed procedures for using
the existing technical steps in new behavioral ways.

There are two reasons this is crucial:

1) Courts often, perhaps usually, defer to declared norms of industry
   standards bodies, in establishing reasonableness of disputed 
   behavior.   We can be decisive in establishing these norms.  The
   courts can't easily act to use the COMPLETELY ADEQUATE EXISTING
   LAWS in part because of this lacuna.

2) Normative documents, and personal leadership, convert a group or a 
   mob into an "emergent structure" (say a business firm, a dance
   company, a charitable organization, a military unit, a religious
   order, a teen gang) in which the norms absolutely bind the behavior 
   of the participants, even to death.

I say, in a completely non-deprecating way, that these points from law
and sociology may not be apparent to engineers (or in fact to anyone else
who is not an attorney or a sociologist) but they are completely true
and completely binding on human behavior.


The consequences are not 
technical. In addition, they would need to be arbitrated and we know how 
long, ineffective and expensive that can be.


No arbitration needed.  Please re-read the proposal.

My proposal (which received input from many people) is basically just
common sense.   That's what we need now.   The answers are in.  The
proof is in.  Let's do it.  Now.

Jeffrey Race