And what does accountability mean for you David? Does it mean people being
accountable for their own actions or does it mean people being accountable
to you?
See what worries me is when you didn't understand the relevence of my post
you didn't ask me one question. You didn't give me the opportunity to be
accountable. You decided for me and while doing that you somehow managed to
state none of my points while at the same time stating all of yours as if
that's what I had been trying to say.
I'm including my original post at the end of this one so people can decide
for themselves if your confusion was in earnest or if you're just dishonest.
As for your BCP, well David, one of the innconveniences about having a place
where everyone can say what they want is that everyone can say what they
want. Personally I think that's a pretty fair trade-off (though I'm sure
the aptly named SPEW(s) would disagree).
**Original Post**
I'm sure many will think this a stupid comment, but in the hopes that some
don't I'll point out that the largest and arguably most efficient messaging
system in the world is built upon open relay. Anyone can anonymously drop a
letter in any mailbox in the US and while there's junk mail it's proportions
are certainly nothing like spam. Why the difference? Well first I split
spam into 2 categories:
1. legitimate advertisements for legitimate products (whether solicited or
unsolicited).
2. Fraudulent mail, scams, cons, etc.
I think the email abusers almost entirely fall into the second category and
that nobody would be complaining if spam primarily consisted of
Bloomingdale's catalogues and coupon val-paks.
So I think we are attacking things the wrong way. The methods we are
using - whether blacklists or 'authorized email' is going to either prove
fruitless or end up ruining the big picture, which for me is electronic
communication for everyone, to everyone. Using electronic means, I don't
see how we can ever prevent spam and still have open global communication
among disparate systems. It would be a different story if one organization
ran all email servers worldwide but that horrible thought aside there will
always be holes and breaks in an authentication/authorization scheme unless
people limit who they can communicate with, and even then there will be
spam.
There's also the returns we see on our efforts to consider. Think of the
millions of man/woman hours spent trying to stop spam - so many hours it
probably would have taken less to inspect every email by hand. And then
when you think (if you believe as I do) that everything can be gotten around
and that security holes are as infinite as the imagination, well then you
know there will always be some kid with a script (which also includes any
real spammer) who will be able to get around your defenses within a week of
them being implemented.
My last unconstructive comment is that simple systems scale lossless and
complex systems grow in a complexity proportionate to their size.
Funny enough, I think the postal inspector's department came about because
of the amount of scams being sent via mail shortly after the civil war (such
a glut that it was bringing the postal service to their knees). Yet the
postal service remained open-relay - why? Maybe because they realized that
they didn't need to 'trace' scam-mail because scams are trace-inclusive as
the scammer must include a point of contact. Sure there's the occasional
anonymous letter bomb but since their resources aren't spent blocking coupon
mailers they are much more likely to catch the big stuff.
I know there are 8 trillion problems with this idea but I think in general,
email fraud needs to become like mail fraud and there needs to be a team of
inspectors who follow up on such reports and arrest violators (I know the
Internet is bigger than the US, so of course it's up to each country how to
handle it). I'm sorry for the non-technical post but I think blacklists are
disgusting (I don't care if they help or not) and I just think so much
brilliance could be directed elsewhere.
Thanks and best regards,
Nick Staff
nick(_dot_)staff(_at_)comcast(_dot_)net
Best regards,
Nick Staff
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Crocker" <dhc2(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net>
To: "Nicholas Staff" <nick(_dot_)staff(_at_)comcast(_dot_)net>;
<iesg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>;
<ietf(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org>
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2005 11:15 AM
Subject: Re: Last Call: 'Email Submission Between Independent Networks' to
BCP - Clarification
When I wrote that "nobody would be complaining if spam primarily
consisted
of Bloomingdale's catalogues and coupon val-paks" I didn't mean we
wouldn't
complain if we recieved the same amount of spam but it was from
legitimate
companies. I meant that maybe 1% of my spam comes from legitimate
companies
I am not sure how this line of discussion relates to the proposed BCP, but
indeed discussions about spam need to distinguish between real companies
that
are too aggressive, versus the folks that might politely be called rogue but
more usefully called criminal. (Independent of whether they break laws, all
of
their behaviors are that of a criminal, in terms of trying to bypass filters
and
avoid accountability.)
Real companies need real and appropriate rules. We might not like these
companies, but we can bring them under control.
Criminals, of course, need different methods.
So an attempt to bring this thread into some relevance for the Last Call:
The methods in the draft BCP are intended to close some holes and improve
up-stream (source) accountability. It's a small but necessary step towards
finding ways to develop trust, since trust begins with accountability.
d/
---
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
+1.408.246.8253
dcrocker a t ...
WE'VE MOVED to: www.bbiw.net
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