spf-discuss
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Re: the Seth Hypothetical

2004-10-26 02:14:09

----- Original Message -----
From: "Meng Weng Wong" <mengwong(_at_)dumbo(_dot_)pobox(_dot_)com>
To: <spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com>
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 10:58 PM
Subject: Re: [spf-discuss] the Seth Hypothetical


On Fri, Oct 22, 2004 at 01:33:05PM -0500, wayne wrote:
|
| You might argue that MS systems like hotmail will check SenderID
| records, but I doubt this.  Remember, these folks don't even check to
| see if the MAIL FROM domain even exists.  CallerID was developed by
| the Exchange folks, not the hotmail folks.  There is no reason to
| believe that hotmail will adopt this.

In August at the "Sender ID Summits" held at Redmond,
Microsoft demoed to about 150 people in the audience a
next-generation Hotmail UI that showed a big yellow bar
saying "This message was not authenticated by Sender ID".

That is old news - and so what, Hotmail "is" M$ - I'd be worried if G-mail
did that though ;-)



I hate to be this blunt, but I'll say it anyway: if I am
heading in a different direction that you, it's probably
because I have access to information that you don't have, or
because I place different weights on certain assumptions.
Unfortunately a lot of that information I can't share
publicly for one of two reasons:

1) it's of a sensitive nature and nobody likes a blabbermouth



Well - given the constraints of a public mail-list, why don't you explain
yourself more fully in private to key members of this list who represent the
majority overall view, who could then tell the rest of us mere mortals
that - "It's okay, Meng's told me about this and I think it's a good plan" .
If you had that handful of key members of this community with you, the rest
of us would probably shut up.


2) if you're planning a war, you can't invite the public.

I sincerely hope you are *not* planning a war.  You are fated to lose
because you (and the whole spf community) are too small and inexperienced
when set against the likes of the M$ legal team.



In the last year I have flown, on average, two weeks out of
every month; I have visited and/or spoken with forty or
fifty ISPs, ESPs, and software vendors of every size on
three continents.  I also have direct experience with a
customer base of significant size in domain hosting, email
forwarding, mailing list management, mailbox
pop/imap/webmail service, and so on.  I'm taking all of
these angles into account, not just "what would Slashdot say?"

No-one doubts the huge amount of work you have done for spf (and undoubtedly
for pobox at the same time), but please don't dismiss us as mere chattering
users of slashdot.  You have made the mistake of talking down to us once
before - please don't do it again.



My assumptions I can defend, but if we disagree about them
there's not much I can say besides "well, obviously we have
different backgrounds."  At that point the question is
whether we can find a way to agree to disagree.  That's
basically where MARID ended up: "let the market decide".

Given that I may not be able to share all the information I
have, maybe the question we should really ask is whether we
agree on where we want to end up, even if we don't agree on
how to get there.  My objective has always been to reach a
spam-free future based on open standards that everyone can
implement and that don't have to cost anyone anything.  If I
take an indirect route to that future, well, that's part of
playing nicely with others: you have to compromise or they
won't want to play with you at all.

Perhaps you are missing the real point.  Your proposal for a spam-free world
without cost and based on open standards is *exactly* what the spf community
is working towards.  The fact that you are working with M$ is a direct
contravention of this plan.





People who have a problem with me negotiating with Microsoft
should ask themselves why the ACLU defends unpopular
positions.  Sometimes you have to protect unpleasant speech
to protect free speech.  Sometimes you have to trade words
with people you don't like so you can avoid trading blows.

That's a terrible analogy, and demonstrates a fundamental misconception of
what's going on here.


Meng - you say you have knowledge which we don't have.  Let me put this to
you.  Between all the members of this list who are opposed to your policy,
do you younot think that there might be a similar amount of knowledge which
*you* are not aware of.  I sincerely hope that you are not becoming so
self-important that you think you know more than the rest of us combined,
but it is looking horribly like that.  Lots of us have conversations with
lots of important decision makers in the industry - it's possible that
between us we actually talk to a more representative selection of e-mail
users than you do.

Please consider my idea to include some people in your confidences.  The
alternative is the continuation of this gradual tearing apart of the spf
project.


Slainte,

JohnP.
johnp(_at_)idimo(_dot_)com
ICQ 313355492