Subject: RE: [Asrg] Let's start again at the beginning...

From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 19:03:18 -0400

>From: "Eric D. Williams" <[email-masked]>
>
>I think we could attempt to incorporate all of the into the existing taxonomy
>where they do not exist.  A review of the archives should expose that edition
>somewhere in the thousands of messages, or perhaps some one could provide a
>pointer to the most recent version (Paul?).

I think a taxonomy is in order as well as a FAQ and some guidelines.  

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From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 19:03:06 -0400

>From: Barry Shein <[email-masked]>
>
>But it's not going to happen unless one understands the problem, the
>actual mechanics of spam. Just knowing some SMTP and DNS etc and
>having gotten some spam isn't enough.
>
>More importantly, for a group to make progress there has to be some
>common vision of what problem they're trying to solve. This group
>isn't there yet.
>Towards that end I think we need to first stop with the instant eureka
>aren't I a genius solutions and spend some time on a taxonomy of spam
>and what a solution might look like, glib responses such as "spam is
>email I don't want" and "a solution is getting less email I don't
>want" aside.

I definitely agree that we should first work on defining what spam is, how 
it works and why do spammers love doing it (i.e. the economics) before 
proposing a solution.

>For example, we keep making references to header forgery, envelope
>forgery, etc, they're certainly aspects.
>
>What about abuse of BCC, abuse of RCPT TO (sticking dozens of
>recipients in the envelope not in the header), dictionary attacks,
>spam zombies (machines infected with viruses which turn them into
>unwitting spam relays), open relays, proxies, spam-friendly ISPs,
>real-time blocking, DNSBL, DNS spoofing and poisoning, wire-fraud
>laws, current state of anti-spam legislation, rules of evidence
>regarding these laws and how technical changes might improve the
>quality of that evidence, etc.

As the ASRG charter states: "ASRG will not pursue research into legal 
issues of spam, other than the extent to which these issues affect, 
support, or constrain the technology." Our goal is to change technology, 
not the law. But nothing stops us from making technical changes that can 
"improve the quality of evidence".

>Or are we all so certain we're all so expert and accurate in those and
>all the other issues that we just have it in our heads and wham-o a
>solution is going to pop out?

As several people mentioned before, no one expects an instant solution to 
spam "to pop up". Rather our goal is to provide a combination of changes in 
protocols, policy and such on the Internet that can help us reduce the 
problem. This combination will probably consists of many tiny changes to 
many things which when added up as a whole, can help with the spam problem

>Did you know that a typical lifetime of a spammer's web site is under
>two hours? How exactly do they do that?

Can you provide some sources for this information, I am doing some research 
on it.

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From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 21:19:49 -0400

>On May 7, 2003 at 14:14 [email-masked] (Eric D. Williams) wrote:
>  > On Wednesday, May 07, 2003 1:32 PM, Barry Shein 
> [SMTP:[email-masked]] wrote:
>  > 8<...>8
>  > Could you provide a pointer to the resource(s) where you gathered that
>  > information?  I would like to incorporate this type of information 
> into a list
>  > of informative references.
>
>Go to the site for the MIT spam conference last January, I think it's
>spamconference.org, and see if the attorney's talk, the one who was
>involved in the Verizon/Ralsky suit, is still up, he talked about
>this, specifically.

I looked at the site, the only attorney I can find is Jon Praed of the 
Internet Law Group. A copy of his slides can be found here and the webcast 
can be found here (his presention is session #4):

http://www.spamconference.org/praed.pdf
http://www.spamconference.org/webcast.html

I haven't had a chance to look at the webcast since I am have a very slow 
connection at the moment. But interestingly enough, it seems that he 
participated in the March 20, 2003 ASRG meeting (see the minutes at 
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03mar/minutes/asrg.htm and his slides at 
http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/03mar/slides/asrg-4/). Perhaps someone 
(Paul?) can contact him and find out his sources. This would be essential 
for understanding the overall spam problem.

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Yakov Shafranovich / <[email-masked]>
SolidMatrix Research, a division of SolidMatrix Technologies, Inc.
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"One who watches the wind will never sow, and one who keeps his eyes on
the clouds will never reap" (Ecclesiastes 11:4)
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