Subject: [Asrg] We got some stinging criticism

From: Jeff Silverman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 00:20:11 -0700

People,

     Larry Seltzer 
<http://www.eweek.com/author_bio/0,1772,a=2299,00.asp> is the Security 
Center Editor for E-week.  He just wrote an article, 
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1583421,00.asp, and he has some 
pretty stinging criticisms of us.  In particular, he wrote:

> The group is an outgrowth of the Anti-Spam Research Group (ASRG), 
> <http://asrg.sp.am/> a part of the Internet Research Task Force 
> (IRTF). <http://www.irtf.org/> The ASRG has produced a digital 
> mountain of discussion but not a whole lot of consensus on actual 
> solutions, and there's way too much topical variety and digression on 
> the group's mailing list. All of this is perhaps why some folks went 
> to the IETF asking to be saved from themselves and to have a standard 
> put on the "railroad" track.

He also writes:

> All of this leads me to believe that the group is moving far too fast. 
> I agree with Wacker [Rand Wacker, director of product strategy at 
> Sendmail Inc. - Jeff ]  about real-world experimentation. Is it really 
> necessary to have a standard so quickly, when we're so early in the 
> real-world implementations of the major proposals? I wish we could 
> wait to get more experience with them first.

I guess there is no pleasing some people - but it would be interesting 
to talk with him and ask him for advice.

Jeff

---

From: "Larry Seltzer" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 05:58:05 -0400

>>...it would be interesting to talk with him and ask him for advice.
 
Basically, I can't believe the schedule on this thing. And since a high % of the
discussion is always off thepoint or outside the formal agenda, there won't be all that
much discussion going into this very important standard. 

Larry Seltzer
eWEEK.com Security Center Editor
http://security.eweek.com/
http://blog.ziffdavis.com/seltzer
[email-masked] 

_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg

---

From: John Levine <[email-masked]>
Date: 7 May 2004 18:38:29 -0000

>Basically, I can't believe the schedule on this thing.

It's certainly very aggressive, and I agree that we need a whole lot
more experiments before trying to roll stuff out widely.

On the other hand, the IETF has lots of standards that never were used
much.  It would be a shame if people were to put a lot of work into
something that nobody uses, but it wouldn't be a disaster.

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
http://www.taugh.com

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 01:18:11 -0700

Larry,

LS> Basically, I can't believe the schedule on this thing. And since a high % of the
LS> discussion is always off thepoint or outside the formal agenda, there won't be all that
LS> much discussion going into this very important standard. 

My view is that the schedule was set with a very good understanding of
the implications in being so aggressive.

People do aggressive, successful projects all the time and that includes
many of the folks involved in Marid.

What is essential in meeting such dates with anything useful is reducing
the scope of the effort and making choices that are easy to understand
and that seem very likely to do something useful.

Of course "something useful" can be far more modest than "solve the
entire problem".  But I lie.  "Can be" is wrong.  "Must be" is right.

Small, incremental steps are often a way to solve a large, complicated
problem. The difference between such steps and "experiments" depends on
the nature of the steps. If the steps are small and straightforward
enough to be easy to understand, and seem likely to do _something_
useful, then the only thing "experimental" about the step is how much it
will help solve the larger problem.

At worst, you are left with a new capability that has some utility.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <mailto:[email-masked]>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:+1.408.246.8253>, <fax:+1.866.358.5301>