Subject: RE: [Asrg] Spam, defined, and permissions

From: "Hannigan, Martin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 10:45:05 -0500

The spam problem was non existent 10 years ago. 

I am not proposing a charge for the average user. I'm saying
that a base service be included with the standard service and 
some parameters be biult around that for "normal" usage. Above
and beyond, I'd advocate blocks. At a certain point, the blocks
simply turn into a "contact us at 1-800..." and it's discussed and
possibly paid in advance.

Call centers pay in advance. They are technically telco-spam.

I don't think my idea is unique, although it's more informed than
10 years ago. And it _could_ be refined to work - and possibly
sold to tier 1's. If tier1's did it, it would be a domino effect.

Vision:

End of month peering reconciliation breaks out peers by protocols
including SMTP and a higher or lower bit cost is applied based on
the agreements. This enables SP's to break out the actual cost of
SMTP bits and align it in their products and build more effect
service offerings knowing the true costs.

All this "spam costs X and Y" is largely unreliable because it's
all guesswork and doesn't look at the built in bits cost.

--
Martin Hannigan                         (c) 617-388-2663
VeriSign, Inc.                          (w) 703-948-7018
Network Engineer IV                       Operations & Infrastructure
[email-masked]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of
> John Levine
> Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 11:27 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [Asrg] Spam, defined, and permissions
> 
> 
> >> First 100 emails out or in are free, beyond that, there's a fee.
> >
> >So you're going to charge me more for _receiving_ spam?  I 
> don't think
> >your ISP is going to succeed in the marketplace.
> 
> >> If its too expensive to spam, they'll stop. This, IMHO, is the only
> >> way to stop them.  Follow a telco billing model and "exchange" mail
> >> minutes.
> >
> >The spammers won't buy your measured service, either.
> 
> Neither will anyone else.  Ten years ago there were lots of e-mail
> services that charged by the message.  Now they're all dead.  This
> is a big hint.
> 
> -- 
> John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711
> [email-masked], Mayor, http://johnlevine.com, 
> Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited 
> Commercial E-mail
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Asrg mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg
> 

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---

From: John Levine <[email-masked]>
Date: 27 Dec 2004 20:47:57 -0000

>some parameters be biult around that for "normal" usage.

How do you propose to get every ISP in the world to do this?  It won't
work if mailers (both spammers and non-spammers who send a lot of
mail) can simply move to ISPs that don't hassle them with annoying
meter-ware.  For that matter, how do you plan to meter the mail coming
out of legitimate high volume mailers like Sparklist or Whitehat?
That's a lot of traffic to sniff at the router, and I doubt either one
would be very interested in installing your meter-ware on their mail
servers.

Once you've done that, you've now added the meter evasion problem.
Spammers are crooks, and they will certainly do whatever they can to
circumvent any limits that people put on them and avoid paying for the
resources they use.  Why do you expect the meter evasion problem to be
any more tractable than the spam problem?

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

---

From: Barry Shein <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:10:49 -0500

This is making the "best" the enemy of the "good".

Just because no one can guarantee perfection (and I think the idea
that high volume mailers can't be metered is questionable) doesn't
mean an idea is unworkable.

Little in this world is perfect, right down to elections which decide
the fates of nations, or tax systems that we are pretty sure allow for
a lot of evasions, etc. Somehow we muddle through, lacking any more
perfect alternative. It's interesting how only technical people seem
to ever find these "but I can show it's not perfect!" arguments to be
fatal.

I'd imagine the way to spread interest would be some sort of
cross-settlement. I meter what's delivered to me and from whom. Not a
big deal (pretty much all that info is already in my regular mail
logs.) [I know, I know, that which we don't like must be technically
impossible.]

At some point I send the other ISP a bill for it, expecting they send
me one also. [I know, I know, that which we don't like must be
impossible due to its potential for errors or contentiousness.]

They don't have to charge their customers, they can pay it out of
their own pocket if they think that's more a more attractive marketing
model, I don't care.

But if they refuse to pay me the solution is easy, don't let their
servers in.

But that's a worst case scenario [I know, I know, you're ready to hop
all over that one with reductio ad absurdum], and I think most
legitimate ISPs etc can come to some agreement that everyone can live
with, yet still punishes those who tolerate or abet spammers.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die    | [email-masked]           | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202        | Login: 617-739-WRLD
The World              | Public Access Internet     | Since 1989     *oo*

---

From: Barry Shein <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:23:32 -0500

It's interesting, I was just reading an article in Variety about how
the DGA (Director's Guild of America), WGA (Writer's...), and SAG
(Screen Actor's Guild) are wrangling with networks etc over those
little snips used in those million and one "I love the 80's" or "Great
Film Moments in 2004" type shows which have been proliferating lately.

Take a theme, patch together a bunch of clips from films, docu, news,
etc, overlay some narration, and voila', low-cost content.

That is, so long as the producers of those shows could hide behind
fair use or at least no one bugging them to pay for the clips.

But that's changed and the Variety article had, I think it was DGA's,
new price schedules, $250 for < 30 seconds and so on, multiplied by
how many years you want to be able to rerun the thing, etc.

And of course the producers are screaming bloody murder because it'll
add $15K-$20K to a 30 minute show which breaks their economics pitch
of it being very cheap (so long as they don't have to pay people for
their work.)

etc etc etc etc etc

But what you don't see in those discussions are people trying to argue
that it's just IMPOSSIBLE because it'll be TOO MUCH TROUBLE to bend
over and pick up the money which'll give us all BAD BACKS and the
MEDICAL COSTS for BACK THERAPY will FAR OUTWEIGH any REVENUES so it
CAN'T BE DONE! etc.

Oh I'm sure it's tried, but it's not often taken very seriously.

Mostly because the obvious answer is: Ok, if it's too expensive (&c)
to get the money, then we won't! NEXT QUESTION?!

-- 
        -Barry Shein