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

From: "Hannigan, Martin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 08:04:46 -0500

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of
> Laird Breyer
> Sent: Tuesday, December 28, 2004 1:59 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: [Asrg] Spam, defined, and permissions
> 
> 
> On Dec 27 2004, Hannigan, Martin wrote:
> > > 
> > > What bothers me here with your approach is that you're 
> not attacking
> > > the spam problem, you're attacking the user apathy problem and
> > > *hoping* that this will somehow solve the spam problem. 
> But there's no
> > > guidance as to what users will or should do if they wake up 
> > > from their 
> > > apathy. 
> > 
> > Everything that has been done to date is a massive failure.
> > 
> > It's either too difficult for the average end user, or too expensive
> > for the N/ISP to implement, or, has not gained the trust of 
> major networks.
> 
> I'm confused. Are you looking for a single, one size fits all 
> solution?

There is no single solution. SPAM is never going to go away in it's
entirety. If you can minimize it where you can actually measure it
accurately, you can educate people to handle the rest.

> It seems to me that the problems faced by ISPs are quite 
> different than 
> the problems faced by end-users or the problems faced by major webmail
> providers. 

Not really. Internet services are from the bottom up, and the funding of
those products/services is top down. The users major problem is always
the ISP's major problem. Major problem impacts call centers, sales,
operations,
usage, capacity models, etc.

> 
> I believe my criticism is valid, but if I am looking at things too
> simplistically, please enlighten me: The charging model is 
> intended to 
> push the problem from the ISPs to the end users. End users who don't
> do their bit to fix the spam problem are priced out of the network.

No. It's a mechanism to substantially reduce the amount. SPAM will never
be stopped in it's entirety.

> 
> But pricing doesn't tell the users just what they are supposed to do
> under this scheme. There's the nebulous idea of "keep your PC zombie
> free".

The users aren't supposed to have to do anything.

> 
> I made an analogy with global blacklists, which I think work on the
> same principle.  ISPs harbouring spammers are censored out of the SMTP
> network, but how they are supposed to keep their userlists spammer
> free is nebulous.

As long as you don't need to communicate with comcast, MCI, or AOL, I guess
that works.

> Presumably, email is such a vital resource that end users who are
> priced out of the mail network will do everything possible to return
> to it, and that will somehow acts as a kind of breeding ground for a
> true solution to the zombie problem. Perhaps that can truly happen, I
> don't know.

Youre fantasizing "War of The eWorlds". I'm suggesting a cap on current
services so that any obvious overuse (spam?) is paid for - which in turn
drives entities to act by either a.de-zombify or b. not sending
junk mail - because it's not cost effective ie. comcast charges a commercial
rate for the line, a fee over the cap, a higher cost plan, etc. 

> I imagine that the same hackers who gave us P2P will find a way to
> send email transparently, without necessarily using the existing email
> network. Then we'll have two email networks, a free one and a 
> metered one.

Grasping at straws. There is NO SUCH THING as a free network. This
is 2004. In 1994 there was the appearance of free, but univerisities
bore the brunt of the "cost" for "free".

> > You can only say "get another ISP" for so long and it becomes
> > a clear indicator of your level of understanding of the problem
> > itself, the mechanics, and the history. 
> 
> So long as ISPs don't collude, competitive pressures cannot 
> be discounted. 

We can't control this. Noone can. That's called 'market forces'.

-M<

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---

From: Devdas Bhagat <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 19:18:34 +0530

On 28/12/04 08:04 -0500, Hannigan, Martin wrote:
<snip>
> services so that any obvious overuse (spam?) is paid for - which in turn

A cap valid for whom? And enforced how? I run my own server, and
smarthost through a host I control, so I obviously do not have caps.

Viruses and significant volumes of spam go direct to MX, so you do not
have the luxury of forcing them through ISP controlled servers either.

So long as you do not have centrally controlled servers for email, any
feasibility of billing for email is negligible.

The telecom model works because phones are not inherently peer to peer.
The intelligence built into the system is in the core, not at the edge.

If your phone system was to go peer to peer, as with VoIP, do you think
that billing for such traffic would even be feasible?

> rate for the line, a fee over the cap, a higher cost plan, etc. 

It would be easier to just charge users by the byte.
 
> bore the brunt of the "cost" for "free".

s/free/flat rate/

Devdas Bhagat

---

From: Laird Breyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 12:51:03 +1000

> accurately, you can educate people to handle the rest.

Great, we are mostly in agreement.

> usage, capacity models, etc.

The differences are there. 

End users don't have a storage problem, nor do they get DDOSed by mail
to invalid usernames. End users don't need to be connected 24/7.  End
users don't have a zombie problem. Their computers can easily handle
hosting a zombie without appreciable direct impact.

ISPs don't have a content and information overload problem. In fact, ISPs
wouldn't need to care what users read or send, if it weren't for that pesky
heavy resource use. 

Put more simply, ISPs have the problems of middle-men. They are
concerned with efficiently moving content. End users are concerned
with actual content, not with efficiently filing it for retrieval. 
 
> be stopped in it's entirety.

I don't think I claimed that charging people would stop spam dead in its 
tracks. However, now that you brought it up, do you have some rough estimate
for the expected reduction? 

If say you're offering a 50% reduction for the price of building a
universal mail metering system, then I'd say install SpamAssassin or a
bunch of other filters, they can easily handle a 50% reduction with
probably a competitive pricetag. However, your system probably creates
more jobs in the economy, and I'm not seriously suggesting that you
claim only 50%. So do you have something in mind when you say
"substantially reduce"?

> The users aren't supposed to have to do anything.

They are supposed to pay, no?

> rate for the line, a fee over the cap, a higher cost plan, etc. 

Continuing on from your previous comment, if users are not the entities,
then what other entities should do a. or b.?

> bore the brunt of the "cost" for "free".

My mistake, I didn't mean free, rather unmetered per email, ie charged
by data volume as any other binary traffic already is. Also, you'll
note that the above is a "big picture" vision as per bzs's request on
this thread.

-- 
Laird Breyer.