Subject: comments on SPEW

From: April Marine <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 16:34:18 -0700 (PDT)

Hi Sally,

The IESG discussed the SPEW doc in our telecon this week.  Remember I
said there were probably going to be some suggested changes.  Here are
the suggestions:

In Section 4a the doc says:

   Next, you can carbon copy or forward the questionable mail messages
   or news postings to the postmaster of the offending site.

and tells how to do so.  The suggestion is to make the following
points here (and anywhere else it may be relevant, but mainly here):

1. Change the text to say send a copy of the spam to YOUR OWN
postmaster, who should have the savvy to follow up on it
appropriately.  This will prevent the postmaster of the offending site
from suffering another type of spam, which could result in a denial of
service to that site.  It is often the case (as you note elsewhere)
that the sender address is forged, so a complaint may just be
inundating an innocent postmaster.  Also, not every user has the savvy
to understand headers properly, although many think they do.

2. Note in this section that the address of the sender may have been
forged, which is why you don't want to assume the header is real and
be rude to innocent people.

3. Also, we should suggest in the doc that receivers of spam who don't
read email often just ignore the message and delete it.  If you don't
read email often, by the time you get to a spam message, everyone who
can do anything about it has already seen it and you're not helping by
sending it again.

I was pushing to get comments out of a busy group, so I'm not sure
everyone was totally comfortable saying that once these changes are
made, the doc will sail right through.  There is a chance that in
reviewing the next doc, more comments may arise. However, in the
interest of moving forward it is best to get these changes done, then
re-submit to the ID folks, then it'll be on the IESG list again.  (Let
me know if you want me to look at it before it goes to ID again--I'd
be happy to.)

Let me know if you have any questions.  (I am always rejected by the
mailing list address because I forget to correct my entry (although I
get the mail), so I trust you to forward this to anyone appropriate.)

thanks!
April

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