Subject: Re: [Asrg] Spam Control Complexity -- scaling, adoption, diversity and scenarios

From: "John Fenley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2003 15:11:36 -0600

>From: "Alan DeKok" <[email-masked]>
>   I'm afraid you're missing my point entirely.  I refuse to answer the
>challenge, not because it's too much work, but because they're
>nonsense.  I refuse to go out of my way to jump through *your* hoops,
>just because I have a passing desire to speak with you.

I am not missing your point. You are missing mine.
I have a right to make you jump through a small hoop if you expect me to 
jump through the larger hoop of reading whatever email you (the random 
person I don't know yet) decided to send me.

>   Imagine visiting a friend, and discovering they have a doorman.  The
>doorman won't let you in, until you show photo ID, answer a few
>questions, and maybe give him a tip.  With such a system, you'll
>discover that you'll lose most of your friends.  The only people
>willing to deal with such a system will be close relatives asking you
>for money, or bill collectors.

The attitude of the doorman is the main issue there, not that there is a 
doorman.

Real world example of a C/R system:
Visitor: (pushes doorbell)Ding Dong
Resident: (through intercom) Who is it?
Visitor: (through intercom)It's Steve.
Resident: (through intercom) Oh, ok. Let me buzz you in.
Door: Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz *click*

>   I think I'll implement an automated response to C/R systems, saying
>"Thank you for sending me the challenge.  I will respond if you make
>it worth my while.  I expect it to take an hour (hey, I'm dumb), and I
>charge $1000 per hour consultancy rates.  Please forward funds to
><address>, and I will respond to your challenge"

Obviously I won't get your message.

>   That's a great idea!  I've just implemented my own C/R system, in
>response to other peoples C/R systems.  What's wrong with that?  You
>couldn't possibly have any reason to be negative about my system...

Other than the details, I think its a fine system. I'd feel important, and 
I'd rush to my mailbox everyday looking for a check.

> > Mock me if you must, but a small increase can have a huge effect when 
>that
> > small increase is widely distributed.
>
>   <shrug> You seem to have a one-country-centric viewpoint.  That's
>all I was commenting on.

>   Some countries will see *no* net effect from spam fighting systems,
>because they have almost zero internet usage.  "The economy" they have
>is currently doing fine, and doesn't need any boost.

Not yet.

John Fenley

_________________________________________________________________
Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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

---

From: J C Lawrence <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2003 16:53:02 -0700

On Sun, 20 Apr 2003 15:11:36 -0600 

> The attitude of the doorman is the main issue there, not that there is
> a doorman.

> Real world example of a C/R system: Visitor: (pushes doorbell)Ding
> Dong Resident: (through intercom) Who is it?  Visitor: (through
> intercom)It's Steve.  Resident: (through intercom) Oh, ok. Let me buzz
> you in.  Door: Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz *click*

Roughly 60% of the mail I write is to people I don't know, and for which
I don't care (quite literally, zero interest and in a few cases,
negative interest) if those particular people actually receive the
message.  These are not always mailing list posts -- fairly often they
are off-list replies to list posts.

In the past year (checking my logs), I've received ~50
challenge/response replies to such messages (could be more, but that's
all my quick greps across my archival mail folders found).  Of that set,
I've responded to precisely three of them.  three.  Three out of fifty.

  What is perhaps interesting is why I replied to those three
  challenges: They were C/R systems in front of a mailing list and a
  role address, not in front of a personal address.

As far as C/R systems for personal mail I've replied to precisely none
of them.  Not one out of more than 40 of them.  That's right, zero,
none, nada, zip, zilcho, the big nothin', the empty set.

Of those ~50 challenges, more than 40 were of the simple form, "Reply to
this message to answer this challenge," requiring nothing more of me
then hitting "reply" and "send" -- no special typing, reading, graphics,
image translation, post formatting, token inclusion, or anything else
required.  Just, "reply" and "send".  Hardly an onerous, difficult, or
particularly challenging requirement.  Yet, again, I've not replied to a
single one of those challenges.

  Perhaps I'm a bastard curmudgeon (likely true), but if so, it seems to
  be a common form of irascibility that has been frequently espoused on
  this list and others.

Curious that huh?  The doorman was polite, even solicitous.  The
challenge was well worded, easily understood, and phrased in a polite
and inviting manner.  The challenge was even less taxing and even more
trivial than your, "Who is it?" and yet it wasn't answered, not just
once, but over 40 times -- which reveals the problem: It is not what the
challenge is, or how it is phrased, but that there is one.

The problem isn't what the challenge is, it is that there _is_ a
challenge, that there is a bar to be crossed, that in some way I must do
something extra to win your ear, your screen, your attention.
Certainly, there are cases in which I'm willing to go that extra inch,
to hit those two keys to send an email reply to a challenge -- after all
I've done it thrice, a massive 6% of the cases.

Now, can we move on from the attempts trench warfare?

I happen to like C/R systems for certain, specific, uses, but they are
not a golden bullet.  At this point I'm much more interested in building
a framework for consent systems that we can hang various things one,
like C/R systems and others, as methods of expressing, accomplishing,
and managing consensual relationships, without regard for the specific
of how that particular relationship was achieved.

-- 
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
[email-masked]               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
[email-masked]
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg

---

From: "Alan DeKok" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 12:04:23 -0400

> person I don't know yet) decided to send me.

  Ah.  So you don't want people to send you patches for software
you've written.  You don't want to be told about typos in your public
web pages.  If people want to help you, they've got to jump through
"fun" hoops of your devising.

  You don't want people to stop you on the street to ask you for
directions.  You have "every right" in such a situation to demand that
they show photo ID, to prove to you that they're not a mugger.

  Such systems are so totally an irrevocably flawed in *all* possible
ways, that I'm ashamed I've participated in this conversation for so
long.

> Door: Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz *click*

  Or:

Nice guy: "Hey, you dropped your wallet!"
C/R guy : "Don't talk to me!  Show me ID, or I'll call the police!"

  Alan DeKok.