Subject: RE: [Asrg] Another criteria for "what is spam"...

From: "Peter Kay" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 08:31:57 -1000

> 
> My personal favorite definition, these days, is
> 
>    Unsolicited Bulk Mail (UBE)
>    

This is good, short and simple.  

> 
> And we need to define bulk properly. This will be difficult. 
> If I send an unsolicited message to 2 people, does it 
> qualify? What about 10 people, 100, 1000? Why? Why not?
> 

To me, BULK email is email which is programmatically sent out to > 1
person. Programmatically here means by means of automated systems, i.e.
mailmerge processes. So, yes, if I do a copy/paste of my entire contact
list, paste them in my email, and announce my new company, I'm doing
bulk email.   

> So we then need to define unsolicited properly. We must make 
> sure to permit me to make contact with someone for the first 
> time. Not all cold calls are bad; in fact they are essential 
> to many desirable aspects of social intercourse. We need to 
> make sure that we define "permission" properly -- as a kind 
> of opposite to unsolicited -- and so we can then enjoy 
> wonderful debates about details such as double opt-in. And so 
> on. Still, I think the question of "unsolicited" is 
> well-enough understood to make it possible to get community 
> rough consensus on a technical definition that the 
> engineering community can work with.
> 

A definition of UNSOLICITED, I believe, is the core of the issue and the
problem, primarily because it will force us to address the eye of the
storm: 

is Internet email inherently trusted or is it untrusted?

Is email considered unsolicited until the recipient decides it is
solicited? Or is it considered solicited until the recipient decides it
is unsolicited?

I think this is the big question, ladies.

And I would say that today's spam problem is because SMTP was born in an
environment where email was inherently trusted. SMTP protocol is AWASH
with trusted processes.  Not the least of which is clear text
transmission.

But because the Internet went commercial, suddenly SMTP found itself in
an environment where email (IMHO) is inherently untrusted.  And spam is
what you get when you put a protocol meant for scholars and scientists
in the hands of capitalists.

Peter

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---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 15:01:02 -0600 (MDT)

> From: "Peter Kay" <[email-masked]>

> ...

I trust you are not supporting the parts of those definitions that
are from the equivelants of thieves trying to warp the definition of
burglary to give them permission to be be anywhere and so always
innocent.  Spammers and organizations that would send a lot of spam
if it did not have its current stench define solicited as "until you
do a confirmed opt-out, and then only for a few months."

The rest of us who could qualify as reasonable persons in court know
that "unsolicited" means just that.  If you didn't ask for it, then
it's unsolicited.  If you did ask for it, then it's solicited.  A
stream of solicited mail becomes unsolicited after the change is
communicated to the sender.  That certainly does not imply that you
can unsubscribe from a mailing list by screaming "SPAM!" as some people
do.  It also does not imply that Dell Computers or Verisign can assume
that despite your clear instructions, you want to know about important
offers.  (Dell or Verisign are merely the first two outfits came to
mind as having sent significant bulk mail advertising in my direction
despite being explicitly told not to.)

> ...

There are big differences between capitalists who in principle can
understand enlightened self-interest and the tragedy of the commons
and parasites that claim a right to steal from their sales targets.

Note that the Internet was in the hands of capitalists for almost as
many years before email spam became a problem as it has been since
spam became noticable.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]
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