Subject: [Asrg] News Article - An IP Whitelist

From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 21:23:28 -0400

Just ran across a SlashDot story 
(http://slashdot.org/articles/03/06/24/2148248.shtml) announcing a website 
(http://www.the-carrot-and-the-stick.com/) which acts as a whitelist of IPs 
of businesses that promise not to send spam.

 From the front page:

"We offer an alternative to simply watching and waiting for the eventual 
extinction of the Internet. We offer a list of IP Addresses for businesses 
that abide by Accepted Standards of Conduct for the Online Business and 
Accepted Best Practices Online Email Marketing. "

 From their charter (http://www.the-carrot-and-the-stick.com/charter/):

--snip--
Our mission is, simply put. To keep email a viable tool for one to one 
communication between individuals and businesses, individuals and 
individuals and finally between businesses to businesses.

We will accomplish this daunting task by understanding just how important 
email is to the World Wide Web.

Electronic Mail is the lifeblood of the World Wide Web. Currently this 
lifeblood is plagued by the disease of spam almost to where we can see the 
point of extinction of the Internet as we now know it in the not to distant 
future.

The Carrot and the Stick Inc., brings together a variety of talented 
individuals to keep Electronic Mail a usable method of communication for 
both the Business Community and the Home User.

The Carrot and the Stick Inc., will provide the needed parameters for the 
Bulk Mail Industry to follow by defining what spam is and what is more 
important. What is not spam by outlining Best Practices for the bulk mail 
industry. By doing this we will help the Bulk Mail Industry to be more 
profitable while making the overall online experience for the end user more 
enjoyable.

The Carrot, if you will is a list of Internet Protocol Addresses assigned 
to Bulk Mail Operators, Internet Service Providers and the General Business 
Community that adhere to the accepted Internet Standards for mailing list 
management. These standards have been the accepted Best Practices for list 
management for the last six or seven years.

Further, these members will follow our standards for online business 
conduct. These standards have been a part of the RFC standards for a very 
long time.

Their inclusion into the white list will allow legitimate Bulk Mail 
Operators to send their communications unimpeded to their list of 
subscribers. If for some reason their communications are refused The Carrot 
and the Stick Inc., will mediate between the sender and the recipient's 
provider to find out what the problem is. This will provide a venue for the 
sender and the Service Provider to facilitate a remedy for this situation. 
This is something that is not currently available on any sort of large scale.

The obvious direct affect of a Provider using this white list will be their 
ability to be more aggressive in their filtering with far fewer false 
positives. While this will not directly affect the volume of spam being 
sent this will directly affect the volume of spam being received by the end 
user. This will be a very important selling point to any Internet Service 
Provider.

In using, the same technique used to create and distribute a Black List you 
ensure the technology is already in place. The Internet Protocol Address of 
a Bulk Mail Operator can not be forged or otherwise altered to benefit 
unscrupulous individuals or to implicate the Bulk Mail Operator. These are 
usually static and there fore a very good way to ensure delivery of 
Electronic Mail.

The use of a White listing of Internet Protocol Addresses will preclude the 
possibility of fraud and/or forgery. This type of white listing is 
preferable to the of adding to the X-headers some riddle or sending mail 
through our servers instead of their own server. This would also mean the 
Bulk Mailer would not be limited to just the one mailing. Instead, because 
all their Internet Protocol Addresses are white listed means they can 
contact their list at any given time.

The Stick, if you will be a Black Listing of their Internet Protocol 
Addresses and legal action for damage to reputation for only those that 
abuse the White List by using it to spam. This should discourage abuse by 
any intelligent individuals.
---snip---

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