Subject: [Asrg] 0. General - E-mail use case scenarios

From: Andrew Akehurst <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 00:06:17 +0100

Hello everyone

I've been away thinking about the spam issue for a while and 
have a suggestion which may help to analyse the likely impact
of anti-spam proposals upon the way e-mail is currently used.

What I suggest is to come up with a set of scenarios which 
together describe all of the different ways in which e-mail
is used and can be referred to by number.

For example:

1  Sender Alice ([email-masked]) sends a message to Bob 
   ([email-masked]). Alice has previously e-mailed Bob
   from that address.

2  Alice has acquired a new e-mail address ([email-masked]).
   She has previously e-mailed Bob from her other address and
   is known to him:
 
  (a) Alice has not told Bob in advance of her new address: the
      first he finds out is when she sends him a message from
      the new address.

  (b) Alice knows her new e-mail address in advance and informs
      Bob of it either by e-mail from her existing address or by
      some out-of-band method. Bob might then, depending on his
      MUA and anti-spam software, be able to whitelist Alice's
      new address or establish prior consent for future e-mail.

... etc.

These are just a few simple examples, but given a set of
standard scenarios which describe how e-mail is used, we 
could easily analyse new proposals. One could simply say
"Proposal X does not allow use case 3" or "Proposal Y 
requires a change to use case 5"

Having a reasonably comprehensive set of examples would
also encourage the authors of proposals to consider the
impact of their suggestions on some of the less common
ways in which e-mail is actually used.

I am working on such a document for my degree project
and would be happy to show it to the group if it would be
of any help or interest.

Thanks

Andrew

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From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 14:02:09 -0400

> is used and can be referred to by number.

I believe that this can be a useful contribution to the evaluation 
model. We need to take the requirements document and the tech 
considerations documents, and make an evaluation model based on them. 
Scenarios are already touched on a little bit in the tech considerations 
document.

> and would be happy to show it to the group if it would be

Please, we would love to see it.

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From: Andrew Akehurst <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 22:09:34 +0100

> I believe that this can be a useful contribution to the
> evaluation model. We need to take the requirements document
> and the tech considerations documents, and make an evaluation
> model based on them. Scenarios are already touched on a little
> bit in the tech considerations document.

OK, I will re-read the requirements and tech considerations
documents and use them as inputs into my scenarios.

The first draft should be ready in the next couple of days.

Thanks

Andrew