Subject: RE: Why spam is a problem.

From: Franck Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 15:41:06 +1200

I saw a very nice tool

http://tmda.net

It spools the e-mail and ask the sender to acknowledge he sent the
e-mail. It is only after the acknowldegement is received that the e-mail
is finally distributed.

I think this system coupled with other anti-spam techniques (like
open-relays blockers,...) is very effective.

Finally if mail servers were not open relays out of the box, we would be
in a better world...

Franck Martin
Network and Database Development Officer
SOPAC South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission
Fiji
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-----Original Message-----
From: Christian Huitema [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Wednesday, 14 August 2002 2:20 
To: Perry E. Metzger; Keith Moore
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: Why spam is a problem.

> Keith Moore <[email-masked]> writes:
> > it's much more difficult to filter spam in general.  one person's
spam
> > might be another person's life-changing investment opportunity...
> 
> I understand the "free speech!" attitude and such, but unfortunately
> it isn't reasonable. They're making me pay for their free speech.

The free speech of the spammers is not really the issue. The real
problem is, devising a system that still let's third parties send you
e-mail, even if you have never met them before. You want to curb down
the mass mailing, you don't want to stop "unsolicited mail".

There are clearly two approaches. One is to pass laws outlawing spam. It
may be useful, but usefulness is limited. I live in Washington State,
where a state law actually prohibits spam. Does not seem to have much
practical impact so far.

The other approach is technical. As Bob Braden says, this is what the
IETF does, so that what we should look at. We all have ideas -- request
authentication of messages, run a distributed system that detects and
block spam as soon as a campaign starts, etc. My favorite would be to
automatically challenge the sender of messages -- send a message back,
"do you really want me to read that", with a nonce of some kind. But,
hey, we also know that there is an escalation game going on, and that
there will be some form of countermeasures... So we better find a really
good solution!

-- Christian Huitema

---

From: Franck Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: 14 Aug 2002 23:06:54 +1200

To add to it...

I think all Mail server creator should make this pledge:

"Our mail server will not relay mail out of the box and the user has to
go through a wizard/configuration procedure to open the door to
legitimate users"

Can sendmail, postfix, Microsoft, Mdaemon and other people make this
pledge?

It won't mater today but in 2-3 years time it will oblige spam from
coming from spammer directly 99% of the cases...

Cheers.
[email-masked]

On Wed, 2002-08-14 at 15:41, Franck Martin wrote:

    I saw a very nice tool
    
    http://tmda.net