Subject: RE: Why spam is a problem.

From: "Christian Huitema" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 19:20:01 -0700

> 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: "Eric A. Hall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 22:16:15 -0500

on 8/13/2002 9:20 PM Christian Huitema wrote:

> IETF does, so that what we should look at.

But the canonical problem is social, not technical. The symptoms we all
know about and are eager to treat (me included) aren't the real problem.

This doesn't mean that we shouldn't be exploring technical solutions to
some of the symptomatic problems (forgery sucks regardless of whether its
spam, worms, outright fraud, or anything else). What it means is that the
problem won't go away until the root social problem is fixed.

BTW, the reason the WA state law is ineffective is because it isn't widely
enforced. National laws would have much more effect. A few ambulance
chasers filing class-action lawsuits that spanned all jurisdictions would
stop it faster than any imaginable technical solution.

-- 
Eric A. Hall                                        http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols          http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/