Subject: Re: Why Spam is a problem

From: "Bill Cunningham" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 12:56:21 -0400

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Bisaillon" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2002 10:52 AM
Subject: Re: Why Spam is a problem

> I don't see how filtering messages helps with bandwidth issues associated
with spam. You still have to receive spam before you can filter it out and
this is what uses up bandwidth. Spam needs to be stopped at the source
before it even enters a receiving network. That source is the service
provider and the fact is that those service providers don't take
accountability for the service they provide. Electronic mail is an
ungoverned medium and there is no accountability built-in and this is what
promotes spam. I don't understand how laws can help when systems on the
Internet cross many different jurisdictions accross the world. Also,
changing the protocol or adding extensions results in an enormous amount of
infrastructure change. Keep in mind, a "no soliciting" extension may not be
a solution in another country where they have not adopted any laws to back
it up.
>
> The Internet is an open and interoperable medium. You can't change the
design because it's too late. The fact remains that user A can still send a
message to user B and that user B has to receive that message before he/she
can filter it out unless user B's network blocked out user A's network to
begin with. Otherwise, there would have to be some way that spam messages
would have never been sent from user A in the first place. So the question
is how do you prevent spam before it happens?
So the responsibility should be placed on lower tier ISPs, what about the
main backbone like MAES.

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 13:23:35 -0400

> So the responsibility should be placed on lower tier ISPs, what about the

Note that there's a *lot* of private peering agreements in place, and traffic
exchange points like MAES don't see all the traffic.  In addition, it's
tough enough to just *route* traffic at OC-48 speeds, trying to do filtering
intelligent enough to determine spam/not at line speeds is quite formidable
(hint - at OC-48, you're going about 300 Mbytes/sec - this means with a 3K
e-mail, you have all of about 10 microseconds to make a decision before you
start causing delays).

I won't even start contemplating what happens at OC-192 trunks.

Also note that many of the Tier-1 providers have a financial disincentive
to do anything, as they are merely paid to move traffic - and the more spam
the more traffic and thus the more income.  The last thing they want is
for a successful anti-spam campaign when there's already a bandwidth glut
in the core....
-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Computer Systems Senior Engineer
				Virginia Tech

---

From: Alex Audu <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 13:39:45 -0500

--

Yeap! A successful anit-span ban can easily translate into more bandwidth glut,
which can mean less networking equipments being purchased and installed, which
in turn can translate into more Engineers being out of work.

No,..let them transmit the span. Just bridge it at the end point. You need to
give the
end user the power to decide if what is coming in is span or not. One man's span
could be another persons  life-saver.  The first time I get mail from source A,
if
it is span to me, I click on a menu that says "block" from source A,..and that
should be it.

Cheers,
Alex.

[email-masked] wrote:

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