Subject: RE: IETF announce list and spam filtering

From: "Brian Bisaillon" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 13:14:58 -0400

First, I think that my method described in my e-mail "Re: Why spam is a problem." would address some pretty big issues. As far as spam filtering, this would allow users to reject e-mail coming from users that actually exist on a mail server for a domain e-mail is coming from.

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From: Daniel Senie <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 13:59:08 -0400

At 01:14 PM 8/14/02, you wrote:
>First, I think that my method described in my e-mail "Re: Why spam is a 
>problem." would address some pretty big issues. As far as spam filtering, 
>this would allow users to reject e-mail coming from users that actually 
>exist on a mail server for a domain e-mail is coming from.

It also will block email coming from embedded devices, alerting you that 
your UPS has a bad battery, or sending you firewall logs, etc. There are 
MANY devices with SMTP embedded in them, which adhere to the RFCs, and 
which will be severely broken by your proposals.

As many folks have already said on the IETF list, this is NOT a subject 
that can or should be "solved" with a quick fix. Though the IETF community 
loves to toss ideas out and have big discussions of this sort, they tend to 
generate a lot more heat than light.

Many people inside and outside the IETF have spent a great deal of time on 
the spam issue, and have discussed and dismissed a great many proposals and 
ideas, including many of the ones that have been tossed about on this list.

If there is a desire to approach the technical and/or political aspects of 
spam within the structure of the IETF, then one or more BOFs should be 
organized, mailing lists set up, and the normal process followed.

To continue the spam discusion on the ietf list does nothing more than 
point out why we call it spam in the first place. Go back and watch the 
Monty Python sketch. You'll note the discussion drowns out everything but spam.

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Daniel Senie                                        [email-masked]
Amaranth Networks Inc.                    http://www.amaranth.com