Subject: Re: IAB policy on anti-spam mechanisms?

From: "Dick St.Peters" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 16:40:09 -0500

> From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>

> I don't want to insult anyone, but subscribers treat spam filters like
> the other black boxes they deal with.  They don't care how a filter
> works if it has less than 10%-15% false negatives and less than 1%
> false positives.

In other words there is consensus among users that not getting spam
matters more than issues like internet transparency.

What happens if IETF consensus and user consensus are in opposition? 

--
Dick St.Peters, [email-masked]

---

From: Vernon Schryver <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 15:11:26 -0700 (MST)

> From: "Dick St.Peters" <[email-masked]>

> matters more than issues like internet transparency.

I also don't want want to insult anyone by stating the obvious fact
that almost no users, whether they are employed by ISPs and have titles
like "super senior network operator guru" or are end users like my Aunt
Millie, have any real idea what "internet transparency" might be.  They
certainly have no clue that it might be as valuable and that it might
be what has made their mailboxes both useful and full of spam.

> What happens if IETF consensus and user consensus are in opposition? 

Unless the IETF consensus is written in stone RFC tablets, that question
is not even moot.  Given an RFC or BCP, some users will entertain
other possibilities.  However, such an RFC must not be yet another
paean to great and wonderful principles.  It must say "X is evil,
nasty, bad, naughty, and you'll deeply regret using it" in the first
100 words.  Only a few people will read beyond the first words.
Practically none will understand or care about grand unifying principles.
Most of those who do will have agendas that conflict with the principles.

Internet transparency and the end-to-end principle are quite rightly
seen as evil, nasty, bad things by some.  Without them we wouldn't have
a global mail standard, mailboxes wouldn't be as useful or full of spam,
and the price of email would not be zilch.  Instead we'd have safe,
closed, far less useful islands like the current text messaging mess,
or the old AOL, x.400, UUCP, Microsoft, etc. mail islands.  Weren't some
of the proprietary dial-up mail systems of the 1980's and 1990's
profitable?  They certainly had prices a lot higher.

Vernon Schryver    [email-masked]