Re: [Mailman-Users] The economics of spam
From: Rich Kulawiec <rsk@gsp.org>
On Sat, Jan 03, 2009 at 02:52:21PM -0800, Jan Steinman wrote:
No, it is based upon the idea that a system could be implemented
whereby it would be impossible to avoid the payment.This idiotic idea... the wishful thinking of clueless newbies... one
of the very stupidest anti-spam ideas... debunking of this nonsense...
Is it really necessary to take this arrogant and abusive tone?
If you are trying to convince others of your position, I fear the only
thing you're convincing me of is your close-mindedness and utter
unwillingness to consider different ways of thinking, and I'm afraid I
tend to write off everything such people say.
If you don't really care about convincing others of your position, why
not just sit on your hands and let us "clueless newbies" (at least one
of whom has been doing UNIX sysadmin and SMTP and TCP/IP programming
for 30 years) make fools of ourselves?
You haven't really explained anything -- just called people names.
:::: Freedom of the commons brings ruin to all. -- Garrett Hardin :::: :::: Jan Steinman (a fossil-fuel free zone!) <http://www.VeggieVanGogh.com
::::
On Sun, Jan 04, 2009 at 03:56:42PM -0800, Jan Steinman wrote:
Is it really necessary to take this arrogant and abusive tone?
Consider it exasperation at seeing this FUSSP brought up yet *again*, long after it was staked through the heart and buried at a crossroads. Please see:
http://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/you-might-be.html#e-postagefor background on and examples of FUSSPs.
If you (rhetorical you) want to self-educate and to potentially apply yourself to addressing the problem, then by all means, please do. But this list isn't appropriate; I suggest joining some/all of these:
spam-l (via listserv@peach.ease.lsoft.com)
asrg (via asrg-request@irtf.org)
spamtools (via spamtools-request@lists.abuse.net)AND reading most of their archives, especially spam-l, before attempting to promulgate your favorite tactic/strategy. (I'm not the only one with a short fuse when it comes to dealing with the same known-failed idea for the 47th time, although I will readily admit that some others show far more patience than I do. Maybe they have more -- or better -- brandy.)
---Rsk
p.s. As a small courtesy, and by way of compensation, let me try to provide some minor assistance to potential future contributors by enumerating a few of the fundamental design errors that immediately doom some "anti-spam" ideas:
- redefining abuse
- redirecting abuse
- amplifying abuse
- fighting abuse with abuse
- failure to consider scaling issues ("what if everyone did this?")
- failure to consider adoption issues ("what if everyone didn't do this?")
- failure to consider counter-measures ("what if spammers read RFCs?")
- generating yet more SMTP traffic
- presumption of spammer honesty/compliance/acquiescence
- allowing unknown third parties to generate significant amounts of outbound traffic to destinations of their choosing
- reliance on legislation and/or law enforcement
- forcing effort and costs of abuse control onto third parties
- drastic underestimation of spammer resources and abilities
- presumption of secure network endpoints
There's more, of course, but a few minutes' contemplation of these is sufficient to understand why some approaches (e.g., opt-out, SPF, C/R, SAV, BlueFrog, and yes, e-postage) are not going to work regardless of how they're implemented, and why attempts to implement them make (or would make) the spam/abuse problem considerably worse.
participants (2)
-
Jan Steinman -
Rich Kulawiec