Isn't this DMARC issue a bellwether for the end of email lists as we know them? It seems to me that the means of production (the internet backbone, the mail servers, etc) are now owned by Big Media (Comcast, Walt Disney, CBS, Viacom, Time Warner) and it is in their interest to make sure they can sell as much advertising as possible to the cattle.
People who operate Mailman servers (you guys) are just the little guys who are helping people facilitate non-advertisable communication between the masses.
This seems like a poignant example of the fiction of the distributed network. The last 15 years of the internet history (indeed, the first 15 years of internet history) has been the story of the consolidation of control into the hands of the few, not the open and egalitarian peer-to-peer network utopia that the internet was touted to be in populist culture.
If I really have something to say to someone, I write it using ink and paper, put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it and drop it into an actual post box. This way I know the NSA can't see it.
-Jason
On Wed, Apr 16, 2014 at 2:54 PM, jason fb lists@datatravels.com wrote:
Isn't this DMARC issue a bellwether for the end of email lists as we know them? It seems to me that the means of production (the internet backbone, the mail servers, etc) are now owned by Big Media (Comcast, Walt Disney, CBS, Viacom, Time Warner) and it is in their interest to make sure they can sell as much advertising as possible to the cattle.
That statement is even more relevant when you consider that some of the biggest DMARC promoters offer (advertising revenue-based electronic communication) services that they have always believed to be a replacement for mailinglists.
People who operate Mailman servers (you guys) are just the little guys who are helping people facilitate non-advertisable communication between the masses.
This seems like a poignant example of the fiction of the distributed network. The last 15 years of the internet history (indeed, the first 15 years of internet history) has been the story of the consolidation of control into the hands of the few, not the open and egalitarian peer-to-peer network utopia that the internet was touted to be in populist culture.
If I really have something to say to someone, I write it using ink and paper, put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it and drop it into an actual post box. This way I know the NSA can't see it.
The USPS publicly acknowledges (which makes one wonder what they haven't publicly acknowledged) that it regularly scans and saves postal envelopes (postcards too!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_Isolation_Control_and_Tracking . 160 billion pieces in 2012, but don't worry it's only META data.
-Jim P.
jason fb writes:
Isn't this DMARC issue a bellwether for the end of email lists as we know them?
Yes and no. Those who like mailing lists "as we know them" will continue to use them "that way", assuming that there's no active interference from the infrastructure itself. (This is supported by a mathematical theorem that I know to be true :-) but haven't actually succeeded in doing more than provide some persuasive examples yet.)
It seems likely to me that Mailman itself will evolve in the direction of a multi-protocol distribution facility. What I mean by that is that at some point in the history of Mailman 3 you will be able to install a suite of applications that allow users to communicate with a "mailing list" via SMTP, NNTP, or HTTP. I don't know whether you consider that an "email list as we know them" or not. It's good enough for me, though.
DMARC will still mean that you can't use your Yahoo! email as an author ID in such a system, though.
It seems to me that the means of production (the internet backbone, the mail servers, etc) are now owned by Big Media (Comcast, Walt Disney, CBS, Viacom, Time Warner) and it is in their interest to make sure they can sell as much advertising as possible to the cattle.
True. However, the backbone is constrained by U.S. law about common carriers. They *want* that protection, because otherwise they'd be liable for damages and criminal charges for pornography and terrorist communications. This doesn't prevent other countries or international gateways from operating by different rules, but as Larry Lessig pointed out, "Code Is Law". Somebody has to write that software that operates by different rules, and it *will* be buggy at gateways. That doesn't appeal to Big Media, because working around would require that "the sheep look up", and I doubt they want that.
The "free email" service providers also have to worry about that because of the hysteria about spam and phishing. They could easily find themselves in a position where either they have to authenticate potential users the way banks do credit card applicants, or try to hide behind "common carrier" because anybody with an Internet connection can get a mailbox there.
People who operate Mailman servers (you guys) are just the little guys who are helping people facilitate non-advertisable communication between the masses.
There's nothing "non-advertisable" about it (if you're serious about the "potential" semantics of "-able"). Putting an advertisement into list footers or headers is trivial, and doing Web-2.0-style dynamic ads is a SMOP. We just choose not to do so, but I would imagine there exist lists that do accept advertising revenue for use of their footers.
This seems like a poignant example of the fiction of the distributed network. The last 15 years of the internet history (indeed, the first 15 years of internet history) has been the story of the consolidation of control into the hands of the few, not the open and egalitarian peer-to-peer network utopia that the internet was touted to be in populist culture.
So much the worse for popular culture. Some form of consolidation of responsibility was inevitable due to economies of scale in provision of the backbone. Since things don't work very well if authority ("control") isn't commensurate with responsibility, consolidation of control is very hard to avoid. TANSTAAFL, you know.
The Internet was never egalitarian. It always required enough expertise to make you a stranger in a strange land (damn, the science fiction ObRefs just don't stop coming!) Anybody who thought otherwise can hardly be accused of actually thinking about the issue.
And "egalitarian peer-to-peer" is almost an oxymoron. People aren't peer-to-peer in any egalitarian sense: their social networks are hardly uniform. Phenomena like Facebook ("social netword aggregators") were inevitable, and they have strong economies of scale too.
So the bottom line is that this doesn't really bother me, I don't think that (at this point) the potential abuse by the powerful has really achieved 1984 or Brave New World levels, due to internal checks and balances of the system as it exists. And Mailman still has a lifespan more limited by our ability to adapt to new technology than by the society around us IMO.
That sounds a bit like what yahoo and google groups do. If there's a web forum associated with the list then there'd be the option to simply not deliver to yahoo members, and they can just use the web interface.
Peter Shute
Sent from my iPhone
On 17 Apr 2014, at 1:39 pm, "Stephen J. Turnbull" stephen@xemacs.org wrote:
jason fb writes:
Isn't this DMARC issue a bellwether for the end of email lists as we know them?
Yes and no. Those who like mailing lists "as we know them" will continue to use them "that way", assuming that there's no active interference from the infrastructure itself. (This is supported by a mathematical theorem that I know to be true :-) but haven't actually succeeded in doing more than provide some persuasive examples yet.)
It seems likely to me that Mailman itself will evolve in the direction of a multi-protocol distribution facility. What I mean by that is that at some point in the history of Mailman 3 you will be able to install a suite of applications that allow users to communicate with a "mailing list" via SMTP, NNTP, or HTTP. I don't know whether you consider that an "email list as we know them" or not. It's good enough for me, though.
DMARC will still mean that you can't use your Yahoo! email as an author ID in such a system, though.
It seems to me that the means of production (the internet backbone, the mail servers, etc) are now owned by Big Media (Comcast, Walt Disney, CBS, Viacom, Time Warner) and it is in their interest to make sure they can sell as much advertising as possible to the cattle.
True. However, the backbone is constrained by U.S. law about common carriers. They *want* that protection, because otherwise they'd be liable for damages and criminal charges for pornography and terrorist communications. This doesn't prevent other countries or international gateways from operating by different rules, but as Larry Lessig pointed out, "Code Is Law". Somebody has to write that software that operates by different rules, and it *will* be buggy at gateways. That doesn't appeal to Big Media, because working around would require that "the sheep look up", and I doubt they want that.
The "free email" service providers also have to worry about that because of the hysteria about spam and phishing. They could easily find themselves in a position where either they have to authenticate potential users the way banks do credit card applicants, or try to hide behind "common carrier" because anybody with an Internet connection can get a mailbox there.
People who operate Mailman servers (you guys) are just the little guys who are helping people facilitate non-advertisable communication between the masses.
There's nothing "non-advertisable" about it (if you're serious about the "potential" semantics of "-able"). Putting an advertisement into list footers or headers is trivial, and doing Web-2.0-style dynamic ads is a SMOP. We just choose not to do so, but I would imagine there exist lists that do accept advertising revenue for use of their footers.
This seems like a poignant example of the fiction of the distributed network. The last 15 years of the internet history (indeed, the first 15 years of internet history) has been the story of the consolidation of control into the hands of the few, not the open and egalitarian peer-to-peer network utopia that the internet was touted to be in populist culture.
So much the worse for popular culture. Some form of consolidation of responsibility was inevitable due to economies of scale in provision of the backbone. Since things don't work very well if authority ("control") isn't commensurate with responsibility, consolidation of control is very hard to avoid. TANSTAAFL, you know.
The Internet was never egalitarian. It always required enough expertise to make you a stranger in a strange land (damn, the science fiction ObRefs just don't stop coming!) Anybody who thought otherwise can hardly be accused of actually thinking about the issue.
And "egalitarian peer-to-peer" is almost an oxymoron. People aren't peer-to-peer in any egalitarian sense: their social networks are hardly uniform. Phenomena like Facebook ("social netword aggregators") were inevitable, and they have strong economies of scale too.
So the bottom line is that this doesn't really bother me, I don't think that (at this point) the potential abuse by the powerful has really achieved 1984 or Brave New World levels, due to internal checks and balances of the system as it exists. And Mailman still has a lifespan more limited by our ability to adapt to new technology than by the society around us IMO.
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participants (4)
-
jason fb -
Jim Popovitch -
Peter Shute -
Stephen J. Turnbull