[Spambayes] Two Stage Plan

Piers Haken piersh at friskit.com
Tue Dec 17 22:23:27 EST 2002


I think the real question is how much of a pain in the ass is it going
to be when joe email-user finds that his spam filter stops working
because of this and he has no idea how to make it ignore the token?

Or are we assuing that anti-spam products are the technically-savvy
only?

It seems to me that it's more trouble than it's worth especially since
we already have filters that are capable of filtering almost all spam
correctly. Why introduce something into the system that could
potentially reduce their effectiveness?

Call me an irrational crank, but... oh wait...

Piers.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gary Robinson [mailto:grobinson@transpose.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 5:21 PM
> To: SpamBayes
> Subject: Re: [Spambayes] Two Stage Plan
> 
> 
> Well, the whole key to the idea is that people would get 
> behind it. Some irrational cranks are always expected, of 
> course, no matter how worthy an idea is. The question is 
> whether a LOT of people can get behind it.
> 
> 
> --Gary
> 
> 
> -- 
> Help your email get through while making life harder for 
> spammers: use http://wecanstopspam.org in your sig.
> 
> Gary Robinson
> CEO
> Transpose, LLC
> grobinson@transpose.com
> 207-942-3463
> http://www.transpose.com
> http://radio.weblogs.com/0101454
> 
> 
> > From: "Piers Haken" <piersh@friskit.com>
> > Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 16:44:37 -0800
> > To: "Gary Robinson" <grobinson@transpose.com>, "Spamfilt" 
> > <spamfilt@archub.org>, "SpamBayes" <spambayes@python.org>
> > Subject: RE: [Spambayes] Two Stage Plan
> > 
> > Sounds like a disater to me. I hope that spambayes will 
> have an option 
> > to completely ignore ANY instance of this URL in ALL messages.
> > 
> > <font color=white>
> > http://wecanstopspam.org
> > </font>
> > 
> > <slaps-head />
> > 
> > Piers.
> > 
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Gary Robinson [mailto:grobinson@transpose.com]
> >> Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 1:23 PM
> >> To: Spamfilt; SpamBayes
> >> Subject: [Spambayes] Two Stage Plan
> >> 
> >> 
> >> I want to suggest a two-stage plan to solve the spam 
> problem. I'm not 
> >> sure if it makes sense, but it's interesting enough to me that I 
> >> decided to share it to see what other people think.
> >> 
> >> FIRST STAGE
> >> 
> >> Many of you are aware of the http://wecanstopspam.org 
> idea, whereby:
> >> 
> >> --If a lot of real people use it in the sigs of real emails, spam 
> >> filters will get trained to see it as a very strong indicator of 
> >> being legitimate. Thus, it will have become a sort of "virtual 
> >> whitelist". I see this as being able to counteract, to 
> some extent, 
> >> the fact that spammers will be trying to use words with no very 
> >> spammy associations. Instead, this technique puts the stress on 
> >> "hammy" words, in particular this very hammy indicator.
> >> 
> >> --If the URL does become widely used and is accepted by 
> filters, of 
> >> course spammers will want to include it too. But at that point, it 
> >> will be popular enough that filter authors will be 
> motivated to make 
> >> sure that only visible, clickable versions of the URL are given a 
> >> high hamminess value. So spammers would have to, in 
> effect, advertise 
> >> the wecanstopspam.org website and provide a convenient link.
> >> 
> >> --The URL would contain information about how to combat 
> spam, as it 
> >> does now, but hopefully much better written and presented, as the 
> >> site evolves under community guidance. So spammers that include it 
> >> will be helping their targets to fight spam.
> >> 
> >> SECOND STAGE
> >> 
> >> The problem with all possibly foolproof anti-spam 
> approaches, such as 
> >> the pay-to-spam approach, or the camram one 
> (http://www.camram.org/), 
> >> is that there is a huge chicken-or-egg problem. The world 
> really has 
> >> to settle on one solution and get a real critical mass of users in 
> >> order for it to work.
> >> 
> >> Now, if in fact it gets to the point that spammers are sending the 
> >> http://wecanstopspam.org URL to millions of users a day 
> (or even if 
> >> it doesn't, but millions of individuals are using it because the 
> >> virtual whitelist aspect), then there will be enormous power 
> >> associated with the wecanstopspam.org site.
> >> 
> >> That is, that site may then, all by itself, have the power to 
> >> determine what the world standard solution is by 
> announcing it on the 
> >> site. What will it be? That would be determined by some sort of 
> >> community process. Maybe online voting, or maybe a 
> conference where 
> >> people would discuss and finally vote on the solution.
> >> 
> >> CONCLUSION
> >> 
> >> If:
> >> 
> >> --A compelling enough meme could be crafted that people 
> would want to 
> >> include the URL in their sigs so that it would spread in a 
> p2p viral 
> >> fashion, and
> >> 
> >> --It is in fact possible for filters to only give credit 
> to the token 
> >> when it is visible and clickable,
> >> 
> >> then it seems to me that this could serve as a realistic means for 
> >> solving the chicken-and-egg problem, thereby creating a single 
> >> dominant standard with enough critical mass to actually work.
> >> 
> >> The basis for it is that it avoids the chicken-or-egg 
> problem in the 
> >> first stage by leveraging existing spam technology. It can do that 
> >> because the substrate is already in place for the idea to get to 
> >> critical mass, in the form of existing adaptive spam 
> filters such as 
> >> Graham's. Then when it gets to critical mass, spammers 
> will want to 
> >> co-opt the token, except that in the act of doing that 
> they give the 
> >> wecanstopspam,org site enough power to enable the world to 
> agree on a 
> >> foolproof solution.
> >> 
> >> Now, I realize the above may be crazy since I haven't 
> thought about 
> >> it for that long. But I just thought it was perhaps interesting 
> >> enough to be worth sharing.
> >> 
> >> Feedback?
> >> 
> >> 
> >> --Gary
> >> 
> >> 
> >> --
> >> Help your email get through while making life harder for
> >> spammers: use http://wecanstopspam.org in your sig.
> >> 
> >> Gary Robinson
> >> CEO
> >> Transpose, LLC
> >> grobinson@transpose.com
> >> 207-942-3463
> >> http://www.transpose.com
> >> http://radio.weblogs.com/0101454
> >> 
> >> 
> >>> 
> >> 
> >> 
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Spambayes mailing list
> >> Spambayes@python.org 
> >> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/spambayes
> >> 
> > 
> 
> 
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