Subject: The spam problem is political (Re: Engineering to deal with the social problem of spam)

From: Marc Schneiders <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2003 00:27:45 +0200 (CEST)

On Sat, 7 Jun 2003, at 13:57 [=GMT-0700], Spencer Dawkins wrote:

> Disclaimer: there are people who know more about e-mail than I
> do, and some of them are on this list.

I know absolutely nothing more than the bare minimum needed to keep
sendmail running (so far). That is no reason to stop reading.  If my
idea has some merit, you can stop the spam topic on this list.

Why do people not fill my snail mailbox with junk letters, leaflets?
Because (1) it costs money to print a leaflet and get it distributed.
Also (2) there are (where I live) laws and political deals with
advertizers, that make it a bad idea to use addresses from cd-roms, or
just deliver leaflets to all addresses (direct distribution). If my
mailbox says "NO" I should not get them. And the great thing is, the
Dutch police and justice system can get at those who don't play by the
rules.(*)

Spam costs nothing. Spam comes from all corners of the world, where
the Dutch police doesn't dare to go. And even if they would the Dutch
judges would say it is without their jurisduction. Spam can only be
fought through a worldwide police and justice system. This cannot by
achieved by an RFC. Send this problem to ICANN.

(*) I know that in theory people could evade being prosecuted in
Holland by sending advertizing letters, using illegal address
databases from Tuvalu and contact addresses for themselves in Libya.
But this doesn't happen.

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From: "Anthony Atkielski" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2003 02:02:36 +0200

Marc writes:

> Spam can only be fought through a worldwide
> police and justice system.

If so, that does not bode well for the future.  As far as I can remember,
_nothing_ has been successfully fought worldwide, except perhaps smallpox.

> This cannot by achieved by an RFC. Send this
> problem to ICANN.

ICANN can't do anything about it.

---

From: Marc Schneiders <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2003 17:49:04 +0200 (CEST)

On Sat, 7 Jun 2003, at 18:51 [=GMT-0400], vinton g. cerf wrote:

[When I wrote: Send the problem to ICANN.]

> this is NOT an ICANN problem - ICANN has no jurisdiction at the
> email level.
>
> vint cerf
> chairman, ICANN

I was joking of course. A bad joke. Sorry.

"ICANN has no jurisdiction at the email level". Indeed. But who has?
So here is a serious idea, not involving the UN, but some effective
social engineering: Send the problem to Microsoft. Why?

Because a solution against spam I see is a combination of working
reverse DNS (also for dial in connections through DHCP and dynamic
DNS) and turning OutLook into a combined MUA/MTA with blacklist (of IP
numbers) and whitelist (of valid hostnames on the user level)
features. I call this new OutLook: OutPeer, since (most) mail will go
peer-to-peer in my scheme.

I have more to say about this. And since it is not about standards (no
new ones required, I think), and also likely stupid, I will not do it
here. I have put it up at

http://www.outpeer.com/

I appreciate comments to [email-masked].

-- 
[03] I thank you for your time and interest.
http://logoff.org/

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From: "vinton g. cerf" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 07 Jun 2003 18:51:09 -0400

this is NOT an ICANN problem - ICANN has no jurisdiction at the email
level.

vint cerf
chairman, ICANN

>achieved by an RFC. Send this problem to ICANN.

Vint Cerf
SVP Architecture & Technology
MCI
22001 Loudoun County Parkway, F2-4115
Ashburn, VA 20147
703 886 1690 (v806 1690)
703 886 0047 fax
[email-masked]
www.mci.com/cerfsup