IETF SMTP Working Group Proposal at smtpng.org

Thu Aug 22 20:25:35 UTC 2002

At 4:40 PM -0700 2002/08/21, <william at elan.net> wrote:

>  1. I want to create specification that would allow server operators
>  themselve to decide what kind of verification they want, if you do not
>  like callback, do not implement it.

	If it's not implemented by default in the standard MTAs, then it 
is useless.

>  2. Most estimate that up to 50% of mail system resources are used for
>  processing unwanted email, viruses, etc. The amount of processing time due
>  to new specification will be smaller then what has been gained from not
>  having to deal with unwanted emails as much.

	No, the numbers are more like 75-80% at many sites.  But you're 
talking many, many orders of magnitude worse.  You'd cause 99.999999% 
of all work done on all mail servers around the world to be nothing 
but waiting for callbacks to occur, and maybe some year an actual 
mail message might be delivered.

>  3. The processing is server cpu resource, while sending email is bandwidth
>  used. I'll give up some more cpu resources to decrease used bandwidth.

	This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with bandwidth. 
You're trading a few milliseconds of latency for dozens, hundreds, 
thousands, millions of seconds of latency.  Try doing the math 
sometime.

>  4. For last years cpu speed & hardware have been increasing at 2x per 2
>  years and are more and more powerfull. Even if the initiative goes
>  through fairly fast (I projected2 years, that is already too optimistic),
>  it'll be another 4 years at least before its used, by that time servers
>  would be 8 times faster!

	The biggest thing that you need to work to eliminate in any 
heavily loaded mail server is latency.  Specifically, what you tend 
to work hardest to eliminate is latency caused by waiting on the disk.

	Now, disks typically have latencies measured in terms of a few 
milliseconds, and you want to replace this latency by another process 
that will have latency that can be measured in minutes, hours, and 
days?!?

	So, just what kind of drugs have you been taking lately, eh?

-- 
Brad Knowles, <brad.knowles at skynet.be>

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
     -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania.

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