Is there a technical solution to spam?

Wed Jul 30 09:19:40 UTC 2003

 > The solutions may well be found there but will be unimplementable
 > without much needed support from the operators - particularly the
 > major backbones - who currently turn a blind eye to protect their
 > revenue.

Bingo. There's the crux of the problem. It needs to be elaborated on and 
emphasized, because most engineers have a blind spot about the business 
aspects of their industry (no matter what that industry is).

There's a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, a lot of soul searching, 
a lot of angst here. All for naught.

Many big network operators are selling bigger and bigger pipes to 
everyone so they can keep up with more and more spam. They make money on 
the increased traffic, even as they have these solemn terms and 
conditions in place about how they won't tolerate spam.

The big network operators don't need to allow spammers to connect 
directly to their backbones. They make money by selling transit to other 
networks who sell transit to still other networks who then allow 
spammers to connect.

Network operators are such a naive bunch of engineers. There's lots of 
money to be made just in transit for spam, and quite often the people 
who sign the paychecks for the engineers who post to this list are the 
very people who benefit. They understand this, why don't you?

Every network operator should first try to get their own company to get 
serious about stopping spam. Top management has to be willing to do what 
it takes. E.g. de-peer, stop selling transit, etc. Until that happens 
the spam problem will keep getting worse.

And if top management isn't interested, or won't agree to do anything 
meaningful, ask yourself why. And keep that in mind the next time you 
get paid.