Abstract of proposed Internet Draft for Best Current Practice (please comment)

Fri Mar 7 07:32:38 UTC 2003

Thank you Andy for making my points so clearly.  See inline
comments

On Thu, 6 Mar 2003 12:30:11 -0500 (EST), Andy Dills wrote:
>Some comments, after reading the draft:
>>Under 2.1, Form of Practice, where you finally talk about what it is
>you're propsing:
>>"The withdrawal of IR (use of blocklists, cancellation of routing,
>withdrawal of IP addresses and domain names) may in its early months of
>adoption split the Internet into oceans of purity and islands of
>pollution.  As withdrawal expands, polluters will be pushed into ever
>smaller and less connected domains, which grow ever more blocked. This
>cumulative process will end quickly, with residual polluted islands
>populated by those lacking a need to communicate with oceans of purity."
>>
>That's the primary flaw. This will never get implemented due to the
>cavalier attitude towards collateral damage.

Whether it is implemented is not my business.  I am the doctor
diagnosing the illness and prescribing the scientifically validated
cure, and warning the patient of the quack remedies on the market.
My job is done now (almost, I just have to reformat and submit as
I-D, maybe a few more hours).

By way of background, I wrote a very famous book (War Comes to Long
An) on a matter of transcendent national importance, in 1972.    It
also (by inference) prescribed some medicine.  It got a lot of 
criticism at the time, but it is now the canonical analysis of that
problem, used in universities and military/diplomatic training 
institutions worldwide.  It took several years for this to happen.
I know, from talks with friends in the White House, that MANY
people are alive today who would be dead had I not spent three 
years of my life writing that book.

I have spent three years developing this draft BCP.  It is a cure,
in fact the ONLY cure, for the spam menace.  It will work.  Whether
people want to take the cure is up to you and your colleagues.  I am
just a drive-by spamming victim who got sick of the pointless debate
and decided to analyse the problem based on what I know of technology
and of human behavior (having studied both professionally; I am
trained as a social scientist from a well-known institution in
Cambridge Massachusetts but have spent most of my recent adult life in
technology; I was in the Army signal corps before that).  This is
just a charitable effort on my part.  I am not selling anything.

My apologies for the personal discussion which I would not 
ordinarily go into, but it is germane here so you all can understand
I have no vested interest in pushing software or hardware.  This 
effort is completely unrelated to my life work except in the sense
that I am a spam victim.

>
>Like you said, you need everybody to jump at the same time. 
>Unfortunately,  there is almost zero chance of that happening

It's up to you people on this list, not me.  This is the
medicine;  if you want to get well, take it.

>that IPv6 will ever replace IPv4 (at least until we truly run out of
>address space...which is looking less likely with time). To ostracize
>those who disagree by lableing them abuse-supporters is to diminish your
>chances even further. You'll end up with an island of purity in the 
middle
>of an ocean of pollution..."and the cumulative process will end quickly"
>when your customers come to your NOC with pitchforks and shotguns. In the
>end, we're here to serve the customer, not the other way around.

There are lots of well-run networks that don't accept inbound spam
and don't enable outgoing spam.  Their customers are happy and they
are making money.   The firms bankrupt or circling the drain are
the ones with dishonest managements who committed financial fraud
and/or ramped their shares based on revenue streams from spammers,
like .. whoops! I almost said it again, sorry, I got spanked last
time for mentioning the industry's leading US spam-enabler.

>
>
>Remember, it's a fine line. The network operators don't advocate
>abuse;

Some do and gain lots of revenue from it.  See the sad truth at 

  <www.camblab.com/nugget/spam_03.pdf>

>the business end of cash-desperate networks are the driving
>force in this industry, not us.

You have elegantly stated the Environmental Polluter business model:
internalize the revenue streams from the customers, and externalize
the losses imposed by spam-enabling actions and negligence.

GE used to work on that business model.  They are no longer dumping
effluents into the ground in Pittsfield Mass.   This could happen
to the Internet!  (with your help--go for it!)

Kind regards to all

Jeffrey Race