who's next?

Wed Sep 8 19:12:22 UTC 2004

At 04:29 PM 09/08/04 +0000, Paul Vixie wrote:
>i guess this is progress.  the press keeps bleating about stopping spam 
>from being received -- perhaps if they start paying attention to how it 
>gets sent and how many supposedly-legitimate businesses profit from the 
>sending, there could be some flattening of the spam growth curve.

I think both approaches have value.

Consider this by comparison to the "war against drugs". One line of 
reasoning says "if there is no supply, there will be no market". Another 
line of reasoning says "if there is no demand, there will be no market". A 
third line of reasoning notes that with purveyance of such come a multitude 
of other social ills, and focuses on the "businessmen" in the trade: "if 
there is no way for supply and demand to meet, the market will fail."

Believe it or not, there is a market for spam. One person in a zillion 
actually replies to email claiming to be from the survivors of deposed 
African officials, resulting in them being able to fleece another sucker. 
If nobody replied, sooner or later they would get tired of sending the 
stuff. And yes, if they stop sending the stuff (perhaps as a result of 
going to jail), we won't have to deal with it. And oh by the way, a way to 
help them decide to not send it is to disable them from getting access to 
the net.

So, I say, consider spam to be fraud or theft of service when it is, and 
apply anti-fraud or anti-theft laws to the spammers. Consider it to be a 
costly nuisance to the receiver, and provide a way for him to inexpensively 
and reliably sort wheat from chaff (signatures and reputation services, 
which are not about "I signed my email so I'm cool" as much as they are 
about "I really am who I say I am, and you may apply policies as you see 
fit to deal with my email"), preferably without having to actually see the 
chaff. And yes, deny the spammer access.

Where this gets interesting is with so-called "legitimate spam". At least 
under US law, if you and I have a relationship as buyer and seller, the 
seller has a right to advertise legitimate services and products to the 
buyer. I travel in a vertical direction when I get spam from my employer; I 
have sat down with the designated spammer and have been told in detail that 
as a user of that equipment I am a buyer and they have a right to advertise 
to me, and take pretty serious steps to target and not annoy their 
audience. There is a part of me that wants to site in an 18" gun using 
their building as a target; there is another part of me that notes the 
photography in magazines and on billboards and the little jingles that go 
by on TV and the radio, and notices that legitimate advertising is in fact 
treated as (ulp!) legitimate.

In that case, they're not going to jail, and no ISP is going to refuse them 
service. I just want the ability to say "but I choose to not receive email 
from the designated spammer, and need to be able to reliably identify email 
from him in order to enforce that policy." 
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