E-Mail authentication fight looming: Microsoft pushing Sender ID

Wed Jul 6 19:44:57 UTC 2005

On 7/6/05, Rich Kulawiec <rsk at gsp.org> wrote:
> I grow rather tired of people whining about the spam (and abuse) problem
> on the one hand...while refusing to take simple, well-known, and proven
> steps to push the consequences back on those responsible for it.  While we
> may no longer be in a position to remove particularly egregious networks
> from the Internet, we most certainly are in a position to remove the
> Internet from them via coordinated group action -- producing an
> equivalent result.

It's the group interaction this requires that is the problem.  For
instance, as a small ISP, it's hard to make a difference at all if you
block someone like, say, comcast or verizon (not pointing fingers,
just using examples)  ...  A small ISP could, conceivably put
themselves out of business doing something like that..

Coordinating something like that is difficult to begin with, but if
you're on the receiving end, I'm sure there will be lawsuits involved.
 Regardless of the legality, a lawsuit costs money, money a smaller
ISP may not have.

Then there's the problem with getting everyone to agree to block
someone ..  Not everyone is going to agree that company X needs to be
blocked.

Overall it's a great idea, but I don't think it's practical ...  I've
stuck to using blocklists and intelligent filtering.  I've spent a
great deal of time over the past few years developing our system and I
think it's doing a fine job at the moment..  :)

> ---Rsk

-- 
Jason 'XenoPhage' Frisvold
XenoPhage0 at gmail.com