SORBS Contact
Robert Bonomi
bonomi at mail.r-bonomi.com
Sun Aug 13 03:29:15 UTC 2006
> From owner-nanog at merit.edu Wed Aug 9 22:00:58 2006
> To: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: Re: SORBS Contact
> From: Allan Poindexter <apoindex at aoc.nrao.edu>
> Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:59:36 -0600
>
>
> Matthew> so would you consider as it is my network, that I should
> Matthew> not be allowed to impose these 'draconian' methods and
> Matthew> perhaps I shouldn't be allowed to censor traffic to and
> Matthew> from my networks?
>
> If you want to run a network off in the corner by yourself this is
> fine. If you have agreed to participate in the Internet you have an
> obligation to deliver your traffic.
Obligation to _whom_? My only obligations are to those who _pay_ me for
access to my systems/resources. If the people who *do* pay me for use of
my systems/resources "don't want" that cr*p, then I do 'have an obligation'
to _not_ deliver that traffic.
And _how_ I implement that, to the satisfaction of =my= customers, is NONE
OF _YOUR_ BUSINSESS, since you are *not* one of my paying customers.
I don't have to tell _you_ what I do; I don't have to listen to any of your
'complaints'; and I sure-as-hell don't have to defend, _to_you_, what I do.
> At LISA a couple of years ago a Microsoftie got up at the SPAM
> symposium and told of an experiment they did where they asked their
> hotmail users to identify their mail messages as spam or not. He said
> the users got it wrong some small percentage amount of the time. I
> was stunned at the arrogance and presumption in that comment. You
> can't tell from looking at the contents, source, or destination if
> something is spam because none of these things can tell whether the
> message was requested or is wanted by the recipient. The recipient is
> the only person who can determine these things.
Do *you* _KNOW_ how hotmail came up with that determination that 'users
got it wrong some small percentage of the time'? If you *don't*, you are
exhibiting _at_least_ as much 'arrogance and presumption' as you accuse
them of.
I *KNOW*FOR*A*FACT*, that some people _do_, occasionally 'get it wrong'.
I, _personally_, have done it. Be it an 'off-by-one' error in selecting
and marking the message, to a long-delayed response to something _I_ sent,
and that came in _without_ reference to what I sent, errors *DO* happen.
Note: it can be _really_ easy to figure out if/when people mis-identify 'spam'.
You ask them to classify a bunch of old messages, presented one at a time.
You present the _same_ message *more*than*once*. If they mark it is 'good'
three times, and 'spam' once. Then they *did* 'get it wrong' -- it's not
certain _which_ way they 'got it wrong', but it *IS* absolutely certain that
they did 'get it wrong' "at least once".
I've seen some of the stuff AOL _users_ flag as 'spam' -- "content analysis"
*alone* virtually guarantees that they were flagged in error. Things like
college acceptance letters from Division I schools, bank overdraft notices,
NDRs for mail they themselves *sent*, 'delivery receipts' and/or 'read
receipts' that they had _requested_ on mail they sent out, etc., etc.
>
> There are simple solutions to this. They do work in spite of the
> moanings of the hand wringers. In the meantime my patience with email
> "lost" silently due to blacklists, etc. is growing thin.
If you want 'reliable' delivery, you _pay_ the recieving system (and the
intermediaries) for that service. Your lack of patience with something
other people _give_ you the free use of is, quite simply, an inexcusable
display of arrogance and presumption.
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