Abuse response [Was: RE: Yahoo Mail Update]

Wed Apr 16 13:57:45 UTC 2008

On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 11:07:42AM +0100, michael.dillon at bt.com wrote:
> If people had succeeded in cleaning up the abuse problems in 1995
> when the human touch was still feasible, we would not have the
> situation that we have today. Automation is the only way to address
> the flood of abuse email, the huge number of people originating
> abuse, and the agile tactics of the abusers.

I agree with this and with pretty much everything else you wrote.

But...

If an operation is permitting itself to be such a systemic, persistent
source of abuse that the number of abuse reports it's receiving (which
everyone knows is tiny fraction of the number it *could* be receiving)
requires automation...isn't that a pretty good sign that whatever's
being done to control abuse isn't working?

The solution to that isn't to put in place higher levels of automation:
the solution to to that is to *solve the underlying problems* so that
higher levels of automation aren't necessary.

---Rsk