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Date:      Fri, 3 Jan 2003 01:55:08 -0800
From:      David Schultz <dschultz@uclink.Berkeley.EDU>
To:        Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>
Cc:        Dave Hayes <dave@jetcafe.org>, dever@getaclue.net, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Bystander shot by a spam filter.
Message-ID:  <20030103095508.GA10237@HAL9000.homeunix.com>
In-Reply-To: <3E10FD38.87438C83@mindspring.com>
References:  <200212302207.gBUM74175262@hokkshideh2.jetcafe.org> <20021230235954.GB2072@HAL9000.homeunix.com> <3E10FD38.87438C83@mindspring.com>

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Thus spake Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>:
> David Schultz wrote:
> > Thus spake Dave Hayes <dave@jetcafe.org>:
> > > SPAM is not a technical/internet problem. It's a cultural problem.
> > 
> > True, but what makes SPAM different from other forms of
> > advertising is the cost model.
> 
> 
> So change the culture.
> 
> The nature of the culture is an emergent property of the medium;
> therefore, even if it is not a technical problem, it is amenable
> to a technical solution: modification of the medium.
> 
> 
> > To fix the problem technically, you need to change the cost model,
> > or have some sort of authentication for email.  Both of these are
> > a long way from general use, unfortunately.
> 
> Actually, you want to have authorization, not authentication.  You
> could probably care less about authentication, and it seems to me
> that authentication is the part that Dave objects to, anyway.
> 
> The point of authorization is to change the cost model, anyway, so
> in the limit, you are talking about economics in both your approaches.

Authentication is a prerequisite to being able to enforce policies
for authorization.  I intentionally avoided trying to specify some
sort of culture or policy for email because that's a highly
debatable issue.  I'm just pointing out that in order to enforce
any policy in a way that can't be abused, you need an
infrastructure that allows you to bind a key to every sender, or
at least to each service provider.  It needs to take more than an
Internet connection to send email; it must require some sort of
consent from the community.  Moreover, that permission must be
granted in a secure way.  Clearly, basing it on IP addresses and
artificial intelligence is unreliable and complicated, as
evidenced by the existence of this thread.

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