Wave of the Future (Spam)

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Thu Jun 21 13:54:49 2001

I'm not sure about Moore's law ... it looks more like Gresham's law, i.e. the
SPAM is forcing junk snail-mail off the market, since it's free, and that's
what's forcing postage rates upward.

I really don't believe it's advisable or necessary to eliminate SPAM. I think
it's necessary, however, to find a way to get it paid for by the foks who
originate it, else we'll all end up subsidizing the SPAM we hate.

Dick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Chase" <bdc_at_world.std.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2001 11:55 AM
Subject: Re: Wave of the Future (Spam)


> On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Richard Erlacher wrote:
>
> > I'm not convinced any more than 1 part in 10E23 of the user of
> > OUTLOOK/OUTLOOK EXPRESS even know about that feature. However, if
> > we're going to preseve the bandwidth so we can have "free" internet
> > for any more than a few more years, we're going to have to give up
> > something.
>
> Well, I guess that all depends on whether the curve of Moore's Law can out
> pace the spammers. I don't see major issues with the net being over
> congested with spam. It's an annoyance getting spam in your mailbox, but
> I'd imagine there are other things aside from spam more significantly
> impacting network performance.
>
> > Disposing of the mechanism that allows SPAMmers to send a
> > single email to a downstream server with the full expectation that the
> > server, outside his own domain, will distribute the mail at no cost to
> > him, will quickly quell the vast increase of unsolicited email.
>
> I do think that outlawing the "Cc" or "Bcc" mechanism's in e-mail is a bit
> of an extreme / kind of "out there" suggestion. I really just don't ever
> see that happening.
>
> And as someone else already pointed out, there's nothing to prevent
> spammers from generating lists of e-mail addresses and then just writing a
> script to spam each user individually. Which actually just makes things a
> lot worse. Sendmail, and I imagine other mail servers, try to be smart
> about routing e-mail. If there's a "Cc" line with multiple users at the
> same site, then sendmail only send's a single copy of the message to that
> site. That site's MTA then breaks the message into individual copies for
> the individual users. By allowing for only one user to be a recipient,
> and forcing spammers to send individual messages, you're undermining
> sendmail's ability to intelligently route traffic--and probably amplying
> the overall mail traffic going across the internet by a significant
> factor.
>
> And even if the spammer isn't clueful enough to write a script, there's
> nothing to prevent spam marketing companies to provide this mechanism for
> them, or for that matter, they could just set up a mailing list for their
> spammer customers to use.
>
> > I'm curious why you're taking a position favoring SPAMmers? I have
> > nothing against them. They're just using a facility that's avaiable
> > to them. I view their unpaid consumption of bandwidth as a theft of
> > bandwidth from the users who pay for what they waste with their SPAM,
> > however, though they make their money that way, so they don't see it
> > as waste.
> >
> > [...]
>
> I think my main point would be that your suggested fix doesn't actually
> eliminate the problem, and that it would likely actually make the amount
> of wasted bandwidth increase while also inconveniencing legitimate users
> who're accustomed to Cc'ing multiple people.
>
> > Things that provide benefit to some should be paid for by the ones who
> > reap the benefit, and proportionally (but perhaps not in linear
> > proportion) to how much they use. Likewise, I think it's unfair that
> > users of passenger vehicles that don't wear the roadways much at all
> > pay more tax per pound of gross-vehicle-weight than the owners of the
> > huge semi-tractor-trailer rigs that permanently alter the roadway in
> > only one pass over it.
>
> Don't toll roads work like this? Bigger trucks have to go through
> different toll booths than passenger vehicles.
>
> > Likewise, as the folks in California will probably consider, the usage
> > of MORE electrical power should not be discounted. If you use what a
> > small household uses, you should get the minimal rate. If you use, 5x
> > what the typical small household uses, you should pay 5x what that
> > household uses, i.e. 5x the amount per kWH, and if you use 1000x
> > kWH's, then you should pay 1000x the amount, per kWH that the small
> > household has to pay. It all gets passed to the end user of the
> > products and services that would be increased in cost. Maybe that
> > would get some folks to turn off the TV and air-conditioning once in a
> > while.
> >
> > [...]
>
> Well, even at a flat rate per kWH, the people using the most do actually
> pay the most. 10 kWH at $1/hr is $10, 50 kWH at $1/hr is $50. This is
> probably the most fair arrangement. From what I rememeber living in
> California from 1996-2000, the electric utilities there charged you a
> certain rate per kWH used under some fixed limit for a household. If you
> went beyond that limit, they did increase the rate (not discount it),
> penalizing heavy/wasteful electricity users.
>
> -brian.
>
>
Received on Thu Jun 21 2001 - 13:54:49 BST