Subject: [Asrg] E-postage, more...

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2004 22:16:42 -0500

> The purpose of E-postage, as I see such proposals, is to make the cost of 
indiscriminate spamming prohibitive. This does inherently rate-limit, but 
the intent is that spammers' customers won't see anything close to the 
current ROI of spamming.

That only presumes (and without a convincing basis for the presumption) that the 
spammer is somehow the person who gets nailed for the cost of the postage.

There's terribly overwhelming experience to demonstrate convincingly that that 
is NOT the case.

>>>> Otherwise, I do not see what the ASRG or the IETF can do for or 
>>> against e-postage - it is simply not within the scope of standards at 
>>> this point.
>>
>> Well, it might be useful to set out some requirements. Or is that not 
>> within the IETF's remit? (Serious question.)
> 
> It is more of an IRTF issue at this point, so if sufficient people want 
> to pursue discussion on it, we can spill it off into a separate ASRG list.

> I think it would be good to establish a separate list for discussion of this 
nature. There are many people with fine ideas, and it would help to collect 
them in a list which doesn't have have the denizens screaming that e-postage 
is evil.

It's not ONLY just the issue of that it's evil.

The bigger problem is that it simply DOES NOT WORK for the purpose it's being 
proposed for.  (It's like declaring war on a sovereign nation to stamp out 
terrorism that the nation in question isn't actually involved in, and to bring 
an end to alleged WMD programs that in fact they don't still have.  If we're 
going to go off half-cocked, let's make sure that at least we're doing this 
stuff for the RIGHT reasons, and that it has at least a PRAYER of achieving the 
stated/argued objectives!)

Moving the discussion of E-postage off to another separate list (like Wong's SPF 
list) has the advantage (for advocates) that they can all preach together to the 
choir, after having chased off everyone who inconveniently points out the 
unpleasant truths that the system won't ultimately achieve its stated 
objectives.  So they can wander around in their own holy little cloud working on 
imagined solutions, without having to deal with legitimate concerns pointed out 
by the unwashed non-believers...!  :-)

There is LITTLE POINT, I feel, in developing convoluted and elaborate technical 
"solutions" that the spammers have already demonstrated convincingly that they 
ALREADY have effective work-arounds and evasions available for.

That is ESPECIALLY true when the proposed "solutions" have genuine and (for SOME 
users at least) terrible downsides which advocates of the solution in question 
hope to dismiss with a simple wave of the hand in the air.

Gordon Peterson                  http://personal.terabites.com/
1977-2002  Twenty-fifth anniversary year of Local Area Networking!
Support free and fair US elections!  http://stickers.defend-democracy.org
12/19/98: Partisan Republicans scornfully ignore the voters they "represent".
12/09/00: the date the Republican Party took down democracy in America.

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