Re: [Asrg] Do we need to do anything?

[Jim Youll <jim@media.mit.edu>]

At 15:50 -0500 3/6/03, Kee Hinckley wrote:
> At 1:59 PM -0500 3/6/03, Jim Youll wrote:
> > But if you had a proper client that hid all the work, you could 
> > "give" a different e-mail address to every correspondent, and if it 
> > leaked out, you need only cancel that one and give that particular 
> > correspondent a freshly-generated address, no?
> Read the thread on striker's spam problem.  Hundreds of thousands of 
> messages a day, all bouncing due to a dictionary attack gone wrong.
>
> Now consider what happens if everyone has hundreds of temporary 
> addresses that can get into spammers hands.  Sure, you cancel it, 
> but that doesn't mean the spammer stops sending.  You've made your 
> life more complicated, and you've made your ISPs life hell.
> -

Did you happen to see the rest of my note with the snip from our log?
Spammers are basically doing dictionary attacks on domains now, 
desperation, yes, but nonetheless...

As a server operator for several domains, I don't know that life 
would be made "hell" by it. Spammers can send a finite number of 
messages, there IS a point of economic breakdown. As things stand now 
it seems to matter little whether the addresses exist or not.

Finally, if the same care is taken with these addresses as with the 
addresses we use now (I think I must be reachable by at least 15-30 
addresses right now), then the rate of turnover need not be 
excruciatingly high... further, a 1:1 mapping that allows tracking of 
a leaked address to its source introduces the possibility of 
enforcement of all manner of penalties against the transgressor... so 
I don't think this approach would lead to an explosion of inbound 
spam, not at all.

I also did not say  that it should be the only, or preferred, or even 
utilized-by-everyone approach, simply that the matter of self-help in 
the face of unhelpful global protocols and practices, should be given 
its due... and I attempted to answer a couple of points that 
discussed problems with the approach that seem from this perspective 
not to be problems.
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