Re: [ASRG] 0 - General, Reliability of Transport

["Walter Dnes" <waltdnes at waltdnes.org>]

On Sun, May 23, 2004 at 11:03:12AM +0930, Chris wrote
> 
> Is there a mention in our Charter about the *reliability of transport*?
> 
> From what I have seen over the months there is two camps within this group
> 
> 
> 1/ Those that believe Spam should be stopped at any cost
> 2/ Those that believe Spam should be countered but not at the expense of
> losing possibly important messages
> 
> I am quite solidly in the second group (am I alone).
> 
> It seems to me that this is a paramount consideration. and this group
> should support one or the other to the exclusion of the other. As
> I see it as a major sticking point amongst proponents.

  Stopping spam *WILL* have *SOME* costs; deal with it.  There is no
such thing as a perfect spam filter/block.  You are wrong to phrase the
question in a binary "all costs" or "no costs" manner.  It's more a
question of risk management, i.e. what level of false positives are you
willing to accept where 0% < FP < 100% ?

  Even no filtering will lead to lost/delayed email as people JHD the
wrong emails.  And let's not forget about email being rejected due to
inboxes filled-to-capacity with spam.  I recognize anti-spam measures as
necessary evils, hopefully the lesser of two evils.

> As a mail user I want to see a message that I send reach its
> destination without wondering if it ever made it because I somehow
> triggered a spam filter.

  And so do spammers.

> This should include that any system must have a suitable reporting
> system (bounce) so that I am made aware of any errors in transit. This
> reporting system must of course not be useable by spammers to probe
> the filter to break it. Which I understand is a major risk.

  In my case, it's a 550 reject message *TO THE SENDING MTA, NOT AN
INNOCENT THIRD-PARTY WHOSE ADDRESS HAS BEEN FORGED IN ENVELOPE_SENDER*.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes at waltdnes.org>
Email users are divided into two classes;
1) Those who have effective spam-blocking
2) Those who wish they did

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