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[Asrg] A Taxonomy of Spam
OK so defining the
term spam is off limits to the group because it ends up in definitional flame
wars. A lot of folk were engaging in flame wars and there were folk whose
definition of spam was 'that which is identified as spam by my
scheme'.
But we now face a
problem trying to explain schemes such as DKIM which are effective against
specific types of spam but not others, or at least will require different
degrees of infrastructure to eliminate different types of spam. We need a way to
explain exactly what types of spam a solution will act on and what types of
false positives will result.
I now think that
abandoning the topic entirely because it was a flame fest was a mistake. The
problem was not that we cannot define spam, the problem is that we were
attempting a binary definition rather than providing a taxonomy. Once the term
is understood to be a generic one with many subterms that might be defined
within the class the problem becomes less contentious. We can define the term
spam in the widest possible terms and then define more specific terms within
that class.
So for example we
might define spam to be any communication regardless of medium that is
originated indiscriminately and likely to be unwanted by the
recipient.
This definition
eliminates very little, about the only form of unwanted communication that is
excluded is things like writs, bills and such.
We can then
subdivide spam according to two orthogonal axes: by communication
medium: email, phone and by category, the two principal categories being
criminal
spam and non-criminal spam. Within each heading we have a series of
possibly overlapping subclassifications.
Within criminal spam
we have social engineering attempts (phishing), malware attacks (viruses,
trojans, etc.), advance fee fraud, consumer fraud, theft of service,
impersonation of origin.
Within non-criminal
spam we have unsolicited commercial messages, chain letters.
Once we have a
taxonomy it is much clearer that DKIM is designed in first instance to address
the theft of service and impersonation of origin categories directly and may
thus have a significant effect on criminal spam in general. DKIM is unlikely to
have a great effect on unsolicited commercial messages unless and until there is
an accreditation/reputation system to back it.
The purpose of
CANSPAM also becomes clearer. While most spam that violates CANSPAM was already
criminal before the act passed the act is still usefull because it serves as a
tripwire offense enabling law enforcement to determine that a crime has occurred
much sooner than without the law. CANSPAM does not change the legality of the
spammers behavior but makes it easier to prosecute acts where the criminality is
beneath the surface.
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