Re: [Asrg] SMTP pull anyone?

[Alessandro Vesely <[e-mail]>]

Michael Thomas wrote:
> I can create a walled garden trivially with smtp just be rejecting 
> connections from people not on my whitelist. Likewise, anything that 
> is promiscuous with who it receives from better be prepared for 
> mail-transmitted diseases (MTD's). That's just the nature of opening 
> up. So SMTP itself isn't the problem, or more specifically fretting 
> about SMTP is nipping around the edges of 20 with the 80-20 rule.

I don't think "opening up" is bound to have a unique nature. A 
protocol might provide for ways to open up _and_ allow 
traceability, responsibility, and accountability. Such features 
are implicit in walled gardens. Explicating them requires a more 
thorough analysis of the relevant conventions and rules, at an 
abstraction level such that its outcome can be globally 
accepted. Much of the required "political" work is already 
available as privacy recommendations --later than SMTP. It is 
possible to tweak SMTP so as to comply with that. While that 
would not "eliminate spam", it would permit to manage it 
cleanly, properly, and without sacrificing reliability.