Re: [Asrg] Soundness of silence

[Alessandro Vesely <[e-mail]>]

SM wrote:
> At 04:28 16-06-2009, Alessandro Vesely wrote:
>> I tend to understand that as different classes of spam. For an 
>> example, consider a creditor of mines who solicits payment by sending 
>> me reminders.
> 
> "different spam problems" does not mean different classes of spam.

It should, at least in terms of the causal states that originate those 
problems. By its own nature, a spam message is unlikely to be a singleton.

> If you want to consider these reminders as spam, you have the right to 
> do so.

Yes, but everybody else has the right to consider me a fool for that. 
What unacceptably affects reliability is that I could claim I never 
received them since they ended up in the spam folder.

> It's unlikely that all creditors will resort to sending a 
> registered letter or a fax because of that.

They'll eventually have to, if they get no acknowledge.

>> I don't see why such techniques are not amenable to standardization. 
>> Actually, there is a couple of DNSBL drafts that are slowly moving 
>> forward.
> 
> Documents from the ASRG (IRTF) and the IETF fall in different streams.  
> Within the IETF, standardization has a different meaning.

The "net effect" is influencing software development and its default 
configurations. Not to say that compliance suites bear no interest, 
but the differences among standardization meanings are not enforced.

>> Yes, that's the conclusion I also reached. Spam is a universal plague 
>> and we must live with it. It is indecent to egoistically take oneself 
>> away from it. Therefore, solutions to get rid of spam are not wanted, 
>> not even discussed.
>
> The different solutions are discussed but it's difficult to reach an 
> agreement on them.

Perhaps, reaching an understanding is even more important.

>> [It] is also important to reach some form of agreed failure diagnosis. 
>> Question 12 in http://asrg.sp.am/about/faq.shtml is just too generic.
> 
> Maybe there's a cultural problem.  The answer to question 12 provides 
> sound advice on what you could do before submitting a proposal.

Hm... sound? Vernon's list is not really helpful, except for trying 
and discourage potential submitters. Reviewing all relevant RFCs is a 
good advice, except that RFCs don't mention why they failed to be 
effective anti-spam solutions.