Re: [Shutup] [ietf-smtp] Proposed Charter for the "SMTP Headers Unhealthy To User Privacy" WG (fwd)

[Dave Crocker <[e-mail]>]

On 12/4/2015 7:30 AM, Chris Lewis wrote:
> On 12/01/2015 10:09 PM, Ted Lemon wrote:
> 
>> I am very curious to hear your numbers, as long as you explain how you
>> got them.  I don't mean explain your spam algorithm--I mean
>> characterize your sample, and explain why you think it's a good
>> sample, and explain your methodology: what you did to the sample for
>> test A versus what you did for test B.   Interesting things to do for
>> the test sample to differentiate it from the control sample would be
>> removing the last Received header field entirely (last in sequence,
>> meaning first added), modifying the From clause for example as Stephen
>> Farrell suggested, or simply deleting the From clause but keeping the
>> rest of the last Received header field.
> 
> The issue here is even describing the methodology of comparing the test
> sets and the discussion about how it's very difficult to catch the same
> spam in other ways, reveals altogether too much information for spammers
> to use.


There's a deeper problem with this line of query.

I believe we have reasonable consensus about the facts and about the
basic issues, from the various folk who spend fulltime working in this
space and have posted to this thread.

Hence, queries of the 'show your work' type move into the realm of
etended tutorial to non-experts, rather than helping to the vetting of
foundational issues for creating a working group.

Extended tutorial material is well and good in the right context, but it
is not typically considered appropriate for vetting a working group
creation effort.  Worse, I believe the tutorial exercise has been going
on for quite a few days now, which makes it costly, as well as wasteful.

d/
-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net