RE: not everyone is happy with SA

[Robert Taylor <ro...@rackspace.com>]

So incredibly funny to have Stub Email referenced in an email to me. 

I was in on the original specification (by Nathan Cheng to CircleID)
regarding this idea. 

I wish that it would be quickly adopted!


Robot Terror
(IRL: Robert Taylor) 

-----Original Message-----
From: Robot Terror [mailto:tinman@robotterror.com] 
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 5:26 PM
To: John D. Hardin
Cc: Skip Brott; spamd
Subject: Re: not everyone is happy with SA


The ridiculousness of that sentiment that prompted my first post to this
list came from the following comments:



	I have found this whole line of debate somewhat interesting, but
it has
	clearly strayed from the real core question:
	
	Who is responsible?
	
	Is it the responsibility of the sender to verify that they
indeed intended
	to send the email?
	Or is it the responsibility of the recipient to verify senders?
	
	My personal opinion is that it is the latter.  If I send an
email to a valid
	address, I find it a bit offensive that they send a challenge
back.  Why is
	it my responsibility as the sender to teach another system to
accept mail
	from me?
	


I admit I don't know the full context of the comments, but based on the
preamble ("the real core question") these comments assert a stand-alone
absoluteness. It is to that "absolute standard" of recipient is
responsible to verify sender that I made my reply.

In fact, I am adamant that no sender should expect their message to be
delivered by another's service. The Post Office (in real world terms)
exists outside any recipient's ability to pay. In that world, the sender
pays so the PO services the sender. In electronic mail many parties
outside the sender PAY for the service. Therefore the PAYER has the
right to put up roadblocks to delivery as he/she sees fit. Let the
sender pay for my infrastructure costs and I'll gladly bear the
responsibility to auto-trash his messages to me.

Otherwise, get used to difficulty sending messages of any kind to
others. The world is turning on SMTP and people are realizing the most
common scenario is that a sender is illegitimately sending a message to
a recipient (that is, spam out numbers ham).

That the current system defaults in favor of carrying every message, no
matter how inane or large, through the entire infrastructure of the
Internet and then puts the onus on the client to "filter" the message is
stupid. Instead of such a sender-preferential system, a recipient-biased
system would result in lower bandwidth utilization and reduced
processing needs (therefore exposing that, perhaps, spam benefits the
bandwidth sellers, processor sellers, and storage sellers ultimately!). 

As an aside, such a proposal to put the responsibility for
bandwidth/processing use on the sender is on the table and is called
"Stub Email" or "Hypertext Mail Transport Protocol":
 
http://www.circleid.com/posts/hypertext_mail_protocol_aka_stub_emaill/
 
http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=9&threadID=194716&s
tart=0
    http://icl.pku.edu.cn/bswen/_old_stuff/Email++/index.html
 
http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/2006/10/misc_interestin.html
Of course, such a proposal will be ignored as the spammers have the
money to prop-up the status quo.


--
Robot Terror
"Always a treat, never a threat"

http://robotterror.com
tinman@robotterror.com



On 7/23/07 12:27 PM, "John D. Hardin" <jh...@impsec.org> ostensibly
wrote:

> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007, Robot Terror wrote:
> 
>> Why is it my responsibility as a holder of a valid email address to 
>> accept mail from anyone who wants to send me the mail?
> 
> Who ever said *that*?
> 
> --
>  John Hardin KA7OHZ                    http://www.impsec.org/~jhardin/
>  jhardin@impsec.org    FALaholic #11174     pgpk -a jhardin@impsec.org
>  key: 0xB8732E79 -- 2D8C 34F4 6411 F507 136C  AF76 D822 E6E6 B873 2E79
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>   Where We Want You To Go Today 07/05/07: Microsoft patents in-OS
>   adware architecture incorporating spyware, profiling, competitor
>   suppression and delivery confirmation (U.S. Patent #20070157227)
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
>  12 days until The 272nd anniversary of John Peter Zenger's acquittal
> 



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