Re: [PLUG] cultural ethics of email and spam

[zuzu <sean.zuzu@gmail.com>]

On 10/17/07, Brian Stempin <brian.stempin@gmail.com> wrote:
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that you have mistakenly married the
> phrases "net neutrality" and "QoS".
>
> Remember:  net neutrality isn't about making sure that QoS doesn't exist;
> it's about making sure that ISPs don't double-charge for internet access.  I
> don't see how utilizing or creating a black list is supporting a tiered
> network.  Creating and/or subscribing to a blacklist is a voluntary action.
> It's kind of hard to argue that the internet is becoming tiered if every
> email admin is able to stop using blacklists at their sole discretion.

actually, a problem with using the phrase "net neutrality" is that
it's a blanket statement / loaded word for several issues.  the
wikipedia entry has actually matured to reflect this rather well,
IMHO.

however, QoS *is* one of the problems identified under the rubric of
"net neutrality".  it violates the End-to-End Principle; having a
"dumb network" and "smart clients" is what makes the Internet as a
distributed system so robust (i.e. it actually works at all).  QoS and
DPI are dodges for the real issue that ISPs have failed to continue to
overprovision the network, which is the least expensive overall way to
expand network capacity.

as for the voluntary nature of blacklisting, this is why I address it
as a *cultural* problem.  then again, major ISPs implementing QoS /
deep packet inspection / tiering is also voluntary, though still
problematic for the health of the internet.  this is why I advocate
everyone to use the I2P strong cryptography router to circumvent QoS
before it becomes de rigueur.


> To address your message point by point:
>
> > who are you (or anyone) to unilaterally decide "legitimate mail
> > should not originate from residential broadband"???
>
> A sysadmin who decided for himself.  Who are you (or anyone else) to tell me
> that I have to accept email that originated from servers that reside on
> residential networks?

later when I have more free time I'll look up the IETF article for that.

> >  why on earth is spam being dealt with at a _network_ level???
> Probably because this is a problem that affects networks.  Think of all of
> the spam that eats up countless bits of bandwidth.  If a message can be
> identified with 99.999% certainty that it is spam, then why bother wasting
> the bandwidth to transfer it?  My company of 20 people gets his with just
> under 400,000 spam per day.  I can think of better things to do with this
> bandwidth.  The key here, however, is choice.  I, once again, have options.

sure, but as a cultural mindset, I am suggesting that "growing the
pie" (i.e. just adding more cheap bandwidth) is too often "off the
table" of consideration.  this is the cultural problem at hand.


> As of right now, you reserve the right to (a) elect whether or not your
> (owned, whether it be personal or professional) mail servers pay any
> attention to black lists, and (b) whether or not you subscribe to an email
> service that pays attention to blacklists.  So long as you have a choice, I
> find it hard to believe that there is a problem.  If you don't like the
> industry trend, then deviate to your heart's desire.  No one's stopping you.

true enough, and I both deviate and advocate.

if anyone isn't already aware of I2P, YaCy, and Dijjer, take a look:

strong cryptography onion router with tons of bandwidth (unlike Tor):
http://www.i2p.net/

distributed search engine (which will also index "eepsites" on the I2P subnet):
http://yacy.net/

transparent bandwidth balancer sorta like bittorrent crossed with the
coral cache:
http://dijjer.org/
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