From owner-nanog@merit.edu Wed Aug 9 22:00:58 2006 To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: SORBS Contact From: Allan Poindexter <apoindex@aoc.nrao.edu> Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 20:59:36 -0600
Matthew> so would you consider as it is my network, that I should Matthew> not be allowed to impose these 'draconian' methods and Matthew> perhaps I shouldn't be allowed to censor traffic to and Matthew> from my networks?
If you want to run a network off in the corner by yourself this is fine. If you have agreed to participate in the Internet you have an obligation to deliver your traffic.
Obligation to _whom_? My only obligations are to those who _pay_ me for access to my systems/resources. If the people who *do* pay me for use of my systems/resources "don't want" that cr*p, then I do 'have an obligation' to _not_ deliver that traffic. And _how_ I implement that, to the satisfaction of =my= customers, is NONE OF _YOUR_ BUSINSESS, since you are *not* one of my paying customers. I don't have to tell _you_ what I do; I don't have to listen to any of your 'complaints'; and I sure-as-hell don't have to defend, _to_you_, what I do.
At LISA a couple of years ago a Microsoftie got up at the SPAM symposium and told of an experiment they did where they asked their hotmail users to identify their mail messages as spam or not. He said the users got it wrong some small percentage amount of the time. I was stunned at the arrogance and presumption in that comment. You can't tell from looking at the contents, source, or destination if something is spam because none of these things can tell whether the message was requested or is wanted by the recipient. The recipient is the only person who can determine these things.
Do *you* _KNOW_ how hotmail came up with that determination that 'users got it wrong some small percentage of the time'? If you *don't*, you are exhibiting _at_least_ as much 'arrogance and presumption' as you accuse them of. I *KNOW*FOR*A*FACT*, that some people _do_, occasionally 'get it wrong'. I, _personally_, have done it. Be it an 'off-by-one' error in selecting and marking the message, to a long-delayed response to something _I_ sent, and that came in _without_ reference to what I sent, errors *DO* happen. Note: it can be _really_ easy to figure out if/when people mis-identify 'spam'. You ask them to classify a bunch of old messages, presented one at a time. You present the _same_ message *more*than*once*. If they mark it is 'good' three times, and 'spam' once. Then they *did* 'get it wrong' -- it's not certain _which_ way they 'got it wrong', but it *IS* absolutely certain that they did 'get it wrong' "at least once". I've seen some of the stuff AOL _users_ flag as 'spam' -- "content analysis" *alone* virtually guarantees that they were flagged in error. Things like college acceptance letters from Division I schools, bank overdraft notices, NDRs for mail they themselves *sent*, 'delivery receipts' and/or 'read receipts' that they had _requested_ on mail they sent out, etc., etc.
There are simple solutions to this. They do work in spite of the moanings of the hand wringers. In the meantime my patience with email "lost" silently due to blacklists, etc. is growing thin.
If you want 'reliable' delivery, you _pay_ the recieving system (and the intermediaries) for that service. Your lack of patience with something other people _give_ you the free use of is, quite simply, an inexcusable display of arrogance and presumption.