I think the issue is that in real-world spam, the spammer is actually paying some price to make the spam arrive in your snail mail box. This allows for some negative feedback inhibition [if the mailings cost exceeds the return, its not continued]. With spam, especially in this flat-rate world, the costs are _so_ low that there is essentially no feedback inhibition. This means that every email box could concievably recieve 20,000 spams per valid mail, continuously. You'll see how the problem of handling that much mail, especially when it has essentially no value in most cases, is as big a problem for the carriers & customers as limiting the spam in the first place. YMMV, my opinion only. Deepak Jain -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Scott Granados Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 6:27 PM To: Mitch Halmu Cc: Paul Vixie; nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: anybody else been spammed by "no-ip.com" yet? I realize this statement I'm about to make is going to open a huge... can o worms but ... and hoefully everyone knows I mean this in the most friendly responsible way ever but I'm not sure entirely what the big deal with spam is. Honestly sure I get it like everyone else, in some of my accounts more than others but I also get a real truckload in my snailmail box. Just as with all the pottery barn catalogs <no offense to pottery barn I guess>:) I have a delete key just like my trash can. I know at one time the argument was made, and quite correctly that people were paying to receive this service and these messages cost them money. Today with flat rate access and many people not paying on a per packet basis it seems to me that the responsibility lies with the end user to filter properly and or dress that delete key. I always shut down customers who spam and disrupt service simply because I don't want the backlash or want specific ips blocked but in a way I don't feel its right that the carriers do the filtering it seems tome up to the end user. On Fri, 3 May 2002, Mitch Halmu wrote:
On Fri, 3 May 2002, Paul Vixie wrote:
I hate to sound like the big idiot here, but what exactly in the email you received indicates no-ip.com spammed? It looks to me like you just have some secret "admirer" who thought you wanted a no-ip.com account, and no-ip.com emailed you to confirm that you do want the account.
spam is like pollution in that (a) whenever you're not sure if you're doing it, you probably are, and (b) if everybody did whatever it is, life would be universally worse for, well, everybody.
Random disclaimer: Yes, we're a competitor of no-ip.com's... And yes,
used to send similar emails to people signing up for an account, although nowadays instead of sending them an initial password we send a confirm URL instead.
that's the right approach. no-ip's problem was they presumed my
we permission.
You don't even have to be in the "big idiot" league to figure out that in both the "wrong" and the "right" approach as sanctioned above by a higher authority, an email message (aka spam) is sent to the presumed subscriber.
One sends a password, one asks for permission to issue a password on their site. What's the difference in the annoy factor, if indeed one were to be subscribed by a secret "admirer"?
Mr. Halmu chose to think, rather than bindly obey...
--Mitch NetSide