Re: Fwd: Re: Digital Island sponsors DoS attempt?
That way lies madness. Senders have no such rights, and the determination of a message's legitimacy lies with recipients (and perhaps infrastructure owners) NOT senders.
How is the recipient of a message that has been blocked before he sees it to decide whether it was legitimate?
Why would you care, unless you are the receiver? If I decide that all ICMP traffic from IP addresses that have an odd number of "1" bits in it is not legitimate and shall not be allowed to reach my web server, then that seems to be a matter between me and my psychotherapist. I'm not sure why it would matter to anyone else, including rebuffed senders or NANOG's philosophers. What this all begs for is a reference standard for "presumed legitimacy" so that senders can know without waiting for complaints nor seeking explicit permission, just what kind of traffic they ought or ought not send. As I said in another note here, such a standard would have to be written in terms of assertions rather than negations. A peering or transit agreement is quite explicit since the parties and their specific concerns are known: it can therefore be of the form "All is permitted except X, Y, and Z." Presumptive traffic legitimacy or "implicit welcome" is between unspecified parties who can by definition have no specific concerns and so the standard must take the form "All is prohibited, except A, B, and C."
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That way lies madness. Senders have no such rights, and the determination of a message's legitimacy lies with recipients (and perhaps infrastructure owners) NOT senders.
How is the recipient of a message that has been blocked before he sees it to decide whether it was legitimate?
Why would you care, unless you are the receiver?
Funny you should ask, since that's exactly my point. The ISP running the mail server is not the recipient. The customer to whom the message was addressed is the recipient. So with that in mind, I re-state my question: How is the recipient of a message that has been blocked before he sees it to decide whether it was legitimate?
If I decide that all ICMP traffic from IP addresses that have an odd number of "1" bits in it is not legitimate and shall not be allowed to reach my web server, then that seems to be a matter between me and my psychotherapist. I'm not sure why it would matter to anyone else, including rebuffed senders or NANOG's philosophers.
Why do you keep changing the subject? This is about email and spam, and whether the recipient or sender has the right to determine what is a legitimate communication. You alleged that it was the recipient. I countered that the recipient cannot determine legitimacy if he cannot see the message.
What this all begs for is a reference standard for "presumed legitimacy" so
No, it begs for the ISP to just deliver the mail that was addressed to the recipient and stop making up stories about ICMP packets with odd numbers of 1 bits to justify why his support department is so understaffed. I know what MAPS is about, it is about reducing support costs by reducing customer complaints of spam. This is why collateral damage is untroubling to the MAPS boosters. Collateral damage does little to increase support costs. Educating users how to filter their own mail costs more money. Bottom line. Note that I did not say this was good or bad, the world revolves around money, and this is no different. I just wish MAPS boosters would be honest. It would move the debate along more quickly to a productive conclusion. - --- "The avalanche has already begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote" - Kosh -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.8 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com> iQA/AwUBO9yfcEksS4VV8BvHEQLauQCg5Ew6ybywcOqKxRiOGXHIhc0wSDcAoJnc DfnzEuA09CXPDNAl+bPb7q0s =VIe5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (2)
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Mike Batchelor -
Paul Vixie