Subject: Re: spam

From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 12:18:59 -0700 (PDT)

*> 
  *> Type 1: Bonafide Messaging with a real Commercial or non-profit(ie
  *> political) purpose.  This includes people selling contraband (eg drugs)
  *> illegally, so long as they intend to deliver the illegal goods.
  *> 
  *> 
  *> 
  *> 
  *> Of these types of spam, Type 1 and Type 2 can be dealt with by law, and
  *> through the actions of the FTC and other regulatory agencies.

So, what happens when the FTC, which is today very business-friendly,
decides to place no restriction at all on "real Commercial" spam?
Given the current politics in Washington, that seems like a likely
scenario.  Yet, this spam is the most hard-to-filter, and it may soon
become the dominant component of spam.  I for one don't want to see my
email box filled with junk as my postal mailbox is.

Bob Braden

---

From: Randy Bush <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 13:14:09 -0700

> decides to place no restriction at all on "real Commercial" spam?

thank you for saying this.  i tried to make this point on nanog and
failed.

what you will have is american television and commercial radio.

randy

---

From: Richard Welty <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 16:22:17 -0400 (EDT)

On Mon, 26 May 2003 12:18:59 -0700 (PDT) Bob Braden <[email-masked]> wrote:
> scenario.

i disagree.

from what i have heard from participants in the FTC "spam summit" (and
what i viewed in some of the recordings of sessions which were available
online briefly), it seems clear that the FTC has done the math and
understands the nature of the problem fairly well.

however, they are tightly constrained by their mandate from Congress. this
is where the real problem lies.

there are at least some legislators who are willing to write legislation
that refers to standards from recognized standards bodies (e.g., the IETF).
this is where the opportunity for the IETF to help lies -- to devise new
standards and protocols which won't necessarily stop spam, but which when
combined with legislation and properly funded enforcement bodies, can stop
or at least cut it down.

the international nature of the problem is undersood by at least some
legislators as well.  Senator Schumer (NY) is already on record as believing
that there will need to be international treaties as part of the solution
to the spam problem.

one of the things that has contributed to the evident lack of progress is
the argument about technical means vs legislative/enforcement means.
neither is really sufficient, it will take a combination of the two.

richard
--
Richard Welty                                         [email-masked]
Averill Park Networking                                         518-573-7592
              Unix, Linux, IP Network Engineering, Security

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 16:31:40 -0400 (EDT)

Not only is the FTC business friendly, but so is Congress, and the Courts
(which struck down the junk fax law). As MAPS discovered with Exactis,
real commercial solicited email can not be blocked.

Of the Type 1 spammers, there are those that send solicited mail and those
that send unsolicited. They all want to operate with least annoyance, and
least complaints. I expect this group to utilize the DMA do-not-send
lists. So I expect that they will become less of a problem as time goes
by.  Type 1 operations will make changes to comply with law, and will not
be fraudulent.  I don't think this is anywhere close to the dominant form
of spam.  But if they were, things would be pretty good.  I think it is
the little operations that don't (yet) have these facilities, and are
misled by operations like ghostsender.com, which incidentally could be
itself controlled.  So even the little ones should be less of a problem in
the future.  Of course, ISPs could help by educating users on how to use
the internet commercially, such as how to use the DMA do-not-send list,
and what sort of cons are out there (like ghostsender.com). Particularly,
users should understand the general absence of true anonymity afforded by
the internet. The internet is no really no different from the PSTN, in
that respect.  I think this mis-perception contributes to the abuses of
the internet, not just spam, but other kinds of abuses as well.

The Type 2 abusers are relatively easy to find. That isn't a tough one to
solve.  This type probably won't ever go away, but this should not be any
more significant than other kinds of con-artists and grifters.

The real difficulty will be the Type 3's. But we don't know how much is
Type 3 yet. If its not a big proportion, then this shouldn't be a big
problem. On the other hand, if it is a big proporation, then we need to
interest the law enforcement agencies to chase down more "Kevin Mitnicks"
conducting "victimless" crimes. This could be harder to motivate, and at
present, no one is working on this that I know of.

		--Dean

---

From: "Eric A. Hall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 15:13:28 -0500

> Given the current politics in Washington, that seems like a likely

This is why principles are strategically important. It's not enough to say
"spam is annoying" and expect action. You have to give the parties
something that is more important ideologically than their default
positions. Property-rights are a fundamental tenet of the US economic and
judicial systems, and that argument can easily trump the pro-business
default position if victory is defined in those terms. Suboridinate
effects like releasing capital and facilitating competition appeal to
other factions which are still relatively close to the center. There are
still going to be a couple of camps who will be against it, but they will
be opposed to the principle (folks who oppose any strenghthening of any
private property laws on ideological grounds, in this example). Those
factions are the minority wing of the minority party right now, though.

In other words, this is a good time to attack from the right.

-- 
Eric A. Hall                                        http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols          http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/

---

From: "Eric A. Hall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 15:57:52 -0500

As a point of factual record, the TCPA was passed in 1991 not 1992-2000.
The administration under Bush Sr. was just as pro-business then as it is
now, and probably moreso considering the additional previous terms under
Reagan. Being pro-business isn't exclusionary to other ideologies.

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 17:59:49 -0400 (EDT)

Actually, I've been in touch with an attorney at the FTC. It seems they
have been factually misled on some issues.

		--Dean

---

From: "Eric A. Hall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 17:10:36 -0500

on 5/26/2003 3:31 PM Dean Anderson wrote:
> Not only is the FTC business friendly, but so is Congress, and the
> Courts (which struck down the junk fax law).

The only instance I know of where the TCPA was "struck down", the ruling
was reversed on appeal in the 8th circuit.

http://www.techlawjournal.com/topstories/2003/20030321.asp has a sumamry

http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/03/03/022705P.pdf has the opinion

 | We conclude that 47 U.S.C. § 227(b)(1)(C) satisfies the
 | constitutional test for regulation of commercial speech and thus
 | withstands First Amendment scrutiny. There is a substantial
 | governmental interest in protecting the public from the cost
 | shifting and interference caused by unwanted fax advertisements,
 | and the means chosen by Congress to address these harms directly
 | and materially advances the governmental interest. The statute is
 | also narrowly tailored to create a reasonable fit with its
 | objective. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment dismissing the
 | claims asserted under § 227(b)(1)(C) and remand the case to the
 | district court for further proceedings consistent with this
 | opinion.

The TCPA has survived in other circuits as well.

standard disclaimer applies, IANAL

---

From: Richard Welty <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 18:19:18 -0400 (EDT)

> have been factually misled on some issues.

have they been factually misled, or have they simply come to conclusions
that you don't like?

this was a really useless posting, dean, asserting that the FTC has been
misled w/o providing a single bit of supporting evidence.

richard

---

From: Richard Shockey <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 18:11:11 -0400

>understands the nature of the problem fairly well.

Yes ... the FTC staff have been very very good at educating themselves 
about the problem because  they have had the unqualified support of the 
entire Commission particularly the Chairman and Commissioner Orson Swindle. 
They have been looking at this for over a year.

In private conversations with them they remarkably well versed in SMTP and 
could quote the RFC's from memory.

>is where the real problem lies.

In Washington speak that means they don't have any money.

Charlie Schumer at the FTC meeting offered up 75M in funding (  the C-SPAN 
cameras were on ) which someone pointed out to him was half the FTC's 
current budget.

>combined with legislation and properly funded enforcement bodies, can stop

First the legislators need to know the IETF / ISOC exists...

>that there will need to be international treaties as part of the solution

There were two official delegations at the FTC meeting one from France 
which is looking at similar legislation and from Korea who spent most of 
their presentation apologizing for the lack of effort on the part of the 
Korean Government which they now promise to increase.

>r

Richard Shockey, Senior Manager, Strategic Technology Initiatives
NeuStar Inc.
46000 Center Oak Plaza  -   Sterling, VA  20166
Voice +1 571.434.5651 Cell : +1 703.593.2683,  Fax: +1 815.333.1237
<mailto:richard(at)shockey.us> or <mailto:richard.shockey(at)neustar.biz>
  <http://www.neustar.biz> ; <http://www.enum.org>
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

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From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 19:08:49 -0400 (EDT)

Ok, I didn't see this, which is current as of 3/21/03, two months ago.

I have asserted that it is possible to regulate commercial speech. There
are conditions that have to be met.

However, the problem with spam is that the cost is so insignificant as to
be immeasurable, so there is no cost shifting, and unlike fax, there is no
definite harm since there is no paper to consume or to run out of.  A spam
ban would have a much tougher time meeting the constitutionality
requirements.

And I note that the junk fax doesn't ban all unsolicited faxes.  Notably,
it doesn't ban political faxes.

And all this is hypothetical, since there is no chance that bonafide
commercial solicited spam will be banned anytime soon.

		--Dean

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 19:23:01 -0400 (EDT)

They have been factually misled. Evidence is being provided to the FTC.
That is all I can say right now. More will be said later, though.

		--Dean

---

From: "Eric A. Hall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 19:24:54 -0500

on 5/26/2003 6:08 PM Dean Anderson wrote:

> However, the problem with spam is that the cost is so insignificant as 
> to be immeasurable, so there is no cost shifting,

The facts demonstrated are that (1) there is real cost for bandwidth, (2)
there is a real cost for equipment, and (3) there is a real cost for
staffing, all due to spam. Whether you consider these facts to be
sufficient either cumulatively or in detail is a matter of opinion. The
existing laws support my opinion, not yours.

> and unlike fax, there is no definite harm since there is no paper to
> consume or to run out of.

There are plenty of examples of crashed and clogged servers due to
resource consumption. But that's not important, either. The TCPA addresses
other concerns including lack of availability due to excessive use, and
isn't limited to resource consumption issues.

> And I note that the junk fax doesn't ban all unsolicited faxes. 
> Notably, it doesn't ban political faxes.

My proposal left room for exceptions as well.

> commercial solicited spam will be banned anytime soon.

I haven't claimed that we need to ban solicited mail.

I think you've made your opinion pretty clear at this point. When you find
some new data that supports your opinion, let us know.

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 20:44:20 -0400 (EDT)

On Mon, 26 May 2003, Eric A. Hall wrote:

> sufficient either cumulatively or in detail is a matter of opinion.

Certainly. However, in the case of Junk Faxes, there were definite costs
to each fax, and definite harms to running out of paper. This isn't the
case with spam.

> The existing laws support my opinion, not yours.

I don't think so.  The existing laws, and laws pending in Congress don't
ban spam.  I don't think there is any chance that any such proprosal will
be brought up, or passed.  If you think otherwise, please let me know why.
Bill text would be good.

> isn't limited to resource consumption issues.

These examples are not due to either Type 1 or Type 2 spam.  They are due
to Type 3 activity.  In my personal experience, Type 3 activity has only
been due to the activity of anti-spammers trying to "teach me a lesson",
or as in the case with ORBZ, due to illegal scanning. Other anti-spammers
have attempted to crash mailservers from other people they didn't like.
There may be others besides anti-spammers, with other agendas, but this is
not a justification for banning Type 1 spam.  Nor will it ever be.

> I haven't claimed that we need to ban solicited mail.

But you are.  Perhaps I haven't seen your proposal detail.

> some new data that supports your opinion, let us know.

Heh. Likewise.

		--Dean

---

From: "Eric A. Hall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 26 May 2003 19:57:10 -0500

> But you are.  Perhaps I haven't seen your proposal detail.

The outline in <[email-masked]> made no mention of banning it,
and specifically says "recent prior relationship is okay".