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The Anti-Spam Research Group's Plan for Spam

Posted by michael on from the bit-bucket dept.

egoff writes "Speaking of standards, the ASRG, a member of the IETF, has a plan for "consent-based communications." Among the suggestions, according to Internet Week, are authentication services for falsified addresses, trusted senders, reputation systems (karma?), opt-out tools, best practices for challenge/response, and even a proposal for micropayments on unwanted mail. Instead of defining spam, the ASRG wants to provide administrators and users the tools necessary to avoid what they consider to be unwanted. One of the tools, Reverse MX, is expected to be in place in several months. It would allow the receiving mail server to query a domain to determine if the sending server is allowed to send on its behalf."

3 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Well, well. by Faust7 · · Score: 0, Troll

    "One of the advantages we have is that the entire community is involved," said Judge

    No comment. None at all. :)

    --
    The coolest voice ever.
  2. ugh... by di0s · · Score: 0, Troll

    ...reputation systems (karma?)
    Oh god, Karma-whoring email... what'll they think of next?

  3. These are all bad ideas by smiff · · Score: 1, Troll
    These plans are awful. Authentication services and trusted senders are a way for the certificate authorities to decide who can or cannot send mail (be it spam or political speech) [1]. Micropayments are a tax on speech. Challenge/response is patented. Opt-out tools depend on a centralized database from which spammers will harvest addresses. Reputation systems are an invasion of privacy.

    Most of the proposals are probably patented (as ridiculous as that may sound). No doubt the recent spam proposals are being pushed by folks with an agenda totally unrelated to spam. There is no way they would get this much media attention without a commercial PR department. Which begs the question, who is behind ASRG? The guy in charge has six pending patents on this very subject.

    To stop spam, we should use less invasive approaches such as bayesian filtering and common sense legislation (mandatory headers and spam-hunting boundies aren't a bad idea). We do not need privacy-invading, censorship centers which outlaw open-source solutions.

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    [1] I fully expect that if we adopt authentication systems, the certificate authorities will permit paying marketeers to spam anyone they choose.