On Mon, Oct 28, 2002 at 01:28:46PM -0500, Jeff Bailey wrote: > This feels like another case of security through obscurity though. It would > seem that having a public review of the algorithms would not only lead to > fixing possible holes in the algorithm, but would also continue to lead to > the development of more Free Software that can only help Razor. We already > know that we'll always have to adapt to new spamming techniques. I don't > think that hiding the TeS algorithm will slow that down at all.
I feel very much the same way. I understand the point about not wanted to allow spammers to abuse the system, but there has been a good deal of research done into distributed trust networks[1] such that one can make the system open, and resistant to abuse. Obviously, it is not possible to make any system based on trust completely free of abuse (i.e. your best friend of 20 years might stab you in the back; no system will see that coming), but it is possible to design a system in that the amount of good you do in building up trust is outweighs the amount of harm you can do in betraying people (i.e. it is easier to lose trust than it is to gain it). Also, correct me if I am wrong, but razor has a global notion of trust: i.e. Alice is trusted by everyone the same amount, as opposed to each person having an individual opinion of Alice. I tend to believe that the latter type of system is far more resistent to abuse. In anycase, the intent of my email was not to nitpick the razor system, but to figure out how it works (if possible without reverse engineering). It wasn't clear from the docs that the TeS algorithm was closed source, but now I will consider that question answered. Thanks, - Rob . [1] Shameless plug for the systems I've been working on that is about to be published : http://www.cs.umd.edu/projects/nice ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by:ThinkGeek Welcome to geek heaven. http://thinkgeek.com/sf _______________________________________________ Razor-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/razor-users
