on Mon, Sep 22, 2003 at 07:47:46AM +0200, Ole Wolf ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > The day could arrive quite soon. > > It could. But I'm a pragmatic person that doesn't pursue neither "what if > everyone does" scenarios nor other kinds of hypothetical situations.
See, I'm a pragmatic person who looks at the logical conclusions of a
course of action and plans approriately.
- Earthlink has already announced, and barring patent lawsuits, will
implement a C-R system. Projected uptake is 50% of the current 5
million subscriber base by year end. That's halfway to my assumed
1% global adoption rate, and accounts for only a single ISP.
- Adoption of technology is not always based on a best practices
basis. If this was the case, we wouldn't have Microsoft, MS
Outlook, COBOL, or TMDA to contend with. Many people aren't in
control of technology decisions made in their name. Many people
make decisions based on inadequate or misleading information (which
TMDA itself disseminates). An many people assume that since some
other group of people are already using a system, it has to be good.
- Once a technology has been adopted, it is very, very difficult in
many cases to get it _un_adopted. If TMDA or C-R become widespread,
and they fail to work or greatly disrupt email as a whole, as seems
clear that they will, it's going to be pulling eyeteath to
backtrack. I'd like to avoid this problem.
> So,
> until that day arrives, I'm not going to trade spam for a level of annoyance
> that is considerably smaller.
Ah! Of course you refer to Spamassassin. Or Bogofilter. Or Spambayes.
Or Teergrube. Or Tarpitting.
> Then when (if!) the day arrives, a different route may be more
> feasible. Any thoughts on future solutions for future situations are
> welcome, but they don't require the abolishment of current solutions
> in the current situation.
Given the inherent and clearly visible harm, I disagree most strongly.
> Glancing at your web page, I realize you have a chip on your shoulder
> against TMDA after having received a number of invalid C/R responses
> and now feel compelled to evangelize against TMDA on the TMDA list.
Please don't impugn my motives.
I've disliked C-R on principle for some time -- several years, since I
first became aware of it. I didn't task myself with analyzing why I
felt it was ill-conceived until this past year, and took up the case
urgently after the appearance of SoBig.F. I've received a number of
challenges previously, the majority misdirected or contrary to
Templeton's best practices. A point which several individuals
associated with both TMDA and A.S.K. largely dismissed.
TMDA as a whole may not be bad (though I disagree with almost all of its
features for use in casual personal email). The challenge-response
comoponent as currently implemented *is* inherently harmful.
Unmitigated, it is broken by design. Used as a last resort filter,
after spam and virus filtering, it is only unecessarially annoying, and
I will continue to personally refuse to participate in its social game,
but I believe it would not be on the whole harmful to the Net.
> I'm sorry that some "friendly fire" from anti-spam tools has caused
> you to conclude that such anti-spam tools are therefore all bad.
Are you intentionally failing to grasp the objections I and many others
have raised to C-R? Rather than brushing off the issues, I would
strongly urge you to look at each specifically and identify how TMDA
and/or C-R can or cannot mitigate these.
> Like in a real war, if you want to entirely avoid friendly fire, feel
> free to lay down your weapons--but don't expect your enemy to do the
> same.
This is a direct misrepresentation of my stated goals, desires, aims,
and actions.
I use and promote the use of _effective_, _accurate_, _efficient_, and
_specific_ spam mitigation tools. C-R and TMDA as designed fail to meet
this requirement.
Peace.
--
Karsten M. Self <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
_____________________________________________ tmda-users mailing list ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://tmda.net/lists/listinfo/tmda-users
