On Fri, 21 Nov 1997, John Bolding wrote:
> >There are big-brother aspects of RBL that I detest.
>
> I think of it more as a Big Stick and very unlike Big Brother.
There is a good reason why the RBL maintainers have to be very careful
about their relationship with anti-competition laws that exist in the US
and elsewhere.
> All of us [in the anti-spam community] __are__ in control of the RBL.
> Both getting into and getting out of the RBL are well documented at
> maps.vix.com/rbl/.
Yes, that's all well and good. But the vast majority of Internet users are
not savvy enough to know what's going on, and will merely assume that
things are broken for some technical reason if their mail doesn't get
through. How long ago did you explain DNS to your grandmother?
I'm trying to consider the effect on blameless victims, such as the
non-spamming customers of spam-friendly sites. And let's not blind
ourselves out of righteous indignation, RBL *will* produce some innocent
casualties.
As much as we can get up on our soapboxes and deride these people's
naivete for connecting to the Internet via the local sleaze-peddler, the
fact of the matter is that many people don't know better. And by the time
they do, they've been pissed off by the Internet and will do what they can
to impair their own circles' use of electronic communications if we treat
such folk to just icy refrains of "buyer beware"...
> >Let's not fool ourselves; when you subscribe to the RBL technology (and
> >accompanying philosophy), you are letting the RBL maintainers have control
> >over who can reach your site. Having a static exception list will
> >probably be of little value considering how dynamic and fast-moving the
> >rbl process is.
> Do you mean that your static exception list might need to change
> as fast as the RBL itself? Perhaps. If you deal with lots of SPAMers
> or SPAM networks that you want to receive email from.
But take a look at what RBL does. It doesn't block domains or users, it
blocks at the IP address level. It makes no distinction between spammers
and unknowing subscribers of spam-friendly services.
I don't appreciate the implication that because I don't see RBL as the
be-all and end-all, I want to deal with (and by inference encourage)
spammers. I believe that anyone who *doesn't* realize real non-spamming
people will be hurt by this scheme is dreaming.
I also believe that there is a grey area between spam and solicited
commercial email solicitations, with which binary solutions such as RBL
are incapable of coping. It is in these grey areas where the RBL people
are on their shakiest legal footings.
> The folks at the RBL are quite good. They are intelligent, polite,
> responsive, and they get the job done.
I don't doubt that for a moment. But the most well meaning of actions can
also have downsides, and I merely wish to point out that RBL is not a
panacea. We must be aware of its imperfections if we are to properly
exploit its benefits.
> The RBL is a Good Thing. It will probably be Needed for quite some time.
I will continue to agree, but only on the balance. I still consider it a
Neceesary Evil, that should voluntarily self-destruct the moment spamming
is generally revealed to be unprofitable.
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Evan Leibovitch, Sound Software Ltd, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario
Supporting PC-based Unix since 1985 / Caldera & SCO authorized /
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