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First weblogs, 2002–2003

Kling on Spam - More on E2E-T2B

in Random Bytes

Arnold Kling responded to my earlier bit about E2E-T2B with a question about my reference to filtering at points within the network and states that doing so would require a migration from SMTP to CMTP. He also asks what the cost and consequences of doing so would be.

Well, the cost and consequences are completely predicated on actually moving to CMTP. And nothing I said has anything to do with developing new protocols.

See this post as it first appeared on the original site.

4 comments

Comments are closed - these are kept exactly as they were left.

  1. Brent Ashley, March 26, 2003

    Until universal point-of-origin or somewhere-in-the-middle filtering is in place, either voluntary or forced (the chances you ask? - hmmm. I'm not in a hurry to wait for it to happen although hope springs eternal) the only possible way to be in control of what comes into your mailbox is point-of-receipt filtering. This doesn't necessarily mean relying on your ISP or your client software, but the filtering has to be done at a point that's within your own control if you are to be confident that it's going to happen and that you'll have control over its parameters. It's gotta be simple. It's gotta be practically transparent.

  2. brent ashley, March 26, 2003

    Of course I'm talking about the consumer side of the spam problem - filtering good from bad in your mailbox given that spammers will exist despite global efforts to the contrary. That's not to say I don't recognize the worldwide infrastructure crisis caused by spam. Of course that is the bigger problem and worthy of much attention and effort. In the meantime, endpoint survival tactics are necessary though.

  3. Ross Rader, March 29, 2003

    Agreed - everyone needs to remember that it will take a myriad of treatments to render the problem "solved". There are no magic bullets, but that doesn't mean that advances aren't forthcoming.

    -rwr

  4. Christopher Ambler, April 14, 2003

    I don't know... I'm finding that challenge/response is doing wonders for my inbox. It even makes going through the un-responded junk box fun, wading through thousands of spams that don't get into my inbox, and noticing trends.

    But I've not had a single spam in my inbox in almost a month now.

    I'm not afraid to post my email address anymore, which is saying a lot, I think.

    Christopher