On 18 Nov 99, at 12:13, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
> In message <Pine.LNX.4.10.9911181549350.11865-100000@neumann.ccc.cranfield.ac.uk>, Jeffrey Goldberg <J.Goldberg@Cranfield.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
> > The vetting proceedure should require a fair amount of information
> > from the list manager (or the mailing list system manager...
>
> _This_ is the statement that actually motivated me to write this response...
> because I *really* wonder about the feasibility of this part of your pro-
> posed solution.
>
> Let's say that I am an ISP (perhaps even AOL), and that you are a mailing
> list owner/administrator. Now let's say that I send you a short questionare,
> and ask you to fill it out and send it back to me if you want to be able
> to send mail to my users. What will be your reaction? What will be the
> reaction fo the typical mailing list administrator?
AND... what will be your reaction when this is the 2,587th request, as
yet *another* ISP checks in.
> .. I'm sure that some percentage of list admins would be
> understanding, and that they would just comply (as long as the request
> seemed polite and inoffensive enough), but I suspect that there are many
> more who would take offense, and who would never comply, no matter how
> trivial or easy complying might be, and that there would be an even larger
> number who wouldn't take offense, but would just ignore the request because
> they feel that they are too busy to be answering silly questions from ISP.
And, as I say, even if you're gracious about the first ISP or the tenth,
I doubt you'll _still_ be a cooperative camper with the hundredth or
thousandth...
The only possible hope for something like this is some sort of trusted
global registry: if enough ISPs banded together coercively, they might be
able to convince list admins to fill in some standard form *once*, and
then any ISP that cares would be able to consult the DB and not bother
the list-admin.
It is always exciting trying to create order out of anarchy, but if it
could be done, it could might even be feasible: the next version of
majordomo, say, could include as a feature auto-registering any new
mailing list on behalf of the list owner, or something like that ... And
so all you need is almost every MLM, almost every list admin and almost
every ISP to agree... piece of cake... :o) Of course, you'd also have
to find a way to prevent a spammer from 'registering' [amidst the at-
least hundreds-of-thousands of lists in the master registry]
> > The vetting proceedure ...
> > ... may also include requiring a real address of an individual or
> > individuals responsible for the mailing list system...
>
> Couldn't the envelope sender address on the mailing list messages themselves
> serve this purpose?
Can't the envelope sender address be easily forged? And so you could
spam all you want [and get someone else the blame] just by arranging to
have MAIL FROM: goodguy@mailinglists.r.us ? [gee: I wonder if the guys
who administer the '.us' domain realize that they have a commercial
goldmine there.. :o)]
So, on top of everything else, don't you still have the problem that
email is largely unauthenticated? Or is that a
separate/simpler/different problem?
/Bernie\
--
Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA
--> Too many people, too few sheep <--
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