atw: Re: spam, spam, spam, Wonderful spam..

 On Tue, 23 Sep 2003 14:22:43= +1000, Steve Hudson wrote: >You are all=
missing the basic point here. I am just one user, I= have >had several= MVP
buddies yacking with me with the same problem.= There >are MILLIONS= of dud
emails, weighing in at 150kb, being sent= every >hour across= the net
becausenone of the hubs want to filter. So= the >world= suffers. These
packages of crap could be stopped in= their >tracks almost= after the point
of origin. No-one would notice,= within >a few days of= a new outbreak every
filter would know what to= block >at the flood= STOPS. We need an anti- dns
type broadcast and the >desire to= maintain it by all companies. = >=
>Unfortunately, they make money off bandwidth. The more spam= you get, >the
more= bandwidth you need to buy off them. QoS is merely= something >to whip
the= end user with. = >  =   Maybe not so much missing your point,= Steve,
asdespairing of the option of getting ISPs to do it= effectively, and moving
on to other defensive strategies?=   = Mind you, I think there's a
philosophical problem involved,= which also has legal implications:   =   I
don't +want+ my ISP deciding for me what I can read,= any more   than I want
my government= to decide it.   = And the best and best-intentioned of spam
filters still make= mistakes -- of an occasionally= funny kind.   = A better
solution would be if ISPs were to offer= standardised (therein lies a
problem) filters= which simply categorised emails on a probabilistic basis
(as in= Bayesian tests like SpamAssassin uses) and then provlde the option
for users to make= their own choices for applying that filter, and if it is=
applied, limited their downloading -- based on (overridable)=
categorisations.   = In other words, the ISP pre-processes content
automagically to= apply spam tests, then labels the= dubious ones in one or
more categories :   a la= "Probably SPAM", "Possibly SPAM",= "Could be SPAM"
etc...   = All that takes is a SpamAssassin task running on the server, and=
maybe the establishment of another standard mailbox for likely= spam, for
those who opt for that service.   = But if an automatic checker totally
blocked my access to an= email that maybe looked like spam, but was actually
an urgent= business communication, and I didn't receive it, I'd be= shitty.  
= And if a lover decided to get explicit and tell me what she= really wanted
to do....   and that was stopped, I'd be= bereft, particularly if I never
found out how she planned to= increase the leng.....  -- never mind...   =
And ISPs know that. Well, they should.   = -Peter G. Martin, Technical
writer, Proxima= Technology 
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