[IP] more on Yahoo, AOL, Goodmail and IP
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [IP] Digest 1.922 for ip
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 2006 12:12:50 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)
From: Mark Berman <Mark.I.Berman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
CC: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
References: <20060209162018.1C972108154@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Dave,
The message here from Mr. Crocker is scary. Who decides who is a "bad
actor" and who has a good reputation? Him? The Goodmail premise is that
anyone who can pay the fee is a good actor and those who can't are bad.
This strikes me as the worst kind of economic classism. Huge entrenched
corporations like AOL can afford to send their "free" CDs to everyone on
the planet (Cindy Cohn, in her blog, implied this was a joke but it's the
core of the issue) and small startup companies can't. The Internet removed
a major barrier to entry for small, mom and pop type, businesses which are
now flourishing in the virtual world. The Goodmail system might reduce the
worst kind of spam: the sex ads and the outright fraud, but it is likely
to increase the amount of spam from mainstream companies with the
perception that if the message is being paid for then it's not spam. It
greatly increases the power of large coporations over small. The Bush
crowd must love it.
The Digital Divide is bad enough without adding this.
- Mark
--
Mark Berman, Director for Networks & Systems
Williams College, OIT, Jesup Hall
Williamstown, MA. 01267 413-597-2092
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [IP] Yahoo, AOL, Goodmail and IP
Date: Wed, 08 Feb 2006 14:17:55 -0800
From: Dave Crocker <dhc2@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: dcrocker@xxxxxxxx
Organization: Brandenburg InternetWorking
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
CC: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
References: <43EA6390.6080202@xxxxxxxxxx>
Dave Farber wrote:
I would not pay. I woud tell IPers to get another isp djf
From: Cindy Cohn <cindy@xxxxxxx>
I blogged a piece about the recent decision by AOL and Yahoo to use the
Goodmail system that might be of interest to IP. EFF will be doing more
on this topic, but we wanted to start the discussion.
Dave,
Without commenting on the particulars as they relate to Goodmail --
especially since I am on the advisory board for Habeas, a competitor --
leet me note that public discussion is largely missing the nature of the
current Internet mail realities and the nature of the ways we can deal
with them.
There are two articles in the current issue of the Internet Protocol
Journal <http://cisco.com/ipj>, of which I wrote one, that provide some
useful background about this reality.
Simply put, Internet mail needs to sustain spontaneous communications --
that is, communications without prior arrangement -- and the benefit of
such a capability is fundamental. However the scale and diversity of the
modern Internet now includes many folk who the security geeks
appropriately call Bad Actors. We are stuck with these competing points:
Maintaining open contact, but dealing with some very nasty users.
A great deal of very good work has been done, to detect these bad actors
and their bad messages. Often, that work is quite helpful. In spite of
this the total amount of global spam and email abuse has yet not gone
down. We must continue with efforts to detect and deal with Bad Actors,
but there is a separate path that is at least as valuable:
We need methods for distinguishing Good Actors. Folks who are deemed
"safe". In effect, we need a Trust Overlay for Internet mail, to
permit
differential handling of mail from these good actors.
In general terms, a trust overlay requires reliable and accurate
identification of the actor and a means of assessing their goodness. In
other words, authentication and reputation.
We are already pursuing a standard for message transit handling
authentication, through Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM). See
<http://dkim.org>. There is discussion about various assessment standards
for reputation and accreditation. Although DKIM is quite viable in its
pre-standards form, there is no candidate for standardized reputation
reporting.
With all of this as background, imagine that you are an online service
that needs to ensure that a customer order confirmation, or an equivalent
critical transaction message, is delivered to the customer. Then imagine
that you are offered a means of safely and reliably identifying this
specific class of mail, so that it receives differential handling. The
incentives for a company to pay to ensure that delivery are substantial.
And that is what the recent announcement is about. It concerns a means of
ensuring delivery of "transactional" mail. This is quite different from
"marketing" mail and it is not in the least controversial.
I would greatly wish that the mechanisms used open standards, but the
basic model of developing a trust-based overlay for Internet mail seems an
essential enhancement.
/d
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
<http://bbiw.net>
-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/