IP: more on The age of new blacklisting is upon us (not related to homeland defense)

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 12:29:38 -0800
> From: Brad Templeton <brad () templetons com>
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
>
>
> Dave, you and IP readers know, Spam is one of the most complex and
> surprisingly contentious issues around, and a harbinger of many net
> issues to come.
>
> This is so because it sits at the intersection of three very important
> rights.   Freedom of communication, Privacy and Private Property.  There
> is no universal view of how these rights trump one another, and spam
> is one of the first global governance problems the internet has had placed
> in front of it -- the other people the popular issue of naming.
>
> I've written a number of essays on the topic your readers may find of
> interest.  They are at
>             www.templetons.com/brad/spume/
>
> But I will summarize some important points with respect to the issue
> of blacklisting.
>
> At first glance, blacklisting seems a fair solution.  One has the right
> to not listen as much as others have the right to speak, and you're not
> bound to open your property up for communications from people you don't
> want to.
>
> But blacklisting dicards a vital principle we normally hold dear in
> our design of governance, namely that we not punish the innocent in
> our effort to get at the guilty.   This is doubly true when the issue
> is speech.  That is not just a consitutional principle for governments,
> but a principle for how we should conduct our own lives, and any
> trans-governmental regulation we build for the internet.
>
> So since few can argue that we have a right not to listen, and few
> should argue that it's OK to punish the innocent to get at the guilty,
> where are we left?   Some of my essays describe other options, including
> my own current personal favourite, which is not blacklisting but rather
> "throttle-listing".   In this system, sites which can't be trusted not
> to abuse bulk e-mail are not blocked but passed through machines which
> throttle their volume of e-mail down to the level needed for person to
> person e-mail.
>
> What a lovely engineering goal for the throttle machines -- their job
> is to be slow!   Rare you get that on your requirements sheet.
>
> Thus everybody can still send person to person e-mail, but those who
> want to send bulk mail must be accountable for its abuse in some way if
> they want to avoid the throttles.
>
> Others have taken the view that government regulation of e-mail is the
> right answer.  I have a number of essays on the site about that as
> well.  Amazingly, some who would normally blanch at bringing in the
> government to regulate the internet happily invite it when it comes
> to spam.  Many laws have been passed, none appear to have had any
> effect on even the spam they have jurisdiction over, and none will
> ever have an effect on the spam from outside those jurisdictions.  Even
> for those who don't have an ideological opposition to government regulation
> of the content of e-mail, the pragmatic analysis shows it to be a
> dead end.
>
> The question continues to be a fascinating one which raises emotions
> far beyond what its cost and annoyance would justify.  I think that's
> a sign of people feeling sad and a little violated when the beautiful
> end to end concept faces the flaw of abuse.
>
> (Indeed, you aint seen nothin' yet until you consider what happens if
> we build an IP telephony system under end to end principles where
> anybody can call anybody in a distributed fashion, and spammers realize
> they can place IP phone calls to a million people at once.   I have some
> answers for that, but more on them later.)

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