Re: Comcast blocking mail to its customers

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed () reed com>
Date: October 16, 2008 10:01:02 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Cc: ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:      Comcast blocking mail to its customers

Dave - Hope you'll post this.

I'm happy to work with people on constructive solutions and policies.   
But please save the discussion from distraction by those who who claim  
to "solve" the problem and then claim that my problems, *caused by  
their solutions*, don't exist or have no reality or credibility.

As a sane and rational person ... [why did I say that?  Well the word  
"sane" and "lunatic" have been entered into this conversation.  I'll  
take a psychological test if that is relevant.   I don't think it is -  
judge my arguments, instead. Would it matter if people knew my IQ or  
my shoe size?]  here's my long-form opinion:

SMTP gateways have a major technical flaw: spam is not defined by  
sender "reputation" (a corruption of the word - all it means here is  
some random algorithmic statistic given a high-falutin' name).   Spam  
is defined as a communication unsolicited by the recipient and sent in  
bulk.  How does an SMTP gateway based on reputation measure "bulk"- 
ness or individual "recipient" wishes, much less do the "AND"  
operation between the two.  The SMTP gateway cannot know that I  
*subscribed* to that bulk mailing, nor can the ultimate POP or IMAP  
server.

Efficiency cannot be the primary criterion.   It is also "efficient"  
to stop gun crimes by taking away all guns, or to stop hate crime by  
taking away all the groups who inspire hatred (deport all those who  
don't learn English quickly enough?).  Solutions must be measured by  
their functional effects and side effects, not cpu cycles.

More rights have been eroded by appeals to efficiency and  
"unavoidable" collateral damage than by any other means.

A case study, me: I use TLS authenticated SMTP gateways to post my  
mail, yet:

  1) Hotels routinely block my access to use TLS authenticated mail  
services, forcing me to use their spam filtering software that opens  
and reads my mail in the clear, or to use very complex techniques not  
available to ordinary people, who would be shocked to find that their  
mail is being inspected by the hotel's contractors.
  2) Many, many times, my emails posted through TLS authenticated  
gateways get subsequently blocked by spam-RBL's because some  
intermediary site was called by "reputation" a spam source.  The RBL  
system is prone to abuse, and it is abused.

So I personally follow very strict rules, which would suggest that my  
mail is *never* spam, but:

   my mail routinely gets *labeled* as spam, which is unfortunate,
  and then *dropped without notifying* the recipient or me, which is  
beyond unfortunate - it is probably actionable as a matter of law, but  
in any case is *unconscionable*.

I'm not saying this is an *easy* problem to solve, but it is  
completely non-constructive for people (such as Levine and  
Ramasubrmanian) to claim that I and many others are not *experiencing*  
a problem.  It's a problem I experience *every* week.  There are  
people who struggle with the complexity of this problem, and others  
who mostly want to make snide remarks.

I also use a "spam labeler" intermediary for my received mail (but I  
don't authorize it to drop mail).  I receive many (one-two per week)  
messages that are important to me that have been erroneously labeled  
as spam by the relatively high-quality labeling process, which I have  
affirmatively authorized.

Unilateral *dropping* is the problem I am objecting to, and refuse to  
have imposed on me or my counterparties by intermediaries - then I or  
my correspondents never have a chance to see the mail, or add the  
sender to my local "whitelist" that rescues it automatically from my  
"low priority, probably spam" bucket.

I'm happy to work with people on constructive solutions and policies.   
But please save me from the self-righteous spam vigilantes who claim  
to "solve" the problem by unilateral discards on a wholesale, non- 
transparent basis, and then claim that my problems, caused by their  
solutions, don't exist.

And those on this list who label me as a "lunatic" - well, there's  
nothing I can do about what you think. But perhaps your aggressive  
attempts to label me reflects a fear that I have a real point.   I'm  
sorry I scare you so much.



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