nanog mailing list archives

Re: Lazy network operators


From: Rob Nelson <ronelson () vt edu>
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 18:39:36 -0400



Spammers are users too. You can't spell "abuser" without "user." You
are inherently trying to diminish the power of the abuser users. No
spam mitigation solution can ever answer, "yes," to that question
without the qualification that at least some users, the abusers, will be
disempowered. The equation will always come to balancing how hard you
hit the spammers versus minimizing the collateral damage. Or it's another
classic example of security versus usability.


But speaking of usability, email becomes IMMEDIATELY unusable if there is a technological "anti-spam" measure in place, be it something client-side like spamassassin or another RFC implemented server-side, that prevents even a single wanted email from getting to you. Especially if you are, for example, sitting at home on the phone with another person saying "Email me that file, again" and it's not going anywhere. At that point, email is 100% dead.

Rob Nelson
ronelson () vt edu


Rob Nelson
ronelson () vt edu


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