[anti-abuse-wg] So many idiots. So little time.

Jeroen,
ist's hard to distinguish between straight statements and serious questions on one hand and sarcasm, rhetorical 
questions and strawman arguments on the other hand in written communication, especially when there sometimes seems to be 
a "mode switch". I'm trying to respond seriously and to be explicit about how I understood your statements.

Am 14.08.22 um 10:26 schrieb jeroen at hackersbescherming.nl:
> My bad! I assumed that when u create or follow a training course that u want
> to learn or teach a way that ALWAYS works.

I'm unsure whether you meant that seriously or sarcastically.

Of course the assumption is wrong. Training is a way of improving your ability to do something, not of learning 
something that always works. A football team will train to learn to play better and win more games, not to learn a away 
that will let them win ALWAYS. Similarly, an abuse desk team will train to learn ways of detecting abuse earlier, to 
distinguish between true and false abuse accusations, to use tools and automation to focus their human attention on the 
tricky problems instead of doing rote work, etc. None of that will guarantee that there will be no abuse from their 
network, but it will likely reduce the amount by catching it quicker and making it unattractive for spammers. Of course, 
that's the theory, but my experience from the other side of the fence is that quick and swift action is the primary 
thing that reduces the amount of spam, and it should work equally well and on a larger volume on the provider side.

>
> With my assumption of the below.
> To solve the abuse problem u either need a system that can hold the abuser
> responsible or and that would be even better u need a system where nobody
> would grow an interest to even try to abuse

Did you forget a period here? As such, this sentence sort of makes sense, although I would not strive to "solve" the 
abuse problem but to reduce the volume and impact on recipients. Holding abusers responsible may be one way (although it 
would be necessary to define what that means).

A system where nobody would grow an interest to even try abuse is impossible, we know from the non-effectiveness of 
capital punishment against murder etc. that there is no effective deterrant that keeps people from wanting to do and 
actually doing horrible things. The only "effective" way would be to lock up everybody as a safety measure. That's like 
blocking access to port 25, surely it keeps out the spam, but would have some undesirable side effects.

So, this is not what I want.

>   and when u start thinking into
> this direction all the other "BIG" problems in the world will become easy to
> solve. (Yes u read this right they are easy to solve, we currently just use
> the wrong systems (all over the world) to guide and lead us)
Is this a strawman argument of the form "we should not try to solve problem X because we can't solve problem Y and 
that's even bigger"? That's faulty logic, I assume written tongue-in-cheek.
>
> When u would have a good system then a large portion or maybe even all of
> the current training material would be irrelevant since it is based on the
> current system that doesn't provide a solution for the problem.

That's an assumption about the training material (which I haven't seen and know nothing about) and the current system 
that I don't share. It seems to imply that there is no way of reducing the amount of spam in the current system, which 
is IMO not true.

I do think that the current system is lacking in some areas but is overall usable, and that it is possible to reduce 
abuse within the framework of the current system. Usable training material would teach what can be done at one point 
(one provider) to achive this without requiring undue cooperation from other players or changing the system. That is, 
actually doable changes to one's operation to reduce the amount of abuse.

>
> What u are saying is that when I create a training that teaches 1+1=11 and
> someone out there wants to learn this that this would be a usefull training
> .... (maybe for someone to do on his own but not for a global/regional
> solution).
Looks like a strawman argument again. I'm not proposing that training should teach nonsense and that someone out there 
could want to learn nonsense, so this would be useful training. What I was saying is that a training course (which I 
presumed teaches something actually useful in reducing the spam load) can only be useful for organizations that want to 
get closer to that goal. If an organization does not share that goal (or has different main goals), they most likely 
would not want or need the training.
>
> It doesn't matter to which group u belong to, in the end we all belong to
> the same group called Humans....
> We need a fair worldwide system where power is removed from all
> individuals!!!! (Since power allways creates a form of abuse)

Looks like a hyperbole/strawman argument again: "If we can't solve the worldwide power abuse issues, we should not even 
try to fight local abuse". Faulty logic.

> Kind regards,
>
> Jeroen
Cheers,
Hans-Martin