Re: [anti-spam-wg@localhost] Contacts

[Paul Wouters <]

On Mon, 3 Feb 2003, Dr. Jeffrey Race wrote:

> This is precisely the argument that all the big-time Environmental
> Polluters always used: "Yes, it's true our factory is dumping sewage
> in the stream

The thing we are taking about is not the polluter's sewage, but its
address. I am not talking about ignoring the spammer and/or his ISP
that condones it.
You're trying to say that not policing a bunch of email addresses is
dumping sewage. I disagree. This sewage is nicely labelled and the
perpetrator can be found within minutes, even with a bad address in 
the RIPE database.

I do believe the gains of an up to date address database for something
that, in the case of gross negligence, takes about 2 minutes to find
out by a human, is not worth the truckload of money needed to keep the
address base consistent and up to date (to people *trying* to hide)

I also strongly dislike the idea of RIPE-NCC (or the RIPE community)
to gain the power of revoking address space assignments. That should be
left to the legal system and the authorities. The problem of the
scattered, one person run, blacklists with dubious, contradicting, or
secret policies is bad enough as it is without adding another ad-hoc
organisation policing the flow of packets. What's next? AMSIX deciding 
spam policy on their switches? 

You handle abuse by taking out the abuser directly. This is a case that
should be fought within the legal system, between perpetrator and victim.
Also, what in the case of revoking Coca Cola's assignent and RIPE-NCC 
going bankrupt before finished the courtcase? Or will RIPE-NCC only dare
to revoke small assignments? In which the spam problem just moves.

RIPE should not involve itself. Not as judge, not as police, and 
definately not as executioner.

Paul
-- 
God devised pigeons as a means of punishment for man. Probably after
the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha he wanted to make sure that people
would never again feel comfortable enough in a city to repeat the sins
committed there, and he created the pigeons as a means to make the city
dwellers' lives more miserable, as a constant reminder of their past sins.