[ppml] Last Call for Comment: Policy Proposal 2003-3

[Leo Bicknell]

In a message written on Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 01:13:11PM -0800, Owen DeLong wrote:
> This policy just serves to further allow for SPAMMERS to get anonymous
> IP blocks.

There is a small, but vocal minority that wants to assert this
claim.  The real problem here is no one can point to hard data that
supports this claim.  That's no surprise now, since this is a brand
new policy change.  However, I strongly suggest that if the people
who think this is a problem want to have any chance of changing it
in the future then efforts should be made by the appropriate groups
to try and track if there is an increase in spam from "anonymous"
IP blocks.

A much more interesting second order problem would be to track if
complaints to the upstream parent of these "anonymous" blocks are
more or less effective, on the average, than complaints directly
to the block owner.  That may be too hard to do, though.

I highly doubt this will make any measurable change in fighting
spam.  Yes, it means you'll go directly to the upstream, rather
than the end user, but I suspect that will be better in as many
cases as it is worse.

What I suspect happens now is some spammers are listed in whois.
By receiving the complaints directly they can use that feedback to
tailor their runs to not generate alarms.  They can also reply to
the direct complaints in a way that seems like action is being taken
without actually doing anything, delaying the anti-spam services
from declaring them a spammer.  Without them listed the complaints
will go directly to the upstream who can disconnect them without
giving them the feedback loop, and (at least in a few cases) without
the runaround.

Back to my original point.  Track it.  Prove it.  If in 6 months
you can offer hard data spam has increased by a reasonable amount
from these netblocks I'll be the first to consider changing my
views.  Without that data I won't.  I suspect others are in the 
same boat.

-- 
       Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org - CCIE 3440
        PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
Read TMBG List - tmbg-list-request at tmbg.org, www.tmbg.org
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