Re: SPF and egos

Viktor S. Grishchenko wrote:

> Jeff Silverman wrote:
> 
>>Is SPAM really a technical problem?  Clearly SPAM is a problem, but it
>>isn't clear to me that SPAM is a technical problem.  The real source of
>>the problem with SPAM is that there are some people who are ethically
>>challenged who misuse it.
> 
> 
> Let me replay my point.
> The general problem behind spam is, as I see it, that the internet has no 
> methods of expressing trust and reputation (good-enough methods, blacklists 
> are insufficient). "Misusers" will remain anyway. Generaly speaking, today's 
> spammers are "rationalistic actors" in a typical "tragedy of the commons" 
> (G.Hardin) which we can see daily, while checking our inboxes.
> Basic authentication in e-mail may be the first step towards "trust 
> accounting" or "propertization of trust" in the internet.
> 

We do have to keep in mind that the various "reputation" systems for IPs 
aka blacklists, are not exactly accountable. The same is likely to 
extend to any kind of reputation system built on top of authorized email 
or trusted email. This is something that the blacklist operators would 
have to deal with.

Yakov