Re: Email Web of Trust - Problem Statement

Mark Baugher <[email protected]> wrote:
> >   Taken over multiple intermediary hops, these numbers give you some
> >probability that any one message is a priori going to be spam.  It's
> >not perfect, but it's a start.
> 
> Yes, but it begs the question of what is spam.

  Nope.  Spam is whatever a domain decides is spam.

>  One needs a very clear definition of what is spam in order to trust
> that some domain does or does not originate spam.  And there could
> be more than one metric such as originating UBE promotions versus
> nefarious scams to bilk people out of their savings.

  More metrics make it more complicated.  The simple question is:

  - If the message was passed from person to person, rather than being
    delivered directly, what are the odds it would be marked along the
    way to be spam?

  It's not quite trust, but it's a start.

> More generally, the trust could be based on a particular policy or set of 
> policies:  A particular domain, for example, might be trusted to adhere to 
> certain antispam policies regarding UBE, authenticating senders, responding 
> to complaints, etc.

  OK.  And how do you measure this?  How do you enforce it?  It's very
problematic.

  Alan DeKok.