The ridiculousness of that sentiment that prompted my first post to this list came from the following comments:
> I have found this whole line of debate somewhat interesting, but it has
> clearly strayed from the real core question:
>
> Who is responsible?
>
> Is it the responsibility of the sender to verify that they indeed intended
> to send the email?
> Or is it the responsibility of the recipient to verify senders?
>
> My personal opinion is that it is the latter. If I send an email to a valid
> address, I find it a bit offensive that they send a challenge back. Why is
> it my responsibility as the sender to teach another system to accept mail
> from me?
I admit I don¹t know the full context of the comments, but based on the
preamble (³the real core question²) these comments assert a stand-alone
absoluteness. It is to that ³absolute standard² of recipient is responsible
to verify sender that I made my reply.
In fact, I am adamant that no sender should expect their message to be
delivered by another¹s service. The Post Office (in real world terms) exists
outside any recipient¹s ability to pay. In that world, the sender pays so
the PO services the sender. In electronic mail many parties outside the
sender PAY for the service. Therefore the PAYER has the right to put up
roadblocks to delivery as he/she sees fit. Let the sender pay for my
infrastructure costs and I¹ll gladly bear the responsibility to auto-trash
his messages to me.
Otherwise, get used to difficulty sending messages of any kind to others.
The world is turning on SMTP and people are realizing the most common
scenario is that a sender is illegitimately sending a message to a recipient
(that is, spam out numbers ham).
That the current system defaults in favor of carrying every message, no
matter how inane or large, through the entire infrastructure of the Internet
and then puts the onus on the client to ³filter² the message is stupid.
Instead of such a sender-preferential system, a recipient-biased system
would result in lower bandwidth utilization and reduced processing needs
(therefore exposing that, perhaps, spam benefits the bandwidth sellers,
processor sellers, and storage sellers ultimately!).
As an aside, such a proposal to put the responsibility for
bandwidth/processing use on the sender is on the table and is called ³Stub
Email² or ³Hypertext Mail Transport Protocol²:
http://www.circleid.com/posts/hypertext_mail_protocol_aka_stub_emaill/
http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=9&threadID=194716&start
=0
http://icl.pku.edu.cn/bswen/_old_stuff/Email++/index.html
http://autodesk.blogs.com/between_the_lines/2006/10/misc_interestin.html
Of course, such a proposal will be ignored as the spammers have the money to
prop-up the status quo.
--
Robot Terror
³Always a treat, never a threat²
http://robotterror.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 7/23/07 12:27 PM, "John D. Hardin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ostensibly wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Jul 2007, Robot Terror wrote:
>
>> Why is it my responsibility as a holder of a valid email address
>> to accept mail from anyone who wants to send me the mail?
>
> Who ever said *that*?
>
> --
> John Hardin KA7OHZ http://www.impsec.org/~jhardin/
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] FALaholic #11174 pgpk -a [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> key: 0xB8732E79 -- 2D8C 34F4 6411 F507 136C AF76 D822 E6E6 B873 2E79
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Where We Want You To Go Today 07/05/07: Microsoft patents in-OS
> adware architecture incorporating spyware, profiling, competitor
> suppression and delivery confirmation (U.S. Patent #20070157227)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 12 days until The 272nd anniversary of John Peter Zenger's acquittal
>
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