Thanks Bill. I guess I should restate my question. Would it be practical for Twitter/Facebook/SnapChat/WhatsApp/Microsoft/Telegraph to use SpamAssassin like techniques of Bayesian filtering and RBL lists to block ISIS on social media?
This is an invitation for discussion, not a rhetorical question. Feel free to repost to more appropriate forums. Wrolf Wrolf wr...@wrolf.net On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 1:22 PM, Bill Cole < sausers-20150...@billmail.scconsult.com> wrote: > On 15 Dec 2015, at 23:19, Wrolf wrote: > > Stop me if you've heard this one. >> >> Would it be practical to use the Spamassassin techniques of Bayesian >> filtering and RBL lists to block ISIS on social media? >> > > I've definitely heard similarly unfunny and poorly thought-out jokes > before. Bill Gates had one called "Penny Black" which seems to have taught > him that his wealth would would be more helpful if spread out across a > larger set of hands... > > The only reason email spam requires tools like DNSBLs, Naive Bayesian > classification, shared hash databases (DCC/Razor/Pyzor/IxHash) etc. is that > email is handled by many thousands of autonomous mail systems using a > protocol that by spec and default falls back to a protocol defined and > designed for the 1980's Internet. The collaborative tactics that are > assembled by SpamAssassin only make any sense to use AT ALL because email > uses an open protocol where no single operator or end-user sees all the > traffic and no two see the same slice of traffic. SpamAssassin in > combination with other tools is pretty good considering that challenge, but > it totally sucks compared to what is possible for communication systems > with unified administrative control. > > Excluding any set of @BadGuys from Twitter is within Twitter's power NOW. > Excluding any set of @BadGuys from Facebook is within Facebook's power NOW. > Excluding any set of @BadGuys from SnapChat is within SnapChat's power NOW. > Excluding any set of @BadGuys from WhatsApp is within WhatsApp's power NOW. > Excluding any set of @BadGuys from Skype is within Microsoft's power NOW. > > ISIS uses any "social media" where the proprietors welcome them. That is a > business decision of for-profit private enterprises based in > lightly-regulated jurisdictions (mostly the US and EU) who mostly have not > thought about that choice in those terms. Whether they should is a complex > question for other fora... > > Put another way, in specific terms: > I use SpamAssassin in conjunction with Postfix, MIMEDefang, various OS > components, and my own chicken-wire+duct-tape code in C/Perl/Shell to > exclude spammers *AND* ISIS (incidentally) from my own mail system. I use > other overlapping toolsets to do similar exclusions from mail systems whose > owners authorize and mostly pay me to do so. Twitter does not authorize or > pay me to manage their systems, so I won't try to do so. I'm quite sure > that if they were crazy enough to engage me for that role, I would use > stronger tactics than I CAN with email, using almost entirely different > tools. On the other hand, the policies and tactics needed to exclude > spammers and/or ISIS from Twitter might conflict with Twitter's business > plans or the ethical principles (LOL) of their corporate owners & > leadership. Twitter has people whose jobs are policing how Twitter is used. > They do a shit job, because Twitter CHOOSES to not fund and require the > performance of a good job. >
