Dave Crocker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> <http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=62&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&s1=tumbleweed&p=2&OS=tumbleweed&RS=tumbleweed>
> 
> They enforce this patents and its follow-ons very aggressively.

   Thank you for the patent reference. I have only read the abstract
so far, but that's enough for me to say I need to have a lawyer give
his/her opinion before I can venture an opinion whether it applies.
I will discuss this with Doug.

> 2. At best, this reduces total bytes over the [SMTP connection?]

   Actually, our concern was bytes an SMTP server is responsible for
buffering: this may not be much of a problem for many folks (yet), but
we see it as a scaling issue which will definitely hit us if the spam
volume continues to grow. (Besides, SMTP server load is highly
variable, and there will be times when another megabit-per-second
really hurts.)

> but the requirement for a notification message does not reduce the
> number of network 'transactions' -- in fact it increases them by
> 100% or more.

   I'm not clear what "requirement" you're referring to.

   There is no notification message required in this SMTP extension:
in fact there is a prohibition of sending DSNs before the reverse
path is verified. The notification of acceptance of responsibility
for the TBR _is_ fetching the reference: none of the errors mentioned
are required to be sent unless the originator is considered worthy.

> 3. This presumes that making a real-time decision is a current problem, 
> when it is not generally held to be a major factor among the anti-abuse 
> community.

   Your "community" may not be the same as mine. I take the very
existence of graylisting as proof that real-time decisions are often
impractical.

> 4. It presumes that users can make the right decision.

   Actually, the TBR extension protocol leaves _no_ decisions to the
user (unless you read the part about
" 
" MAY prepend any additional trace headers to a notification sent to
" the recipient containing the eXAM-URI itself, along with any other
" appropriate information.

in Section 3.2 to be asking the user to decide something).

> Experience is pretty clear that that's too often not a correct
> presumption.

   Agreed: IMHO very few users can make the right decision about spam
more than 99% of the time. Many users miss that mark by more than one
order of magnitude. ;^)

> In addition, having users be required to make this decision burdens
> them far more than is felt to be useful.

   I agree. That's why we don't ask for it: the MAY cited above is a
sop to the users who worry themselves silly about missing _one_
legitimate email in the heap of spam.

> (This is a derivation of the transaction cost item, above, except
> that it moves the decision-making from a receive-side front-end
> filter to the human user.  And of course, it them requires them 
> to wait for the message to show up.

   (I don't think this applies, but I'm willing to be shown otherwise.)

> 5. Doesn't work so well for disconnected users.

   The extension envisions the fetching being done by a Mail Delivery
Agent (which presumably is well connected). But the fetching clearly
could be done earlier in the chain...

--
John Leslie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

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