On Fri, 17 May 2002, Bernie Cosell wrote: > I wonder how many folk really DO have that attitude [that is, not caring > if some percentage of their incoming email is just trashed and vanishes].
This is an old debate. I am an advocate of site/net blocking of sites and nets which don't take sufficient action to prevent spam from their nets. Even if this means that I will some legimate mail from that net. I defend this position both in the Cranfield site blocking policy document that I've quoted here (and helped draft) http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/ccc/email/siteblocking.html which has a section on harm to legitimate mail. And http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/toll-free-spam/notes.html has a few comments about site blocking vs filtering. In other contexts I've described this kind of spam fighting as a prisoners dilemma. Each individuaul institution is better off if they alone don't engage in site blocking. There is a cost (in losing legitimate mail) to site blocking. But siteblocking does put the right kind of pressure on spammers via their providers. So the people engaging in siteblocking are helping those who don't do site blocking. -j -- Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/ Relativism is the triumph of authority over truth, convention over justice
