I don't think anti-spam is a research issue any more.
It is now accepted that there are two approaches to stopping spam, filtering out the bad stuff, making it easier to identify the good stuff.
When we started there were plenty of folk who were pretty hostile to second approach. None of the authentication based proposals submitted to the first Spam conference at MIT were accepted, Bayesian filtering was the answer.
Today we have two email authentication protocols designed to support the second approach and we have an emerging accreditation infrastructure to support them. Over time it is clear that the accountability approach is going to be the convergence point. Everyone accepts that spam is due to a lack of accountability, so why should we expect the answer to be something else?
I don't have much to add in this forum. But since John plugs his book in every sig I think it is fair turns to point out that Adisson Wesley has just published my first book, The dotCrime Manifesto: How to Stop Internet Crime.
Stopping spam and draining the botnets are both necessary if we are going to stop Internet crime. But the problems are all linked. Spam begets botnets, botnets beget spam and the motive for both is 95% hard core crime. It would be really nice if we were in a position to discuss where the boundary for acceptable email use actually lies. But thats like arguing where the border between East Germany and Poland should lie while they are both occupied by the Soviet Union. The spammers that cause the vast bulk of spam are total hardcore criminals.
At this point I think there is rather more to be done to stop spam by working on other parts of the spam cycle. And this has the bonus of helping stop other Internet crimes.
So maybe we need an Anti Crime Research Group, which might serve as an interface to the Anti Phishing working group and the rest.
The next IETF meeting is in Philadelphia the week of March 9th. Since I
happen to live fairly nearby, I'm planning to go and have tentatively
requested a session for the ASRG.
Due to the rather notable lack of ASRG activity during the past year, I
suspect this will be the session where we decide to pack it in. Anyone
else planning to be there?
Regards,
John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex-Mayor
"More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.
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