[MPlayer-dev-eng] to michael

[Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski]

On Thursday, 25 May 2006 at 18:50, Rich Felker wrote:
> On Thu, May 25, 2006 at 06:25:03PM +0200, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
> > There's no point in forging evidence by a blocklist. If they're caught,
> > everybody will stop using them. It's about trust. That goes for every
> > blocklist.
> 
> No, if everyone would stop using them due to them being caught doing
> unscrupulous things, everyone would have stopped a long time ago.

So... you have evidence of them forging spam samples?

> The madness of "we must fight spam at all costs" kicks in, just like the
> madness of "we must fight terrorism at all costs" and no one even
> cares that Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or 9/11.

That analogy is false.

[...]
> > Well, I receive spam from the IPs they're using.
> 
> You did? No. SORBS claims they did. Or maybe they recieved spam from a
> nearby/similar IP.. Or...? Do you even know?

Sure I do know. I've received many spams from gmx.de. I'm certain SORBS did,
too.

> > > My legitimacy comes from a refusal to compromise on the principle that
> > > people are innocent until proven guilty and that if enforcement of a
> > > rule/law results in even one innocent person being wrongfully affected
> > > then it must be halted and replaced with a method that assures that
> > > this cannot happen.
> > 
> > Oh, please. Be my guest. Come up with a better method and EVERYBODY will
> > thank you.
> 
> My better method is called "suck in and deal".

That's what I do.

> > It's not about being guilty or innocent, though. It's about spam being
> > sent from a given IP or not. And if there's a lot of spam coming from
> > different IPs in a range, it's ineffective to block them one by one.
> 
> OK you just admitted what this is about. Laziness and "efficiency".
> It's more "efficient" to brand isolated small groups of innocents as
> spammers, and hope they won't complain too loudly, than to do the
> fine-grained labelling necessary to make sure that only the guilty
> parties are blocked.

Look, listing single IPs has been tried and it failed miserably. The only
alternative was to list IP ranges and hope that the customers *do* complain
to their ISP, which in turn will force the ISP to finally boot the spammers.

> This is unacceptable.

Supporting spammers is unacceptable.

> > > > Everyone's liberties end at my network. I have every right not to receive
> > > > e-mail from anyone based on any criteria I want. I am NOT limiting anyone's
> > > > freedom in ANY way that way.
> > > 
> > > No you do not. If you are running a business and your criteria was to
> > > refuse all email from blacks or from Jews or whatever you'd be in deep
> > > shit in a hurry.
> > 
> > If I were, then yes. But that's not I'm suggesting. Besides, it's
> > impossible to know if the person behind an IP (if there even is one) is
> > black or white or yellow. And yet you maintain blocklists are listing
> > people.
> 
> The point is that you do not have an unlimited right to block emails
> to your customers.

I do, if they delegate it to me. Besides, the ability to send e-mail is not
a right, it's a privilege.

> > > Rejecting at the MTA level is better, if you can do it with content
> > > filters and not blacklists.
> > 
> > Agreed, and that's what I meant by rejecting, but blacklists are still more
> > resource-efficient, especially when someone is mailbombing you. Will you pay
> > for everyone's bandwith usage increase when they stop using blocklists?
> 
> No, and I also won't pay the funeral expenses of the people who died
> in the 9/11 attacks, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to allow
> martial law to prevent (yeah right, prevention is impossible) the same
> thing from happening again.
> 
> It's not the responsibility of the few individuals who strongly demand
> the preservation of freedom to pay for whatever convenience everyone
> loses due to that freedom. It's everyone's responsibility to bear the
> cost of keeping freedom, however it ends up affecting them. We don't
> subsidize freedom.

It's not about limiting anyone's freedom.

I'm not forcing my views on everyone like you're trying to. As it happens,
there are a LOT of people who share my views.

> > > > Bad analogy. That is a list of people. A list of IPs is NOT a list of
> > > > people. An IP blacklist is like a list of dangerous city districts.
> > > 
> > > No it is not. It's like a list of street addresses, which directly
> > > corresponds to a list of people.
> > 
> > IPs don't correspond directly to people.
> 
> Yes they do! Not in all cases, but in some.

There, you see. You've admitted it.

> ISPs should be forced to
> drop dynamic addressing entirely. That would do a HUGE benefit to the
> fight against spam because spammers would have to buy new accounts
> each time rather than just redialing.

I agree that dynamic IPs are bad.

Regards,
R.

-- 
MPlayer developer and RPMs maintainer: http://rpm.greysector.net/mplayer/
There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and
oppression to develop psychic muscles.
	-- from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan