Meng Wong's Perspectives on Antispam

netscoop writes "CircleID is running an interesting blog by Meng Wong, best known as the lead developer of the anti-spam authentication scheme, SPF. While touching on various recent hot issues, Meng has this to say about phishing: 'The final solution to the phishing problem requires that people use a whitelist-only, default-deny paradigm for email. Many people already subscribe to default-deny for IM and VoIP, but there is a cultural resistance to whitelist-only email -- email is perceived as the medium of least reserve. I believe that we must move to a default-deny model for email to solve phishing; at the same time we must preserve the openness that made email the killer app in the first place. The tension between these poles creates a tremendous opportunity for innovation and social good if we get things right, and for shattering failure if we get things wrong.' Right or wrong, definitely worth a read."

Racist!!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

People dumb enough to get phished probably think that whitelisting is something to do with the KluKluxKlan.

Re:Default deny is dumb.

[geekoid]

yes, becasue nobody did that before the internet....

I would ne interested to know what bank allows only a PO Box for an account. I have some friends who say they need to get 15,000,000 into the country since a forgotten reletive of mine died.

Re:Meh.

[baylanger]

If we don't have email for this role, then we need something similar to replace it.

That's an easy one. Just create your own alt.yourname in Usenet! Once the group is created, you'll have plenty of people contacting you!

Re:Meh.

[2008]

In the end, it is at times absolutely necessary that complete strangers can contact us without prior warning. If we don't have email for this role, then we need something similar to replace it.

Now, I'm no historian, but I've heard that in the past there was a government provided courier service which would deliver messages on paper for a small fee. Perhaps that would work if we reimplemented it?

Although, being serious, this lacks the (potential) anonymity of email, and involves giving out your physical address. Maybe we can persuade the postal service to provide free, (almost-)anonymous PO Box numbers?

Re:Spam is a social problem, not a technical one.

[kfg]

Everyone in the world knows to wash their hands; that has become part of human culture.

Oh, ummmmmmmmm, was I supposed to get a memo?

KFG

Re:I haven't been spammed in years.

[flynns]

You Personally advocate a

(x) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(x) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(x) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
(x) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
(x) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Microsoft
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Yahoo
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
(x) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
(x) Blacklists suck
(x) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
(x) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a fascist for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!