[ih] Why is there (still) spam...?

[Dave Crocker]

On 7/29/2025 4:20 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> "Dr. Vinton Cerf: I think that a primary challenge, is accountability. 
> Because of the
> way that the Internet can be abused, it's essential that we find ways 
> of holding
> parties accountable for abusive behaviors, and that will interfere 
> with anonymity in
> some cases, and so under the right circumstances, you have to 
> penetrate the veil of
> anonymity in order to hold parties accountable."


Except that the power to pierce that veil is, itself, a power to be 
abusive.  And there might even be some examples at hand of such abuses.

but, really, my point was that any interesting population always 
demonstrates the presence of some bad actors.  Some of those will 
demonstrate badness via spam.

The view that greater accountability will eliminate spam is pretty much 
driving the current IETF anti-spam work.  It's not clear to me how much 
the past decade of such efforts has moved towards elimination, but it's 
certainly reduce the flexibility of email. And the latest round of work 
promises to reduce it further.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker

Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
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