[9471] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Inmac, junk mail, and the death of the net...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen D Crocker)
Thu Jan 6 17:31:33 1994
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 06 Jan 94 22:04:31 GMT."
Date: Thu, 06 Jan 94 17:26:51 -0500
From: Stephen D Crocker <crocker@tis.com>
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Proc-Type: 4,MIC-CLEAR
Content-Domain: RFC822
Originator-ID-Asymmetric: MFMxCzAJBgNVBAYTAlVTMQswCQYDVQQIEwJNRDE
kMCIGA1UEChMbVHJ1c3RlZCBJbmZvcm1hdGlvbiBTeXN0ZW1zMREwDwYDVQQLEwh
HbGVud29vZA==,03
MIC-Info: RSA-MD5,RSA,HSrwjOF0STw+pXYGflK8gC377aQJ+R8XEuE9NVsPSAf
m/Io/VGtJ9nZs2KoDmVEsFv3rNM6ad/8QR51wTFN1gA19fpxey8GHVhz37/qjzST
KvUlNKdWwNQ5fDioUzOxn
> OK, Inmac bought the list (for $10K) from a company called
> List Services in Connecticut, (203) 791-4443. I spoke to Steve Weis.
> They are brokering the list for a client and will not divulge who that
> client is without a good reason. They (List Services) know what
> Internet is, they know that the client screwed up by using public
> access sites in the list, and they believe that it doesn't violate any
> network policy (I don't think it does ethier). They have removed the
> public access sites from the list and will continue to sell it. The
> client plans to continue building lists in this manner.
Hmmm... all of this is pretty interesting. I'm the area director for
security in the IETF. Let me pose some questions for this group.
The policy question: with respect to harvesting of names from Internet
databases, finger, etc., if you could have the policy of your choice,
what would it be?
The technical question: Is there a way to design the protocols to
prevent or retard undesired use?
(The answer to the technical question depends in part on the answer to
the policy question. If your answer to the policy question is that it
should be ok to harvest names, then there's no technical "problem" to
be solved.)
I see at least one approach, using a combination of technical,
administrative and legal tools, which could be helpful, but others
might see more clever solutions. Much depends on whether the
community sees this as a problem.
Steve
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