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<font color="#0000FF">Since people have asked for comment from those who
believe that spam is an appropriate issue...<br><br>
</font>At 18:13 28/01/2005, Michael Gurstein wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""> <br>
<dl>
<dd>I think the issue of "spam" and "spam control" is
highly interesting particularly for what it reveals about the implicit
frameworks concerning overall Internet related issues. <br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>Spam is and can be approached from a technical and a legal/regulatory
perspective--that is, what are the centrally (top down) determined,
centrally (top down) implemented and centrally (top down) controlled
approaches to the problem of spam--what filters do ISP's put in place,
what laws do central authorities implement, what banishment do central
monitors impose and so on. <br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>An alternative approach to spam control, which in fact seems to be
far more powerful and certainly more cost-effective is a 'bottom-up"
strategy which has users either individually or more usefully
collaboratively, establishing mechanisms for identifying and diverting
spam messages as they are being received.</blockquote>
</dl><br>
<font color="#0000FF">I am not sure about the cost-effectiveness of the
bottom-up approach. The direct costs of spam as such are apparently
enormous ($10 Billion in 2003 for the US - one country, and before the
recent surges). This merely deals with lost employee time in filtering
the stuff at the bottom. This filtration is bedeviled by false positives
(e.g. filters catching email from people who use web mail services or
actually need to use spammer's 'hot words' in their messages) and false
negatives - esp. when spam originates in malware that hijacks addresses
and subjects. But I agree that this does not seem an apt subject for IG
in the larger sense. In any case, most governments are taking action -
though countries whence most spam originates seem less inclined to take
effective action:-(<br><br>
The indirect costs and effects seem potentially more serious and more
directly an IG concern. One is the tragedy of the commons - effective
communication means being able to get messages through to others through
effective channels that engage the attention of users. As a direct result
of spam (and malware attacks coming in that way), many organisations are
opting out of the public communication space. Many of my acquaintances
have had to relocate to other servers and addresses, making them harder
for chance or old acquaintances to find. Many more no longer use email
for important communication, having had to revert to other channels that
were by definition less effective than email (because they switched to
email in the first place). <br><br>
There may be a middle way - no top-down approach can be effective without
bottom-up cooperation, and many top-down suggestions carry (not so)
hidden dangers. But it is difficult to avoid the analogy of immunisation
against infectious disease which is rarely left to bottom up
initiatives.<br><br>
</font><blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<dl>
<dd> <br>
<dd>The way this seems to be working is that individuals identify
messages they consider spam, they set up a filter against that message
which then is shared with other people. As the network (on-line
community) of those sharing their filters grows, the grid of filtering
against the spam messaging grows apace and there is no particular need to
have central authorities to identify and track/attack spammers (an
approach unlikely to be effective in any case given the ease with which
spammers can change their addresses, the very low entry costs to spamming
and so on... (I saw a note pass by a few weeks ago which indicated that
the cost of identifying and running to ground a single spammer was in the
$40,000K US range, and this doesn't include the legal costs of attempting
to try and convict each individual spammer...).</blockquote>
</dl><br>
<font color="#0000FF">But there is fairly clear evidence of a Pareto Law
in operation, with a tiny proportion of miscreants responsible for the
vast majority of spam. Surely, if the 'bottom-up' filterers could somehow
share their information, the fruits of their efforts could be made
available to others - including the vast numbers who cannot do this for a
variety of reasons - and who keep the spammers coming back.<br><br>
</font><blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<dl>
<dd> However, recognizing that spam is a problem which is probably
best controlled through (bottom up) on-line communities and networks
doesn't seem to have filtered into those who treat the Internet with all
its transformational elements as simply another ground for regulatory
business as usual, or who see a way of making a buck by providing
technology (overkill) solutions for what are essentially
"social"/community problems.</blockquote>
</dl><br>
<font color="#0000FF">Not making, saving - and saving quite a few more
bucks than those earned by solutions providers - many of whom are not
operating commercially. I'm not necessarily asking for the activities of
anti-spam activists to be given colour of law, but a private right of
class action would be a nice step.<br><br>
</font><blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<dl>
<dd>To extend this further I'm seeing a similar "divide" in the
Finance for the Information Society area, where the bulk of the efforts
seems to be in finding ways of funding governments or (centralized)
multilateral agencies or NGO's to develop top down delivery programs
rather than ways of channeling funds and expertise to communities to help
them develop local solutions to access and related issues. </blockquote>
</dl><br>
<font color="#0000FF">If the 'communities' are sufficiently localised, if
they have the incentives and power to develop and implement their
solutions and if the external effects are not too large, this should
indeed be the default position. But those are a lot of 'ifs' in the
online world. We've seen lots of examples of local IS initiatives that
have not been taken up or have failed to connect - and thus have not
produced sustainable benefits. Not that the 'big programmes' have done
that much better, but they fail in different ways.<br><br>
</font><blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<dl>
<dd>In the end of course, there will never ever be enough funds for top
down centrally administered solutions -- the technology moves too fast --
and in the end there is an endless number of potential (even socially
worthy) beneficiaries. But to set up processes where communities
are enabled to achieve access and effective use based on their
application of local resources in relation to local needs (with of
course, the availability of some type of technical infrastructure--IMHO
the appropriate use of centralized capacity and resource commitment),
that should be do-able even within a context of limited donor interest
and financial committments.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>Best,<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>Mike Gurstein<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.<br>
<dd>Clinical Professor: School of Management<br>
<dd>Research Profesor: School of Computing and information Science<br>
<dd>New Jersey Institute of Technology<br>
<dd>Newark, NJ<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>(Interim) Chair: Community Informatics Research Network</blockquote>
</dl><br>
<font color="#0000FF">Cheers,<br><br>
Jonathan<br><br>
</font><font size=2 color="#0000FF">[snip]</font></body>
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