[WSIS CS-Plenary] Spam as an issue

[Chun Eung Hwi]

Dear Vittorio Bertola and others,


On Tue, 1 Feb 2005, Vittorio Bertola wrote:

> So you think that there is no need for global regulation of spam? I
> think that there is no way that a problem like spam can be solved at the
> national level, given the scale and nature of the problem. IMHO, it is
> useless to have 150 different national spam regulations when, say, a
> U.S. spammer will use an open relay in Korea to spam people in 50
> different countries in all continents; it will just let you lost in
> cross-border legal procedures while the spammer has all the time to
> finish the job and disappear.

I agree with you. Although I have the same mind that bottom-up, community
centered solution is reasonable and desirable and national solutions and
measures should come first, global cooperation or coordination for the
battle with spam should be necessarily undertaken. Its importance could
not be ignored.

Particularly the comments made by William Drake -
http://www.politechbot.com/2004/07/13/un-spam-report/ which had been once
posted to internet governance mailing list, seems to describe well the
whole picture where we are on spam issue. I fully share the urgency those
developing countries are feeling with spam and I agree to Bill's
recommendation for North-South technical assistance. Also, the globally
more effective coordination such as CAUCE like self reguations would be 
encouraged.

Meanwhile, I want to note again the importance of global standardization
regime here because the breakdown of IETF Marid WG seems to be one very
significant and disappointing sign. Of course, I don't believe the
technical solution could be the only best answer or that mail
authentification could solve most of problems, but it is also true that
such a technical standardization is necessarily needed for more effective
counter-measure.  Since the failure of the WG, I am afraid that again Big
global corporations would sweep over global email market in their market
forces. Already, some big players like Microsft have occupied most large
share of email client market. Then, how market could solve this problem is
very suspicious particularly given the network externality. At the moment,
I don't know how to restore the attempt of email authentification
standardization, but such concern need to be noted. And personally, I am
very concerned with what open source or free software movement are
thinking on spam after Marid.


regards,

Chun

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Chun Eung Hwi
General Secretary, PeaceNet |   fax:     (+82)  2-2649-2624
Seoul Yangchun P.O.Box 81   |   pcs:     (+82) 019-259-2667
Seoul, 158-600, Korea  	    | eMail:   chun at peacenet.or.kr
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