[WSIS CS-Plenary] Spam as an issue

[Jonathan Cave]

Since people have asked for comment from those who believe that spam is an 
appropriate issue...

At 18:13 28/01/2005, Michael Gurstein wrote:
>
>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.
>
>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.
>
>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.

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:-(

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).

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.

>
>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...).

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.

>  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.

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.

>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.

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.

>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.
>
>Best,
>
>Mike Gurstein
>
>Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.
>Clinical Professor: School of Management
>Research Profesor: School of Computing and information Science
>New Jersey Institute of Technology
>Newark, NJ
>
>(Interim) Chair: Community Informatics Research Network

Cheers,

Jonathan

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