Re: Worsening google service reputation and abuse

[Suresh Ramasubramanian via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>]

One old paper I remember talked about addressing pharmacy spam - they went after everything. Hosting, payments 
processors, shady manufacturers in India and China, mailing out the pills in ziploc bags taped inside a magazine and so 
on.  But that was easier because it was a criminal enterprise in which multiple agencies could and did collaborate to 
stamp it out.

--srs
________________________________
From: Suresh Ramasubramanian <ops.lists () gmail com>
Sent: Monday, August 18, 2025 5:45 AM
To: North American Network Operators Group <nanog () lists nanog org>
Cc: Marc Binderberger <marc+lists () sniff es>
Subject: Re: Worsening google service reputation and abuse

Real economics as a factor has been studied quite a lot - check for papers by Vern Paxson, Stefan Savage etc and you’ll 
find some going back 20+ years.

A lot of the real economic impact just doesn’t lie in technical solutions though.

From: Marc Binderberger via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>
Date: Sunday, 17 August 2025 at 5:37 PM
To: North American Network Operators Group <nanog () lists nanog org>
Cc: Marc Binderberger <marc+lists () sniff es>
Subject: Re: Worsening google service reputation and abuse


On Sat, 16 Aug 2025 17:24:04 -0700, Michael Thomas via NANOG wrote:

> Barry has been going on about this idea for decades, I think. It wouldn't
> work then, it won't work now.

Until some idea suddenly works. Or an old idea becomes feasible.

Frankly, many things we take for granted today would not exist with that
"won't work" attitude. The better question (imho) to Barry is: how is your
idea different from the already existing proposals?

Barry has a reasonable theory - that the economics of spamming is brittle -
but it is just that: a theory.

And most of the (failed) proposals seem academic and avoid actual "costs" in
terms of money. Or raise the real-world costs for everyone, if you need CPU
cycles to participate in the email system. So Barry stepping out of this box
and suggesting real economics as a factor is not unreasonable. I am not sure
if there are more concrete details though (?).


> Nobody can put up a coherent argument for why
> the current cat and mouse situation isn't the acceptable balance,

I guess "acceptable" can be defined as: Hey, I can always get a free personal
account with gmail. And as a company I pay Google or Microsoft, save money on
my IT staff. And good luck blocking "me" (i.e. Google, Microsoft).

Maybe a problem if you are in the email business, fine with me, my domain is
a private hobby. In fact, for all their "flaws", seeing the insanity of the
know-it-all experts (some here on the list) I think I prefer Google
requesting some reputation steps and a webpage explaining it. The
alternative: being blocked for "Excessive Spam - Come back when you have
fixed it". No further details. Sure, private domain, private VPS, no BL/score
listing that I can find ... fortunately that blocking was just a Cc: to one
of my posts, so I could not care less. The acceptable state of the mail
system today!

So there you may have an argument: that the increasing number of mechanisms,
lists, tricks make the mail system less work-able and more broken. But I have
no crystal ball, if email will finally break or will keep going - I don't
know. Would be just sad if it breaks (but I have a gmail account as a backup
;-)

Marc


_______________________________________________
NANOG mailing list
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog () lists nanog org/message/SAZSIVJFOO2HJX4JPDFXXZZBLT3ZBKQ5/
_______________________________________________
NANOG mailing list 
https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/nanog () lists nanog org/message/365BXRANXGC22N4GTZIAVTJSF4BQ3PIN/