[afrinic-anti-spam-discuss] BOF meeting

[Alain Patrick AINA]

> > IRTF has a research group on anti-spam
> > (http://www.irtf.org/charter?gtype=rg&group=asrg) haven't chartered a WG
> > for it :-)
>
> WG, or SIG or research group, we agreed that African operators and
> users don't need to reinvent the wheel while we need to have a place
> where we share experiences, where we can discuss and face together
> this specific spam issue.

Sorry for not been very clear here. What i meant is IRTF research group 
haven't yet chartered a WG in IETF to rewrite SMTP to stop spams.

back to your point about "no need to reinvent the wheel", i am always 
disappointed by this. Which wheel ?

We are facing a world plague which seems to have technical, 
legal, administrative and cultural aspects. We are also in a situation where 
one  can be source and/or victim........

The community has worked on technical solutions which showed limits.
While i can agree with you on  not  reinventing  the wheel ( wheel being  
existing technical solutions), i argue that  as far as we do not have 
definitive technical solutions, the work is not completed, and so anyone can 
work on that.

Besides that, implementing existing technical solutions is problematic in many 
African environments for various reasons:

-bandwith and connectivity issues
-lack of servers ressources to deploy  some conventional anti-spam solutions
-difficulties  to access  precise information in fighting spams
- Some RBLs denying you exchanges with African Colleagues
-lack of  financial incentives (Clients not willing to pay for anti-spam 
solutions)
etc....

>From the other sides, we also have:

-lack of legislation on the continent
-lack of cooperation between ISPs in abuse complaints resolution
-etc.....

I am still convinced that from African perspectives we have works to do  which 
go above  simple discussions on sharing experiences.

Just my thoughts. 


cheers

--alain