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[gnso-ff-pdp-may08] Information based solutions instead of policy based solutions

  • To: gnso-ff-pdp-may08@xxxxxxxxx
  • Subject: [gnso-ff-pdp-may08] Information based solutions instead of policy based solutions
  • From: Marc Perkel <marc@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:47:11 -0700


First of all the conference call was great and helped clarify a lot of things for me. This is all very new to me as this is the first group of this nature I've been involved in. Sometimes I'm better at relating to machines than people and need to grasp the process more. I'm more of an engineer and more focused on solutions. So defining the problem helps do that.

I want to throw out some raw ideas just to get some feedback as to the scope of solutions available. I am someone who favors informational and/or best practices based solutions as opposed to restriction based solutions.

Let me see if I can explain what I'm talking about. Rather than registrars putting limits on what can be changed or how fast nameservers can be changed, maybe the solution is to publish these change rates and other non-private information abut domain names through DNS queries so that spam filtering companies, like mine, can use this information to help detect fraud through fast fluxing.

Wendy brought up a point that and oppressed political group might use fast flux to get information out about evil deeds within that country. That needs to be distinguished from a criminal organization who is impersonating a bank in order to steal your money.

Thus if there are legitimate uses for fast flux if we use policy to prohibit it then we might block an important free speech that needs to get out.

However - if as a spam filtering company I could detect that a domain was fast fluxing then I could combine that information with other information in the content of the email that I am assessing to determine if the message should be passed or blocked. If, for example, the message contains a link to a fast flux domain AND it also appears to be bank fraud then I can not only block it but submit the information to automated URI based block lists to allow other spam filtering worldwide to block, and perhaps forward the fraud email to someplace to report fraud.

However, if the message appears to be fast fluxing and is free speech exposing oppression then I might consider it a white rule to enhance delivery.

What I'm talking about is to create policy that makes public information about domains that is not private and would help people like me determine if something unusual was happening with a domain. If I could read the age of the domain and I could know if a high number of changes has been made recently then that might be useful in distinguishing free speech from fraud.

The advantage of an information based solution is that spam filtering companies can adapt to changes in criminal behavior faster that ICANN policy can.

I have found that it is far easier to determine spam and fraud by the behavior of the spammer than they content of the message. The more information I have the more accurate my filters will be.

So - my question. Is this possible? Is it within the scope of what ICANN can do to ask/require registries to make available more information about a domain? Specifically:

1) The domain's registrar.
2) The number of days old based on the current domain owner?
3) The number of name server changes made in the last 3 days?

Marc Perkel
http://www.junkemailfilter.com




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