10 ms·

Blocking of messages/emails and blanket email server/domain/extension blacklisting is the same as a postal service not delivering mail to or from a particular e

by krono 5y ago

Blocking of messages/emails and blanket email server/domain/extension blacklisting is the same as a postal service not delivering mail to or from a particular entity/street/town. Doing so silently and without a valid and case-specific reason should not be legally allowed. Edit: Added "street/town" to analogy, and "case-specific" before reason

maxwell 5y ago
The FCC classified SMS/MMS as unregulated, filterable "information services" rather than regulated "telecommunications services". https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/sms-mms-deemed-information-services-removing-them-from-heavier-regulation https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/sms-mms-deemed-infor...
- krono 5y ago
  They should really update the "Mission and strategy" chapter on their Wikipedia page [1]. In particular the part about "Protecting Consumers & Public Safety" seems horribly outdated! I will have to look up how this works in the EU and here in The Netherlands. Something to do for the weekend. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission#Mission_and_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commiss...
- wikidani 5y ago
  I really would like to see what was the legal reason behind that, I know the US has issues with gov't agencies using their opinions as law but I thought mail was constitutionally protected?
  - maxwell 5y ago
    The FCC just makes decisions, we're talking regulations here, not laws. They justified it with "preventing spam" and enabling competition with unregulated OTT apps. I'm glad that Twilio fought for Title II governance: https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/60001324418.pdf https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/60001324418.pdf Where was everyone else? As far as the sanctity of the U.S. Mail, it only applies to sealed envelopes/packages, and Congress can ban items from the mail (e.g. lottery pamphlets, spurious tokens, gasoline, etc.) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/96/727/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/96/727/
    - wikidani 5y ago
      Doesn't congress make a law saying breaking x regulation carries y penalty and at the same time gives the agency power to decide what constitutes breaking x? I know for a fact that BATFE does this rather frequently. Also, thanks for the clarification about the secrecy of US mail. I apreciate it
duskwuff 5y ago
You'd be getting an unbelievable amount of SMS spam if carriers weren't allowed to block messages. There's a lot of bad actors out there.
- dietr1ch 5y ago
  I wonder if that's why he mentions "without a valid reason".
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    "We get a lot of spam from those" would fall well within a vaguely defined "valid reason", I'd think. (Most of my SMS spam comes from .info domains.)
    - Spare_account 5y ago
      >Most of my SMS spam comes from .info domains Do you mean that the SMS messages contain links to .info domains?
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        Yes.
      - kafkaIncarnate 5y ago
        I've personally noticed a lot of phone text spam being FROM email addresses recently. I think they are just abusing some feature in MMS, though, not SMS. It's weird seeing a list of phone numbers (usually SMS two-factor), some contacts' names that I have entered in, then a ton of random email addresses on my texting app (standard Android Messages app).
- skrtskrt 5y ago
  Seconded, having worked in this space I can assure everyone that there are multiple orders of magnitude more (attempted) spam SMS than legitimate SMS.
thayne 5y ago
It's actually worse than that. It isn't blocked because of the sender or recipient, but because of the content. That would be like the postal service reading your mail and deciding that because of an address in the text of a letter, it shouldn't be delivered.
- weeblewobble 5y ago
  Amusing analogy. The postal service's unwillingness or inability to do just that has severely damaged their utility. If the USPS had a junk-filtering option I'd sign up tonight. Perversely, the postal system seems to embrace junk mail (e.g. if you sign up for address forwarding the USPS sends you a fat envelope full of junk mail as a "confirmation")
  - thayne 5y ago
    I wouldn't. I mean sure, it would be nice not to get so much junk mail. But I personally don't think it is worth the risk of important mail like bills, tax info, new credit cards, etc. as accidentally getting flagged as spam. It also increases how much you have to trust the postal service.
    - bogidon 5y ago
      I like to chime in with this one when possible (due to a deep resentment for credit card offer spam). In case you didn’t know, you can opt out of the credit industry’s vast marketing machinery. It’s a bit obtuse, as you’d expect from the bureaus, but I am thankful for this bit of regulation: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/prescreened-credit-and-insurance-offers https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/prescreened-credit-and...
  - tomc1985 5y ago
    The USPS will likely not do anything to disrupt one of its largest sources of revenue
SllX 5y ago
In effect, sure, but in implementation these aren’t comparable. Postal services usually come with monopolies and mandates that ISPs, telecoms and email servers usually don’t. USPS has a monopoly on first-class mail in the US and a Congressional mandate to deliver to every address.
- account42 5y ago
  > telecoms and email servers usually don’t Telecoms get a (local) monopoly on parts of the radio spectrum.
  - SllX 5y ago
    And they exist in competition with other telecoms who have different parts of the spectrum, wired service providers and Satellite service providers. USPS has no direct competition for first-class mail and they have a monopoly over your mailbox (if you’re in the US).
gtldexplosion 5y ago
What about MetaMask, popular crypto wallet with a Chrome extension. The extension blocks viewing of "blacklisted" websites IN YOUR BROWSER... and the blacklist is entirely community-led. So a competitor can just easily add your website to the list. Example: metalmark.xyz Try to visit it with the MetaMask browser extension added to your browser. They won't let you. Someone decided to block a small business, and for what? There's no evidence involved. Incredibly short-sighted of MetaMask to add this & randomly accept edits to the blacklist from the community without peer review. https://github.com/MetaMask/eth-phishing-detect https://github.com/MetaMask/eth-phishing-detect
xenocyon 5y ago
As a consumer, I can see both sides of this. On the one hand, I like energetic spam blocking without fear of legal liability, even if there are occasionally a few false positives. On the other, I do not want ISPs/telecoms to be the arbiters of traffic (net neutrality). The net-neutral solution is for ISPs/telecoms to not spam-block, but rather have spam-blocking be an optional, additional, layer that the consumer can choose at will, or not have at all. But the problem with that solution is that it requires the consumer to do extra work to obtain spam protection, and the consumer would not be protected by default. It also means extra work by all parties delivering spam messages. Unless spam ceases or things otherwise change, I think the clunky solution we currently have is fine for the most part.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > the consumer would not be protected by default. Then make it set to "on" by default, and if more than 50% of customers switch it off then change the default. I also think that this should be a requirement for social media. You should be able to opt out of separate filters for "spam", "misinformation", "breast-feeding", and whatever other reasons a social network has for banning legally protected speech.
mdavis6890 5y ago
The problem is that just receiving the message is in-and-of itself bad for the end user. It's not the volume you think (assuming the other poster is accurate about relative volumes) - it's far, far more. Imagine getting 1000 SMS/day that all have a "spam" warning attached, or worse, no warning at all. You'd just stop getting any value from SMS at all, and ignore it. I mean, going back to the postal service - even the weekly pile of "here, throw this away for me." dead trees we receive (in the US) is mildly irritating. Imagine THAT x 1000! I'm grateful for the silent block in this case. I mean, my social security number is being canceled, I'm about to be arrested by the IRS, the FBI found a suspicious package with my personal information in it and my car warranty (didn't know I had one) is up for renewal. And that's just this morning. What more can I stand? One of these days I'll press 1 out of desperation... Also I hate govt/big-corp censorship as much as the next person, but none of this seems remotely political or ideological. And consider the alternative.
- dcow 5y ago
  Without any indication? How about WE THINK THIS MESSAGE IS SPAM _tap to read anyway_
  - dspillett 5y ago
    You missed the mentions of scale in the post you replied to (and elsewhere in the thread). Imaging needing to hit that or delete tens of times, maybe hundreds, maybe more, for every non-spam message you receive. You'd soon get sick of it. You'd soon accidentally delete, or otherwise miss, an important message in amongst the plethora of junk.
- rsync 5y ago
  "I'm grateful for the silent block in this case." That's not the issue - the issue is not alerting the sender that the message has failed. It's not a big deal if the receiver never receives the message - we can find a different way of reaching out or fix the content problem or whatever. But we never find out. As far as the sender is concerned, the message succeeded. This is a problem and the very bad spam heuristics employed by even the most competent actors (gmail, for instance) mean that anyone can be impacted by this.
deepstack 5y ago
Yikes, sounds like censorship for whole TLD.

by krono 5y ago

maxwell 5y ago

The FCC classified SMS/MMS as unregulated, filterable "information services" rather than regulated "telecommunications services". https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/sms-mms-deemed-information-services-removing-them-from-heavier-regulation https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/sms-mms-deemed-infor...

krono 5y ago
They should really update the "Mission and strategy" chapter on their Wikipedia page [1]. In particular the part about "Protecting Consumers & Public Safety" seems horribly outdated! I will have to look up how this works in the EU and here in The Netherlands. Something to do for the weekend. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission#Mission_and_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commiss...
wikidani 5y ago
I really would like to see what was the legal reason behind that, I know the US has issues with gov't agencies using their opinions as law but I thought mail was constitutionally protected?
- maxwell 5y ago
  The FCC just makes decisions, we're talking regulations here, not laws. They justified it with "preventing spam" and enabling competition with unregulated OTT apps. I'm glad that Twilio fought for Title II governance: https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/60001324418.pdf https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/60001324418.pdf Where was everyone else? As far as the sanctity of the U.S. Mail, it only applies to sealed envelopes/packages, and Congress can ban items from the mail (e.g. lottery pamphlets, spurious tokens, gasoline, etc.) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/96/727/ https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/96/727/
  - wikidani 5y ago
    Doesn't congress make a law saying breaking x regulation carries y penalty and at the same time gives the agency power to decide what constitutes breaking x? I know for a fact that BATFE does this rather frequently. Also, thanks for the clarification about the secrecy of US mail. I apreciate it

duskwuff 5y ago

You'd be getting an unbelievable amount of SMS spam if carriers weren't allowed to block messages. There's a lot of bad actors out there.

dietr1ch 5y ago
I wonder if that's why he mentions "without a valid reason".
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  "We get a lot of spam from those" would fall well within a vaguely defined "valid reason", I'd think. (Most of my SMS spam comes from .info domains.)
  - Spare_account 5y ago
    >Most of my SMS spam comes from .info domains Do you mean that the SMS messages contain links to .info domains?
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      Yes.
    - kafkaIncarnate 5y ago
      I've personally noticed a lot of phone text spam being FROM email addresses recently. I think they are just abusing some feature in MMS, though, not SMS. It's weird seeing a list of phone numbers (usually SMS two-factor), some contacts' names that I have entered in, then a ton of random email addresses on my texting app (standard Android Messages app).
skrtskrt 5y ago
Seconded, having worked in this space I can assure everyone that there are multiple orders of magnitude more (attempted) spam SMS than legitimate SMS.

thayne 5y ago

It's actually worse than that. It isn't blocked because of the sender or recipient, but because of the content. That would be like the postal service reading your mail and deciding that because of an address in the text of a letter, it shouldn't be delivered.

weeblewobble 5y ago
Amusing analogy. The postal service's unwillingness or inability to do just that has severely damaged their utility. If the USPS had a junk-filtering option I'd sign up tonight. Perversely, the postal system seems to embrace junk mail (e.g. if you sign up for address forwarding the USPS sends you a fat envelope full of junk mail as a "confirmation")
- thayne 5y ago
  I wouldn't. I mean sure, it would be nice not to get so much junk mail. But I personally don't think it is worth the risk of important mail like bills, tax info, new credit cards, etc. as accidentally getting flagged as spam. It also increases how much you have to trust the postal service.
  - bogidon 5y ago
    I like to chime in with this one when possible (due to a deep resentment for credit card offer spam). In case you didn’t know, you can opt out of the credit industry’s vast marketing machinery. It’s a bit obtuse, as you’d expect from the bureaus, but I am thankful for this bit of regulation: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/prescreened-credit-and-insurance-offers https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/prescreened-credit-and...
- tomc1985 5y ago
  The USPS will likely not do anything to disrupt one of its largest sources of revenue

SllX 5y ago

In effect, sure, but in implementation these aren’t comparable. Postal services usually come with monopolies and mandates that ISPs, telecoms and email servers usually don’t. USPS has a monopoly on first-class mail in the US and a Congressional mandate to deliver to every address.

account42 5y ago
> telecoms and email servers usually don’t Telecoms get a (local) monopoly on parts of the radio spectrum.
- SllX 5y ago
  And they exist in competition with other telecoms who have different parts of the spectrum, wired service providers and Satellite service providers. USPS has no direct competition for first-class mail and they have a monopoly over your mailbox (if you’re in the US).

gtldexplosion 5y ago

What about MetaMask, popular crypto wallet with a Chrome extension. The extension blocks viewing of "blacklisted" websites IN YOUR BROWSER... and the blacklist is entirely community-led. So a competitor can just easily add your website to the list. Example: metalmark.xyz Try to visit it with the MetaMask browser extension added to your browser. They won't let you. Someone decided to block a small business, and for what? There's no evidence involved. Incredibly short-sighted of MetaMask to add this & randomly accept edits to the blacklist from the community without peer review. https://github.com/MetaMask/eth-phishing-detect https://github.com/MetaMask/eth-phishing-detect

xenocyon 5y ago

As a consumer, I can see both sides of this. On the one hand, I like energetic spam blocking without fear of legal liability, even if there are occasionally a few false positives. On the other, I do not want ISPs/telecoms to be the arbiters of traffic (net neutrality). The net-neutral solution is for ISPs/telecoms to not spam-block, but rather have spam-blocking be an optional, additional, layer that the consumer can choose at will, or not have at all. But the problem with that solution is that it requires the consumer to do extra work to obtain spam protection, and the consumer would not be protected by default. It also means extra work by all parties delivering spam messages. Unless spam ceases or things otherwise change, I think the clunky solution we currently have is fine for the most part.

dane-pgp 5y ago
> the consumer would not be protected by default. Then make it set to "on" by default, and if more than 50% of customers switch it off then change the default. I also think that this should be a requirement for social media. You should be able to opt out of separate filters for "spam", "misinformation", "breast-feeding", and whatever other reasons a social network has for banning legally protected speech.

mdavis6890 5y ago

The problem is that just receiving the message is in-and-of itself bad for the end user. It's not the volume you think (assuming the other poster is accurate about relative volumes) - it's far, far more. Imagine getting 1000 SMS/day that all have a "spam" warning attached, or worse, no warning at all. You'd just stop getting any value from SMS at all, and ignore it. I mean, going back to the postal service - even the weekly pile of "here, throw this away for me." dead trees we receive (in the US) is mildly irritating. Imagine THAT x 1000! I'm grateful for the silent block in this case. I mean, my social security number is being canceled, I'm about to be arrested by the IRS, the FBI found a suspicious package with my personal information in it and my car warranty (didn't know I had one) is up for renewal. And that's just this morning. What more can I stand? One of these days I'll press 1 out of desperation... Also I hate govt/big-corp censorship as much as the next person, but none of this seems remotely political or ideological. And consider the alternative.

dcow 5y ago
Without any indication? How about WE THINK THIS MESSAGE IS SPAM _tap to read anyway_
- dspillett 5y ago
  You missed the mentions of scale in the post you replied to (and elsewhere in the thread). Imaging needing to hit that or delete tens of times, maybe hundreds, maybe more, for every non-spam message you receive. You'd soon get sick of it. You'd soon accidentally delete, or otherwise miss, an important message in amongst the plethora of junk.
rsync 5y ago
"I'm grateful for the silent block in this case." That's not the issue - the issue is not alerting the sender that the message has failed. It's not a big deal if the receiver never receives the message - we can find a different way of reaching out or fix the content problem or whatever. But we never find out. As far as the sender is concerned, the message succeeded. This is a problem and the very bad spam heuristics employed by even the most competent actors (gmail, for instance) mean that anyone can be impacted by this.

deepstack 5y ago

Yikes, sounds like censorship for whole TLD.