[CoLoCo] (Fwd) Wed, July 2 RMIUG mtg ? "The Unintended Consequence of the Spam Wars..."

[Neal McBurnett]

Looks like an interesting presentation - see below.

I'd suggest that the spam problems with mail are also leading to
increased use of more spam-resistant stuff like rss feeds and instant
messaging.

Neal McBurnett                 http://mcburnett.org/neal/

----- Forwarded message from JZapin <josh at rmiug.org> -----

To: rmiug-announce at yahoogroups.com

PLEASE NOTE: The next meeting will be Wednesday July 2nd.  It is not
on our "usual" second Tuesday of the odd month.

The Wednesday, July 2nd meeting of the Rocky Mountain Internet Users
Group (RMIUG) will discuss "The Unintended Consequence of the Spam
Wars:  Why Your Email Isn't Getting Delivered"

We all know spam.  We all hate spam.  It clutters our inbox, offends
us (do I really need to see another Viagra ad), and is just a pain in
the neck.  Some researchers have estimated that every 24 hours, 100
billion spam messages are sent.  That's 100 billion useless emails
every day.  Ferris Research estimates that the lost productivity costs
businesses $100 billion worldwide, of which $35 billion is in the USA
alone.  I think we can all agree that if we could obliterate it
completely we would.

While obliterating is probably impossible we sure are more or less
succeeding.  With a litany of cool-named products like Spam Assassin,
Spam Eater and Spam Agent, we are starting to see a decrease in spam's
growth rate.  2007 saw an increase of spam of about 10% down from a
53% the year before that and over 100% the year before that. Using
fancy algorithms and other methods, these products "read" your email
and determine whether the email is truly worthy of your attention. 
While certainly not perfect, they are helping to reduce the clutter.

But are they doing their jobs "too" well?  Increasingly people are
finding that critical emails are lost in their "spam" folders because
some attributes of these legitimate communications fail the algorithm.
  Even if we win the battle against spam, are we ultimately going to
lose the war.

During the next meeting, we will bring in a guest speaker to discuss
this critical issue:
Anne P. Mitchell, Esq. (amitchell at isipp.com) Anne  is the CEO and
President of the Institute of Spam and Internet Public Policy.
Mitchell brings with her nearly 10 years of experience in the Internet
and email industries, both from the legal and technical side. Mitchell
was the Director of Legal and Public Affairs for Mail Abuse Prevention
Systems (MAPS), the original anti-spam blacklist. Following her time
at MAPS, Mitchell was co-founder and CEO of Habeas, the first of the
email reputation services.

Links:
Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy: http://isipp.com


The meeting is Wednesday, July 2nd from 7:00 - 9:00 pm (with optional
6:30 pm start for refreshments and informal networking). The meeting
will be held at The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) at
1850 Table Mesa Drive in Boulder. To get to NCAR from the Boulder
Turnpike (US 36) or Broadway (US 93), take Table Mesa Drive west
towards the mountains for approximately 2.5 miles into the foothills.
NCAR is at the top of the hill. For door-to-door driving directions,
go to MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/), click on Driving
Directions, enter your starting address, NCAR's address, and voila!
Park in the NCAR lot, go in the main door, and ask the guard to point
you to meeting, which is held in the main auditorium, right off the
lobby. The meeting is free and open to the public, but we may pass the
hat to help defray expenses.

Our meeting location seats about 120 people. That is usually enough
room to accommodate all attendees, but it's impossible for us to
predict how many people will show up for any given meeting. Seating is
always on a first-come, first serve basis, and in the event of more
attendees than seats, we won't be able to admit additional people into
the auditorium after all seats are filled.

Thanks to our three sponsors who help make RMIUG meetings happen:
---------------------------------------------------------------
MicroStaff (www.microstaff.com) which provides Creative and Technical
talent for Web, Interactive Media, Marketing Communications and
Software Development projects, is the sponsor of food and beverages
for RMIUG meetings.
ONEWARE (http://www.ONEWARE.com) -- a Colorado-based software company
that provides semi-custom web-based applications, sponsors the RMIUG
meeting minutes.
Copy Diva (http://www.copydiva.com) which provides marketing project
management, marketing communications consulting, and web content
development is the AV sponsor for RMIUG.

Consultants and companies are invited to bring Internet-related
Product information, brochures, and business cards which will be
displayed on an information table.

There are email mailing lists set up for this group. To subscribe or
unsubscribe, see http://www.rmiug.org/maillist.html. You can also
reach the RMIUG "Executive" Committee at rmiug-comm at rmiug.org. Our web
site is at http://www.rmiug.org/


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Please note that RMIUG is hosted at NCAR and we are their guests. NCAR
has security regulations in effect that we must follow in order to use
the facility. If any RMIUG attendee is unwilling to follow these
simple regulations, I would ask that he or she not attend and instead
read the minutes after the meeting.

Here are the NCAR security policies that must be followed:

1. No weapons.
2. Must sign in at front desk and provide name.
3. Cooperate with security folks including providing ID if requested.
4. We are guests of NCAR so cooperation and courtesy are expected when
dealing with NCAR staff.

If there are any questions or concerns with this policy, please
contact me directly.
Thanks, Josh Zapin (josh at rmiug.org).
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------------------------------------

RMIUG, http://www.rmiug.org appreciates the sponsorship of 
MicroStaff, http://www.microstaff.com , ONEWARE, http://www.ONEWARE.com
and Copy Diva, http://www.copydiva.com

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----- End forwarded message -----