[gnso-rds-pdp-wg] Reputation systems are not just nice to have (was Re: What we want redux)

[Jeremy Malcolm]

On 29/9/17 10:29 am, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> So, we can't treat reputation service support as something that's nice
> to have.  It's necessary for the functioning of domain names on the
> Internet, and therefore we must provide for it.

Interesting argument, but not convincing to me.  The reputation systems
that I'm aware of *are* optional to support.  Some mail providers
subscribe to certain blocklists that others don't, some search engines,
browsers, and browser plugins will flag particular domains that others
don't, and so on.  In the similar context of certificate authorities
that issue SSL certificates for domains, Let's Encrypt (which EFF is a
sponsor of) is often asked to refuse to issue certificates for
particular domains based on reputation, but has decided that that's not
part of its job.  Consider the domain amazonaws.com, which host millions
of Amazon S3 buckets.  There's a lot of phishing content stored under
that domain from time to time, but assigning a bad reputation to the
registered owner of amazonaws.com would be pointless and cause lots of
collateral damage.  It hardly seems that it's an essential part of the
domain name system to be able to do that.

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Global Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://eff.org
jmalcolm at eff.org

Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161

:: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::

Public key: https://www.eff.org/files/2016/11/27/key_jmalcolm.txt
PGP fingerprint: 75D2 4C0D 35EA EA2F 8CA8 8F79 4911 EC4A EDDF 1122


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