[Asrg] New Version Notification for draft-irtf-asrg-dnsbl-07

[Chris Lewis]

Alessandro Vesely wrote:
> Chris Lewis wrote:

>> Taken within context of the rest of the document, the implicit "take
>> away" should be that any listing criteria is legitimate, as long as
>> they're clearly/accurately communicated, and it's the responsibility of
>> the user to choose the one that fits their requirements.  Without
>> rubbing it in lawyer/judge faces.
> 
> Such affirmations still require an endorsement more binding than the
> regular standardization process, before they can be taken for granted.
> Perhaps governments should explicitly ratify STD documents?

Operational practice don't require legal endorsement.  Only that they're
_existing_ industry practice.

I've even had the police opine that, absent legislation to the contrary,
industry standards trump almost everything else.

[This arose out of discussions with the police about being harassed
about Usenet despamming operations when they asked "what's the bad thing
you're doing that causes you to be harrassed?".  After I explained, they
came back with "No, that [despamming] is not illegal if it's customary
and expected by the community"  Being codified somehow (eg: BI index as
a community standard in the case of Usenet) helps.]

IOW, absent specific precedent to the contrary[*], DNSBLs establish a
degree of legal legitimacy simply by existing and being used so much.

[*] There have been decisions around the issue, but none as yet have
ruled that DNSBLs in and of themselves are illegal, only that
misrepresenting (whether by intent or otherwise) their behaviour/entries
can be dangerous.  e360 is a special case due to legal fumblings (eg: no
defense), so that's really not an example.  And that was (alleged)
defamation mostly anyhow.