On Sat, 22 Mar 2003, Steve Schear wrote:
> What part of the infrastructure is being made scarce? You and I aren't > part of the infrastructure. The selection of a value for our time is just > another market force at work.
Unless MTAs can reject mail for lack of postage, this approach will not fix a large majority of the problems of spam. Unless clearing is built into the protocol, sender pays is a non-starter.
I agree that there are lots of good reasons for sender-pays to be built into the MTA, but for users on broadband connections (like myself) I don't really care that the amount of email bandwidth may increase a bit if I don't see the spam. In the U.S. this amount to about 15% of the user base. Not a bad initial tareget.
> >This is no different than the various > >request-permission-to-transmit proposals, aside from adding cost > >to the mix. Doing so will cut down on normal person to person discourse > >before it fixes spam. > > Yes, some Balkination may occur at the outset, but this is something that > is recipient controlled not something mandated by ISPsm etc.
What I was attempting to point out is that adding wealth transfer is not adding any value over request-to-transmit.
Sure it does once the stamps have real value and I get to keep them if I don't like the message.
> Sender pays can be rolled out using PoW stamps almost immediately. Yes, > some early adopters may find themselves "cut off" from senders who either > can't or won't make the effort to create and attach computation > stamps. For this reason sender-pays should be serious considered by most > businesses until widely adopted. But for individuals inundated with spam > it could be a quick and effective solution. Of course, the question they > will ask when the spam stops is how many others aren't sending email cause > they think I'm fringe. :) > > steve
Unless and until Outlook supports wealth transfer for mail this will never happen. Unless and until MS profits from "fixing" the problem, Outlook will never support the notion. (and if MS does support it, mutt and evolution won't, because that's M$ hegemony. &etc.) Sender-pays won't fly.
Plug-ins for both Outlook and Eudora plug-in would go a long way toward a solution. M$ and IBM are both looking into real value stamps as a solution.
Put another way, you could deny unstamped mail from me if you wanted, with a bounce asking me to enter a credit card at the web page of your choice. Why are you not doing so?
CC aren't a solution. What I want is
- a Eudora plugin to check for hashcash stamps, send bounce messages, auto generate my hashcash stamps, and help create and maintain my white list.
- a web site which offers a hashcash stamp generator applet and simple instructions for
Procmail and a CGI would allow this.
I don't run a mail server.
I'll even write the code for you, if you'll promise to use it on all of your mail.
Write the above code and I will.
Let me know what language you prefer.
Java
-j, who maybe gets a little excited about email because I've writing email software for too long.
Help get the Camram code working.
steve
