How about the anti spam Haiku? http://www.oblomovka.com/writing/habeas:_the_antispam_haiku.php3 /$
2005/11/20, Randomthots <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Nicolas Mailhot wrote: > > > > > > If you call carpet-bombing effective, it is. Retail paper flyers are the > > true spam ancestors. > > > > It's cost effective is what I mean. But, you don't have to believe me. > From the April 2005 issue of Scientific American -- > http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000F3A4B-BF70-1238-BF7083414B7FFE9F&sc=I100322 > > "The proliferation of fraudulent e-mail results directly from favorable > market forces: spam is exceedingly cheap to distribute. It is not > altogether free, though. We estimate that a message costs about one > hundredth of a cent to send. At these cut-rate prices a spammer can earn > only $11 per sale and still make a profit, even if the response rate is > as low as one in 100,000. Hence, although very few e-mail users ever buy > anything advertised in spam, all of us suffer because of those who do." > > > > >> > >>Look. Spam is *not* a technological problem and treating it as such only > >>creates an escalating cold war. Spam is an *economic* problem, and the > >>cause can be summed up in two words: free email. It's the tragedy of the > >>commons updated to the 21st century. > > > > > > Sure, and windows has no security problems and the answer to virii is > > Bill Gates offering bounties for virus writers. > > What I mean is that spam is not *particularly* a technological problem. > See above. Also, from the same article: > > "One of the most infuriating aspects of spam is that it changes > continually to adapt to new attempts to stop it. Each time software > engineers attack spam in some way, spammers find a way around their > methods. This spam arms race has led to a continuous coevolution of the > two, which has resulted in ever increasing sophistication on both sides." > > This is analogous to the War on Drugs -- a medical and public health > crisis that has been co-opted by politicians and turned into a > law-enforcement issue. The result has been the same in both cases. Failure. > > > > > > >>The solution is a "fee-bate" system. Each email message should require a > >>micro-payment of, say, $0.25 -- basically postage. > > > > > > This fails in the same trap as SPF : as long as you got zombie networks > > the spammers won't care. They're not the ones charged. (but this could > > be solved by getting rid of windows). > > In the first place, that isn't going to happen anytime soon (getting rid > of windows). Zombie networks are created by viruses. Viruses are *not* > transmitted via html. They walk right in the front door via mail > attachments (among other vectors, but that's the primary one). It's like > carrying in botulism with the groceries. > > If *more* people used clear-text formats to transmit complexly formatted > documents and sent *fewer* attachments, there would be fewer viruses out > there. My original thesis was that flat xml (odf) could be more safely > used for that purpose. > > Also, if people *were* charged as a result of letting their boxes become > spam zombies (it *can* be avoided, even on Windows boxes) then maybe > more folks would take security more seriously. > > > > Plus the cost of printing paper > > flyers has not stopped businesses from stuffing my mailbox with them so > > far. > > > > But it's more tightly targeted -- either by geography or demography. You > don't get flyers for grocery stores in far-flung cities, do you? When we > recently moved, we got ads and flyers for products and services relevant > to those who have recently moved. Same thing happened when we had a baby > eighteen months ago. > > > > The solution is generalised digital signatures with mandatory passwords > > so one can not sent a message from a computer without typing a password > > at the start of its session. > > How *precisely* would you enforce how software is going to operate on > *my* computer? Especially if it's open-source? > > Charging a postage fee of some sort, whether my fee-bate system or > something else, has the side effect of mandating exactly the > authentication mechanisms you desire while simultaneously making spam > much less profitable. > > -- > > Rod > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
