Tim Howe wrote: > On Sat, 15 Feb 2003 22:56:55 -0800 > Bob Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I'd like to see market-based defense too. Specifically, I'd like to > > see a class of email that requires postage. If it existed, how many > > people would switch to it from free, but spam-ridden, email? > > I'll be honest, I had trouble keeping a straight face while reading > this; but perhaps I am being too quick to throw it in the crazy > pile... Can you explain how this could possibly work? Or why > anybody would want this?
Imagine a standard where a header in a message contains a "postage stamp", which is like a sum of digital cash. Maybe $0.05, maybe more. A stamp is a promise to pay upon redemption. If it isn't redeemed within some time period, the party who paid for the stamp gets their money back. Imagine a protocol to ask a clearinghouse to verify a stamp and redeem it. Imagine another protocol where clearinghouses can peer with one another and transfer funds. Maybe your ISP would operate one. The clearinghouses would take a cut of the postage they redeem - maybe 1% or 2%. That covers their costs. Set up your MUA so that it puts a stamp on each outgoing message, and when you get an incoming message, you either (a) drop it if there's no stamp on it or it's not from a white listed sender (the stamp includes strong authentication -- From: addresses are easily spoofed) or (b) view the message. If the message is legitimate, you add the sender to your whitelist. If it's spam (in your opinion, using whatever criteria you want), you cash the stamp and your postage account is credited. This is a tricky system to design and implement right, but I think it's feasible. It's not that different from a digital cash protocol. The system is voluntary, on both ends. But it changes the cost structure, for those who use it, of unwanted email so the sender pays to send it, and the recipient is paid to read it. People who don't put postage on their mail never pay anything, but their mail may never be seen, if the recipient checks postage. People who don't check postage get all their mail, including the spam, but they never get any money from the spammers. If most people only accepted mail with postage attached, those who want to send millions of messages would pay thousands of dollars in postage. That would take a lot of the profit out of it. > It could never work for me. I send literally hundreds of emails a > week. Do you send hundreds of personal emails to people who don't know you? You employer would pay for work-related email. People who know you would add you to their white list and wouldn't redeem your stamps. > If my spam problem were really that bad, I would much sooner just > create a list of email addresses that my account will except mail > from. For anyone else who needed to email me, for example someone > who I gave my business card to, I would provide a URL to a web-based > email form. This solves my own spam problem without costing me > money and while still allowing me to do business. Instructions on > mailing me from the form could be included with a bounce message. > Including new people in my accept list would be a cinch... In fact, > I think I'll create just such a system to try out... Perhaps people > sending from the form, and people I send to, could be added > automatically.... Look at TMDA. http://tmda.net/ > The nice thing about a technical solution is that if it doesn't > work, or becomes tiresome, or becomes obsolete, I can simply turn it > off and try something else. Laws and for-pay institutions don't go > away just because they should. If spam is the price of a little > more freedom, then freedom is cheap indeed. The only "institution" in the system I described is the clearinghouse. With many clearinghouses, it should be hard for any one to control the system. And it goes away as soon as you decide to stop using it. Does that answer some of your objections? Does it sound like a reasonable system yet? -- Bob Miller K<bob> kbobsoft software consulting http://kbobsoft.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Eug-LUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.efn.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/eug-lug
