> >> It isn't going to come from government, either. It is more likely > >> that major ISPs throwing their weight behind a non-anonymous version > >> of SMTP will be the catalyst that gets things moving. > > > > NO! > > > > We're being trained/conditioned/programmed to accept the inevitability > > of positive ID's to access the world of digital communications, but that > > is exactly the wrong solution. > > That's hilarious! You want Big Brother to legislate > penalties for spamming; how do you think that this would ever be enforced unless > you had proof of where it came?
I'm trying to say too much in too little space. I don't want Big Brother to do anything but melt. Instead I want reasonable people to preserve and build upon something that science has put on our table, like it or not: electronic communications. > I could send thousands of > emails that look like they come from your address, or plant a bot in an > attachment that you would never know about, and you would be facing > jail time! All because you can't prove that you *didn't* send it. I'm saying that we can solve this problem without: 1. throwing the baby away with the bathwater 2. giving up something of incalculable value: unfettered, untracked, anonymous access to the system 3. feeding an 'information mountain' that can be selectively drawn from by an authority who has decided he/she doesn't like you because you're interfering with his/her authority. > Remember how this thread got started? Someone thought I (or my > server) was sending out these dangerous emails? Yes, the spam problem, enlarged to include dangerous emails; but essentially a problem involving someone out there sending something to your inbox that you don't want there. The question is "how do we stop that from happening"? First of all, regardless of what happens next, we need a rule that says we have a right to not be subjected to unwanted advertising, solicitations and dangerous mail. Without that, there is no basis to proceed. I will attempt to get past this by saying that, for the most part, rules are in place regarding the same situation as it applies to cell phones and faxes, which are just different devices that handle digital transmissions. Thus, my first proposition would be to institute the same mechanics for Internet based digital transmissions (the no-spam list). I would hold the relative success with cell phones and faxes is an example of an approach that more or less works - at least knocking down the volume considerably by getting honest business people who are just taking advantage of something that's free and readily available to them. That leaves us with a smaller group to deal with: those who will break the rules for their purposes, be they promotional/financial or destructive. At this point, we turn to the ISP's, the Internet license holders who are receiving incoming traffic at the local level to respect the shared no-spam list within a certain threshold, with their license at risk. Argument: ISP's are large and national in scope. Solution: more distribution of the function. It's all electronic, we don't need consolidated giant ISP's in the first place, and to the extent consolidation is arguable, the counter-argument outweighs. At this point, we've reduced the overall problem by 80%. Now we turn out attention to the hangers-on and those who would be destructive. In this regard, again, local ISP's and local police can be charged with defending their little piece of the pie as part of the cost of entry to their business (tax money in the case of police). Last - I admit that I understand the problem a whole lot more then the solution, so this is the best I can come up with. I have no doubt others here and in brain trusts elsewhere can come up with even better solutions, but I do hope and trust that the "positive ID" solution will never see the light of day. Bill > -- Ed Leafe _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
