Clueless service restrictions (was RE: Anti-spam System Idea)

Tue Feb 17 23:03:39 UTC 2004

>Reasoning like this leads me to schemes that involve imposing cost.  It 
>may be financial, it may be CPU cycles, it may be any of a number of 
>things.  But it can't be identity based, except for recipient-based 
>whitelists, and they have their own disadvantages.
>  
>

cost is good.  the problem is convincing a reasonable user of smtp
that everything would work much better only if everything (for instance) 
took
longer (or cost more) to deliver.  can you imagine the joy of debugging 
a problem-solving
challenge/response system?  or better yet, getting *everyone* to switch 
out their client?
(and who would actively support "phasing out" smtp clients as they stand 
as long as it all
still worked?  keep in mind that uucp is still alive and well because it 
actually works.)

only when the average joe hates spam enough that the cost to him 
justifies the effort
to him can it happen.  right now, i think it's mostly tech geeks who get 
really amped up
about it.  and of course, they view the cost to them as 
disproportionately high...

s.