why IPv6 isn't ready for prime time, SMTP edition

Thu Mar 27 05:25:37 UTC 2014

On Mar 26, 2014, at 7:07 AM, Lamar Owen <lowen at pari.edu> wrote:

> On 03/25/2014 10:51 PM, Jimmy Hess wrote:
>> 
>> [snip]
>> 
>> I would suggest the formation of an "IPv6 SMTP Server operator's club,"
>> with a system for enrolling certain IP address source ranges as  "Active
>> mail servers", active IP addresses and SMTP domain names under the
>> authority of a member.
>> 
> ...
> 
> As has been mentioned, this is old hat.
> 
> There is only one surefire way of doing away with spam for good, IMO.  No one is currently willing to do it, though.
> 
> That way?  Make e-mail cost; have e-postage.  No, I don't want it either.  But where is the pain point for spam where this becomes less painful?  If an enduser gets a bill for sending several thousand e-mails because they got owned by a botnet they're going to do something about it; get enough endusers with this problem and you'll get a class-action suit against OS vendors that allow the problem to remain a problem; you can get rid of the bots.  This will trim out a large part of spam, and those hosts that insist on sending unsolicited bulk e-mail will get billed for it.  That would also eliminate a lot of traffic on e-mail lists, too, if the subscribers had to pay the costs for each message sent to a list; I wonder what the cost would be for each post to a list the size of this one.  If spam ceases to be profitable, it will stop.
> 
> Of course, I reserve the right to be wrong, and this might all just be a pipe dream.  (and yes, I've thought about what sort of billing infrastructure nightmare this could be.....)

Actually, a variant on that that might be acceptable… Make e-postage a deposit-based thing. If the recipient has previously white-listed you or marks your particular message as “desired”, then you get your postage back. If not, then your postage is put into the recipients e-postage account to offset the cost of their emails.

Thoughts?

Owen