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

Sun Mar 30 04:11:48 UTC 2014

On March 29, 2014 at 22:34 johnl at iecc.com (John R. Levine) wrote:
 > > > Don't forget "Vanquish was a complete failure, so why would this be
 > > > any different?" and "do I want Phil Raymond to sue me for violating
 > > > the patent on this exact scheme?"
 > >
 > > That was a specific reply by me to a specific suggestion of a
 > > mechanism refunding e-postage to the sender if one wanted an e-mail or
 > > leaving the charge if not.
 > >
 > > As I said I think it's overly complex in implementation and not of
 > > much benefit.
 > >
 > > I don't see where Vanquish does any of this from the product site tho
 > > I could look at the patents, they might cover more than they used in
 > > products of course.
 > 
 > Really, this is a WKBI from 1997.  Look at the patent if you don't believe 
 > me.

I don't know what "WKBI" means and google turns up nothing. I'll guess
"Well Known Bad Idea"?

Since I said that I found the idea described above uninteresting I
wonder what is a "WKBI" from 1997? The idea I rejected?

Also, I remember ideas being shot down on the ASRG (Anti-Spam Research
Group) list primarily because they would take ten years to gain
acceptance.

Over ten years ago.

Maybe they were bad ideas for other reasons. Some certainly were.

But there's this tone of off-the-cuff dismissal, oh that would take
TEN YEARS to gain traction, or that's a WKBI, which I don't find
convincing.

I read your paper, for example, and said it's a nice paper.

But I don't find it compelling to the degree you seem to want it to be
because it mostly makes a bunch of assumptions about how an e-postage
system would work and proceeds to argue that the particular model you
describe (and some variants) creates impossible or impractical
hurdles.

But what if it worked differently?

At some point you're just reacting to the term "e-postage" and
whatever it happens to mean to you, right?

You can't really say you've exhaustively worked out every possibility
which might be labelled "e-postage". Only a particular interpretation,
a fairly specific model, or a few.

When people talked of "virtual currency" over the years, often arguing
that it's too hard a problem, how many described bitcoin with its
cryptographic mining etc?

Bitcoin might well be a lousy solution. But there it is nonetheless,
and despite the pile of papers which argued that this sort of thing
was impossible or nearly so.

Note: Yes, I can also argue that Bitcoin is not truly a virtual
currency.

Sometimes a problem is like the Gordian Knot of ancient lore which no
one could untie. And then Alexander The Great swung his sword and the
crowds cried "cheat!" but he then became King of Asia just as
prophesized.

 > 
 > Regards,
 > John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
 > Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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