Re: making mail traceable

> Keith, I fear you're still fighting last year's battle when you write:
>
> > Also, for lots of reasons I don't think that giving law enforcement a 
> > way to track down spammers is a desirable way to solve the spam 
> > problem.  It would get the government too involved in mediating 
> > people's communications, it would invite favoritism, it would require 
> > too many LE resources, and for that reason it would be hard to limit 
> > abuse.  I'd far rather find a way for the net to be self-policing 
> > by....
> I don't find it desirable either, and I too would rather have seen the 
> community find a self-policing solution.  (For the record, I would 
> also prefer for people to be so loving and compassionate that violence 
> never reached the level of requiring police or governments.)  However, 
> CANSPAM represents the official rejection of our preferences by the US 
> government,
I'm interested in solving a problem, not in trying to make the US 
government look good.  Now if it turns out that, by some accident or 
divine intervention, CANSPAM really does turn out to be useful, that's 
fine with me.  But it doesn't seem wise to depend on it working.
> Washington today is full of people trying to figure out their new 
> mandate of regulating email.  They're going to do it, regardless of 
> our preferences, and I think some of us who understand the 
> complexities should try to play a constructive role in fleshing out 
> that mandate.
I think some of us who understand the complexities should try to play a 
constructive role by solving the problem as best as we can - but that 
doesn't include taking direction from a technically inept, parochial 
legislative body, that is easily swayed by direct marketing proponents 
into acting contrary to the public interest.
>  I consider it virtually inevitable that they will require some form 
> of enhanced tracability in the name of stopping spam -- it's just 
> about the very first instinct of a bureaucracy -- so the question I am 
> trying to pose is, essentially, what is the least harmful way of doing 
> this?
I believe the least harmful way of doing this is to provide 
traceability in such a way that government intervention isn't needed to 
solve most of the spam problem.  Then there will be strong arguments 
for restricting government intervention to more dangerous problems of 
email abuse - e.g. mailing of child porn and bomb threats - and to 
impose judicial review and auditing on such interventions as safeguards 
against abuse.
Keith