On Thu, 6 Mar 2003, Jed Margolin wrote:
I propose:
1. Sender's email is stored on Sender's server. Recipient is sent a message
with a unique link to the message and a maximum Subject line of 80
alphanumeric characters.
We already see spam of this form. It seems to me that what you propose
essentially to force spammers to put more of their content on a web
server. Since they do that already, I don't think it is a step forward.
Sure, their web sites get shut down, but that doesn't seem to deter them.
2. Sender can be anonymous, but not to Sender's ISP. There will be a feature
(a button) so Recipient can tell Sender's ISP, "Don't send me any further
email from this Sender."
Blacklisting senders does not work. Spammers already use a new identity
(read: becomes a different Sender) for every spamming. If there was a
reliable way to associate sender identities with sending individuals, we
could do all kinds of useful things even using the existing SMTP
infrastructure.
3. Broadcasting is prohibited. If Sender wishes to send 1 million identical
messages, then Sender's server will contain 1 million copies of the message.
It seems that this limitation would necessarily be enforced at the
server. When the spammer controls the server, the limitation won't be
there.
--
Forcing the sender to bear the storage costs is not a bad idea, but it is
not, by itself, a solution. It leaves much bigger problems unsolved:
First and foremost, how can we filter out the messages themselves? The
message with the "unique link to the message" that you describe, is still
spam and must still be filtered.
Also, how can a recipient reliably identify a sender with information
contained in (or sent with) the message?
How can we prevent spammer-operated messaging servers from misbehaving?
I tend to assume that the answer to the last question is "we can't," which
makes the first two questions all the more critical.
--
Nate Waddoups
Redmond WA USA
http://www.natew.com
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