ietf-asrg
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Re: [Asrg] Let's try something different

2003-03-07 11:12:48
Jed Margolin wrote:
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.

As has been pointed out, spammers are already going down this path with HTML encoded email.

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."
>
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.
>
4. Sender's ISP will be notified if (and when) the email has been read so it
can be deleted from Sender's server. Alternatively, email can be deleted
from Sender's server at the end of the day (or week) that it is read.

These are useless since the spamming software (and often the spamming machine) is controlled by the spammer. (Some of the most "interesting" spam I've received is for software to do spamming from a Windows PC without the need for an ISP mail server (complete with a list of open SMTP relays and other open proxies to use)).

Solutions must assume that the other side (the spam server) is totally under control of spammers, that the other software was completely written by and for spammers, that the other ISP supports spamming (it can be lucrative for the ISP), and that the ISP's connection to the backbone is supportive of spamming (spamming may provide needed hard cash for poor 3rd world nations).

This implies two things: spam control must be performed at the client SMTP agent and international organizations must be willing to censure countries that fail to police their assigned domains and addresses (i.e. cut them off).

We (the IETF) can work on the first. Are we willing to push for the second? Without the second, we just have an escalating arms war (with, I fear, the advantage to the spammers).

Brad Davis

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