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[Asrg] Re: "HashStamp" == hashcash? (Re: Stamping)

2003-03-24 22:25:14
On Mon, 24 Mar 2003 17:47:42 -0500, Kee Hinckley 
<nazgul(_at_)somewhere(_dot_)com> writes:

At 11:42 PM -0600 3/23/03, Scott A Crosby wrote:
 > That said, I don't see yet how it could get past the early-adopter
 phase.  Like the other systems, it offers no real benefits until a
 > substantial number of people adopt it.


One could build this as a 'side' mechanism into a auto-reply robot
whitelisting mechanism similar to TMDA that IETF seperately
standardizes. The robot-replies sucks for older clients, but work. We
make the the stamp-missing control message machine-readible to make
conforming clients check for other valid stamps (or expend the CPU to
create a new stamp). They're also human-readible telling people to
reply to the robot and complete the handshake.

Okay.  Now you're making a purchase decision.
1. A system that does challenge/response and whitelists responders.


2. A system that does challenge/response and whitelists responders,
but also makes it harder for you to send email and requires client
changes, but eventually will be more reliable.

No, one where conforming clients will *hide* the challenge from the
user, do the partial hash collision, and automatically resend the
email. Only non-conforming clients would use the 'escape hatch' of the
manual challenge-response.

And no, I don't think I'm a pessimist.  I just think that companies
make decisions based on short-term economics.


But frankly I think that challenge/response is a non-starter.  It
fails with all automated email systems.  Worse, it potentially removes
me from mailing lists when it responds (I assume, since it's a
delivery notification, it goes to the envelope from?).  So that means
I have to manually check the queue before I allow it to send the
challenge.

Oh, I agree, but this sort of 'fun' is coming, and I'd rather get some
positive usefulness out of it, to use it as a wedge to get a better
solution into email clients.... and soon.

Look at:

    http://news.com.com/2010-1071-992911.html?tag=nl

Wanna take a bet as to whether AOL/MSN/Earthlink are contemplating the
same? 

Its the perfect hack. Its simple, it sorta works, it has great
short-term benefits for those who use it (and strong negatives for
those who don't; but those people don't matter). By Richard Gabriel's
''Worse is Better'', I almost expect it to spread like a weed, and
then we'll be stuck with it for decades.

Scott
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