Re: [Asrg] SMTP over SSL

Bob Atkinson wrote:

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: asrg-admin(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org [mailto:asrg-admin(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org] On 
> > Behalf Of
> >    
> Vernon
>  
>
> > Schryver
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 7:02 AM
> > To: asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
> >
> >    
>  
>
> > The trouble with that reasoning is that:
> >
> > - the technical costs of dealing with spam are trivial per user
> >    
> except
>  
>
> >  in rare cases.  All email is on the order of 5% or 10% of HTTP
> >    
> traffic.
>  
>
> >  Thus, the CPU cycles, disk space, and bandwidth are insignificant
> >  compared to other services that are considered too cheap too meter.
> >    
> While the global statistic may be true (I don't know, but it seems at
> least plausible), I don't think one can reasonably draw the inference
> depicted here. 
>
> The rub is that of the distribution of the various forms of traffic, how
> it is spread across various servers. 
>
> I can assure you that there are email systems in which the CPU cycles,
> disk space, and bandwidth are very much critical cost factors.
>
>         Bob
I find it hard to believe that if you told the administrators for 
Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, Earthlink, etc., that you had  a way to decrease 
the amount of e-mail arriving on their network by ~50%, they wouldn't 
soil themselves with excitement?
Additionally, I don't think I have the same view of liability that 
everyone else does.  The reason that I'm such a big advocate of a 
certificate based system, similar to SSL, is that the certificates can 
be revoked.  Instead of asking networks to pay huge sums of money to 
other people, why not charge them a very large amount of money to get 
their certificate back (such as $10,000).  Anyone who accidentally got 
the certificate revoked could get it back, but it would cause them 
sufficient pain to ensure that they correct their practices.  Also, you 
make the cost of  spamming much higher... everyone who deals with 
spammers will charge them at least as much money as required to get 
their certificate back once it's revoked.
Eric