At 08:42 AM 4/6/2003 -0700, you wrote:
I think the problem here is that some people think there is some sort of
obligation to remain tie to the lowest common denominator.
99% of internet users cannot send to UUCP. I see this a geek-tweak rather
than a serious constraint.
I find the third world argument unconvicing. I seriously doubt the nigerians
are sending their stuff over uucp. If uucp is no longer viable people wil
soon find a alternative.
We should make smtp work as well as it can. I seriously doubt that will
affect gateways to obsolete protocols, if it does, deal with it.
I agree.
I believe that if we come up with a new protocol that avoids SPAM, that
doesn't mean that it shuts everyone else out or that we should tie
ourselves to the lowest common denominator as you point out. If we worked
towards the lowest common denominator, then I suspect finding a solution
will be much more difficult if not impossible.
Instead, I would like to see a new and better protocol. The new mail
programs could take advantage of it and its new capabilities. (I for one
would like to see a References: header just like in NNTP for article
threading though that has nothing to do with spam in itself.)
I believe that with a new protocol, people will switch as time allows.
First inside the corporate world and who are primarily communicating with
their co-workers. Then slowly the rest of the world. Meanwhile, I suspect
the old techniques and protocols will fall by the wayside simply because of
the spam. If people want to keep it that is ok. However, most everybody
else would have moved on. In fact, I believe the analogy of the alt.*
groups to be a good one. More freedom than the regular newsgroups but that
same freedom has made the signal to noise ratio such that everybody more or
less hangs out on the regular newsgroups.
Furthermore, I don't think we need to worry about blocking all spam. All I
want to do is have it go into a "spam folder" or some such. So, some have
worried about mailing lists etc. and being able to send confirmation
messages to the mailing list server and how to handle automated systems
such as this. Well, in this case, if all the old SMTP messages go to a
special folder, I can check it when and if I subscribe to a mailing
list. Meanwhile, I can / could simply ignore it and all the other spam
that is in it.
So, quite frankly I don't care if I get spammed -- as long as I don't see
it. If I see it then that is another matter.
-Art
--
Art Pollard
http://www.lextek.com/
Suppliers of High Performance Text Retrieval Engines.
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