I don't use instant message or chat much, but it is my impression that
other than virusbots like fizzer, IRC doesn't have much of a spam
problem. Why not? I'd think that it wouldn't be hard to write
spamware that sprinkled messages all over IRC? Why don't we see much
instant message spam (at least relative to e-mail spam)? Is it that
the popular IM systems are all closed with a central control point?
I'd guess it's that IM is (nearly) synchronous and so pretty much
automatically educates users in the art of sender (-ve/+ve) listing. Is it
true that sender forgery isn't do-able in IM ?
Anyway, here's why this thread is probably futile. It's not clear that we
can *quickly* conclude that a channel (protocol) is relatively free of spam
because of any identified characteristic of the *channel*. It may depend on
a characteristic of the users (and the spammers). Or the whole complex.
That said, we already know the key flaws in the current MTS. Weak "trust"
model, lack of "authentication", lack of means for distributing and
enforcing recipient policy. The very flexibility of the MTS, which has made
it so valuable for the transmission of arbitrary content in all of the
possible n-to-m modes, has made it valuable for abusers, as has the wide
deployment / high take-up. This is all well understood.
I'm sure that there are people in the group who could give us a new
protocol which might enable a MTS with fewer of the failings and many of
the strengths of the current system. It may be that this should be
considered a separate project from the task of developing and evaluating
"armour-plating" for the current MTS. Particularly given the very different
timescales that will apply in these two areas.
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