Well anyhow the point which you seem to have lost, and which might
have some possible relevance to this discussion, is really very
simple:
Prior to around the Summer of 1989, in The United States of America*,
you could not buy a direct conection to the ARPAnet for money, such
connections were not for sale to the general public.
In order to get a connection, you had to be a qualifying institution
which, prior to NSFnet in 1988, meant you had a demonstrable research
need for a connection of interest to DARPA, and a sponsor.
This mainly meant that you had to have some significant research
contract or grant work with DARPA, ONR, or some other research branch
of the US military. Occasionally an NSF grant would be declared as
qualifying but usually that's because someone felt the tie-in to an
approvable agency existed.
Even the few non-US sites were justified under this requirement.
If you were approved, the funds for hookup (other than whatever bits
you needed to plug it into a computer or LAN on your end) were
included in the approval.
HENCE:
You could only (in effect) get a connection to the ARPAnet for FREE
(from the point of the recipient, applicant), you couldn't BUY your
way in (BBN's CSNET X.25 hookup might be an arguable exception but
it's not worth bickering, I think they managed to get maybe 4
customers of which only one, Apple, ever really paid.)
OBVIOUSLY it wasn't free for DARPA or whomever was providing the
actual funds for the connection but that's not interesting.
Then NSFNET started providing hookups to Universities in the US. But
you had to be a university. They might pay or not, it's a bit
complicated and not worth going into here.
The point was that you had to qualify. You couldn't just buy a
connection.
Which brings us to SPAM.
If we don't devise a method to pay your way, such as e-postage, then
the other choice is, like the ARPAnet, someone would have to vet
whether you get access or not based on some other criteria.
Now, granted (ahem) DARPA handled this quite well but then again it
was a nearly unknown (to the general public) research network with
around 200 member sites at its peak (pre-NSFNET.)
The fear is that if you re-create that sort of environment in today's
internet, for email, by coming up with some content-sensitive criteria
for who can send mail and who can't and under what conditions you'll
of necessity have to come up with some sort of vetting process, a
bureaucracy, demagogues, who make the decision.
Bear that in mind as others make proposals that wave their hands about
what is spam and what is not.
They are probably running for demagogue (or just lack the foresight to
consider this inevitability.)
* And I believe this was generally true elsewhere but you won't
believe me so what the hell I'll limit my comment to the USA as it's
just as valid.
--
-Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die | bzs(_at_)TheWorld(_dot_)com |
http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD
The World | Public Access Internet | Since 1989 *oo*
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