On Nov 19, 2:50pm, Gerald Klaas wrote:
}
} Personally, I believe that there should be a standard method for
} deriving a URL from e-mail addresses. That stamp generators should
} be placed at the derived URL
We've come at this from the point of view of creating an economy.
It doesn't have to be a cash economy, although I think that would
be best if the goal is to translate it into meatspace gains and
losses that might grab the attention of the losers or of law
enforcement, but it has to be something measureable. What's the
economic incentive for the recipients to expend the resources
necessary to generate a stamp for anyone who asks for one?
If the recipient makes some kind of decision as to who is allowed
to ask for stamps, he might as well simply apply those same rules
to SMTP connections and not worry about the stamps. I suppose one
could be a little more magnanimous in allowing connections to the
stamp generator because of an expected payment, but the recipient
still has to recoup his costs.
If the incentive is that recipient is to be paid before generating
the stamp, then there has to be a standard way of paying, or you're
back to the N*M problem. If this is a cash micropayment, then why
not have the known standard payment vendors issue the stamps? Each
recipient who wants to participate is already going to need to have
a relationship with a vendor (or a proxy for such a relationship), so
the stamp can still be tailored to be single-use for that recipient.
A stamp is nothing more than proof of payment, after all.
That's the Goodmail model, isn't it? With the substitution of some
known and advertised set of vendors so that recipients and senders
can negotiate on who handles the transaction and whether to require
a payment transaction in the first place. I'm sure Goodmail has
some attorneys who'd love to have discussions with other potential
vendors about licensing the patents.
Regardless, is whether Goodmail is successful a valid test of this
theoretical economy? (Except nobody uses lack of Goodmail as a full
delivery block, and everyone has sworn that they won't do so.)
OK, suppose it's not a cash payment. "Payment" in the form of the
sender's computing resources has already been tried ("hashcash") and
not worked out so well. Suggest something else?
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