On November 29, 2008 at 18:29 johnl(_at_)taugh(_dot_)com (John Levine) wrote:
There's no need for a micropayment scheme if it's the bulk senders
who pay.
You keep asserting this, but without ever offering even the merest
hint about how it might be implemented in anything resembling a
realistic fashion.
How do you plan to identify and charge bulk senders without counting
the mail? Spammers already go to considerable effort to disguise
their bulk mail as a lot of different non-bulk mail. How do you
expect to keep bulk senders from sneaking under the radar by
masquerading as a lot of non-bulk senders?
Does this mean we've moved beyond the "moral" issue?
In a sentence I could imagine something along the lines of postage
meters, it's up to the bulk sender to purchase the "postage", likely a
cryptographic scheme which identifies the purchaser uniquely
(analogous to DKIM) and allows the sending of however many "stamps"
were purchased, a countdown system.
There are many working systems, business models, on this planet which
do not require or even attempt perfection.
Even the US post office doesn't begin to try to check every single
letter or postage meter mark tho optical scanning has improved their
capability.
But as another example the ASCAP system requires radio stations to
become ASCAP members (pay a base fee) and provide certain information
about their programming and audience according to generally accepted
standards. For example, that they're an easy-listening station in with
an audience of 100,000 (potential vs typical) and so on.
Based on that information a charge is assessed which passed on to
songwriters as royalties.
Can they cheat? Of course they can cheat. But the real question is
what are the chances they would get caught and what is the penalty?
ASCAP pays people (perhaps indirectly) to listen to radio stations and
otherwise sample and compare, and see if they're cheating. They don't
pretend to check every station but the penalty would be losing your
ASCAP membership, paying owed fees, fines, penalties, possibly being
sued, etc.
They can do this reasonably effectively because they charge so have
money to do this investigation and enforcement.
There are many systems in everyday use which amount to something
similar.
A scheme doesn't have to be airtight by any means to be effective.
What is of some importance is knowing that a "stamp" is authentic.
In that sense it's less a stamp and more like a postage meter mark,
tho cryptography (again, a la DKIM) can make it stronger than your
typical postal meter.
A system like that works when recipients, particularly MTAs, begin
refusing email without plausible postage.
But there's no micropayment involved, any more than there is in the
ASCAP scheme.
Of course ASCAP relies on the fact that WABC can't pose as KPFK due to
radio frequency allocation etc.
But I can't really see Amazon posing as Yahoo either, we have IP
server blocks to check and other info.
--
-Barry Shein
The World | bzs(_at_)TheWorld(_dot_)com |
http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD | Login: Nationwide
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