Hi Dave,
Thanks for the quick response.
To dissuade spammers, we shall need a way to be able to identify
them direct or indirect. Agreed it need not be direct. If we can
indirectly identify the sender, then the message was not truely
anonymous after all.
Atul
-----Original Message-----
From: ext Dave Crocker [mailto:dhc(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net]
Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2004 4:44 PM
To: Sharma Atul (Nokia-ES/Boston)
Cc: ietf-mailsig(_at_)imc(_dot_)org
Subject: Re: Anonymous signed mail
Atul,
By way of priming the discussion pump:
ASnc> I was going through the slides presented at IETF-60.
One of the goals
ASnc> listed there was: "Preserve Anonymity if requested by
the sender"
ASnc> I had some questions regarding this:
ASnc> * Won't allowing anonymous mails defeat the
anti-spam quality of MASS?
I believe that spam control is about accountability and does not
automatically require directly identifying the agent that created or
posted the message. Accountability can be quite indirect, as
long as it
involves real substance.
By way of an extreme example, if a sender is required to post a US$1M
bond that is at risk if there are complaints against messages
from that
sender, then we are not likely to care whether we can
directly identify
the sender. The assumption is that risking that much money will
dissuade rogue senders from doing nasty things that would prompt us to
make complaints.