spam is a complex problem and email is a complex system.
Actually, e-mail (RFC 2821) is a rather simple system by comparison to, say,
Jabber, AIM, and the like which do much the same thing, in the end[2].
That's the problem. When we're done, e-mail is going to become more complex
than it is. Short of not doing anything, it's inevitable.[1]
As for spam, it's only a complex problem because we (as in the users) made it
so. There's a whole social problem behind spam that needs addressing by
folks other than us in this list. That's digressing and we're not here to
solve the spam problem anyway. Just what happens, by coincidence, to be a
small but very visible part of it.
[1] See past "ruminations" thread.
[2] When IM systems begin to develop storage mechanisms, at least. Don't we
already have this with IM to SMS gateways? With AIM running on handheld PCs?
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