declaring the spam problem unsolvable. I don't think it's a good idea
to lend credibility to this sentiment by publishing it as an RFC.
How hard is it to agree that:
a) there will always be (some) spam
b) there is no need for it to be 50% of all mail
That last sentiment is on my list.
There are several currently available, independent sets of mechanisms
that will keep more than 90% of all spam out of your mailbox with
fewer than 0.1% false positives. If your mailbox receives on average
more than 1 spam/day and you care, then fire your current ISP and hire
one that offers reasonable spam defenses. If you care to invest your
own time and effort maintaining filters or if you can tolerate more
than 0.1% false positives, your mailbox can be practically spam free.
Of course, if you fewer receive 0.1 messages/month, it's going to
be hard to keep the ratio of total mail to spam below 50%.
Vernon Schryver vjs(_at_)rhyolite(_dot_)com