On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 06:34:53 +0800, Shelby Moore
<coolpage(_at_)earthlink(_dot_)net> said:
Lastly I have done the full background search at ASRG (IRTF), and I did not
find prior art for either the proposal I made to legitimize bulk email by
moving it to "pull", nor the prior art for our soon to be patent-pending
anti-spam algorithm.
----
Q: Okay, what's the idea?
A: Add something RSS-like to email clients, where the client
occasionally (and infrequently) polls "subscribed" sites for new content
and drops any new content into the normal mail stream (so that you could
filter it into folders).
For example, suppose I want to subscribe to the Floss Recycling
newsletter. The Floss Recycling Web site gives instructions on the
subscription address and when the newsletter comes out (e.g. "Mondays at
3 PM PST). I set up my email client to poll every Monday at 4 AM and to
drop the newsletter into my FlossRecycling folder.
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(From the previously cited posting to ASRG by Kaitlin Sherwood). The only
difference I can see from what she proposes and what you propose is that she
says "something RSS-like" and you said "POP". Elsewhere in the same posting,
she points out it doesn't need to be RSS:
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Q: Is RSS your clear and obvious choice for this?
A: Absolutely not. My "expertise" in RSS is the product of only a few
hours wandering around the Web looking at various Web sites. I feel
like RSS is off in this parallel universe that I really don't know
anything about.
In particular, it was not obvious to me how the RSS client would figure
out what was new since last checked and what was not.
----
OK.. So *maybe* you get partial credit for the idea that UIDL can be used
to provide a capability that RSS didn't provide.
----
Q: So how on earth would this reduce spam?
A: One of the biggest problems that content analyzers (e.g.
SpamAssassin, spambayes) have is that legitimate commercial newsletters
can look an awful lot like spam. If we can reroute all of the legit
mass mailers to this RSS-esque scheme, then the content analyzers can be
much more aggressive.
----
So she's even got the "If we move it all to this new scheme, we can attack
anything
left as spam" aspect.
She even points out a few things you haven't mentioned (such as the "proof of
delivery"
aspect of a "pull" system).
So other than "you can use UIDL", what *really new* concepts are in *your*
proposal?
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