On 14-mrt-04, at 12:49, Dr. Jeffrey Race wrote:
What we need here is a fundamentally different approach: one where
desired communication is tagged as such explicitly.
You are right a different approach is needed, but not this one
because it does not admit communication from strangers.
I addressed this part at the end of my message. A mechanism to allow
strangers to get hold of a desirability tag would of course be
included. (If the holder of a tag misbehaves the tag is invalidated, of
course.)
With the above in place the problem scope is reduced to communication
attempts from strangers, which pretty much solves the problem for IP,
but not to the same degree for mail.
The only solution is one which removes from connectivity those
who dump their trash on the commons. This is easy to do.
I don't think there are any easy answers here. If there were, they
would have long since be implemented. What I think could work is a
framework that allows different people to impose different requirements
on strangers that want to send them mail. This has the advantage that
different groups can choose different solutions that work well for that
group. For instance, some groups may want to implement a PGP/GPG web of
trust. Others may want to require a micropayment, and yet others
solving a puzzle. By keeping the particulars outside of the mail
protocols it should be simple to add new mechanisms so the arms race
between spammers and victims could start losing its hare/turtle
characteristics.