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One Answer To Spam: Sell Your Interruption Time
An anonymous reader writes "A recent article in the IBM Systems Journal describes an innovative solution to curb both spam email and telemarketing. In short, the potential recipient of a message/call advertises the potential cost of contacting him uninvited. If the sender agrees to pay that cost, it acquires a token that it includes in the message/call and the message/call is accepted. The recipient decides to collect the fee or not, while recipients in a white list are not required to carry a token. The author also provides for a more detailed description."
This will about as well as asking spammers to remove you from their lists.
If they're spammers good luck collecting since most of the time the headers are all forged anyway or they're coming from some asian country.
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Which I think is the whole point. This will slow down the sheer amount of spam that is getting into our inboxes because it will no longer be the cheap alternative.
If you want the lady to call you without having to pay a fee, then give her a single-use token with your phone number. Jeez...
It's hardly original with Bill. For example, in Robert Heinlein's 1966 book "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", he outlines a similar scheme. In Heinlein's book, he deals with actual visitors at the door, but the basic concepts (pay for interruption, and only collect if the interruption was unwarranted) are the same.
I wouldn't at all be surprised if the idea even predated Heinlein.
I worked for a company Javien that implemented this solution for email last year. The product was called Bouncer and would sit in between your email client and POP3 server. When it received a message from someone that wasn't on your accept list, it would bounce it back with a contract that could optionally include a request for payment. This was hooked into Javien's micropayment system, so if the sender accepted the terms of the contract they could attach a digitally signed proof of payment with the email when they send it again.
In R.A. Heinlein's The Cat Who Walks Through Walls Hazel Stone (posing as Gwen something) uses a similar system to protect her messaging system: Spend some money to record an urgent message to her and she decides on whether to pay you back or not.
Give that the book was published in 1985, I would say the idea is pretty old.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted and ignored otherwise.
If you're wondering how something like this can be implemented, look at the email agreement on http://roblimo.com/
You didn't read the article very carefully. The caller has to agree to pay the fee IF YOU WISH TO COLLECT. If a long lost friend calls he has to agree to pay the fee, but you don't have to collect the fee and he doesn't get charged.
Wow, more than 100 posts already and still 90% of posters obviously did not grasp the (rather) simple concept. I've seen a number of completely irrelevant objections:
: That's one of the best feature in this idea. No need for a new law. The recipient already has the right to block incoming messages. You know, when your phone rings, you won't go to jail if you don't take the call.
: Of course not, but nobody asks them! Using this kind of solution is YOUR decision; you don't have to ask anybody's permission, especially spammers.
: So what? This system will work for me even if I'm the only user. It's not one of those things that require a critical mass of users to be useful.
: Frankly, I don't care. If it prevents spam sent to me, it's good enough.
: You're missing the point. This is not about making money, it's about discouraging spammers. No spammer will ever send you an email if it costs him 5 cents. And the price is not for making you actually read the spam, it's only for allowing it to reach your inbox. In the very unlikely case a spammer actually pays, just delete the message as usual.
The law would never pass
Spammers will never accept this
Widespread adoption will never occur
This will not completely eradicate spam
5 cents to read spam is not worth it
So please, read the article. The idea may not be completely new (email stamp) but the details address most obvious objections.
One problem I can think of is still pending : what happens if the sender is also equiped with a similar system? Will we see payment notices bouncing back and forth between both ends without ever reaching an inbox? I guess a solution would be to automatically whitelist any address you've sent an email to, if only for 1 hour.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
Pardon me, but I thought it was rather interesting how all the proposed solutions in this white paper, while innovative, neato, and rather cool, still involve my spending more money to get rid of a problem I shouldn't have in the first place.
I absolutely love how there's a whole section involving means for businesses to make money from implementing the scheme, but the part where he notes that all of us poor schmucks who actually get bombarded with spam and telemarketing calls will have to "upgrade" to newer phone sets and e-mail programs (no doubt with a cost) is just glossed over. Isn't most of the problem with spam and telemarketers that they cost us money already? How is paying more supposed to make us feel better about making them (we hope) go away?
Surely there's got to be some way of dealing with this problem without spending more money, without enriching the telco robber barons (at minimum), or at least by using money we're already going to spend anyway (coughcough where's the CRTC when you need 'em?)...
I'm reminded of possible "forced" upgrades by other entities -- regarding Microsoft software, HDTV, DVDs, CDs, and I can only stop to wonder if IBM might, were this scheme implemented, be conveniently right there with a plug-in for your phone or something... (Always look for the ulterior motive, sez I.)
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.