Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

One Answer To Spam: Sell Your Interruption Time

Posted by timothy on from the here-are-my-rates dept.

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."

4 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. But actually, by sheriff_p · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Bill Gates suggested this in his book, "The Road Ahead"... Microsoft? Innovating? Why yes...

    --
    Score:-1, Funny
  2. Large problem with this: Unexpected relevant calls by chuckfirment · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The article talks about using "Interrupt Tokens" that you can give out as a one-use token to interrupt (email spam, telemarketer call) you. If the person contacting you doesn't have an interrupt token, they can't contact you without paying your "Interrupt Fee", the fee that you set for contacting you.

    I often get calls that I don't expect, and I need to take them. I can't have people unable to contact me about a business deal because they don't want to pay my "Interrupt Fee". They'll say, "Eh, to heck with it. I'll give the deal to the next guy down the line."

    For telemarketers, I use the key phrase, "Place me on your do not call list." I get maybe one telemarketer call every other month, and normally those are recorded messages.

    Chuck Firment

  3. And I live in .... by mustangdavis · · Score: 4, Interesting
    la-la land!!!

    I also heard that world peace is just around the corner!

    I'm sorry, but this wouldn't work without totally restructuring the current "email system" and phone system

    This would also destroy the ability of organizations that are truely good in nature to advertise. I make this bold statement because if something like this goes into place, then people will want to get paid for watching TV commercials and for looking at billboards. Hell, the average Joe wouldn't have to work since he/she could get paid just to look at their advertisements! This could truely stunt the growth of our economic system.

    Besides, do you think this would actually work? The companies would claim this violates their freedom of speech rights, and since companies have money to pay off politicians and to pay off phone companies, do you REALLY think this would ever happen???

    However, I do agree that SOMETHING needs to be done to stop this rediculous mass advertising that goes on, but I don't think that is the answer (or atleast not in its current form)

    One of the hilarious solutions that I have come up with (well, I think it is funny) for phone spam is somehting like this:

    • The jerky phone salesman calls my home
    • They begin telling me about who they represent, what they are selling ..... yada,yada,yada
    • I rudely stop them and say "To continue this call, you will be charged $3.99 per minute. Please provide me with your Visa, Master Card or Discover card number and expiration date ... sorry, no American Express."
    • They either continue with their routine and I rudely interrupt them again or they ask me to repeat what I just said
    • I repeat my credit card line ...
    • They either laugh and hang-up, or just hang up (either way, they go away)
    • If they have the nads to stay on the line, I tell them to immediately remove my name and number from all of their calling lists, then hang-up myself


    Anyway you look at it, I win. I get entertained, my number removed from their calling list, and a laugh from the telemarketer sometimes.

    However, (and most seriously), this type of system must be implimented in such a manner that the phone companies and ISPs don't make a dime off of it, otherwise the problem will grow ... not go away as we'd all like it to.

    The only solution to this is simple ... pass a law that forbids companies from sending mass advertsiements to people where people must pay in either time or services to recieve that advertisement ... unless they sign up for that adverstiement!!!! (this means email and phone) ... and make the penalty VERY expensive for violating the policy. If they do it from a foreign country, ban the sale or import of their product into the country! This isn't the total solution, but it is the only way I feel that the people may be finally able to be "spam" free
    --
    HallmarkOrnaments.Com
  4. Simple solution: Require PGP/GPG sig/encryption by Jens · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I've been doing this for some time. It works like this:

    • You have a whitelist of domains and adresses.
    • You also have a blacklist of domains and addresses.
    • Every mail from a sender in the whitelist is accepted.
    • Every PGP/GPG-signed or encrypted mail from a sender NOT in the blacklist is also accepted.
    • Everyone else will get a mail back and have to click on an URL (or reply to the confirmation mail) confirming his/her message to me.
    • Double bounced addresses land in the blacklist.
    Bang, zero spam.

    Remember to put your business partners on the whitelist though. ;)

    -- Jens

    --
    Home Page