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Revising the Internet Email Infrastructure
Lauren Weinstein writes "People For Internet Responsibility (PFIR) today released a white paper aimed at starting discussion and work to fundamentally revamp Internet e-mail systems to control spam, forgeries, and a range of other problems, while empowering e-mail users rather than ISPs." Excellent start.
Until this comes out, PGP is a great way to keep your email private and secure. It also deals with forged headers using email signing. MIT has a great client here
"Men lie."
"Yeah, about sleeping with other women, but never about bioluminescent plankton."
-Dan Brown
They may well come up with some "standard" for a new internet email system but, nobody is going to use it. Hell ESMTP has been out for years and it still isn't supported by more than half the systems that are on the net.
So, how long has IPV6 been out? How much of the net is converted?
that Public Key Encryption was the answer to email woes. PK just needs to be adopted across the board.
I thought about writing more, but I really don't see the need to.
PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility
TRIPOLI Project Press Release
May 8, 2003
PFIR Home Page
PFIR Announces the "TRIPOLI" Project
A Call to Arms to the Internet and Open-Source Communities!
It's Time to Secure E-Mail, Control Spam, and Empower E-Mail Users!
People For Internet Responsibility (PFIR) co-founders Lauren Weinstein and Peter G. Neumann today called on the Internet and Open-Source Communities to consider a proposal for the most significant and far-reaching changes to e-mail systems since the creation of the Internet and its ancestor ARPANET more than 30 years ago.
PFIR today released a white paper describing a proposed project to consider the implementation and deployment of widespread encryption, authentication, anti-spam, and other advances directly into the fundamental structure of Internet, intranet, and local e-mail systems.
The "TRIPOLI" project overview paper located at:
http://www.pfir.org/tripoli-overview
describes the proposed new environment which focuses on ensuring that choices and power regarding e-mail are vested directly with e-mail users themselves, rather than with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or government agencies.
The changes described by the TRIPOLI proposal could be gradually implemented, largely based upon open-source software tools that already exist. Ultimately under TRIPOLI, the volumes of forgeries and spam (both received by users and traversing the Internet) would be drastically reduced, by default all e-mail would be encrypted, and e-mail users would have essentially complete control over how they individually choose to send and receive e-mail.
"Current e-mail systems were not designed to deal with the kind of world we have today -- they've become a hopeless nightmare for users and ISPs alike," said Weinstein. "E-mail users are inundated with spam, forged mail, and other garbage, and unfortunately the actions many ISPs are taking to try control spam and other e-mail are shackling their honest customers with unreasonable restrictions and making matters even worse. Some of the proposed anti-spam laws may also exacerbate these problems without really controlling spam at all. Legitimate e-mail users need to be put back in the driver's seat, and there isn't a moment to lose."
"These problems are getting more severe every day," said Neumann. "Not only are users and networks drowning under spam and other e-mail deficiencies, but basic matters of security and reliability on the Internet are being largely ignored under the current intolerable situation. These critical problems simply cannot be fixed without coordinated and major changes to the way e-mail is handled throughout the Internet. It's going to be a big job, but we have to get going on this right now."
PFIR hopes that the TRIPOLI proposal can act as a starting point for discussion and implementation of systems to solve the many e-mail problems that exist today, in a manner that empowers users rather than unfairly restricting them. PFIR invites the participation of the open-source and Internet communities at large towards these crucial goals.
Persons interested in participating or getting more information about the TRIPOLI project can send e-mail to:
tripoli-info@pfir.org
or use the contacts listed below.
- - -
CONTACTS:
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@pfir.org
Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Peter G. Neumann
neuma
SMTP is here to stay and it won't change within any reasonable time period. It's unfortunate that it's so unsecure, but that's just the way it is.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers. Remember to shoot knees first so that they won't be able to run away while you slowly torture them to death.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Have they passed their recommendations by Al Gore yet?
Trolling is a art,
I don't think they are discussing the mailbox protocols here.
I think it's the transports (MTA I believe, think MX records)
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
I know very little about this so correct me if I am wrong. The only way to really let each user have complete control over email, would be for each user to have there own mail server and/or domain. This is why most people let their ISP's handle their mail. And you would still get crap from bulk mailers, spammers.
SMTP is here to stay. We're going to have to live with it. Spam control filtering is getting better and there is a good chance that together with decent legislation, spam can be reigned in. A new system will ultimately just create new kinds of abuse, which wil lrequire the industry to take another two year cycle to address.
Sure, ISPs can block PITS from unsavory PCAs, but what stops spammers from creating new, bogus PCAs as needed? If there are only a few "recognized" PCAs, doesn't this tend to concentrate power into a relatively small set of entities?
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
A revamping of the email technology is what needs to take place. Not an internet tax (good crap we are taxed enough already). Along those lines (better technology instead of more bureaucracy) two great technologies that already exist, that help in the email realm, are GnuPG and Bogofilter.
First thing is to rename it "i-mail".
Best Windows Freeware
I'm sick of reading proposals (often from industry profit-seeking types) who want to put a paid-for "stamp" or similar "token" on email. (I'm talking generally, though---yes---I did read this paper)
It looks attractive logic:
1. Lots of people use email
2. We offer a system which will beat spam at a cost---our 'trusted 3rd party' or whatever---but only if people who use it can't talk to anyone else, so everyone has to use it
3. Profit.
This is NOT the way forward on spam. Nor, realistically, is anything which re-writes the rules for email. People like editing headers. In fact, if it weren't for spam, people like email as it is---period.
The way forward seems simple:
smtp servers should start requiring genuine users to log in. (though rarely used, there are smtp systems which allow this, and most major clients---yes even the MS ones---already talk to these servers and have done for years)
servers which don't should quickly find their way onto blacklists.
(I shall leave the exact way these blacklists should be used as an exercise for the reader)
Simple. Low cost. Not a business model; but a clear solution.
Anyone want to start writing to ISPs?
Problems like the current state of e-mail always
inspire me to consider the need to do things
right the first time. There are many good systems
that grow organically and work well but at some
point it is realized that there are major holes.
At that point the installed base is too big...
...it lives and dies by the efficacy of the CAs. If the CAs suck, then the credentials they send with email mean nothing.
I like the idea, but I wonder which sort of orgs are going to be their "PCAs"? ISPs pretty much allow any comer onto their network, so giving all users a cert wouldn't stop people from making temporary accounts for spam.
Perhaps the ease with which MTAs could cut off CAs (like cutting off domains) would help give incentive to ISPs (or whoever is the PCA) to crack down on their customer base, but that strategy is only marginally successful today. Why would creds make this strategy any better?
Perhaps MTAs would be harder to config as open relays, because authn is required. But what percent of spam comes through open relays? If it's a big percentage, then this may help.
Has anyone analyzed this scenario? I'd like to hear some informed thoughts on what sort of email regime we could expect if this were implemented.
I disagree, migrating from SMTP would not be THAT difficult. Give it a 3 year phase in or whatever, and people WILL change.
Would you change your e-mail system if it eliminated SPAM? Thats what I thought.
Now... Its just too bad that this is being done by People For Internet Responsibility (PFIR). Can't a real organization tackle this? Wouldn't something like this have a much better chance for success if a standards board were doing the white paper? Who is going to implement a suggestion by PFIR. Really.
Oh well...
i read the paper, but i don't see what is so new with this. the suggestions it makes seem to be similar to methods for email encryption and spam filtering that are already in place.
joe emailer hasn't taken the time to figure these existing methods out, that's why it seems as though they're not working. i don't know what tripoli is going to offer that will get joe off his butt and get him signed up with a "Pit Certificate Authority".
aoeu
Those who would trade freedom for security will lose both, and deserve neither.
The current "hysteria" over spam is going to lead the Joe Sixpacks and the Mothers-protecting-their-children crowd to accept, indeed to beg for, restrictions on their liberties, all in the name of "stopping those spammers". For the rest of us, for whom "WWW" is NOT synonymous with "The Internet", this could have dire consequences. What if I run my own server, and I'm not "blessed" by the current Official AntiSpam Policy Du Jour ? Do I lose out?
Spammers suck, use your filters. DON'T give the government (and media giants, and Big ISPs) the authority to rewrite the way that the Internet works.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
As bad as the spam problem is, it's unlikely that you can get sufficient momentum in the community to displace one of the primal IP application protocols anytime soon. The solution, for better or worse, is probably going to be a combination of filtering technology, $$ legal judgements $$, and Ghu help us, legislation.
(Though anyone taking up a collection to hire the Narn Bat Squad for re-educating spammers please let me know...)
5ms (sounds like an underestimate to me, but lets go with it) * 2 billion messages (AOL blocked it in one day) = ~116 days computer time.
Slowing spam by 2 orders of magnitude would still help.
It would seem so. Like any certification mechanism, you've got to trust the certifiers. And in practice, that means a few big ones.
I found the point especially odd considering the polemic in the beginning about how individuals need to have their own MTAs that can negotiate around port restrictions lest the evil ISPs control them.
A verbose article, which didn't seem very consistent. The kernel idea (don't allow forged headers) has been brought up a number of times. Not much value added here.
Increase your e-mail infrastructure size by inches!
With our new herbal nutrient, you will have a larger, safe, naturaly enhanced e-mail infrastructure in days!!
Get paid to code OSS
If people would only use this RFC: http://www.faqs.org/ftp/rfc/rfc2549.txt (IP over Avian Carriers with Quality of Service, a modification of http://www.faqs.org/ftp/rfc/rfc1149.txt), there would be no spam, as the normal can of spam is MUCH too heavy for a carrier pigeon to carry.
Maybe an African Swallow, however...
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
The problem with nearly every single encryption technology, or initiative for securing and improving Internet communication, is that it tries to solve too many problems at once. History has proven over and over again that it's the small, easy steps that move progress forward, not giant ones.
PGP, HTTPS, S/MIME and countless other 'standards' have all made the same mistake in trying to force users to adopt multiple new rules. What's wrong with just providing encryption, without any of the additional burdens of establishing identity? Countless transfers are sent unencrypted every day because the cost of a web server certificate - which is only expensive because it establishes identity - is so high. Anyone can make a server that provides encryption, but such a server is useless with today's browsers. And yet, I'm supposed to have faith that the people Microsoft, AOL and Opera choose to trust are the people that I want to trust?
It is obvious where email will change next, no matter how much money and time is spent on projects like this one. More and more people will use 'virtual receptionist' services that require you to return an auto-reply message to prove that you're real. Eventually, email clients will develop a way to autodetect and autoreply to these messages, until some sort of system is hammered out. You'll write your message, it will be delivered, the receiving server will connect back to you to verify that you're real, and your system will confirm it, all transparently. Someday, it'll happen in real-time, maybe. Spammers won't be able to use this, because of the increased load on a server that must stay online as long as they want their mail delivered.
That's how change happens. Not because of a bunch of idealists get together and tell me to start PGP-signing my mail. You know what? I started doing that 3 years ago. I haven't once found a single person who even knew how to verify my messages. Not to mention the pathetic state that the keyservers are in, full of expired and forgotten keys, and easily corrupted (again, I know from experience - I corrupted my own keys in an attempt to remove them permanently).
-Elentar
The wheel it turns, around and around, with an ancient rumbling sound.
Alas, we need to get the mega web-of-trust built first. And that is very, very hard to do, since people are so apathetic about PGP. (I couldn't even get Slashdot-Meetup and 2600-Meeting people to do it. Although maybe (I almost hope) the 2600 people thought I was a narc or something. ;-)
A good web-of-trust would have sooo many applications... what a waste. :(
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I see this as a dangerous time. Many people have discussed going to an e-mail system that relies on encryption and security certificates. Are we going to end up with another debacle like we have now for secure websites, where Certificate Authorities like Verisign and Thawte charge hundreds of dollars every year for a certificate and free certificates set off more alarms than a than a Great White concert in a gasoline-soaked tent?
Will Microsoft make lucrative deals with high-roller Certificate Authorities to include them in the Microsoft Exchange e-mail server? Will you be unable to run a mail server without paying big bucks to some "trusted" Certificate Authority?
If we are not careful, the only e-mail servers that will exist will be commercial e-mail servers where the owners can afford hundreds of dollars every year for certificate renewals.
Why do I believe this? Because I follow the money. If Microsoft, Verisign/Thawte, Netscape, etc. think that there's a way to make money, they will push for a standard that ensures it.
Credibility of idea has been lost due to usage of the word "empower".
Just because SMTP can't be fixed (it can't) doesn't mean it has to die - just that a better alternative has to emerge. I'll keep my SMTP servers running indefinitely and I'll keep SMTP mail, but as better systems emerge I'll be telling people that the more reliable way to contact me is with methods that I know aren't going to give me the experience of picking through the trash when I check my mail. I'll still check my SMTP mail, but probably with decreasing frequency as time passes.
For those of you saying "just improve your filters," (1) give me a filter that can parse an HTML message containing only an image to determine whether it's spam or not (no, you can't reject all HTML mail or mail with attachments, if my brother drags-n-drops a picture of my nephew and clicks "send," I want to receive it), and (2) figure a way to keep the message from being delivered until that determination is made. Post-delivery filtering doesn't solve the bandwidth/cost/traffic problems.
Be courageous, people. Nobody screamed that we didn't need the telephone because the telegraph worked fine. Protocols emerge from changing circumstances. SMTP had its use over the last 30 years, but its time is waning with the onset of the global public internet full of untrusted senders seeking to abuse the system. It's time for a better protocol, and I applaud everyone involved in making a serious effort at developing one instead of trying to fix the unfixable.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
Many apps and distros offer multiple feeds.
A good example of this is the Linux kernel, those who want everything to work perfectly can use the stable(2.4.x at the moment) feed. Those who want the latest cutting edge features can use the unstable(2.5.x at the moment) feed.
Stable feeds are only updated to fix bugs and get no new features, so it doesn't have anyone introducing new bugs.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
It is great that folks are taking this issue more seriously but how is improving the protocol for sending email going to deter spam? This seems analogous to discouraging annoying speech by changing languages.
On a fundamental level. Economics drives SPAM. People send it because they are making money. The most efficient way to stop SPAM is probably just to render it unprofitable somehow.
Developing a new solution is usually the best way to fix technical problems. But this is really a social/economic problem. New protocols, hardware, and software can make the environment less hospitable to SPAM but I doubt they will be an effective use of resources.
So I would say that we simply use what we currently have to take on spam and encrypt e-mail. Just a few thoughts...
Is not to reinvent the protocol. Spammers will disappear if nobody reads their spam (because it will be too ineffective, even at a cheap price).
The better solution is simple - let me rate the"trustworthiness" of the sender who sends me email and sort it appropriately. I can add all my family and friends to the "explicitly trusted" list. Then, the server can allow for an option such as "possibly trusted", which might include all emails from the same domain I'm in, or from domains I specify (e.g. *@mit.edu).
All other email will be tagged as "untrusted". Now, I can set my email browser to color code them, simply ignore them, or set a rule for each category. Yahoo! already does this, showing a smiley face with the emails that come from people in my address book
This can be done simply, and without rewriting any protocols. Beware people who want to reinvent the wheel to gain profit when there is no need. "Pit certification" is unnecessary, and too costly.
-Mark Radulovich, CISSP
Of course it is possible but, the probability is very low, in my opinion. It is already possible for most modern mail clients to automatically encrypt and decrypt mail, making them secure. Yet very few people use PGP or S/MIME. It is already possible for most MTAs to use SSL and/or TLS to encrypt their communications, yet most still do not use this feature. It is already possible for most POP3 and IMAP4 servers to encrypt their communications using SSL and/or TLS as well as having four or more secure authentication options available, yet most still do not use this feature.
It is possible to redesign and rebuild the email infrastructure of the internet in such a way as to completely eliminate spam and forged addresses, it is howeber improbable that good old insecure and vulnerable SMTP will be abandoned. Prior to the internet and standardization on SMTP, there were many secure mail systems around the world. There was also an inability for them to communicate with each other. This is the problem with a new system. In order for it to work and for email to remain a useful tool, everyone will have to switch and everyone will have to do it at the same time. This is highly improbable.
-Begin Rant-
The problem with spam is simple: the old rule that we should be forgiving about what we accept and strict about what we send.
We could wipe spam out, or at least render it controllable, if we simple required proper DNS entries (A, MX, PTR) and proper server configuration (HELO information, etc.)
Unfortunately, every Tom, Dick and Harry feels it is his god-given right to run a mail server despite having ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what is required to run one. The sheer number of people without postmaster and abuse accounts is astonishing and both are required. The sheer number of people without matching forward and reverse DNS entries is astonishing. The number of people who call their server "Blah" and then put in a DNS entry for "mail" without an entry for "Blah" is amazing. Although this last part is not required by the RFC's, why on earth should I have to look through my logs and see "Blah" when there is no DNS entry for it? How am I supposed to troubleshoot?
Oh well, I give up.
-End Rant-
Now we are told once more that the best cure against spam should be to reinvent something to replace the tried-and-true eMail system of decade-old reliability, just because some sociopaths apparently cannot learn to behave without getting a spanking (or jail time) and U.S. privacy laws are still too weak to stop the spam.
And after all the years that spam has plagued the networks, that's quite a poor achievement for a nation that managed to outlaw junk faxes, and had confirmation from the courts that regulating advertising does pass constitutional muster perfectly well:
Subsequently, numerous decisions have also made it crystal clear, over and over again, that neither the First Amendment nor the Dormant Commerce Clause are an obstacle to outlawing electronic spam, by fax or any kind of eMail.
Nor is it at the expense of any legitimate business. Industry itself can't stand the spam anymore.
This is not about "lawmakers never knowing enough about the Internet to regulate any aspect of it in a meaningful way", it's about doing something to prevent imposing compulsory changes to technology that keep fighting the symptoms rather than the cause.
Congress should get over such shameful cowardice and make the simple law that's needed and proven to work.
There is no need to re-engineer the Internet.
There is no justification for widespread surveillance and data retention under the poor excuse of trying to track down spammers.
There is no risk of banning mailing lists or commercial eMail.
There is no doubt what the sociopathic behavior is.
All that is needed is mandatory opt-in for unsolicited bulk eMail (encompassing all kinds of electronic messaging).
And yet some self-proclaimed "experts on electronic advertising" (whose only merit probably is that they know how to spam because they've done it a trillion times at everyone else's expense) keep pretending that opt-in wasn't legal, or feasible, or desirable.
Opt-in works, and it does not hurt anyone but the spammers.
Europe has adopted it, Australia is adopting it (how far behind do you want the U.S. to be, are we to wait for China to outlaw spam before the U.S. will?!), but most importantly the USA have successfully adopted it themselves against junk faxes.
There's probably something wrong in Washington D.C., and the news media in general, when the most insightful newspaper article on the issue comes from USA Today.
Be sure to fax or eMail it to your congress(wo)man though.
Don't spam them, but do attach some selected masterpieces of spam if you think they need an idea of what ends up in the inbox of their constituents, and of their children, 9 billion times, every single day.
Have the SMTP amended so that MTAs perform a DNS check on the previous server, and if it doesnt match correct the header. With guarenteed un-forged headers then at least reporting will be a hell of alot easier.
Personally, I like the PGP encryption idea.
I think there's a fundamental difference between the problems IPV6 is trying to solve and what any "SMTP2" solution is trying to solve.
IPV6 will solve the underlying problem of running out of IP space.
"SMTP2" would NOT solve the spam problem, because it's not a technical problem, IMHO. Spammers would move over to "SMTP2" eventually. They'd just have to find that one little flaw or feature and they'd be back exploiting it like they're exploiting weaknesses in SMTP now.
If widespread adoption of "SMTP2" takes anywhere near the amount IPV6 adoption is taken, it's not going to work. Spammers would have 5 years to study the new technology and develop solutions to get their crap across the new protocol.
By the time "SMTP2" is in place and used by everybody, the spam problem would no longer be what it is now and we'd be back in the cat-and-mouse game with spammers and their spamware techniques.
All the "SMTP2" solutions I've seen would make normal Email communication between non-spammers much more difficult. I think that's something that should be avoided, even at the cost of not solving the spam problem using technology solutions.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers. Remember to shoot knees first, so that they can't run away while you slowly torture them to death.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
to build on what you stated, Dan Bernstein (of qmail fame) pondered on this a few years back. his website http://cr.yp.to/im2000.html makes a few of these observations. he also has a mailing list about this very subject. interesting concept -- i'd love to see something like it implimented. it would really make life for a spammer difficult, which is a "good thing(tm)"
We just have to accept the fact that we have lost the war with Spam and learn to live with it in our daily lives. I have, and am a lot better for it;
I have learned over 400 ways to refinance my house, increased my penis size by 5 times, heard from lots of hot slutty girls that want to hang out with me, Cured my erectile dysfunction disorder, saved money on Norton Antivirus, and will become a millionaire once I mail out the five letters stuffed with a dollor and my name at the bottom of the list.
There is a lot of good information out there that I have benefitted from and I did not even have to leave to my house! I even forward all of the good opportunities I receive to all of my family and friends.
is one based on peer-maintained and user-maintained trust. I have written the outlines for such an approach.
.@.
From their webpage:
A key aspect of the Tripoli environment is the concept of a third-party certified, encrypted authentication token that would be cryptographically linked with every e-mail message. Within the Tripoli architecture, this token is referred to by the acronym "PIT" (Payload Identity Token, henceforth referred to as "Pit") and is at the core of Tripoli.
It is anticipated that all Pits considered acceptable by the vast majority of all Tripoli-compliant software user would be digitally signed by one or more designated, trustworthy, third-pary authorities who would be delegated the power to certify the validity of identity and other relevant information within Pits.
This doesn't add anything that S/MIME or PGP singed mail doesn't alrady do. And it will fail for the same reasons, putting the public key infrastructure in place is prohibitive.
It worked for https at the expense of creating the VeriSign tax, but the number of https enabled websites are few compared to the number of people using e-mail.
Ofcourse, if we bend over and hand over our e-mail to VeriSign we might finally de-throne Bill as the richest guy around...
Your example is a bad one. Microsoft did its best to avoid starting over with its operating systems. And when it did, it did so very carefully with as much backwards compability as possible.
Windows will still run MS-DOS binaries and Windows 1.0 through Windows ME all ran atop the MS-DOS code base in one way or another. They started over exactly once, when they build NT. And they gave it over 7 years to mature before they dumped the old MS-DOS/Windows code. And even with this one example, they ensured it was as compatible as possible to the old, which is why almost any program written for Windows 95 (and many written for earlier OSs, too) will still work with XP, 7+ years later.
Operating systems are a particularly good analogy, too because, like e-mail, it is a critical piece of infrastructure that depends heavily on interoperating with what else is out there.
The "SMTP Service Extension for Secure SMTP over TLS" (STARTTLS for short) defined by RFC 2487 already provides the technical framework for Tripoli. And is today supported by Sendmail, Exchange, Postfix, Exim, etc.
It normally runs over TCP port 25, the initial connection is normal SMTP, then the STARTTLS directive begins a TLS-encrypted session. STARTTLS can be configured to only accept mail sent with a trusted certificate, or to allow anyone to connect - it is compatible with existing SMTP.
The one additional item in the Tripoli proposal is the use of a trusted third party to validate certificates. Great if this can be made to work, though current experiences with PKI make me doubtful of a truly Public Infrastructure. But STARTTLS can certainly work amongst smaller private user groups.
One current hurdle preventing wholesale adoption is that few ISPs support STARTTLS. Not a problem for people running their own mail servers, though even they would want secondary servers to support STARTTLS. But if the core ISPs started using STARTTLS, they could mutually authenticate each other. Initially all mail could be accepted, but later on unauthenticated mail could be filtered more rigorously.
Andrew Yeomans
I think these ideas are on the right track in that they acknowledge the largest fault with the current email system to be lack of control over accounts by the owner of the accounts. However, the hazy ideas that are hinted at as solutions are not the right idea. They are overburdensome to implement, and I can still think of plenty of ways around them.
As for getting people to begin moving to a new system, it will need to be more than just certificate additions and user controlled filters. It will need to be something that end users can immediately understand as "this is better and easier". With the given proposals, people will have no incentive to change. that attitude will be, "Sure, I'm told the new thingy is better, but I'd rather just deal with the spam than have to deal with something new that I dont understand." End users mostly have the attitude of, "If i do nothing, I can still get my emails. If I change to something new, I might break something and be without my daily communications".
That will be where the big hurdle is.
LOTS of spam is passed through open relays. Closing Sendmail open relays has been easy for A LONG TIME now. Yet hundreds of open relays still exist. A new protocol is spiffy and all BUT WE CAN'T GET PEOPLE TO USE THE EXISTING TOOLS. A new 'magic bullet' ain't the answer, education is, boycott may be, and use of blacklists can help. Implementation of Tripoli is nice and all but if we can't get people to upgrade to a sendmail/qmail/... with closed relay support how do we get them to upgrade to Tripoli? Figure that out and then use the same method to get the open relay holes closed with the existing tools and save the Tripoli coding time. Hell, spammers that spam from their own address get blacklisted pretty quick, use the blacklist, and close the relays.
(Yeah, I know the blacklists aren't perfect but we can't even get that to work, a new tool isn't likely to work either.)
Bottom line, this is not REALLY a technology issue, it's a LUSER/Business issue. A new technology that penetrates 20-60% of the net still gets spam from the other 40-80% of the net. Tech answers work great IF you get 100% market penetration.
Techies like you and I do, and I would rather cast my lot with fellow techies who share in my pain.
Success comes from failure if you dare to try again, revise, adapt, and overcome. I don't see why we should continue to bend over for spammers if the possibility exists that they will exploit a new system for mail transfer.
Personally, the SMTP system has rendered e-mail useless. I'd accept a challenge system, whitelists, or whatever else someone comes up with if it meant I could communicate with my family and friends effectively. As it stands, 100-200 spam messages are jamming the transmission.
Is e-mail address portability. So that if your mail provider gets shut down for allowing spamming, you can transfer to another with minimal disruption
Rich
Depending on some signing authority to end spam is stupid. Spammers will just buy keys like they buy disposable AOL accounts unless the price is high enough to be a burden on small sites.
Expecting laws to stop people who already make hiding their true identity and crossing as many jurisdictions as possible because they are usually selling ILLEGAL products is insane.
In the end there is only ONE solution. It is the use of encryption/signing, but not the way most people think of using it. Mail User Agents need the following fixes, made so that the average AOL/Outlook user can handle it. By default they only accept mail from people already in the address book. All mail is sent GPG/PGP signed, with the public key attached and the clients grab keys automatically.
When an mail arrives from someone that isn't in the address book it sends them a challenge that only a human can answer (more on this below). If that test passes it allows the original message through and sticks the public key in the addressbook. If the message was not signed it stores the address of the SMTP server it came from as a backwards compatible fallback. The end result is that legit senders only get challenged once if their client signs, otherwise they get challenged once each time they send from a different server. Spammers have to have a human involved for each spam for each user which kills the attraction of the practice.
Now, about those challenge methods that only a human can solve. Make that a plugin architecture. Have modules that send a multiple choice question or two, some that send text as a graphic in some whacked way, etc. Allow people to express their personality through their choice of verification method.
This suggestion would kill spam dead, put only a minimal burden on legit traffic and require no laws or centralization of the Internet. Which is why Outlook will never implement it and therefore the problem will continue to fester.... until enough people become willing to trade liberty for what? In this case, mere convenience.
Democrat delenda est
This COULD work...
I think some people are forgetting an important aspect of the MTA/PCA issue:
What's to stop people from becoming their *own* "trusted authority"?
I mean, why rely on someone ELSE -- some big ISP or "Certificate Authority" (Verisign, etc) -- to ultimately say who is trustworthy TO YOU and who isn't? Why not rely on YOURSELF? (or your trusted friends?)
From my reading of the paper *anyone* could ultimately become an "authority", determining who is and who is not allowed to send email to a given person (with the "given person" in this case being oneself).
Thus I can envision a sort of "peer-to-peer" email delivery network arising from this idea wherein everyone, over time, builds their own database of "trusted sources" that would be allowed to send them email (or rather, whose email a person would be willing to accept email FROM). A private "white list" if you will.
With this approach we each only accept email from individuals/organizations that WE OURSELVES trust, -or-, optionally (on an individual by individual basis), who are trusted by others whose judgement we ourselves trust.
The email delivery "network" would thus reduce to everyone/anyone participating in the delivery/authentication of email, ala the old "circle of friends" approach.
You want to send me email? Fine. Then you need to either be someone I personally know (and thus someone I myself trust; i.e. a friend) or else someone who knows someone I trust (i.e. a "friend of one of my friends"). If you're not one of those types of people, then I'm not interested in receiving your email. Full stop.
Each person could configure their own levels of trust (i.e. how far removed from their own close circle of friends someone could be and still be allowed to send you email).
The spammers would end up quickly developing their own "circle of friends", sending and delivering their spam amongst themselves (and/or amongst demented individuals who liked receiving such junk) whereas the rest of us sane individuals would end up developing our own separate "trusted circle of friends" who would automatically reject any email from people they didn't trust (i.e. the spammers).
A "trusted" peer-to-peer email delivery network.
It COULD work.
Couldn't it?
Or am I missing something here??
"Fish" (David B. Trout)
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