Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft, Yahoo Investigate Spam Solution
bllfrnch writes "The NY Times (account required, yada yada) has an article about the suggestion of email postage to stop the advent of spam. Apparently, both Microsoft and Yahoo! support such an initiative, as they are the largest email service providers. Best quote: ''Damn if I will pay postage for my nice list,' said David Farber, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who runs a mailing list on technology and policy with 30,000 recipients'."
Paying for postage already exists, it's called a fax.
This is the worst solution ever and the only reason that MS/Yahoo support it is because of Hotmail/YahooMail. They stand to make huge profits because they host the inboxes of millions of users. Every email received at those accounts would invoice the sender. It's a no brainer for BARRELS OF CASH !!! (tm)
In fact, there already was a good solution proposed a few weeks ago, by microsoft no less. Combine it with Spam Assassin the way Spam Interceptor does (replacing the C/R component) and the solution is plausible.
Story also posted on C-Net (no account required, yada yada).
What hapened to Yahoo's (as yet unveiled) scheme-to-end-all-schemes for authenticating mail? IMHO, I think that SPF:Sender will make great strides towards combatting spam, combined with new laws that make spoofing illegal. And AOL is backing it, so I think there is a good chance for success, as they are both one of the largest sources of e-mail as well as one of the most commonly spoofed domains.
It's a ridiculous concept really, the reasons email has become successful to begin with is that it's fast and free. If you charge for email, people will just move over to instant messengers or other systems. And how do you enforce charging people who you may or may not be able to track, the proposal to charge for spam based on the reciever's choice is absolutely ridiculous.
Would this really help?
How come stamps can't stop all the spam I get through snail mail? Please, make those AOL disks stop!
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
What is wrong with migrating to a replacement for SMTP? What is wrong with developing better challenge/response systems?
...
If email gets a postage fee applied to it, people will stop using it. If I have to pay to send mail to someone at yahoo or hotmail, I would tell that person to get a different email address. No one is going to use email if it has a mandatory fee attached to it. Then again, maybe that's what needs to happen to give people a reason to stop using SMTP
Wasn't one of the hallmarks of a doomed .com company the fact that they tried to get people to pay for something they usually got for free?
Just spitballin' here..
Joe
Why can't MX records become required to list all in AND out going official SMTP for a domain. From then on, SMTP servers could reject non matching MXed sender IPs and if spam does get through - you know you to blame.
That's naive. You know Ralsky and the like use open relays around the world. He's even contracted some in China. You might tighten a net at best, but eventually you come back to the problem of trying to bill non-USA service providers. Lotsa luck. At best you encourage them to clean up their open relays and implement some decent security, lest their IP traffic be blocked at the border. But this should already be happening. Start locking these things out and they'll get around to fixing things pronto.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Or if we just convinced the RIAA that spam was affecting their music sales
;-)
hummm, I think your on to something here.
how 'bout a peer to peer system that uses open relays. Pit the RIAA against the spammers and let them fight it out!
Thats a fight that I would like to watch!
(Apologies to those who have seen this before.)
Your company advocates a
(x) technical ( ) legislative (x) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
(x) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(x) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(x) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
(x) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(x) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
(x) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
(x) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
(x) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
(x) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
(x) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Microsoft
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with Yahoo
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
(x) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
(x) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
(x) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(x) Sending email should be free
(x) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid company for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!