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.mail Domain To Eliminate Spam?

steve.m writes "The BBC are reporting on a new batch of top level domain names being submitted to ICANN for approval. By far the most interesting proposal is for a .mail TLD to register legitimate mail servers. Could this eventually be the end of spam ?" *yawn* The same old discussion, with no implementation in sight.

7 of 472 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory spam solution rejection form by tcopeland · · Score: 5, Funny

    This article advocates a

    (x) technical ( ) legislative ( ) 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
    ( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
    ( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
    ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
    ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
    ( ) Users of email will not put up with it
    ( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
    ( ) The police will not put up with it
    ( ) 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
    ( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
    ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
    ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
    ( ) 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
    ( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
    ( ) Extreme profitability of spam
    (x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
    ( ) Technically illiterate politicians
    ( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
    (x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
    ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
    ( ) Outlook

    and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

    ( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been
    shown practical
    ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
    (x) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
    ( ) Blacklists suck
    (x) 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
    ( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
    ( ) Sending email should be free
    ( ) 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:

    (x) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
    ( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.

  2. maybe they should create .spam TLD by Numeric · · Score: 5, Funny

    that way email users are guaranteed that all spam will be filtered!

    --
    -- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
  3. Uses for the domains by brejc8 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Uses for the new domains: .asia - Asian pr0n companies .cat - Feline pr0n companies .jobs - Jobs in the pr0n companies .mail - Pr0n spam companies .mobi - Pr0n to your mobile companies .post - Pr0n through your post companies .tel - Sex chatline companies .travel - Sex tourism companies .xxx - Unknown

  4. This will work! by joeszilagyi · · Score: 4, Funny

    Since it's impossible and illegal to fake your domain name registration info, there is no way any .mail named mail server would be used for illicit purposes. Anyone mailing you from server.cheapest-viagra-online.mail.cn must clearly be a legitimate mail server of a pharmaceuticals corporation and should be whitelisted.

    --
    Dude, where's my packet?
  5. Re:no solution in sight by tanguyr · · Score: 5, Funny
    im sorry, folks, but the only thing that i see ever working is micropayments.
    • SPF
    • server side filtering
    • forced castration/neutering of people who buy spam promoted products


    it will take some time, but it will eventually work.
    --
    #!/usr/bin/english
  6. new .x by maxbang · · Score: 5, Funny

    how about a .stupid for ideas like this? maybe even a .pointlessdiscussions or .useless? i'll be the first to sign up for .stupid and .useless. You'll be able to find my blog on them.

    --
    I also reply below your current threshold.
  7. More useless TLDs for the ever so geeky geek by aardwolf204 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ohh! TLDs! Lets see how much useless crap we can come up with!:

    .spam - everything thats spam
    .sex - all those pr0n sites
    .troll - because you know they'll stay in their own domain
    .h4x - let them h4x0r to themselves
    .blog - now we can exclude these from searches!
    .trek - for everything except Enterprise NX-01
    .estaog - another great tld for your hosts file
    .net - just give it to M$'s marketing team already
    . - one step closer to having www./.


    Yay! More TLDs! Thats just what we need. I cant wait to exclude all these new TLDs from my Google searches just to find that there's nothing left on the net but www.BringBackThePorn.com

    Did I miss any?

    --
    Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the /.crowd.May ur days b merry & bright & may al