There are two types of "conspiracy": the "active"conspiracy of the smokey room involving Them and the "passive" conspiracy of unstated mutual interest and personal convenience. Active conspiracies are actually very difficult to establish and maintain whereas passive conspiracies can be quite pervasive - global warming, for example, is a passive conspiracy by all of us.
Coincidentally, there have been numerous improvements to fuel efficiency of internal combustion engines most of which rarely see the light of day. One that is currently struggling is hydrogen enrichment of diesel engines. But change requires attention that extends beyond current quarterly results and it is a brave CEO who'll fund development of anything that challenges the existing business model or paradigm. Remember that there are very few individual capitalists any more. In large corporations all CEOs are employees and ultimately want what all employees want - good pay, good superannuation, good leave conditions, and a peaceful life.
So I can understand your Deep Suspicions, but inertia is very powerful.
You are a god. I worship at your shrine. Well, I would if you had one.
Seriously, it seems you are one of the few people who have actually ~thought~ about the underlying epistemology of anti-spam efforts. I really like your tick-box approach to dealing with anti-spam "armchair enthusiasts". They mean well but haven't thought it through more than one or two steps.
Spam inflates the cost of communicating - personal hardware, network bandwidth, storage, security measures ad nauseum. So whether "spam filters can cope" is true or not misses the point: Spam is only one aspect of system "noise" that should (and can be) eliminated.
Four years ago my company and some clever guys solved the spam problem by solving the "noise" problem ~~and no-one wanted to know~~ Why? Spam makes money. Lots of money. Carriers charge for it. Service providers charge for it. There's an army of people Protecting You From It, and another industry of pundits and consultants Telling You About It. And now there are stock brokers who also make money out it due to extra trading activity.
We couldn't raise money for our spam cure because investors would always refer to the guys who make a living from spam - directly or indirectly. And they'd always say "impossible" / "risky" / "temporary fix" / etc almost always without even knowing what we had.
It's like the giant machine of the governments-police-courts-insurance companies-news media and the rest in whose interest it is NOT to have a real reduction of crime (more accurately, a real reduction in the conditions leading to crime). So we always focus on mitigating the effects of crime rather than dealing with the causes.
So too spam. I wonder how many other people have solved this or that only to find that the problem is fully institutionalised?
Slashdot Mirror
There are two types of "conspiracy": the "active"conspiracy of the smokey room involving Them and the "passive" conspiracy of unstated mutual interest and personal convenience. Active conspiracies are actually very difficult to establish and maintain whereas passive conspiracies can be quite pervasive - global warming, for example, is a passive conspiracy by all of us.
Coincidentally, there have been numerous improvements to fuel efficiency of internal combustion engines most of which rarely see the light of day. One that is currently struggling is hydrogen enrichment of diesel engines. But change requires attention that extends beyond current quarterly results and it is a brave CEO who'll fund development of anything that challenges the existing business model or paradigm. Remember that there are very few individual capitalists any more. In large corporations all CEOs are employees and ultimately want what all employees want - good pay, good superannuation, good leave conditions, and a peaceful life.
So I can understand your Deep Suspicions, but inertia is very powerful.
You are a god. I worship at your shrine. Well, I would if you had one.
:-)
Seriously, it seems you are one of the few people who have actually ~thought~ about the underlying epistemology of anti-spam efforts. I really like your tick-box approach to dealing with anti-spam "armchair enthusiasts". They mean well but haven't thought it through more than one or two steps.
So, More Strength to Your Arm!
Spam inflates the cost of communicating - personal hardware, network bandwidth, storage, security measures ad nauseum. So whether "spam filters can cope" is true or not misses the point: Spam is only one aspect of system "noise" that should (and can be) eliminated.
Four years ago my company and some clever guys solved the spam problem by solving the "noise" problem ~~and no-one wanted to know~~ Why? Spam makes money. Lots of money. Carriers charge for it. Service providers charge for it. There's an army of people Protecting You From It, and another industry of pundits and consultants Telling You About It. And now there are stock brokers who also make money out it due to extra trading activity.
We couldn't raise money for our spam cure because investors would always refer to the guys who make a living from spam - directly or indirectly. And they'd always say "impossible" / "risky" / "temporary fix" / etc almost always without even knowing what we had.
It's like the giant machine of the governments-police-courts-insurance companies-news media and the rest in whose interest it is NOT to have a real reduction of crime (more accurately, a real reduction in the conditions leading to crime). So we always focus on mitigating the effects of crime rather than dealing with the causes.
So too spam. I wonder how many other people have solved this or that only to find that the problem is fully institutionalised?