"I like the very short comment that it would have to be based on Open Standards. Yeah, right. Microsoft? Don't make me laugh! I would rather trust the Government than Microsoft."
This does not negate the fact that it is a very interesting concept, no matter who is publishing these papers.
"But it's still mostly free to send spam. With the CPU doing all the work and the email getting delivered eventually, it really won't stop spam getting delivered. Just increase the cost a little bit, if any."
From millions of spam messages a day to 8000 max? I'd say that is quite a restriction.
"And how would it affect the spammers who send email through virus infected zombie computers? The spammer could unload their spam onto the 150,000 zombied computers that they own and let them manage the 8,000 emails per day, giving them an effective throughput of still well over millions per day."
What makes you think the spammers aren't already using these zombie computers for all they are worth even today? It wouldn't make sense for them to hold off with the mails. So the zombie computers would be limited too, and not only that, the owner of the system might notice that something is very wrong and have it fixed.
If you had read other comments before posting, you would have seen that this is a non-issue. If these people asked to receive those mails, they will have you in their whitelists anyway.
You raise one valid point, and that is wide adoption of the system. It would be very difficult, but if all the major e-mail providers, such as Hotmail, Yahoo, Outblaze and more choose to implement this and at the same time send out information to their customers, if only in the form of an "authentication proxy" to install on your PC until your e-mail client supports, it might be doable. This would of course be open-source, and so on.
Another issue is webmail providers - how do they move the computing over from their servers to you? JavaScript?
Regarding mailing lists, it is not really an issue. Mailing lists would of course require you to add them to your whitelist when confirming your subscription. Most mailing lists today require you to confirm your subscription, remember. Actual list mailings wouldn't do the computation at all.
It doesn't necessarily have to take 100% CPU, but if you are a spammer and do use 100% CPU, then it would cost this-and-that in CPU time, and you will be able to send out a max of N e-mails, and so on.
Basically, most mailing lists require you to confirm your subscription, and doing so, you would add it to your whitelist. So regular list mailings would never be required to do the computation. Only the confirmation e-mail.
Did you even read the story? The sender does the computation, not you. So you wouldn't waste any CPU, and you wouldn't receive that 170 KB spam. The point is that the spam will never reach you unless the sender does the computation which takes 10 seconds.
You are posting about something which has been addressed already. Others have asked about the exact same thing, and here are the solutions:
1. Mailing lists: Today, you have to confirm your membership to most mailing lists. With this new system, you have to do so by adding it to your whitelist. Once you are subscribed, you have it whitelisted, and the mailing list server won't have to do the computation at all.
2. Slower processors: It doesn't depend on the clock speed, but on other things that are not related to that at all. Read other comments about this.
As long as spammers don't have to pay for sending mail, they will continue spamming. Spammers don't care about laws or rules or being a good Netizen. They care about money. So if you make it more expensive to do spam, fewer spammers will be bothered to actually send it.
So:
To make spammers stop sending spam, you have to make them pay for sending spam.
It's the only way. Money talks.
And regarding your comment about Microsoft products, that is pure nonsense. This system would have to be widely adopted, not only by Microsoft, but also by everyone else. So whether Microsoft is doing this or not is not the issue. Whoever modded your post insightful must be having a bad day, because it was pure drivel.
If those people asked to receive that mail from you, you would ask them to add you to the whitelist to receive future mailings when you got their address. If they never asked to receive those mails from your company, you shouldn't be e-mailing them in the first place.
It's the same with mailing lists. When you sign up for a mailing list, you are told that you have to whitelist it to receive mail from it.
Seriously, this is a non-issue. If you are mailing someone who wants to receive your mail, you shouldn't have any problems.
This doesn't have to be a big problem for mailing lists.
You know how mailing lists require you to confirm your membership? Well, this confirmation mail would have you add the mailing list to your whitelist. As a result, future mailings on that list would be let through without having to do the computation.
The mailing list could simply refuse to deliver mail if you ask it to do the computation, or it might give you a one time warning that you have to add it to the whitelist, or similar.
But all it takes is to add the mailing list to your whitelist once, and it won't be a problem anymore.
With that said, spammers could start pretending to be mail from various mailing lists. I am not sure how big a problem this would be, but it would definitely make an impact on spammers if they couldn't just spew out millions of e-mails to random people in a short period of time. They would have to either go through the computations, or figure out which mailing lists you are a member of and use it to spam you, and so on. But this sounds like it would take too much time anyway, so the spammer would hopefully just give up. And if they did start spoofing mailing lists, then I'm sure there would be ways to prevent that as well. Most mailing lists don't accept mail from people who aren't subscribed, right?
The reason spam "works" is that you can just press a button and the rest happens automatically. If the spammer has to start doing manual labor, my guess is he'll be looking for something else to do. (Such as taking a swim off the deep end wearing concrete shoes, I hope...)
Has anyone had a look at what kind of e-mail software these scammers use? If you get a reply and check the headers, perhaps you would find that they use an old version of Outlook Express or similar?
Now, it might be illegal, but it might also be interesting to exploit security holes in OE to gain access to their computer!
Actually, you might not even need to exploit holes - if you are able to make them run an executable attachment with some kind of backdoor program you could use.
Wouldn't it be rather nice to get full access to their PC, or maybe even their entire network! Imagine the evidence you could gather. I'm sure it could be of use to someone:)
During discovery, the gun manufacturer produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people shot by its guns between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved head wounds substantially similar to Kennedy's. This history documented the gun manufacturer's knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard....
The gun manufacturer also argued that consumers know bullets kill and that its customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were unaware that they could kill or wound themselves with careless handling of the gun and that a statement on the gun was not a "warning" but a "reminder" since the location of the writing would not warn customers of the hazard.
But being funny makes you friends, and they might see a not-so-insightful post from you when they have mod points and think "hey, there's that funny guy again... I'll have to mod him up cuz he is probably saying something very funny or very clever".
I can see how you see the irony in being a lowly store clerk if that person used to be rich and you wouldn't expect him to be working there in the first place.
But when you put him down just because he's got that job, you are putting down his colleagues as well. What's so bad about working behind a counter? Is there a particular reason why working with computers is better than working with your hands or being an expert at motor parts?
I have a steady job in a successful computer company, but I don't have an illusion that my job somehow makes me superior to store clerks or even the guy who picks up my garbage. If this guy really worked with auto parts, maybe he is really good at working with cars? And have you any idea how much money these people make? Same with the garbage guy... They make shitloads of money. Far more than me!
You should have learned from your school years before putting down someone because of their job. You are putting someone else down because they have different interests than you. Just what happened to you.
Seeing as you are making sweeping and generalizing statements and are still using the "downloading music is stealing" argument, I see no point in even responding to that...
First of all, it is interesting that you talk about "Slashdot Hive", as in a "common consciousness", when Slashdot posters are very diverse, and you will see a lot of freaks here with different opinions.
You are one of the people who support the establishment and accept what is being told to you. You refer to the downloading of music as "stealing from the artists", which is something most people will learn from RIAA propaganda, and not question it. Hive mind indeed. If you were so independently-minded as you would like to think, you wouldn't be spreading RIAA lies like that.
Downloading music is not stealing. Stealing is to take away something from the rightful owner. When you download something, the owner still has his copy fully intact.
You also completely fail to see what the parent is saying, and instead you go on an all-out attack without considering different tastes. You also assume that he thinks all artists suck, which you have no reason to.
What the grandparent post is mentioning is that the recording industry is pushing out large amounts of crap music to the masses. It is also leeching off artists with contracts that leave artists with very little money for their work.
You are also forgetting the fact that the industry finds it rather convenient to push mainstream music on albums. These albums may have a couple of decent tracks, but then there are plenty of fillers that are just crap. But the industry still wants you to buy the full album. And maybe the artist too.
"Downloading must be bad, and buying good, right? Well, no, don't buy because the artists suck and the RIAA takes most of the money anyway. RIAA sucks, fight the power, download songs!!"
Sure. I can go along with that line of thought. If everyone downloads songs instead of buying them, the industry will hurt. It might hurt the arists as well, but they can make money by doing concerts and selling merchandise. So yeah, I can see that working. Refuse to buy music you like and download it instead. Also, remember to distribute it to as many non-geek people you know as well. That might contribute to giving the industry financial problems. The artists, on the other hand, can make money with concerts and merchandise, as mentioned.
"Which songs do you download? The ones you like? But I thought the artists sucked?"
If artists are forced to play concerts to make money, the artists that are good will survive, but the ones that suck will disappear, because people won't go to their concerts.
That doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.
But I'm not sure you would understand that. After all, you are only spewing out what the RIAA has programmed you to. The RIAA approved opinion, so to speak.
Half-Life was a heavily modified/rewritten combination of Quake 1 and Quake 2. Leaving HL out of the article was indeed a glaring omission.
Re:Yay! For once, HL & Counterstrike not menti
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NYT on Game Mods
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· Score: 1
They don't have to talk exclusively about HL and CS, but these are very important if you are first going to write an article on mods. The entire article doesn't have to be about them, but leaving them out shows that you haven't done enough research.
I don't think they owe anything to us. After all, they spent development time on making Half-Life mod friendly, and they have actively supported the mod community with tips and help, and have responded to its needs.
We, on the other hand, owe Valve a big thank you for making a mod friendly game, and for supporting it for so long, thereby allowing us to play quality mods for free. And we owe the mod makers big thanks for taking the time to create cool mods.
One which should be mentioned more often, by the way, is Natural Selection.
Half-Life = Quake 1 + Quake 2 and then some
on
NYT on Game Mods
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· Score: 1
Isn't it actually based on both the Quake 1 and Quake 2 engines? Yes, it was heavily modified of course, but I think it combined Quake 1 and Quake 2 as well.
Slashdot Mirror
This does not negate the fact that it is a very interesting concept, no matter who is publishing these papers.
"But it's still mostly free to send spam. With the CPU doing all the work and the email getting delivered eventually, it really won't stop spam getting delivered. Just increase the cost a little bit, if any."
From millions of spam messages a day to 8000 max? I'd say that is quite a restriction.
"And how would it affect the spammers who send email through virus infected zombie computers? The spammer could unload their spam onto the 150,000 zombied computers that they own and let them manage the 8,000 emails per day, giving them an effective throughput of still well over millions per day."
What makes you think the spammers aren't already using these zombie computers for all they are worth even today? It wouldn't make sense for them to hold off with the mails. So the zombie computers would be limited too, and not only that, the owner of the system might notice that something is very wrong and have it fixed.
If you had read other comments before posting, you would have seen that this is a non-issue. If these people asked to receive those mails, they will have you in their whitelists anyway.
Another issue is webmail providers - how do they move the computing over from their servers to you? JavaScript?
Regarding mailing lists, it is not really an issue. Mailing lists would of course require you to add them to your whitelist when confirming your subscription. Most mailing lists today require you to confirm your subscription, remember. Actual list mailings wouldn't do the computation at all.
It doesn't necessarily have to take 100% CPU, but if you are a spammer and do use 100% CPU, then it would cost this-and-that in CPU time, and you will be able to send out a max of N e-mails, and so on.
Why mod up things that have been addressed several times already? This does not have to be a problem for mailing lists at all!
Basically, most mailing lists require you to confirm your subscription, and doing so, you would add it to your whitelist. So regular list mailings would never be required to do the computation. Only the confirmation e-mail.
Did you even read the story? The sender does the computation, not you. So you wouldn't waste any CPU, and you wouldn't receive that 170 KB spam. The point is that the spam will never reach you unless the sender does the computation which takes 10 seconds.
1. Mailing lists: Today, you have to confirm your membership to most mailing lists. With this new system, you have to do so by adding it to your whitelist. Once you are subscribed, you have it whitelisted, and the mailing list server won't have to do the computation at all.
2. Slower processors: It doesn't depend on the clock speed, but on other things that are not related to that at all. Read other comments about this.
As long as spammers don't have to pay for sending mail, they will continue spamming. Spammers don't care about laws or rules or being a good Netizen. They care about money. So if you make it more expensive to do spam, fewer spammers will be bothered to actually send it.
So:
To make spammers stop sending spam, you have to make them pay for sending spam.
It's the only way. Money talks.
And regarding your comment about Microsoft products, that is pure nonsense. This system would have to be widely adopted, not only by Microsoft, but also by everyone else. So whether Microsoft is doing this or not is not the issue. Whoever modded your post insightful must be having a bad day, because it was pure drivel.
It's the same with mailing lists. When you sign up for a mailing list, you are told that you have to whitelist it to receive mail from it.
Seriously, this is a non-issue. If you are mailing someone who wants to receive your mail, you shouldn't have any problems.
You know how mailing lists require you to confirm your membership? Well, this confirmation mail would have you add the mailing list to your whitelist. As a result, future mailings on that list would be let through without having to do the computation.
The mailing list could simply refuse to deliver mail if you ask it to do the computation, or it might give you a one time warning that you have to add it to the whitelist, or similar.
But all it takes is to add the mailing list to your whitelist once, and it won't be a problem anymore.
With that said, spammers could start pretending to be mail from various mailing lists. I am not sure how big a problem this would be, but it would definitely make an impact on spammers if they couldn't just spew out millions of e-mails to random people in a short period of time. They would have to either go through the computations, or figure out which mailing lists you are a member of and use it to spam you, and so on. But this sounds like it would take too much time anyway, so the spammer would hopefully just give up. And if they did start spoofing mailing lists, then I'm sure there would be ways to prevent that as well. Most mailing lists don't accept mail from people who aren't subscribed, right?
The reason spam "works" is that you can just press a button and the rest happens automatically. If the spammer has to start doing manual labor, my guess is he'll be looking for something else to do. (Such as taking a swim off the deep end wearing concrete shoes, I hope...)
Now, it might be illegal, but it might also be interesting to exploit security holes in OE to gain access to their computer!
Actually, you might not even need to exploit holes - if you are able to make them run an executable attachment with some kind of backdoor program you could use.
Wouldn't it be rather nice to get full access to their PC, or maybe even their entire network! Imagine the evidence you could gather. I'm sure it could be of use to someone :)
The gun manufacturer also argued that consumers know bullets kill and that its customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were unaware that they could kill or wound themselves with careless handling of the gun and that a statement on the gun was not a "warning" but a "reminder" since the location of the writing would not warn customers of the hazard.
But being funny makes you friends, and they might see a not-so-insightful post from you when they have mod points and think "hey, there's that funny guy again... I'll have to mod him up cuz he is probably saying something very funny or very clever".
I can see how you see the irony in being a lowly store clerk if that person used to be rich and you wouldn't expect him to be working there in the first place.
But when you put him down just because he's got that job, you are putting down his colleagues as well. What's so bad about working behind a counter? Is there a particular reason why working with computers is better than working with your hands or being an expert at motor parts?
I have a steady job in a successful computer company, but I don't have an illusion that my job somehow makes me superior to store clerks or even the guy who picks up my garbage. If this guy really worked with auto parts, maybe he is really good at working with cars? And have you any idea how much money these people make? Same with the garbage guy... They make shitloads of money. Far more than me!
You should have learned from your school years before putting down someone because of their job. You are putting someone else down because they have different interests than you. Just what happened to you.
If that happens, we'll just have to make sure some spammers "disappear" or are murdered.
You do realize that not all e-mail clients read HTML, and most e-mail clients these days block remote images by default, right?
If the article was indeed printed in a magazine, maybe this guy just did a sloppy job transferring it to his PC?
And maybe someone can confirm if the original article was as sloppy.
Seeing as you are making sweeping and generalizing statements and are still using the "downloading music is stealing" argument, I see no point in even responding to that...
How exactly is the ed2k network better?
You are one of the people who support the establishment and accept what is being told to you. You refer to the downloading of music as "stealing from the artists", which is something most people will learn from RIAA propaganda, and not question it. Hive mind indeed. If you were so independently-minded as you would like to think, you wouldn't be spreading RIAA lies like that.
Downloading music is not stealing. Stealing is to take away something from the rightful owner. When you download something, the owner still has his copy fully intact.
You also completely fail to see what the parent is saying, and instead you go on an all-out attack without considering different tastes. You also assume that he thinks all artists suck, which you have no reason to.
What the grandparent post is mentioning is that the recording industry is pushing out large amounts of crap music to the masses. It is also leeching off artists with contracts that leave artists with very little money for their work.
You are also forgetting the fact that the industry finds it rather convenient to push mainstream music on albums. These albums may have a couple of decent tracks, but then there are plenty of fillers that are just crap. But the industry still wants you to buy the full album. And maybe the artist too.
Sure. I can go along with that line of thought. If everyone downloads songs instead of buying them, the industry will hurt. It might hurt the arists as well, but they can make money by doing concerts and selling merchandise. So yeah, I can see that working. Refuse to buy music you like and download it instead. Also, remember to distribute it to as many non-geek people you know as well. That might contribute to giving the industry financial problems. The artists, on the other hand, can make money with concerts and merchandise, as mentioned. If artists are forced to play concerts to make money, the artists that are good will survive, but the ones that suck will disappear, because people won't go to their concerts.That doesn't sound like a bad thing to me.
But I'm not sure you would understand that. After all, you are only spewing out what the RIAA has programmed you to. The RIAA approved opinion, so to speak.
Half-Life was a heavily modified/rewritten combination of Quake 1 and Quake 2. Leaving HL out of the article was indeed a glaring omission.
They don't have to talk exclusively about HL and CS, but these are very important if you are first going to write an article on mods. The entire article doesn't have to be about them, but leaving them out shows that you haven't done enough research.
We, on the other hand, owe Valve a big thank you for making a mod friendly game, and for supporting it for so long, thereby allowing us to play quality mods for free. And we owe the mod makers big thanks for taking the time to create cool mods.
One which should be mentioned more often, by the way, is Natural Selection.
So no, Half-Life is definitely no mod.