One idea I have had for some time that I think would go along ways towards fixing the spam problem is to change the mail protocol so that only the header is sent to the recipient. The recipient's computer then downloads the message body from a URL (or similar) that is contained in the message header.
This means that:
a) There is an identifiable IP address that a message comes from that is accountable to somebody.
b) A user may simply "unsubscribe" from the mailing lists on their own computer. Once you are "unsubscribed" your mail program will simply not download any additional messages from that source. The user will never even know that they ever received the message. They could be spammed all day every day from that individual and they would never know.
c) If an ISP sees that they have 100,000 messages in their message queue that are waiting to be picked up, they can easily spot them as spam (if they are) and cancel them before the recipients ever see them.
d) It would be easy for the ISP to identify the spammers on their system due to the messages taking up space in the queue.
e) Because it is tied to an IP address, it would be easy to create black hole lists. In fact, you could even create user groups so if one person received a spam they could "cancel" the spam for the rest of their group and no mail from that IP address would be downloaded for N days. (IP addresses would automatically remove themselves from the black hole list over time just to ensure that legitimate mail does come through and given this, only one spam would be received before the IP is blackholed for say a day and the spam barrage is over.)
"John Lott is an economist that works for the University of Chicago Law School. As most professors do, he assigned research projects on various topics to his students on which they would write and he would give them a grade. However, a few years ago when states were just starting to legislate "shall issue" concealed carry laws, he assigned the topic of what the effect of concealed carry laws were on crime.
"His students not long after came back with research papers that cited extremely poor studies -- on both sides of the argument. Most studies didn't take obvious other influences into account. For example, they didn't take stricter punishments that were often implemented at the same time that concealed carry laws went into effect. Other studies were obviously highly biased from the onset and other studies sample size was so small (only a county or two), that the study was statistically unreliable.
"Because of the poor work that was done on the subject, Lott embarked on a large scale research project of his own on the subject. As I recall, he ended up doing an analysis of 1,600 counties or so -- by far the largest ever undertaken.
"Lott makes all his research data available to anyone (including you) for the asking so that others may examine his work and see if there were any flaws in his research or improve upon his work. (Is this open source research?)
"In short, what was found is that in counties where there are concealed carry laws :
"1) Violent crime goes down by 10%.
"2) Violent crime against women goes down 15%
"3) Non-violent crime goes up. (I.e., the criminals take your car when you are not in it rather than when you are.)
"One thing that bears mentioning here is that this is Dr. Lott's expectations were exactly the opposite. He went into the study expecting that the more firearms there were, the more associated crime he would find. He wasn't pro-gun or anti-gun at the time though he did expect to find that there would be a direct correlation on guns and crime. It is a credit to Lott that he shifted his position based on his research in an age where research is so often used to bolster ones already formed opinions.
"I have to admit that one of my favorite sections of the book is chapter five where he talks about the arguments that have been used against his research. One story that I found particularly interesting is as follows:
"When his book was first released, he watched on television when one of the top people from one of the anti-gun groups spent quite a bit of time talking about the flaws in his research and how inaccurate it was. When he arrived home, there was a panicy message on his answering machine from the same lady saying that she really needed a copy of his study really quick. He called her and offered to send her a copy. In the course of things he asked if she hadn't already seen his study since she spent so much time on television refuting it. She promptly hung up and he never heard from her again.
"All in all, More Guns, Less Crime is an exemplary book. It is well written, well researched and is probably the most seminal book on the subject.
"Since the book was published, Lott has spent a fair amount of his time lecturing at various law schools on his research and testifying before congress.
Slashdot Mirror
One idea I have had for some time that I think would go along ways towards fixing the spam problem is to change the mail protocol so that only the header is sent to the recipient. The recipient's computer then downloads the message body from a URL (or similar) that is contained in the message header.
This means that:
a) There is an identifiable IP address that a message comes from that is accountable to somebody.
b) A user may simply "unsubscribe" from the mailing lists on their own computer. Once you are "unsubscribed" your mail program will simply not download any additional messages from that source. The user will never even know that they ever received the message. They could be spammed all day every day from that individual and they would never know.
c) If an ISP sees that they have 100,000 messages in their message queue that are waiting to be picked up, they can easily spot them as spam (if they are) and cancel them before the recipients ever see them.
d) It would be easy for the ISP to identify the spammers on their system due to the messages taking up space in the queue.
e) Because it is tied to an IP address, it would be easy to create black hole lists. In fact, you could even create user groups so if one person received a spam they could "cancel" the spam for the rest of their group and no mail from that IP address would be downloaded for N days. (IP addresses would automatically remove themselves from the black hole list over time just to ensure that legitimate mail does come through and given this, only one spam would be received before the IP is blackholed for say a day and the spam barrage is over.)
-Art
More Guns, Less Crime by Professor John Lott. It is published by the University of Chicago.
Amazon Link Here. It seems to be in stock as well.
"Some explanation is in order about this book.
"John Lott is an economist that works for the University of Chicago Law School. As most professors do, he assigned research projects on various topics to his students on which they would write and he would give them a grade. However, a few years ago when states were just starting to legislate "shall issue" concealed carry laws, he assigned the topic of what the effect of concealed carry laws were on crime.
"His students not long after came back with research papers that cited extremely poor studies -- on both sides of the argument. Most studies didn't take obvious other influences into account. For example, they didn't take stricter punishments that were often implemented at the same time that concealed carry laws went into effect. Other studies were obviously highly biased from the onset and other studies sample size was so small (only a county or two), that the study was statistically unreliable.
"Because of the poor work that was done on the subject, Lott embarked on a large scale research project of his own on the subject. As I recall, he ended up doing an analysis of 1,600 counties or so -- by far the largest ever undertaken.
"Lott makes all his research data available to anyone (including you) for the asking so that others may examine his work and see if there were any flaws in his research or improve upon his work. (Is this open source research?)
"In short, what was found is that in counties where there are concealed carry laws :
"1) Violent crime goes down by 10%.
"2) Violent crime against women goes down 15%
"3) Non-violent crime goes up. (I.e., the criminals take your car when you are not in it rather than when you are.)
"One thing that bears mentioning here is that this is Dr. Lott's expectations were exactly the opposite. He went into the study expecting that the more firearms there were, the more associated crime he would find. He wasn't pro-gun or anti-gun at the time though he did expect to find that there would be a direct correlation on guns and crime. It is a credit to Lott that he shifted his position based on his research in an age where research is so often used to bolster ones already formed opinions.
"I have to admit that one of my favorite sections of the book is chapter five where he talks about the arguments that have been used against his research. One story that I found particularly interesting is as follows:
"When his book was first released, he watched on television when one of the top people from one of the anti-gun groups spent quite a bit of time talking about the flaws in his research and how inaccurate it was. When he arrived home, there was a panicy message on his answering machine from the same lady saying that she really needed a copy of his study really quick. He called her and offered to send her a copy. In the course of things he asked if she hadn't already seen his study since she spent so much time on television refuting it. She promptly hung up and he never heard from her again.
"All in all, More Guns, Less Crime is an exemplary book. It is well written, well researched and is probably the most seminal book on the subject.
"Since the book was published, Lott has spent a fair amount of his time lecturing at various law schools on his research and testifying before congress.
-Art