[Am-info] Gates forecasts victory over spam (Gates is right)

Tue, 27 Jan 2004 10:01:28 -0800

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Marcus de Geus wrote:<br>
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 cite="mid20040127.17.28.49.72.625@pandora.degeus.com">
  <pre wrap="">In response to a message sent 2004-01-27 17:00:02 UTC (Tue) by <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:am-info-request@lists.essential.org">&lt;am-info-request@lists.essential.org&gt;</a> about "Am-info digest, Vol 1 #1667 - 8 msgs":

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    <pre wrap="">From: Hans Reiser <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:reiser@namesys.com">&lt;reiser@namesys.com&gt;</a>

Well, these are real concerns, but the idea that you have to pay to send
email is a good one.
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  <pre wrap=""><!---->
Agreed, but not in this form, since it would involve a major rewrite of all existing mail software (which is what MS are banking on, of course). There are much better ways of doing this.

Regards,

Marcus de Geus
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</blockquote>
No there aren't.&nbsp; A major rewrite of all existing mail software is the
only way to provide a solution that works.&nbsp; Existing mail transfer
protocols are fundamentally broken in their security protocols.&nbsp; They
provide security by assuming that you won't need to scale mail beyond a
small number of people, and this assumption was sufficiently valid that
everything functioned reasonably up until recently.<br>
<br>
Broken software must be tossed and rewritten.&nbsp; You can do some really
complex things with webs of trust, or you can do payment at risk.&nbsp;
Payment at risk is far simpler, more robust, and even has a nice
feature that if your spam is important enough to you to send you can
spam.&nbsp; I have no problem with the republican national committee or
victoria's secrets spamming me if they pay 25 cents to do it.&nbsp; Of
course, I'd like to know that the money goes to somewhere useful, but
that is another topic....<br>
<br>
Hans<br>
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