Anti-Spam Idea

[kentborg at borg.org (Kent Borg)]

Like most of us, I am sick of spam.  

Recently I have been tempted to install one of those programs that has
a white-list (that it lets through), a black-list (that it doesn't),
and holds everything else pending a response to a request for
confirmation.  It seems such a system makes it expensive to send
e-mail by requiring some human interaction on the part of each sender.

The problem is that I get some e-mail from machines that I do want to
see: I order something from Amazon and they send a confirmation, I
have a domain come up for renewal and the (sometimes even real)
registrar sends a reminder, etc.  I have worried that that stuff will
all get mucked up.

Then today I had an idea: what if I simply put all Asia-Pacific e-mail
through the white-list/black-list/confirm process?  Nearly all my spam
comes from APNIC addresses--and I don't want to block APNIC e-mail
entirely, but I do think forcing it to go through an extra step might
be good.  I get nearly no legit e-mail from Asia-Pacific, and can't
think of any sent by machines.

Sound good?  (Anyone using qmail and have an idea for how to set up
such a thing?)


Thanks,

-kb