spam control again

[Seth Gordon]

D. J. Bernstein has proposed a new email protocol
(http://cr.yp.to/im2000.html) in which every email message is stored on
the *sender's* machine (or the sender's ISP's machine) until the
receiver confirms that it has downloaded the message.

I don't know anything else about this protocol -- maybe Bernstein and
the other folks on the IM2000 are still arguing over details -- but it
seems to me that setting up some kind of new email system along these
lines would make it significantly easier to control spam.

With SMTP, a spammer needs to do is get control of an Internet
connection for *just long enough* to send a zillion messages, and then
evaporate.  With a "sender-stores" protocol, the spammer would have to
keep control of a server until all of the targets *download* the
message.  If one of those targets complains about the message, the
complainant's ISP doesn't need to wade through the "Received:" headers
to find the message's origin; there would be a single point on the Net,
the point where the message was stored, that would have to take
responsibility.

-- 
"I thoroughly disapprove of duels.  If a man should challenge me,
I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him
to a quiet place and kill him."  --Mark Twain
// seth gordon // sethg at ropine.com // http://ropine.com/sethg/cv.html //