with all of these solutions to spam..and all of the spam now flooding mail servers...
isn't it time to change the specification (RFC) and possibly the manner in which our current system works? i haven't come up with anything yet, but surely there must be some sort of handshaking/secure type connection that could be used - - some sort of postage (free) that is encrypted into the mail, that states that it is genuine....kind of like the hologram on those windows cds...
The best idea I've seen in YEARS was to have people start using a specific, original poem as their signatures. Then, the author granted license to anyone who WASN'T sending spam. Therefore, they could sue any spammer for copyright infringement if they used it, and you could train your mail filter to look for the signature. Once spamassassin took it up, it pretty much snowballed.
See story here [wired.com]
The best idea I've seen in YEARS was to have people start using a specific, original poem as their signatures. Then, the author granted license to anyone who WASN'T sending spam. Therefore, they could sue any spammer for copyright infringement if they used it, and you could train your mail filter to look for the signature. Once spamassassin took it up, it pretty much snowballed. See story here
Yeah, but how do you find the spammer who filched your poem? If you could find them to begin with, you could jus
Isn't it easier to exchange pub-keys with your friends and use good-old e-signature methods? What could be simpler? Just read only that email that is signed by a trusted key. All unsigned emailk - delete them! And if you've got email with untrusted-yet key - send (not by you - by your script) the challenge message back - if it's not a robot the person will answer and most likely you want to read it. If it was a bill from your vendor or your bank or it's from a dev mail-list - you still can tune your filteri
White list based on From/Return fields is not safe - it's too easy to change From/Return fields. E-signature is the only safe way for identification. Thus the whitelist must be based on fingerprints (read: public keys). That's exactly what I am proposing.
While it may be easy to change the from/return fields, spammers can't use that power. In order to bypass a whitelist, they'd need to know what addresses were on the whitelist. Then they could send "from" that address.
I agree that a from address isn't proof of identity. It would be great if we could make PGP the default email format of the world. But that's a separate issue. We don't need proof of identity for a whitelist, just proof that the sender knows what email addresses are accepted by you.
Oh, right, the threat of litigation will stop the spam. Right. Let me guess, the spammers will suddenly be scared of litigation, so they will stop sending spam? I bet they'll instantly stop downloading songs off kazaa, too...
-ben
"Well hello there Charlie Brown, you blockhead."
-- Lucy Van Pelt
spam.....hrmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
isn't it time to change the specification (RFC) and possibly the manner in which our current system works? i haven't come up with anything yet, but surely there must be some sort of handshaking/secure type connection that could be used - - some sort of postage (free) that is encrypted into the mail, that states that it is genuine....kind of like the hologram on those windows cds...
i dunno. file this story under redundan
How about Habeas' haiku method? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How about Habeas' haiku method? (Score:2)
Re:How about Habeas' haiku method? (Score:2)
Yeah, but how do you find the spammer who filched your poem? If you could find them to begin with, you could jus
Re:How about Habeas' haiku method? (Score:2)
That's always tricky, but conceivable. And right now you CAN't sue them unless you live in a very forward-thinking locality that allows such.
Re:How about Habeas' haiku method? (Score:2)
Re:How about Habeas' haiku method? (Score:2)
Re:How about Habeas' haiku method? (Score:2)
Re:How about Habeas' haiku method? (Score:2)
I agree that a from address isn't proof of identity. It would be great if we could make PGP the default email format of the world. But that's a separate issue. We don't need proof of identity for a whitelist, just proof that the sender knows what email addresses are accepted by you.
Also,
Re:How about Habeas' haiku method? (Score:1)
-ben