Hardening lists against spam attacks

[Timothy C. May]

At 1:04 PM -0800 12/31/96, Peter Hendrickson wrote:
>At 11:47 AM 12/31/1996, Lucky Green wrote:
>>At 10:25 AM 12/31/96 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote:
>>> The easiest and fastest solution is to set up toad.com to charge a
>>> dollar per message.  (Proceeds to be spent by John Gilmore as he
>>> sees fit.)
>
>>> We can then leverage off the existing e-cash infrastructure which
>>> already provides blinding software for free on all major platforms.
>
>> I am not sure that this proposal would work. Some of the spammers on this
>> list are rather dedicated. They might gladly pay a dollar per message.
>
>Let's try it and see how it goes.  If it doesn't work, we can try
>a more complicated scheme.  (I volunteer to modify Majordomo to
>make this happen.  We could have this feature in the near future.)

"Let's try it and see how it goes" is often a dangerous step. It could kill
the list as we know it; exactly what fraction of current subscribers do you
think will arrange for digital cash accounts, will arrange their mailing
software to use this, will bother with PGP, etc.?

Now maybe this is a Good Thing, to drive out the slackers and those without
good tools integrating PGP into their mailers, etc., but maybe it is not a
Good Thing .

It seems to me that one should not lightly just say "Let's try it and see
what happens!"

>I have seen a lot of complaints about "too much noise".  That is
>not a problem.  The problem is too little signal.  I can extract
>the signal - unless it isn't there.

My sentiments exactly. But I fail to see how collecting a dollar per post,
or whatever the fee is ultimately set at, increases the number of good
posts (not the percentage, the S/N, the _number_, which is what we both
agree is the important thing).

Explanation?

--Tim May


Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay at got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."