How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

Eric Murray ericm at lne.com
Wed Feb 16 07:52:28 PST 2005


On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 03:29:21PM +0000, Ian G wrote:
> Peter Gutmann wrote:
> 
> >Barry Shein <bzs at world.std.com> writes:
> >>Eventually email will just collapse (as it's doing) and the RBOCs et al will
> >>inherit it and we'll all be paying 15c per message like their SMS services.
> >
> >And the spammers will be using everyone else's PC's to send out their spam, so
> >the spam problem will still be as bad as ever but now Joe Sixpack will be
> >paying to send it.
> >
> >Hmmm, and maybe *that* will finally motivate software companies, end users,
> >ISPs, etc etc, to fix up software, systems, and usage habits to prevent this.
> >  
> 
> My view - as controversial as ever - is that the problem
> is unfixable, and mail will eventually fade away.  That
> which will take its place is p2p / IM / chat / SMS based.
> In that world, it is still reasonable to build ones own IM
> system for the needs of ones own community, and not
> to have to worry about standards.  Which means one can
> build in the defences that are needed, when they are
> needed.

Better start on those defenses now then-
there is already significant amounts of IM and SMS spam.

I would be suprised if the people designing IM and SMS systems
have learned much from the failures of SMTP et al.  


Eric





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