Subject: [Asrg] Economic model is borken. (sic.) Let's fix it

From: "Shannon Jacobs" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 09:14:20 +0900

I'm surprised to see so little focus so far on the underlying cause of the
problem. The economic model of email is fundamentally broken, and that
CREATES the spam problem. "We have met the enemy, and they is us."

In simplest terms, email is NOT free, but because we pretend it is free,
from the spammers' perspective, they are simply dividing by zero. It doesn't
matter if they send out 100 million pieces of spam if they think their
"costs" are low enough. Any return, even a single sucker who sends them $5,
looks like an infinite return on the "investment" of zero. Of course, even
for the spammers the costs are not really zero, but it looks close enough to
them. Interesting combination of cunning and stupidity, neh? In reality they
are poisoning the well, but they fantasize about getting rich NOW. Ergo, the
spam.

Solution? Obvious. Alternate economic model. Why not use an extended header
line for postage-paid email? Anyone who routes their email address through
such an extended SMTP server will receive NO MORE SPAM. No ifs, ands, buts.
(Well, one it. The postage has to be securely encrypted, but that's a solved
problem.) Any email coming from that routing would be absolutely safe. You
would know that someone actually put their money in front of their mouth and
paid the postage. No effect on the rest of the email world, but the people
in that corner know they would get no spam.

P.S. This system would support natural extensions for legitimate
advertising, and I can actually see email service providers acting as
mediated advertisers. On the one side they would protect your privacy and
give you powerful control over the kind of advertising you want to see, even
including commissions for receiving it (as a legitimate and qualified
customer, but without actually revealing any personal information in
public). On the other side, they would be selling email access to those
customers.

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From: "Mark Delany" <[email-masked]>
Date: 5 Mar 2003 01:47:58 +0000

> such an extended SMTP server will receive NO MORE SPAM. No ifs, ands, buts.

Well... A lot less spam maybe. Many companies willing pay a US postage stamp
to send, eg, credit card offers. I get a couple a week. If these same companies
can select their target email addresses, I can't see why they wouldn't
be tempted to pay the postage-paid email fee (aka marketing cost) to spam me.

Sure, postage-paid email will destroy the business model of many spammers, but
not all spammers. Whether the reduced level is tolerable is a different
question.

Regards.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 21:09:28 -0500

On Wed, 5 Mar 2003 09:14:20 +0900
"Shannon Jacobs" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> problem. The economic model of email is fundamentally broken

Nope, that's not the cause of the problem.  That's trying to impose a model
that works in a world of tangible property, onto the world of interpersonal
communication.  Imposition of this model hasn't worked well in the case of
intellectural property laws, and it won't necessarily work well for
communications either.  You can argue that recipients' time is a scarce
resource that should be subjected to market forces, but this relies on several
false assumptions - in particular, that there is an ordering relation for the
value of communication, and that the value of such communications is fungible
with money.
 
> line for postage-paid email? 

Because one of the best things about email (much of the time) is that it does
not impose significant burdens on senders.

Which is not to say that raising the burden on senders, some of the time,
under some conditions, might not be useful.  But it's not *the* solution.

Keith

p.s. if you really believe that everything can be equated to money, try to set
a price for someone who wants to take up your time as you are breathing your
last...
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From: Brad Templeton <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 18:21:15 -0800

I was one of the first people to propose e-stamps for internet
mail.  I have since renounced the idea.

Fully detailed reasons are at:

    http://www.templetons.com/brad/spume/estamps.html

But in short:
    a) You can't get there from here, since you can't reject mail
       that is unstamped until lots of people use stamps and nobody
       will want to use stamps unless people are demanding them.

    b) CPU coins are better than money but still face problem (a)
    c) Putting an artifical cost on something that was designed to
       be cheap is a lousy answer.
    d) It has free speech implications.  (in both senses of the word.)
    e) Mailing lists are a problem.
    f) Major virus problem if you use real money

> CREATES the spam problem. "We have met the enemy, and they is us."

That e-mail is very efficient is a feature, not a bug.   I would be
loathe to give it up.   The "internet cost contract" -- namely I pay
for my end of the wire and you pay for your -- is what made the internet
great, let's not tear it down if we can avoid it.

Now I agree that the super-cheapness of bulk mail (some say that
the problem is that spam transfers cost from sender to recipient, but
the truth is it's super cheap for both of them, and spammers would still
spam if they had to pay the real cost of the whole transmission.)
is at the root cause of spam.   But it's a feature.  We want it for
our regular mailing lists.

---

From: "Shannon Jacobs" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 16:45:43 +0900

Trying to use my limited time efficiently, I'm going to consolidate my
comments on this topic. There were a number of thoughtful responses from
several people, but I'm not sure how to deal with them most efficiently...
I'd actually prefer to minimize the personal responses to focus on the
underlying issues...

One important aspect is that a good implementation of pre-paid email will be
a purely opt-in system. If lots of people choose to use it, so much the
better, because essentially they'll wind up bartering their email charges
amongst themselves. However, the fundamental difference is that the real
costs of email can and should be removed from the infrastructure and made
visible.

I think a few scenarios might clarify how a different economic model could
be used. There are various possibilities, but I'm still focusing on the
pre-paid email model because I think the implications can be most easily
understood.

Scenario one: Someone has had a forwardable public email address detected by
the spammer. Doesn't matter if it was hijacked by the Gibe virus or
harvested from a newsgroup or stolen from a mailing list. Once it has gotten
onto the spammers CDs, it will forever after be a target for their newest
spamming strategies. However, by forwarding the email address into a postage
pre-paid email system, all spam is gone. Poof. Any future email from that
address will be from someone who was willing to pay the postage. Simple. I
like simple. Many people like simple.

Scenario two: You write unpaid email to someone whose email address has been
harvested. You receive a bounce message. It apologizes for the spam-induced
nuisance, and asks you to try a different email address or buy postage, and
it gives you the URL to buy the postage. If all of your backup email
addresses also bounce, you'll just have to pay for the delivery and hope the
recipient will provide a new unspammed email address.

Scenario three: You are a spammer. Your unpaid email to ALL users of such
systems goes nowhere. As long as the postage encryption system remains
secure, there is no escape. Pay up or give up. Period. Even a spammer can
understand that. And they will hate it.

Now I'll address a few of the comments:

Keith Moore wrote:
>> I'm surprised to see so little focus so far on the underlying cause
>> of the problem. The economic model of email is fundamentally broken
>
> Nope, that's not the cause of the problem.  That's trying to impose a
> model that works in a world of tangible property, onto the world of
> interpersonal communication.  Imposition of this model hasn't worked
> well in the case of intellectual property laws, and it won't
> necessarily work well for communications either.  You can argue that
> recipients' time is a scarce resource that should be subjected to
> market forces, but this relies on several false assumptions - in
> particular, that there is an ordering relation for the value of
> communication, and that the value of such communications is fungible
> with money.

This is confusing value received with cost of service, though I certainly
agree that there are real problems with IP laws. Actually, both parties
SHOULD benefit from email communications, and the benefit should be
approximately equal. In a kinder and gentler Internet world, that theory
should justify hiding the costs. However, this is NOT the case with spam,
where the spammers want to receive ALL the benefit and deliberately try to
accept NONE of the costs.

The last part is just plain wrong. Different messages do have different
values, including different economic values. Legitimate businesses also want
to advertise, and they want to spend their advertising money effectively.
The value of spam is absolutely negative. It simply wastes my precious
time--OUR precious time multiplied by the millions and millions.

>        will want to use stamps unless people are demanding them.

Incorrect. Certain people could choose to reject unstamped email with
absolutely no effect on the rest of the email system. And there are
certainly people that you would pay to contact--you do that every time you
pick up the phone and make a long distance call.

>     b) CPU coins are better than money but still face problem (a)

I agree CPU coins are bad, but mostly because they irrationally and
unjustifiably penalize people with slow computers.

>     c) Putting an artificial cost on something that was designed to

There IS a cost to email, and that has nothing to do with designing it as
efficiently as possible. Nothing "artificial" about it. It uses resources,
and someone has to pay for those resources. Adding artificial costs is a
marketing question, but if the market is free (in a third sense of the word)
and open, then people will freely (a fourth sense) choose the email provider
who offers the best email services at the lowest cost.

Actually, I think a properly designed email system would cost me nothing for
the email I wanted to receive, even though that is the email I derive most
real benefit from, and should PAY me for receiving any other email. I prefer
that payment in cash on the barrelhead, and this is actually possible with a
pre-paid email system. I'm not the only person who likes being paid for my
time.

>     d) It has free speech implications. (in both senses of the word.)

Are you confusing free speech with free beer? The free beer is easy to deal
with. You have no right to free beer (or email), and anyone who is giving
you "free" beer has a reason to do so. The only significant question is
whether you know the reason. Right now most ISPs provide "free like beer"
email to attract customers, so at least their reasons are clear, but there
are many other flavors of free email that are not so tasty. For example,
Hotmail's flavor is downright pernicious.

Free speech is a much more interesting topic, but I can't say too much about
it within the scope of email. The important aspect here is that the spammers
are abusing their freedom by FORCING millions of people to listen to their
unending and repetitive "send money now" messages.

>     e) Mailing lists are a problem.

Not directly related to spam, but solvable. Actually they pose a greater
problem for EVERY system that tries to filter email selectively. On the
other hand, I prefer NNTP servers for public discussions.

>     f) Major virus problem if you use real money

Eh? I'll have to read your Web site for the details, because it makes no
sense on the face of it. If you believe that encryption works reliably, then
the vender of the postage can encrypt the e-postage and no spammer can
counterfeit it. Solved problem. (Well, not perfectly solved, because when
the stamp is used you have to cancel it, but that's a timing-related
question. An email system that actually pays for itself can also afford to
do extra spooling if it needs more processing time. In fact, there would
probably be a net savings since the suddenly obvious spam would now need
absolutely no spooling.)

>> I'm surprised to see so little focus so far on the underlying cause
>> of the problem. The economic model of email is fundamentally broken,
>> and that CREATES the spam problem. "We have met the enemy, and they
>> is us."
>
> for my end of the wire and you pay for your -- is what made the
> internet great, let's not tear it down if we can avoid it.
>
> the truth is it's super cheap for both of them, and spammers would
> still spam if they had to pay the real cost of the whole
> transmission.)

I'm certainly not arguing against efficiency, but the current system is
obviously NOT working efficiently except for the spammers. Given open and
fair competition among email service providers, the most efficient ones will
be the same ones that earn the highest profits and attract the most
customers.

Mark Delany wrote:
<My comment snipped>
> Well... A lot less spam maybe. Many companies willing pay a US
> postage stamp to send, eg, credit card offers. I get a couple a week.
> If these same companies can select their target email addresses, I
> can't see why they wouldn't
> Sure, postage-paid email will destroy the business model of many
> spammers, but not all spammers. Whether the reduced level is
> tolerable is a different question.

So what's wrong with that? These are LEGITIMATE businesses selling real
products to real customers. A well-designed pre-paid email system should
actually allow you to say what kind of email you will receive, and how much
money want them to pay for your time. It should be up to the businesses to
decide if your time is worth it to them--but that should be done without
actually revealing anything about you directly to them. Certainly not your
email address, unless YOU decide you want to talk more with them.

---

From: "Mark Delany" <[email-masked]>
Date: 5 Mar 2003 08:17:48 +0000

On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 at 04:45:43PM +0900, Shannon Jacobs allegedly wrote:
> So what's wrong with that?

Erum. Who said anything was wrong with it? I was just making the
observation that cost-barriers might be good hurdles, but they are not
absolute hurdles as the OP suggested with "no ifs, no buts".

Regards.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 05:45:06 -0500

> to advertise, and they want to spend their advertising money effectively.

There is no such thing as a business that has a legitimate right to spam. IBM
has no more right to spam me than the guy selling penis enlargement devices,
and I don't care how much either one is willing to spend to do so.  And any
financial barrier that would be sufficient to deter IBM from spamming me is
going to be more than enough to keep a friend of mine (perhaps one I don't
know yet) from sending me mail.  And a barrier that keeps me from receving
such mail is a lost opportunity for which money won't compensate.

And yes, different messages do have different values.  But there is not a
ordering relationship among  those values, the values cannot be linearly
combined, and they cannot be equated with money - especially not with the
sender's ability/willingness to pay.

> and someone has to pay for those resources.

The real cost is in distraction.  It's hard to have a useful discussion if you
keep getting interrupted, even if they pay you to do so.  And no, my attention
is not for sale, at least not that way.  Life is too short.

> products to real customers.

NO. They're spammers.  They deserve the same punishment as any other spammers
(perhaps worse - there's nothing so arrogant as someone who thinks that money
gives them the right to disturb you.)

Keith

---

From: "Eric S. Johansson" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2003 11:47:33 -0500

>     f) Major virus problem if you use real money

on the other hand, I'm a strong proponent (still) of using postage with e-mail. 
  Take a look at HTTP://harvee.billerica.ma.us/camram/ for a paper describing 
the current state of camram project addressing all of the issues you listed above.

In a nutshell:

    a) you can get there from here.  You just need to use a mixture of 
techniques
       in order to deal with unstamped mail.

    b) they certainly are.  Including the reason that real money will have
	everybody sticking their hand out as the message flows by.

    c) yup.  It's a trade-off
    d) The free speech implications are less than filters.  If you generate a
	stamp, your message gets delivered.  It's no bigger burden than physical
	postage.
    e) not anymore.  Strangers pay, friends fly free.  Mailing lists are your
	friends (if you signed up for them)
    f) I'm not sure I understand the virus problem.  I'll take a look at your
	paper and see if it gives a better explanation.

I'm currently working on a paper describing the 12+- properties I think an 
antispam system should have.  I'll publish it in the next few days.

another thing that seems to be missing from this discussion is that e-mail 
systems really are two separate protocols that interact.  The low-level protocol 
is the transport system (i.e. SMTP).  As much as people complain about it, the 
fact that it has survived for twenty plus years speaks to its strengths.  It 
also speaks to how difficult it will be to dislodge.  Look at the success we 
have had with IPv6 and BEEP.  Moving away from SMTP will take about 15 years.

the second level protocol is the client to client protocol defined by rfc2822. 
Granted, it is a one-way protocol but it's still communicating instructions and 
operations to the recipients e-mail client.  In the camram environment, I've 
tried to focus on modifying just the client to client protocol by adding 
postage.  The rest of the infrastructure focuses on appropriate interpretation 
of that message and how to dispose of it.

at the end of the day, I look at antispam techniques through the lens of this 
principle:

     Any measure for stopping spam must ensure that all non-spam messages
     have a means for bypassing that measure to reach their intended
     recipient.

---eric

---

From: Brad Templeton <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 10:42:05 -0800

>       in order to deal with unstamped mail.

The only reason you are going to add stamps to your mail is if your
mail is getting rejected due to lack of stamps and you are getting
notified of it (postage due noticies.)

You might add cpu-stamps over time if they are installed by default
in a new MUA you bring in for other reasons, and you don't turn off
the stamp option.   Deployment of such would take many years unless
Microsoft and Qualcomm were willing to agree to it.

So effectively it is a precondition that people are bouncing (postage-due)
your mail.   And some people would be willing to do that, but I'm not.

The reason is, that if I sent you a mail where I thought I was doing
you a favour with the mail (and this is true in much of the mail I
send to strangers, and I got back a note that said:

I will not read your mail until you:
	a) Get some new software for your MUA or a whole new MUA
	b) Mail me the magic token from that software
	c) (with real money) pay money to get that token

Well, my answer would be to say screw you.  I try to send you 
a message as a courtesy to you, or just to reply to a message you
posted to a mailing list, and I get back a demand like this?  I am
going to leave it in the dust.

And while you might have whitelisted the asrg mailing list when I
joined it, you didn't whitelist me if I'm a lurker and responding
to your question on the mailing list.

Now as far as I know, I wrote the first challenge/response spam
blocker 6 years ago, so I've been running tools like these longer
than anybody else.  All my tool asks for is any reply at all.  Some
newer ones ask for just a click on a web link.   And even then, not
all real mailers reply to the message.   Some have broken MUAs.
Some probably get annoyed.

At this point it's very few, though, though earlier on it was around
one a week.   But if we can't get 100% with a simple demand for
any reply at all to the challenge, to prove there is a human there,
what rate can we expect for a demand they get new software?

>    c) yup.  It's a trade-off

True -- and in keeping with principles, we want the "least
restrictive means" so if we can think of better means, that do
not have as much violation of the principles of open mail we value
(or used to value), we should follow them.

Indeed, the goal of a project like this should be to examine many
different approaches, and pick the one with the best combination of
breaking open-email the least, and stopping sufficient spam to
restore the usefulnes of our mailboxes.

Save the village without destroying it.

>    d) The free speech implications are less than filters.  If you 

I agree, but that's like saying Saddam is better than bin Ladin.

My personal conclusion after much research is I would like to see
no interference at all with individual, person to person e-mail.
I'm willing to put burdens on bulk mail to attain that, though
clearly there is a balance where we might sway the other way with
the right results.

I conclude this because everybody on the internet uses person to
person e-mail, but I would expect that only a very small fraction
host a mailing list above, say, 200 people.

Now, stamps -- if they could be deployed everywhere by fiat -- do in
fact have that attribute.  That's why I was one of their earliest
advocates in the unix community.  The problem remains in the
deployment.

> 	friends (if you signed up for them)

That's how I did my system too, though it takes a bit of work to
implement detection of subscribe requests.   I ended up using a
much simpler solution.  I have addresses that are open and those that
use my spam tools.  I send out mail under open addresses -- replies
don't even have to bother with the filtering.   I post to public
places using addresses that use the tools.   This has holes but was
a quick and effective solution for a while.

There is also the problem of the mailing lists you were already on
when you start the system.  Perhaps you saved mail so this can be
detected.

> 	paper and see if it gives a better explanation.

This applies only if real money is involved.  Any system which allows
your computer to spend a small amount of money (like 50 cents) in
an irrepudiable way without getting your consent is a prime target
for a virus writer, who would get millions of such stamps mailed to
his throwaway account in the caymans.

You can fix this if the stamps are repudiable, but you need to stop
the spammers from repudiating theirs.

> 
> I'm currently working on a paper describing the 12+- properties I 
> think an antispam system should have.  I'll publish it in the next 
> few days.

I've done such though I should gather it all in one place.
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