Subject: Re: [Asrg] Spam, defined, and permissions

From: "Hannigan, Martin" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 14:32:48 -0500

Why does everyone want to over complicate the problem?

First 100 emails out or in are free, beyond that, there's a fee. If its too
expensive to spam, they'll stop. This, IMHO, is the only way to stop them.
Follow a telco billing model and "exchange" mail minutes. Its doable if the
ROI is there. Create a tiered service structure.

Adding more software, more hardware, and more components, won't stop it.

Cheers,

Martin
---
Martin Hannigan
[email-masked]
Verisign, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked] <[email-masked]>
Sent: Thu Dec 23 16:34:46 2004
Subject: Re: [Asrg] Spam, defined, and permissions

> But the problem with a goal of every end-user running a mail server is
that they're not generally prepared to be "always on"...

Let's consider an intermediate stage... where the user has a local POP3 mail

"server" which is ONLY used to feed mail to their E-mail client software.
That 
mail server can be "fed" by a local POP3 client (perhaps running as a batch 
process) which retrieves E-mail from the customer's ISP-provided POP3
mailboxes 
and transfers it for further holding within their own private "mail server"
and 
their own private mail boxes.  (Note that in this case, they don't need to
worry 
about directly receiving E-mail from network addresses, so such a private
server 
will run just fine behind NAT, firewalls, or other ISP 'server'
restrictions).

Among other advantages, this allows the user to have essentially unlimited
local 
E-mail addresses, and can create their own "quarantine" mailboxes (for
example) 
and handle those however they like.

There are numerous freeware E-mail clients that are suitable for such use,
but 
one which works (and works well in this sort of operation, as it turns out)
is 
EMWAC.

> ...which can create various problems including bouncebacks, 

Bouncebacks don't have to occur (and don't occur) in an operation like I'm 
talking about.

> ...must keep their own servers functional which thus far tends to be very 
difficult, 

EMWAC is essentially about as problem-free as a program can be.  Once you
get it 
set up (which, admittedly, COULD be made easier) you pretty much can forget 
about it.  It just sits there and works.

> ...additionally must keep any domain mapping functional which only
complicates 
matters further, 

If your private "server" doesn't have to accept mail directly from sender
mail 
servers on a demand basis, then domain mapping isn't an issue either.  This 
means that these can run even behind NAT and with a dynamic IP address.

> ...and must deal with all sorts of problems including spammers
and their ilk flooding their server into uselessness, 

There is essentially zero additional risk of flooding compared to having
your 
own mailbox at an ISP, if the mail server is not directly accessible from
the 
outside.  Certainly you COULD have your ISP-provided ('staging') mailbox(es)

overflow if some spammer shoves stuff into it faster than you can empty it,
but 
that could happen even if you weren't running a local 'server'.  And DDOS 
attacks, of course, are likewise a danger no matter WHAT you're running
locally.

> ...managing backup servers, possibly load-balancing, 

Don't be ridiculous, those are ISP-level issues but don't enter into things
for 
individual private users.

> ...having to have roughly peak-usage bandwidth and resources or suffer the

consequences, 

The "consequences" are not generally serious.  At some point, stuff COULD
back 
up to the sender (but that could always happen, anyhow, and good networks
have 
to provide for that possibility).

> etc etc etc.

> But a mailbox via pop or imap is just an authentication, a lock and a
basically one or more file transfers, plus or minus, and is quite
forgiving of all kinds of subtleties.

Yes, and indeed that does not preclude transferring the mail upon receipt
into 
another, private, entirely local mail server (and one that does not have to
deal 
with resource limitations imposed by ISPs).

> I think end-to-end for email was a nice idea in the far distant past
but it's become a dead dodo for the vast majority of customers who
would just as soon be CUSTOMERS of all those complexities I mention
rather than service providers.

Certainly there are a lot of clueless users out there, and most of those
don't 
need more complexity.  On the other hand, modern software design is heavily 
based on hiding (and not necessarily eliminating) a lot of internal
complexity 
so that clueless users can use their computers.  

> At any rate, I don't know that it really matters since whatever is
adopted to fight spam coming out of a forum such as this can be
utilized by, to quote one of Lily Tomlin's characters, Kings and
Queens right down to the Scum of the Earth.

Sure.

> I guess the only major difference is that if we presume that anything
proposed must work in an end to end environment inclusive of, e.g.,
home users, then it would need to scale down to smaller per
transaction resources and a level of simplicity that people with very
limited interest can quickly and easily grasp (e.g., automatable to a
very high degree.)

Yes.  But I don't see that as a huge problem.

> Of course, then the PDP-11 and Atari/ST users will show up demanding
that their systems be taken into full account...

And they will be, possibly, but that doesn't mean that WE have to supply
their 
software for them... and everything they're already (presumably happily)
using 
today ought to still be able to work within the new framework.

> I know, we'll wave that hand when we get to it.

Or they will.  :-)

Gordon Peterson                  http://personal.terabites.com/
1977-2002  Twenty-fifth anniversary year of Local Area Networking!
Support free and fair US elections!  http://stickers.defend-democracy.org
12/19/98: Partisan Republicans scornfully ignore the voters they
"represent".
12/09/00: the date the Republican Party took down democracy in America.

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---

From: Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 14:59:05 -0500 (EST)

"Hannigan, Martin" <[email-masked]> top-posted:

> First 100 emails out or in are free, beyond that, there's a fee.

So you're going to charge me more for _receiving_ spam?  I don't think
your ISP is going to succeed in the marketplace.

> If its too expensive to spam, they'll stop. This, IMHO, is the only
> way to stop them.  Follow a telco billing model and "exchange" mail
> minutes.

The spammers won't buy your measured service, either.

Seth

---

From: John Levine <[email-masked]>
Date: 25 Dec 2004 04:26:51 -0000

>The spammers won't buy your measured service, either.

Neither will anyone else.  Ten years ago there were lots of e-mail
services that charged by the message.  Now they're all dead.  This
is a big hint.

-- 
John R. Levine, IECC, POB 727, Trumansburg NY 14886 +1 607 330 5711
[email-masked], Mayor, http://johnlevine.com, 
Member, Provisional board, Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail

---

From: "Jon Kyme" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 10:00:55 +0000

>Ten years ago there were lots of e-mail

Of course, nothing has changed in the last 10 years. Nothing ever does,
right? And besides, there have been a lot of businesses that did the other
thing, and have gone also. I just love these "common-sense" arguments.

---

From: Barry Shein <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 15:15:14 -0500

I suspect the solution, one way or another, to spam will be
per-message charging (with various schemes like first 1000/month
included with monthly fee.)

At this point it will likely happen either:

a) As a syndicate of ISPs (with govts' blessing to forestall the
amateur anti-trust lawyers in the crowd) which would pressure other
ISPs who resist to install a charging system (e.g., they'll get
settlement bills and, eventually, shut-off notices.) In economics this
is called "pricing power".

b) Unfortunately, more likely is that much of what we see will
collapse in utility to the point that most end-user services will be
provided by RBOCs and PTTs, most everyone else having gone bankrupt or
fled from the email biz, and they'll just stick a $.15 or whatever per
msg fee (think: SMS) because there's money in charging for things and,
as organizations, they don't fret a lot about how happy people are
about that because they're monopolies! They're usually pretty good at
making competing leakage illegal by fiat, and considering that the
vast majority of the internet runs on their infrastructure they do
have their "in".

Of course, some success here could change that future (I feel like I'm
entering into the worst dialogue of "The Matrix" trilogy so I'll
stop.)

-- 
        -Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die    | [email-masked]           | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202        | Login: 617-739-WRLD
The World              | Public Access Internet     | Since 1989     *oo*

---

From: Laird Breyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 10:29:34 +1000

> included with monthly fee.)

Why do you think that charging a third party who isn't sending the spam
a visible fee is going to make that third party go seek out the spam
senders and neutralize them, so as not to be charged further?

Here third party = user, sender = user's zombie, and I would think
that the user will want to limit his costs by leaving the ISP rather
than fixing his PC. After all cost of new PC >> cost of ISP rent.

It's also interesting that if you substitute third party = some ISP,
sender = some spammer who uses that ISP, and visible fee = IP subnet
bans, then you end up with the discredited blacklist concept.

-- 
Laird Breyer.

---

From: John Levine <[email-masked]>
Date: 27 Dec 2004 00:43:46 -0000

>>Ten years ago there were lots of e-mail services that charged by the
>>message.  Now they're all dead.  This is a big hint.

>thing, and have gone also. I just love these "common-sense" arguments.

I'm sorry, but other than that you're trying to be snide, I don't
understand what point you're trying to make.

Of course things have changed in 10 years.  In 1994 there was no giant
unmetered e-mail infrastructure, and there were people willing to pay
per message for e-mail.  Today SMTP exists everywhere, and as I noted
the pay per message services are gone.

It's blindingly obvious that a system that really did charge all
senders even a little bit per message wouldn't have a spam problem, so
why don't we have pay per message email?

The only ppm service of which I'm aware these days is SMS, the text
message add-on to cell service.  PPM charges mirrors cell service
charges.  In North America, where mobile users pay for both incoming
and outgoing calls, PPM is charged per message in both directions.
Carriers all offer message bundles similar to minute bundles that are
a lot cheaper than individual messages.  Elsewhere in the world where
mobile service is all caller-pays, sending SMS costs money, receiving
SMS is free.  Is SMS the wave of the future?  I doubt it.

For one thing, the assumption that you can get people to pay for all
of the messages is wildly optimistic.  I was talking to a security
manager at Vodaphone earlier this year, and he told me that they have
a moderate number of gateways through which messages SMS can be sent
into their SMS system, and they have constatnt problems with spam
gushing in through them due to some combination of configuration
errors and hacks.  Maybe they can fix it, but as I've noted before if
email costs real money, there will be constant attacks to either avoid
paying or (the zombie problem) to charge the messages to someone else.

Also, people who do serious messaging on their cell phones don't pay
per message now.  If you use something like a Blackberry, you don't
pay per message, you use GPRS and pay for bandwidth, or more typically
a (rather high) flat rate, just like everyone else who uses e-mail.

So what am I missing?  Unless you believe that spam will get so awful
that people will turn off SMTP mail, it's hard to see how you're going
to get an interesting number of users to move to something that costs
more and can only exchange messages with other people on the same
system.

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, Mayor
"More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.

---

From: "Jon Kyme" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 17:16:59 +0000

>understand what point you're trying to make.

No, I'm pointing out a clearly fallacious argument. This is not to say that
your conclusions are wrong of course, but to say that pay-to-send can't
work in the future because it didn't work in the past is to say nothing
useful.

>SMS is free.  Is SMS the wave of the future?  I doubt it.

It's interesting that you mention SMS, in the European market, 160 billion
messages are exchanged per month
[ http://www.gsmworld.com/documents/netsize_guide2004_mda.pdf ](I haven't
got a good figure for email to hand - probably rather more, but how many
are spam :-) ). So it seems foolish to speculate about SMS *in the future*
- while the US 'cellphone' biz is weak by comparison, in most of the
'developed' world SMS *is* the asynchronous messaging channel of choice for
for some big (and important) user-groups.

>paying or (the zombie problem) to charge the messages to someone else.

I've seen a lot of *very* poorly secured web/SMS gateways and I'm sure that
there exist all sorts of other ways that spam gets into the system that
could (and should) be closed.

>a (rather high) flat rate, just like everyone else who uses e-mail.

I think you'll find that a lot of email is sent using somebody else's
bandwidth. Apart from that, I'm not sure what "serious messaging" is:
is 100 users each sending 1MB messages more 'serious' than 100K users
sending 10 of 100 character messages per day?

>more and can only exchange messages with other people on the same

No, rather, spam gets so bad that people are prepared to incur costs
reducing the pain. I don't know (any more than you, perhaps) what that
means. Do they move to other channels? Closed systems? Spend on hardware
and bandwith so that their PCs can cope?

Presumably the market will respond to the problem in a way that tends to
maximise the utility of the system for the largest number of participants?
Oh no, wait, I meant to say: "maximise profits for those with the most
control over the current system".

---

From: Barry Shein <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 16:51:26 -0500

Well, if one wants to resist the idea one merely builds scenarios out
anything left unsaid which lead to the conclusion that the idea is
untenable.

I suspect if someone got a nuisance overcharge, say a dollar or two,
for mail being sent by a virus on their machine they'd become
interested in fixing it both because that's attracted their attention
and who wants to think their computer is under the control of a virus?
And there probably exists a charge where it's not worthwhile changing
ISPs etc if one suspects a more direct fix exists. Heck, a $0.00
charge but just being informed that your computer sent 12,000 messages
this month as opposed to your usual 47/month might attract some
people's attention, particularly if coupled with "next month that'll
start costing you $2.73 (whatever)"

Also, as to switching to another ISP, if they don't fix the infection
it's not clear this wouldn't just repeat the problem. I assume these
viruses periodically send their current IP address to the mother ships
even if just to adapt to DHCP contracts.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

---

From: Barry Shein <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 17:11:13 -0500

To some extent my bringing up pay-per-msg is meant to be cautionary.

If something isn't done I suspect either email will die as a medium or
it will mostly be driven into the hands of a few monopolists and
oligopolists (specifically, RBOCs/PTTs.) Probably throwing in the
so-called "Four Horsemen of the Netalypse" as they smell victory (what
were they, "child porn, drugs, terrorism and intellectual property
rights"?)

HOWEVER, that said, we need to recognize we are dealing with a bit of
a conundrum.

We are trying to figure out how to allocate and regulate a basically
free (from a volume point of view) resource which is not infinite, and
is in high demand (both spam and the disappointingly named "ham".)

The Soviets (et al) tried to do that kind of thing and mostly all
they could come up with was:

     a) Central planning
     b) A network of commissars

Ok, one can resist the example, whatever.

But the point is if you don't charge for something which is desireable
and finite (to some extent one limiting resource here is people's
ability to deal with the spam), then you're going to have to come up
with some sort of regulation and allocation regimen.

There is no third choice, other than ad libitum which is what we have
now.

Assuming we're not going to invent a new color or regulation regimen
then experience tells us our choices are:

a) Algorithmic - software which somehow chooses which mail shall live
and which shall die.

b) Legal fiat - Define certain behaviors as legal/illegal and begin
cracking heads with zeal.

c) Monopolistic throttling - Give email to the RBOCs/PTTs exclusively
(whatever that means) and let them make up some rules. The point being
that they'll be able to throttle it, assuming the monopoly works. For
those scoffing this is basically how phone service works, no?

d) Increase risk - Similar to (c), but let customers sue their ISPs
for spam they get, or analogous financial punihment (e.g., make them
liable for content such as children getting pornographic spam) and the
problem will fix pretty quickly tho I doubt anyone would like that
solution (e.g., your ISP will only speak to an approved list of other
sites and lots of draconian filtering etc.)

OR, maybe charge for what people use, which has some track record in
the world for creating reasonably sane resource allocation methods
particularly where competition and reasonable regulation exists.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

---

From: Laird Breyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 12:23:43 +1000

> anything left unsaid which lead to the conclusion that the idea is

Generally IMHO, if what is unsaid is large enough to drive a truck
through it's worth narrowing down the unsaid parts. 

What bothers me here with your approach is that you're not attacking
the spam problem, you're attacking the user apathy problem and
*hoping* that this will somehow solve the spam problem. But there's no
guidance as to what users will or should do if they wake up from their 
apathy. 

> and who wants to think their computer is under the control of a virus?

I agree with the sentiment, but am not (yet) convinced the underlying
economics support the conclusion you reach. Here's roughly what I think:

1) The majority of users consider fixing their computers on par with
fixing their cars. Necessary, but expensive and too complex to bother
with. The path of least resistance is allowing decay followed by buying a
brand new replacement.

2) A new computer costs a typical user now on the order of $1000, an
ISP charges on the order of $20 per month. Clearly, the computer is
much more valuable than the ISP service.

3) Fixing a computer by either buying a new one, hiring somebody or
getting one of those magical system cleaning programs costs on the
order of $50 minimum, and is a hassle.

4) The ISP charges $3 as a penalty, per month? 

5) YMMV, but if I was such a user, I'd either laugh off the penalty or
I'd be pissed off at the ISP for finding a gratuitous way to
overcharge me. Gratuitous because my zombified PC runs fine, so I
don't see what needs fixing urgently right this minute. If there are
other available ISPs, I'd switch to another $20/month provider.

> even if just to adapt to DHCP contracts.

If the user switches ISPs, he fixes *his* problem, at least
temporarily. The fact that it only shifts the problem around for the
ISP community is not *his* problem.

-- 
Laird Breyer.

---

From: Barry Shein <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 22:46:20 -0500

> through it's worth narrowing down the unsaid parts. 

I guess you've decided you're just always right a priori, must be
nice. Put another way, I'm trying to imagine any circumstance, right
or wrong, your sentence couldn't apply to.

 > guidance as to what users will or should do if they wake up from their 

Not really, someone pointed out that a big problem (of charging for
email) would be that virus-infected zombies would be charged.

I said, well, if the charges were adjusted into the right range, a
dollar or two perhaps, they might even motivate people to get their
machines fixed w/o sending them into a murderous rage.

Just looking at a possible positive aspect. Or, more importantly,
pointing out how people draw their examples only to illustrate the
point they want to make. For example, positing a charge for an
infected zombie as being so immense that it converts the average PC
user into Osama bin Laden.

 > with. The path of least resistance is allowing decay followed by buying a

Which, I assume, to continue the analogy, doesn't apply to filling the
tank with gasoline (i.e., they don't abandon the car when the tank's
empty), or perhaps a flat tire, etc.

So if it were in that range.

I did say in that note or another on the same thread that detecting
viral activity and fixing infected PCs has to become simpler and more
automatic (YOU'RE SENDING A LOT OF EMAIL -- YOU'RE PROBABLY INFECTED
-- THIS COULD COST YOU $3.47 -- CLICK [HERE] TO
FIX...bzzzbzzzbzzbzzz...THANK YOU YOU'RE CLEAN HAVE A NICE DAY.)

We're talking about near and likely futures.

It doesn't seem helpful to drag out projections based on the behavior
of owners of 486/50's running Windows 3.1.

I'm talking more about people in some near future, you know, when all
this charging is deployed, who continue to resist upgrading their
computers etc. because they're too cheap or whatever reason. Ok,
they'll get infected, they'll incur nag charges, their choice.

 > 4) The ISP charges $3 as a penalty, per month? 

Whatever, the charges for e-mail start kicking in.

 > other available ISPs, I'd switch to another $20/month provider.

In other words, you're nitpicking the example.

Also, the assumption is that that OTHER ISP would treat you the same
(or similarly), so what's the point?

You keep standing up straw men and knocking them over.

 > ISP community is not *his* problem.

No, again you miss the point.

The next ISP has the same or equivalent/similar policies. They're
going to find a way to make it a hassle to have an infected PC
connected to their service.

If you don't fix your PC then the next ISP will just treat you more or
less the same, so may as well fix your PC now.

One reason for this is because in this future ISPs, and probably Tier
N-1s, are metering each other and that machine is going to show up as
a high-mail user which might even incur your ISP charges. So why would
any ISP put up with your zombie-infected spam-spewer?

In fact, I think we're rapidly getting there now just because more and
more ISPs have zombie-detectors and narrow (e.g., no email sending) or
even shut-off infected machines' access.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

---

From: Laird Breyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 16:32:42 +1000

> or wrong, your sentence couldn't apply to.

Because I say that I see large holes in your approach? I'm glad that
you consider my single opinion so valuable, thank you, but I just call
it as I see it.

> user into Osama bin Laden.

It looks like I got lost in this thread. I had the impression 
that you were arguing that a charging model (cause) would 
make people keep their PCs zombie-free (effect). Sorry.

> We're talking about near and likely futures.

I'll keep that in mind below.

> they'll get infected, they'll incur nag charges, their choice.

I believe that's likely. I also believe that in such a future, a 
free alternative mail system will spring up lead by open source 
client applications, which will use available unmetered channels
to send email. 

> (or similarly), so what's the point?

That's a new assumption, at least to me. Are you exploring a future where
all ISPs collude? If so, I think an interesting question would be whether
such collusion forms a stable market limit, or would it have a tendency
to e.g. fragment. 

> any ISP put up with your zombie-infected spam-spewer?

I don't think that ISPs put up with zombies willingly. It's just part
of the massively decentralized internet.

I'd like to speculate that in yet another future, ISPs will be faced
with new mail transports which bypass metered SMTP. In such a future,
mail is indistinguishable from binary data, and charged as part of the
flat monthly fee. 

-- 
Laird Breyer.

---

From: Barry Shein <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 17:01:12 -0500

> of the massively decentralized internet.

Apparently they do put up with zombies willingly since there are
somewhere between (by various estimates) 1M and 10M at any given
moment.

Unless you include in "willingly" the unwillingness to spend money
(particularly staff resources) on combatting the problem.

I'd say that sums up most of it, along with a cavalier DGAS (d=don't
g=give...)  attitude, a belief that their revenues lie in expending
focus elsewhere. And general cluelessness which is closely tied to
unwillingness to spend money. And just bad management; whatever the
intent no one in the chain of command has the authority to do whatever
needs to be done, such as shut a zombie down. That's pretty common in
my experience, plenty of staff, a few clueful, quite a few clueful
enough for this, none with the authority to actually do anything that
would shut down or interfere with a customer except billing (non-pay.)

That's another good reason for trying to figure out some sort of
excess charging scheme: It moves it into the realm of billing. We
didn't shut you off because we don't like the e-mail you send etc etc
etc, we shut you off because you've exceeded your credit threshold or
haven't paid your bill or whatever. Ask any corporate lawyer which
s/he'd prefer, shutoffs for content or volume or complaint policies,
or for non-payment (or you can guess.)

 > mail is indistinguishable from binary data, and charged as part of the

Yeah well any anti-spam proposal which springs from the assumption
that the entire e-mail infrastructure will be rebuilt from scratch
tends to be shunned. Not sure why the same wouldn't apply to your
comment.

Funny how people who are too clueless to run an anti-virus program are
now suddenly clever enough to deploy open source messaging stealthware
to bypass widespread policy.

Any port in a storm I suppose.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

---

From: "Walter Dnes" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 20:01:40 -0500

On Mon, Dec 27, 2004 at 10:46:20PM -0500, Barry Shein wrote

> We're talking about near and likely futures.

  We're already at that future where, even without the user having to
"CLICK [HERE]" they're getting infected merely by viewing rougue
websites.  And if your idea came true, can you imagine the field-day
that phishers would have with it?
  "Dear Customer;
  our records ees indicatink that you computer ees sendink out 10,000
emails per hour.  Please goink to our outsourced virus cleanink site at
http://www.bad.example.ru/doink_it_to_me.html and clickink 'Yes'"

> of owners of 486/50's running Windows 3.1.

  Don't laugh, those people are almost totally safe.  KLEZ and SirCam
auto-execution capacity wasn't introduced until Windows95.

> they'll get infected, they'll incur nag charges, their choice.

  Note that the main problem today is that so many people don't know
and/or don't care that their home computer is cranking out spam like
crazy when it's idle.  Trojans are deliberately coded to be "under the
radar" so that people don't notice them and have them removed.  What
needs to happen is for accessories to criminal activity to feel some
pain, and to have a really big incentive to see to it that their
machines aren't compromised.

  American Senator Orrin Hatch advocated legalizing vigilante action by
copyright holders, up to and including computer-breakins and deletion of
files on computers illegally holding copyrighted material.  Maybe what
we need is destructive virus/worms to be released by some government.
I'm talking wiping data, low-levelling the hard-drive, and flashing the
BIOS full of garbage, to the point where a machine won't even boot from
a floppy without expenditure of several hundred dollars.  The insecure
machines, which likely are cranking out tons of spam, will be taken out.
Machines that are unaffected by the virus/worms will most likely not
have been compromised by spammers either.  I realize this proposal is
radical, but I consider it similar to amputating a gangrenous limb in
order to save your life.

  Unlike the email-postage ideas, this doesn't require a new public
infrastructure that everybody has to agree to join.  The only major
infrastructure requirements might be new landfill sites to handle all
those dead computers.

-- 
Walter Dnes <[email-masked]>
An infinite number of monkeys pounding away on keyboards will
eventually produce a report showing that Windows is more secure,
and has a lower TCO, than linux.

---

From: Laird Breyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 11:35:55 +1000

> or for non-payment (or you can guess.)

Interesting. How would this work on a planetary scale? Different
countries, different law systems. IANAL, but maybe someone on this
list can chime in: are international agreements likely to be strong
enough to make this work, or do we need some WIPO/GATT conference(s) to get
everyone to sign up? Normally, if someone from e.g. India steals your
resources in the US via the internet, I believe you're SOL.

I agree that if you restrict yourself to spam within the US say, then
converting the problem into theft of resources would make the law more
effective within the US. 

> tends to be shunned. Not sure why the same wouldn't apply to your

For the same reason that it doesn't apply to your speculation on a
solid world wide billing system per email. It's big picture
speculation about a possible near future.

-- 
Laird Breyer.

---

From: Barry Shein <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 00:03:50 -0500

On December 29, 2004 at 11:35 [email-masked] (Laird Breyer) wrote:
 > Interesting. How would this work on a planetary scale?

Ok, I'll respond in kind...WHICH PLANET? You planetist!

Anyhow, this is easy, there are int'l long distance telephone systems,
postal delivery, package delivery, etc etc so saying it's all
impossible is kinda strange.

> Different

---

From: Laird Breyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 16:25:10 +1000

> impossible is kinda strange.

I'm not at all saying that it's impossible. I'm asking what it will take?

Telephone systems are government regulated and have international
agreements. Postal delivery is, too. Express package delivery is
dominated by private sector, but there's a planetary oligopoly by a
handful of courier services. The relevant agreements did not happen
overnight.

Will ISPs worldwide spontaneously agree to start charging their
customers per email or does a global accounting system of sorts need
to be put in place for email, to force per email charges to be
collected at the leaf nodes? Can the needed agreements be grafted onto
existing telco agreements, or are new agreements required? Does
charging for email imply guaranteed delivery, backed by the law?

-- 
Laird Breyer.