RE: [Asrg] How to defeat spam that uses encryption?

["Eric D. Williams" <eric@infobro.com>]

Thanks all;

I too agree that encryption should not be considered a primary solution for 
spam as it constitutes a prohibitive threshold before any significant results 
could be realized.  Thanks for all of the input. (Remember I am working on 
'Requirements' -- I am attempting to cull the chatter [which has significantly 
reduced ;-], right now, for 'non-starter' solutions).  I know you probably have 
gone through many of these before and if there is a list I would appreciate a 
pointer.

-e

On Monday, March 31, 2003 7:30 PM, Vernon Schryver 
[SMTP:vjs@calcite.rhyolite.com] wrote:
> > From: "Eric D. Williams" <eric@infobro.com>
>
> > ...
> > All: A question is the discussion of end-user MUA technology uses of
> > encryption
> > something people want to address as a 'spam' control solution?
>
> It's a complete non-starter and waste of time, because it suffers
> the threshold problem in the worst way.  Early adopters get no
> benefit and many hassles.  Despite decades of work, the mechanisms
> to distribute keys are practically useless.  The user interfaces
> are coming along, but they're still poor and sometimes just don't work.
>
> You can sometimes justify the practical hassles of encryption for
> keeping your communications private, but that avoids the threshold
> problem.  Many of us have used at least PGP for professional reasons,
> but that's a whole other world.
>
> Encryption, whether signing by senders or decrypting by receivers, is
> useless against spam until almost all of your correspondents use it.
> If you receive mail from a representative sample of strangers on the
> Internet, that implies that encryption will be useless to help your
> spam problem until almost everyone on the Internet uses it.
>
> Whitelists are snake oil in this context.  If you can whitelist everyone
> who sends mail to you because they won't be using encryption at first,
> then you can just whitelist them and forget about the encryption.
>
>
> Vernon Schryver    vjs@rhyolite.com
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