On 6/5/06, Daniel Feenberg <feenberg at nber.org> wrote:
> > I wonder what's next, an ESMTP extension replacing DATA with a URI that
> > could be retrieved ala ETRN?
> >
>
> That suggestion is frequently made, and this seems to be a way to avoid
> such things.
>
(Please forgive me if I'm making a newbie suggestion. I realize that this
is not The Universal Answer To The Spam Problem, If Only Everyone Would
Adopt It, but it seems like an interesting area for research.)
...and that model is bad why? Obviously, if implemented with FTP-like
back-channel connections, it would be a nightmare, but if implemented with a
well-known port and a bit of auth, I don't see too many problems.
Benefits:
- it pushes the email burden back onto the sender - for real, not like many
anti-spam companies claim.
- it makes the sender easier to track.
- it would seem to reduce the spam-zombie problem by requiring that inbound
connections to the mail sender be available through the firewall.
- it gives the receiving MTA the option not to retrieve the email message.
-Jim