RE: namedroppers, continued

[John C Klensin <john at jck.com>]

--On Friday, 06 December, 2002 16:22 -0700 Vernon Schryver
<vjs at calcite.rhyolite.com> wrote:

> > From: Marc Schneiders <ietf at schneiders.org>
>
> > ...
> > It might be easier to write a new protocol to succeed email,
> > instant messaging, mobile phones (something useful in itself)
> > with built-in abuse control from the start.
>
> That's another stupid crackpot "spam solution" that just won't
> go away.
>
> You cannot have "abuse control" built into a protocol that
> allows strangers to send each other mail.  Any mail protocol
> that lets you receive mail from a stranger must also let the
> stranger send the same message to you and to 30,000,000 of
> your closest friends.  On the other hand, if you want to only
> accept mail from people who are not strangers, you can use any
> of the many official and ad hoc SMTP extensions to ensure you
> only receive mail from them.
>
> If your computer system, mail protocol, or whatever knows that
> a stranger is not a spammer, then the stranger is not really a
> stranger.

Actually, Vernon, there is a well-known, established
implementation of this approach.  It depends on no one being
able to deliver mail to anyone else except through a network of
trusted intermediaries, who are interconnected with bilateral
agreements.  Each of those intermediaries is essentially
required to authenticate any user sending a message, which they
naturally tend to do because the system strongly assumes a
per-message and per-recipient charging model with settlements
between the originating and receiving intermediary systems.

If spammers tried to use it, they would rapidly become
discouraged, first of all because the per-message charging would
destroy their "free to us, steal resources from others" business
model and second because the accounting and authentication
machinery that is essential to the business models of the
intermediary system vendors (let's call them "ADMDs" for short)
would make tracking them down fairly easy.  And, of course, the
bilateral agreements would make it fairly easy to isolate and
punish an ADMD who didn't control its spammers or pay it
settlement bills.

I suppose I can leave the name of this high-quality,
significantly overengineered, widely-deployed system as an
exercise.

Been there, wasted a lot of time, energy, and resources, gave up.

   john