On Sat, Jan 03, 2009 at 02:52:21PM -0800, Jan Steinman wrote:
No, it is based upon the idea that a system could be implemented whereby it would be impossible to avoid the payment.
It can't.
This idiotic idea resurfaces periodically (see "hashcash" and other similar products of the wishful thinking of clueless newbies [1]). It is one of the very stupidest anti-spam ideas -- and there's a lot of competition for that "honor", unfortunately. [2] I suggest that you refer to the archives of the spam-l and irtf-asrg mailing lists for a quite thorough debunking of this nonsense by the most senior and experienced people working in the field.
---Rsk
[1] Hashcash fails on inspection because attackers control vastly more computing resources than defenders, by several orders of magnitude.
[2] Including "anti-spam" ideas which actually make the problem worse. See "C/R" and "SAV", for example.