[Spambayes] Two Stage Plan

T. Alexander Popiel popiel at wolfskeep.com
Wed Dec 18 10:59:37 EST 2002


In message:  <BA2627E7.1AE8F%grobinson@transpose.com>
             Gary Robinson <grobinson@transpose.com> writes:
>
>No. What if people have to pay a penny for each email message they send
>(such that legitimate people don't pay anything because they "earn" be
>receiving email about as much as they "spend" by sending it?

If the money is being verified, then you have a money clearinghouse
problem... which leads right back to the subscription service.  If
the money isn't being verified, then it's worthless.

>Or what if their computer has to do a certain amount of work... say 15
>seconds of CPU time... to generate a "hashcash" coin that is required by the
>recipient before an email can get through?

First, not all computers are created equal; what's 15 seconds on my
PentiumII is 5 seconds on my Athlon.  Or less than a second on an
FPGA programmed for the purpose.  There's no way to tell how much
someone actually spent on the 'coin'.

Second, Moore's Law is against you, creating something equivalent
to runaway inflation... forcing everyone to upgrade their hardware
as fast as than the spammers do, to keep from paying extortionate
time costs to send mail while still keeping the spammers from getting
away free.

>What if MS makes the mechanisms for one of this kind of scheme 100%
>transparent so normal users don't have to think about them at all?

I don't think they _can_.  Effort in sending purely digital content
cannot be verified by only software, and anything else incurs service
costs.

- Alex



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