Re: [Asrg] Nothing will stop spam???

At 2:27 AM -0600 7/3/03, Selby Hatch wrote:
>Under a consent framework, I instruct my incoming MTA not to accept
>email from anyone who cannot prove (through some defined method) that
>they have my consent to send me email.

The consent systems I see proposed sound a lot like a phone system 
without a phone book.  In order to find out someone's phone number, 
you have to go out of band.

I keep following the logic of consent, but I keep not finding the way 
it's going to work--even if I ignore the UI issues, which I think are 
insurmountable.

Here's how my reasoning goes.

The current email system allows people to send email to people they 
don't know.  That's a feature.  Most people receive email from people 
they don't know, or at least people who they didn't know they knew 
(e.g. grandma on vacation, cousin at new address...).

Any consent system has to have a way for someone to contact me and 
ask for my consent.

That message must contain sufficient information so that I can 
determine if in fact I do want to talk to the person.

In the case of a person that I don't know, that means that they will 
have to provide a summary of *why* they want to talk to me.  (E.g. 
reporting a bug in your software, your system sent me a virus, our 
company changed its name, this is your grandmother sending mail from 
a cruise ship....).

I see absolutely no way to provide that information without providing 
a big enough window for spammers to send ads.

What am I missing?
-- 
Kee Hinckley
http://www.messagefire.com/          Anti-Spam Service for your POP Account
http://commons.somewhere.com/buzz/   Writings on Technology and Society

I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept
responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate
everyone else's.

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