On Mar 26, 2014, at 7:07 AM, Lamar Owen <lo...@pari.edu> wrote: > On 03/25/2014 10:51 PM, Jimmy Hess wrote: >> >> [snip] >> >> I would suggest the formation of an "IPv6 SMTP Server operator's club," >> with a system for enrolling certain IP address source ranges as "Active >> mail servers", active IP addresses and SMTP domain names under the >> authority of a member. >> > ... > > As has been mentioned, this is old hat. > > There is only one surefire way of doing away with spam for good, IMO. No one > is currently willing to do it, though. > > That way? Make e-mail cost; have e-postage. No, I don't want it either. > But where is the pain point for spam where this becomes less painful? If an > enduser gets a bill for sending several thousand e-mails because they got > owned by a botnet they're going to do something about it; get enough endusers > with this problem and you'll get a class-action suit against OS vendors that > allow the problem to remain a problem; you can get rid of the bots. This > will trim out a large part of spam, and those hosts that insist on sending > unsolicited bulk e-mail will get billed for it. That would also eliminate a > lot of traffic on e-mail lists, too, if the subscribers had to pay the costs > for each message sent to a list; I wonder what the cost would be for each > post to a list the size of this one. If spam ceases to be profitable, it > will stop. > > Of course, I reserve the right to be wrong, and this might all just be a pipe > dream. (and yes, I've thought about what sort of billing infrastructure > nightmare this could be.....)
Actually, a variant on that that might be acceptable… Make e-postage a deposit-based thing. If the recipient has previously white-listed you or marks your particular message as “desired”, then you get your postage back. If not, then your postage is put into the recipients e-postage account to offset the cost of their emails. Thoughts? Owen
