Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

[Justin]

On 2005-03-03T11:52:59+, ken wrote:
> 
> >Chat is already higher volume (I read somewhere) in
> >raw quantity of messages sent than email.
> 
> I suspect you don't get much traffic. The beauty of a 
> non-real-time store-and-forward system like smtp (or SMS, or 
> oldstyle conferencing systems with off-line readers) is precisely 
> that  it can be automated. I don't have to see mail I don't want.

You don't have to see IMs you don't want, either.  You can refuse them
from people not on your buddy list.

> >A fate for email is that as spam grows to take over more
> >of the share of the shrinking pie, but consumes more of
> >the bandwidth
> 
> A higher proportion of the snail-mail I get is junk than the email.
> 
> A higher proportion of the landline phone calls I get are junk. At 
> least 4 out of 5 calls, maybe 9 out of 10. Email is doing quite well.

With 3 or 4 RBL blacklists, greylisting, and making sure senders don't
ehlo with my ip address, I don't even have to use dspam or Spamassassin
I get so little spam.

> A serious proportion of the rootkits and so on that have been plaguing
> us for the last few years involves chat & instant messaging & so on.
> I'd block it at the boundary firewall. People who use it should just
> learn how to use mail.  They'd get through more. Chat is for
> functional illiterates. Learn to read at adult speed and you'll prefer
> mail. Why should they put up with being limited to someone else's
> typing speed?

I don't think email will disappear either, but IM is good for 2-way
conversations.  Helping someone debug a problem via email gets tedious
very quickly.

Strangely enough, a good number of people I've talked to over the phone
have had their IQ drop by about 100 points when I start using a phonetic
alphabet to spell things.  I usually end up having to repeat the
phonetic spelling several times; it's really strange.  IM eliminates
that whole problem.  Unless communicating in a standard, often-spoken
language, phones lose their utility.

There's a place for both IM and email.  I agree, though, that IM may
suffer from a poor S/N ratio.

-- 
Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who
have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for
anything else thereafter.   --Hemingway, Esquire, April 1936

Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

[ken]

My view - as controversial as ever - is that the problem
is unfixable, and mail will eventually fade away.  That
which will take its place is p2p / IM / chat / SMS based.
Which are easier to spam and less secure than smtp.
SMTP is p2p by definition, though you can use servers if you want.
SMS  *IS* email , just a different kind of email - and a less 
secure, more expensive kind, in which the infrastructure is more 
in the hands of the large companies that run it and less 
accessible to users installing their own protections.


In that world, it is still reasonable to build ones own IM
system for the needs of ones own community, and not
to have to worry about standards.  Which means one can
build in the defences that are needed, when they are
needed.
as we can for smtp
Chat is already higher volume (I read somewhere) in
raw quantity of messages sent than email.
I suspect you don't get much traffic. The beauty of a 
non-real-time store-and-forward system like smtp (or SMS, or 
oldstyle conferencing systems with off-line readers) is precisely 
that  it can be automated. I don't have to see mail I don't want.

A fate for email is that as spam grows to take over more
of the share of the shrinking pie, but consumes more of
the bandwidth
A higher proportion of the snail-mail I get is junk than the 
email. In fact almost all of it is (& most of what isn't is bills 
:-( - usually already paid by the bank)  I throw more than half of 
my incoming paper mail in the bin unopened, and about half of what 
is left is just put in a cupboard in case I get into some dispute 
tithe the bank or the electric company or whoever.

A higher proportion of the landline phone calls I get are junk. At 
least 4 out of 5 calls, maybe 9 out of 10. Email is doing quite well.

> the ISPs will start to charge people for
email, and not for IM. 
Why should they charge more for qa service which is not only 
cheaper for them to run, but has more competition and is harder to 
subvert? A serious proportion of the rootkits and so on that have 
been plaguing us for the last few years involves chat & instant 
messaging & so on.  I'd block it at the boundary firewall. People 
who use it should just learn how to use mail.  They'd get through 
more. Chat is for functional illiterates. Learn to read at adult 
speed and you'll prefer mail. Why should they put up with being 
limited to someone else's typing speed?

Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

[Tyler Durden]

Well, basically it's pretty simple. Someone will eventually recognize that 
the idea has a lot of economic potential and they'll go to Sand Hill and get 
some venture funds. 6 months later you'll be able to sign up for "Spam 
Mail". Eventually the idea will spread and Spammers, who are already 
squeezed via Men With Guns, will start running out of options and so will be 
willing to pay, for instance, 1 cent per email. After that, of course, the 
price will likely go up, except for crummier demographics that are willing 
to read email for 1 cent/spam.

Actually, this points to why Spam is Spam...Spam is Spam because it has zero 
correlation to what you want. Look at Vogue, etc...it's a $10 magazine 
consisting mostly of advertisements, but they're the advertisements women 
want. Pay-to-Spam will work precisely because it will force Spammers to 
become actual marketers, delivering the right messages to the right 
demographics..in that context the Price to send spam is a precise measure of 
Spammers lack-of-marketing savvy and/or information. Hell, if they're good 
enough at it they'll probably get women to pay THEM to spam 'em.

-TD
From: Barry Shein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Tyler Durden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], cryptography@metzdowd.com,   
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 20:12:59 -0500

And how do you fund all this, make it attain an economic life of its
own?
That's the big problem with all micropayment schemes. They sound good
until you try to work the business plan, then they prove themselves
impossible because it costs 2c to handle each penny. And more if
issues such as collections and enforcement (e.g., against frauds) is
taken into account.
This is why, for example, we have a postal system which manages
postage, rather than some scheme whereby every paper mail recipient
charges every paper mail sender etc etc etc.
On February 16, 2005 at 12:38 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tyler Durden) 
wrote:
 > Wrong. We already solved this problem on Cypherpunks a while back.
 >
 > A spammer will have to pay to send you spam, trusted emails do not. 
You'll
 > have a settable Spam-barrier which determines how much a spammer has to 
pay
 > in order to lob spam over your barrier (you can set it to 'infinite' of
 > course).
 >
 > A new, non-spam mailer can request that their payment be returned upon
 > receipt, but they'll have to include the payment unless you were 
expecting
 > them.
 >
 > This way, the only 3rd parties are those that validate the 
micropayments.
 >
 > -TD
 >
 > >From: Barry Shein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 > >To: "R.A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 > >CC: cryptography@metzdowd.com, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 > >Subject: Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp
 > >Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 17:29:05 -0500
 > >
 > >Oh no, the idiotic penny black idea rides again.
 > >
 > >Like the movie "War Games" when a young Matthew Broderick saves the
 > >world by causing the WOPR computer to be distracted into playing
 > >itself tic-tac-toe rather than launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
 > >
 > >It was a MOVIE, made in 1983 nonetheless, get over it.
 > >
 > >More seriously, what attracts people to this penny black idea is that
 > >they realize that the only thing which will stop spammers is to
 > >interject some sort of economic constraint. The obvious constraint
 > >would be something like stamps since that's a usage fee.
 > >
 > >But the proposer (and his/her/its audience) always hates the idea of
 > >paying postage for their own email, no, no, there must be a solution
 > >which performs that economic miracle of only charging for the behavior
 > >I don't like! An economic Maxwell's demon!
 > >
 > >So, just like the terminal seeking laetrile shots or healing waters,
 > >they turn to not even half-baked ideas such as penny black. Don't
 > >charge you, don't charge me, charge that fellow behind the tree!
 > >
 > >Oh well.
 > >
 > >Eventually email will just collapse (as it's doing) and the RBOCs et
 > >al will inherit it and we'll all be paying 15c per message like their
 > >SMS services.
 > >
 > >I know, we'll work around it. Of course by then they'll have a
 > >multi-billion dollar messaging business to make sure your attempts to
 > >by-step it are outlawed and punished. Consider what's going on with
 > >the music-sharing world, as another multi-billion dollar business
 > >people thought they could just defy with anonymous peer-to-peer
 > >services...
 > >

Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

[R.A. Hettinga]

At 8:12 PM -0500 2/16/05, Barry Shein wrote:
>And how do you fund all this, make it attain an economic life of its
>own?

I can send you a business plan, if you like. Post-Clinton-Bubble talent's
still cheap, I bet...

;-)

Still estivating, here, in Roslindale,
RAH

-- 
-
R. A. Hettinga 
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation 
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

[Barry Shein]

And how do you fund all this, make it attain an economic life of its
own?

That's the big problem with all micropayment schemes. They sound good
until you try to work the business plan, then they prove themselves
impossible because it costs 2c to handle each penny. And more if
issues such as collections and enforcement (e.g., against frauds) is
taken into account.

This is why, for example, we have a postal system which manages
postage, rather than some scheme whereby every paper mail recipient
charges every paper mail sender etc etc etc.

On February 16, 2005 at 12:38 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tyler Durden) wrote:
 > Wrong. We already solved this problem on Cypherpunks a while back.
 > 
 > A spammer will have to pay to send you spam, trusted emails do not. You'll 
 > have a settable Spam-barrier which determines how much a spammer has to pay 
 > in order to lob spam over your barrier (you can set it to 'infinite' of 
 > course).
 > 
 > A new, non-spam mailer can request that their payment be returned upon 
 > receipt, but they'll have to include the payment unless you were expecting 
 > them.
 > 
 > This way, the only 3rd parties are those that validate the micropayments.
 > 
 > -TD
 > 
 > >From: Barry Shein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 > >To: "R.A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
 > >CC: cryptography@metzdowd.com, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 > >Subject: Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp
 > >Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 17:29:05 -0500
 > >
 > >Oh no, the idiotic penny black idea rides again.
 > >
 > >Like the movie "War Games" when a young Matthew Broderick saves the
 > >world by causing the WOPR computer to be distracted into playing
 > >itself tic-tac-toe rather than launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
 > >
 > >It was a MOVIE, made in 1983 nonetheless, get over it.
 > >
 > >More seriously, what attracts people to this penny black idea is that
 > >they realize that the only thing which will stop spammers is to
 > >interject some sort of economic constraint. The obvious constraint
 > >would be something like stamps since that's a usage fee.
 > >
 > >But the proposer (and his/her/its audience) always hates the idea of
 > >paying postage for their own email, no, no, there must be a solution
 > >which performs that economic miracle of only charging for the behavior
 > >I don't like! An economic Maxwell's demon!
 > >
 > >So, just like the terminal seeking laetrile shots or healing waters,
 > >they turn to not even half-baked ideas such as penny black. Don't
 > >charge you, don't charge me, charge that fellow behind the tree!
 > >
 > >Oh well.
 > >
 > >Eventually email will just collapse (as it's doing) and the RBOCs et
 > >al will inherit it and we'll all be paying 15c per message like their
 > >SMS services.
 > >
 > >I know, we'll work around it. Of course by then they'll have a
 > >multi-billion dollar messaging business to make sure your attempts to
 > >by-step it are outlawed and punished. Consider what's going on with
 > >the music-sharing world, as another multi-billion dollar business
 > >people thought they could just defy with anonymous peer-to-peer
 > >services...
 > >
 > >The point: I think the time is long past due to "grow up" on this
 > >issue and accept that some sort of limited, reasonable-usage-free,
 > >postage system is necessary to prevent collapse into monopoly.
 > >
 > >--
 > > -Barry Shein
 > >
 > >Software Tool & Die| [EMAIL PROTECTED]   | 
 > >http://www.TheWorld.com
 > >Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202| Login: 617-739-WRLD
 > >The World  | Public Access Internet | Since 1989 *oo*
 > 

-- 
-Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die| [EMAIL PROTECTED]   | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202| Login: 617-739-WRLD
The World  | Public Access Internet | Since 1989 *oo*

Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

[Barry Shein]

Bingo, that's the whole point, spam doesn't get "fixed" until there's
a robust economics available to fix it. So long as it's treated merely
an annoyance or security flaw there won't be enough economic
backpressure.


On February 16, 2005 at 18:38 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Gutmann) wrote:
 > Barry Shein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
 > 
 > >Eventually email will just collapse (as it's doing) and the RBOCs et al will
 > >inherit it and we'll all be paying 15c per message like their SMS services.
 > 
 > And the spammers will be using everyone else's PC's to send out their spam, 
 > so
 > the spam problem will still be as bad as ever but now Joe Sixpack will be
 > paying to send it.
 > 
 > Hmmm, and maybe *that* will finally motivate software companies, end users,
 > ISPs, etc etc, to fix up software, systems, and usage habits to prevent this.
 > 
 > Peter.

-- 
-Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die| [EMAIL PROTECTED]   | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202| Login: 617-739-WRLD
The World  | Public Access Internet | Since 1989 *oo*

Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

[Tyler Durden]

Wrong. We already solved this problem on Cypherpunks a while back.
A spammer will have to pay to send you spam, trusted emails do not. You'll 
have a settable Spam-barrier which determines how much a spammer has to pay 
in order to lob spam over your barrier (you can set it to 'infinite' of 
course).

A new, non-spam mailer can request that their payment be returned upon 
receipt, but they'll have to include the payment unless you were expecting 
them.

This way, the only 3rd parties are those that validate the micropayments.
-TD
From: Barry Shein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "R.A. Hettinga" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
CC: cryptography@metzdowd.com, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 17:29:05 -0500
Oh no, the idiotic penny black idea rides again.
Like the movie "War Games" when a young Matthew Broderick saves the
world by causing the WOPR computer to be distracted into playing
itself tic-tac-toe rather than launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike.
It was a MOVIE, made in 1983 nonetheless, get over it.
More seriously, what attracts people to this penny black idea is that
they realize that the only thing which will stop spammers is to
interject some sort of economic constraint. The obvious constraint
would be something like stamps since that's a usage fee.
But the proposer (and his/her/its audience) always hates the idea of
paying postage for their own email, no, no, there must be a solution
which performs that economic miracle of only charging for the behavior
I don't like! An economic Maxwell's demon!
So, just like the terminal seeking laetrile shots or healing waters,
they turn to not even half-baked ideas such as penny black. Don't
charge you, don't charge me, charge that fellow behind the tree!
Oh well.
Eventually email will just collapse (as it's doing) and the RBOCs et
al will inherit it and we'll all be paying 15c per message like their
SMS services.
I know, we'll work around it. Of course by then they'll have a
multi-billion dollar messaging business to make sure your attempts to
by-step it are outlawed and punished. Consider what's going on with
the music-sharing world, as another multi-billion dollar business
people thought they could just defy with anonymous peer-to-peer
services...
The point: I think the time is long past due to "grow up" on this
issue and accept that some sort of limited, reasonable-usage-free,
postage system is necessary to prevent collapse into monopoly.
--
-Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die| [EMAIL PROTECTED]   | 
http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202| Login: 617-739-WRLD
The World  | Public Access Internet | Since 1989 *oo*

Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

[Eric Murray]

On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 03:29:21PM +, Ian G wrote:
> Peter Gutmann wrote:
> 
> >Barry Shein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >>Eventually email will just collapse (as it's doing) and the RBOCs et al will
> >>inherit it and we'll all be paying 15c per message like their SMS services.
> >
> >And the spammers will be using everyone else's PC's to send out their spam, 
> >so
> >the spam problem will still be as bad as ever but now Joe Sixpack will be
> >paying to send it.
> >
> >Hmmm, and maybe *that* will finally motivate software companies, end users,
> >ISPs, etc etc, to fix up software, systems, and usage habits to prevent this.
> >  
> 
> My view - as controversial as ever - is that the problem
> is unfixable, and mail will eventually fade away.  That
> which will take its place is p2p / IM / chat / SMS based.
> In that world, it is still reasonable to build ones own IM
> system for the needs of ones own community, and not
> to have to worry about standards.  Which means one can
> build in the defences that are needed, when they are
> needed.

Better start on those defenses now then-
there is already significant amounts of IM and SMS spam.

I would be suprised if the people designing IM and SMS systems
have learned much from the failures of SMTP et al.  


Eric

Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

[Damian Gerow]

Thus spake Peter Gutmann ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [16/02/05 01:04]:
: Hmmm, and maybe *that* will finally motivate software companies, end users,
: ISPs, etc etc, to fix up software, systems, and usage habits to prevent this.

Doubt it'll motivate the ISPs.  They'll be the ones making the 15c/msg.  If
they clean it up, that's lost income.

Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

[Ian G]

Peter Gutmann wrote:
Barry Shein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
 

Eventually email will just collapse (as it's doing) and the RBOCs et al will
inherit it and we'll all be paying 15c per message like their SMS services.
   

And the spammers will be using everyone else's PC's to send out their spam, 
so
the spam problem will still be as bad as ever but now Joe Sixpack will be
paying to send it.
Hmmm, and maybe *that* will finally motivate software companies, end users,
ISPs, etc etc, to fix up software, systems, and usage habits to prevent this.
 

My view - as controversial as ever - is that the problem
is unfixable, and mail will eventually fade away.  That
which will take its place is p2p / IM / chat / SMS based.
In that world, it is still reasonable to build ones own IM
system for the needs of ones own community, and not
to have to worry about standards.  Which means one can
build in the defences that are needed, when they are
needed.
Chat is already higher volume (I read somewhere) in
raw quantity of messages sent than email.
A fate for email is that as spam grows to take over more
of the share of the shrinking pie, but consumes more of
the bandwidth, the ISPs will start to charge people for
email, and not for IM.  Those left paying for it are going
to discover it is cheaper to ditch it and let the spammers
fight over the shreds.  That's just one plausible future,
tho.
iang
--
News and views on what matters in finance+crypto:
   http://financialcryptography.com/

Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

[Peter Gutmann]

Barry Shein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

>Eventually email will just collapse (as it's doing) and the RBOCs et al will
>inherit it and we'll all be paying 15c per message like their SMS services.

And the spammers will be using everyone else's PC's to send out their spam, so
the spam problem will still be as bad as ever but now Joe Sixpack will be
paying to send it.

Hmmm, and maybe *that* will finally motivate software companies, end users,
ISPs, etc etc, to fix up software, systems, and usage habits to prevent this.

Peter.

Re: How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

[Barry Shein]

Oh no, the idiotic penny black idea rides again.

Like the movie "War Games" when a young Matthew Broderick saves the
world by causing the WOPR computer to be distracted into playing
itself tic-tac-toe rather than launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike.

It was a MOVIE, made in 1983 nonetheless, get over it.

More seriously, what attracts people to this penny black idea is that
they realize that the only thing which will stop spammers is to
interject some sort of economic constraint. The obvious constraint
would be something like stamps since that's a usage fee.

But the proposer (and his/her/its audience) always hates the idea of
paying postage for their own email, no, no, there must be a solution
which performs that economic miracle of only charging for the behavior
I don't like! An economic Maxwell's demon!

So, just like the terminal seeking laetrile shots or healing waters,
they turn to not even half-baked ideas such as penny black. Don't
charge you, don't charge me, charge that fellow behind the tree!

Oh well.

Eventually email will just collapse (as it's doing) and the RBOCs et
al will inherit it and we'll all be paying 15c per message like their
SMS services.

I know, we'll work around it. Of course by then they'll have a
multi-billion dollar messaging business to make sure your attempts to
by-step it are outlawed and punished. Consider what's going on with
the music-sharing world, as another multi-billion dollar business
people thought they could just defy with anonymous peer-to-peer
services...

The point: I think the time is long past due to "grow up" on this
issue and accept that some sort of limited, reasonable-usage-free,
postage system is necessary to prevent collapse into monopoly.

-- 
-Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die| [EMAIL PROTECTED]   | http://www.TheWorld.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202| Login: 617-739-WRLD
The World  | Public Access Internet | Since 1989 *oo*

How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp

[R.A. Hettinga]

Actually, it's not just "sender pays", it's "a whitlist for my friends, all
other others pay cash", but "sender pays" will do for a start. :-)

Cheers,
RAH
---


<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/business/yourmoney/13digi.html?th=&pagewanted=print&position=>

The New York Times

February 13, 2005
DIGITAL DOMAIN

How to Stop Junk E-Mail: Charge for the Stamp
 By RANDALL STROSS


OMPARE our e-mail system today with the British General Post Office in
1839, and ours wins. Compare it with the British postal system in 1840,
however, and ours loses.

 In that year, the British introduced the Penny Black, the first postage
stamp. It simplified postage - yes, to a penny - and shifted the cost from
the recipient to the sender, who had to prepay. We look back with wonder
that it could have ever been otherwise. Recipient pays? Why should the
person who had not initiated the transaction be forced to pay for a message
with unseen contents? What a perverse system.

Today, however, we meekly assume that the recipient of e-mail must bear the
costs. It is nominally free, of course, but it arrives in polluted form.
Cleaning out the stuff once it reaches our in-box, or our Internet service
provider's, is irritating beyond words, costly even without per-message
postage. This muck - Hotmail alone catches about 3.2 billion unsolicited
messages a day - is a bane of modern life.

Even the best filters address the problem too late, after this sludge has
been discharged without cost to the polluter. In my case, desperation has
driven me to send all my messages sequentially through three separate
filter systems. Then I must remember to check the three junk folders to see
what failed to get through that should have. Recipient pays.

Do not despair. We can now glimpse what had once seemed unattainable:
stopping the flow at its very source. The most promising news is that
companies like  Yahoo,  EarthLink, America Online,  Comcast and  Verizon
have overcome the fear that they would prompt antitrust sanctions if they
joined forces to reclaim the control they have lost to spammers.

 They belong to an organization called the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working
Group, formed only last year. It shares antispam techniques and lobbies
other e-mail providers to adopt policies that protect the commons. Civic
responsibility entails not merely screening incoming mail to protect one's
own customers but also screening outgoing mail that could become someone
else's problem.

Carl Hutzler, AOL's director of antispam operations, has been an especially
energetic campaigner, urging all network operators to "cut off the
spammer's oxygen supply," as he told an industry gathering last fall. And
those operators who do not "get smart soon and control the sources of spam
on their networks," he said, will find that they "will not have
connectivity" to his provider and others who are filtering outgoing e-mail.

 He did not spell out the implications for customers, but he doesn't need
to: we can select a service provider from the group with a spam-free zone,
or one that has failed to do the necessary self-policing required for
joining the gated community and is banished to the wilds of anything-goes.

One measure backed by advocates like Mr. Hutzler is already having a
positive impact: "Port 25 blocking," which prevents an individual PC from
running its own mail server and blasting out e-mail on its own. With the
block in place, all outgoing e-mail must go through the service provider's
mail server, where high-volume batches of identical mail can be detected
easily and cut off.

 Internet service providers are also starting to stamp outgoing messages
with a digital signature of the customer's domain name, using strong
cryptography so the signature cannot be altered or counterfeited. This is
accomplished with software called DomainKeys, originally developed by
Yahoo. It is now offered in open-source form and was recently adopted by
EarthLink and some other major services. A digital signature is what we
will want to see on all incoming e-mail.

 If your Internet service provider is not on the working group's roster,
you can insist that it take the oath of good citizenship. This month,  MCI
found itself criticized because a Web site that sells Send-Safe software
gets Internet services from a company that's an MCI division customer.
Send-Safe is spamware that offers bulk e-mail capability, claiming "real
anonymity"; it hijacks other machines that have been infected with a
complementary virus. Anyone can try it out for $50 and spray 400,000
messages. MCI, for its part, argues that it has an exemplary record in
shutting down spammers, but that the sale of bulk e-mail software is not,
ipso facto, illegal.

Unfortunately, there has been no good news on the legal front. When the
first batch of antispam bills w