Will certified e-mail stop spam? (was: unsubscribing... etc)
Peter
plp-ysDPMY98cNQDDBjDh4tngg at public.gmane.org
Thu Apr 13 09:21:45 UTC 2006
On Wed, 12 Apr 2006, Jason Spiro wrote:
> On 4/12/06, Jamon Camisso <jamon.camisso-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> I wonder if you meant to say "instead of being a fatal blow?" I should
>> think that in this case, unsuspecting users would be an *asset* in
>> striking the fatal blow at a pay-per-message scheme.
>
> Jamon, Christopher,
>
> I would prefer a bond-based system by far: a system where there's only
> a charge if the recipient clicks the "This is spam" button. A
Hmm, there is a point to this. Charge up front anyway and if there is
*no* 'spam' feedback credit the sender account for the amount charged ?
After a while there should be a floating sum in each account, that
covers mail cost per billing period. That sum would be zero for all
non-commercial accounts which do not send spam. So commercial spam would
cost the sender money and normal mail would not. Moreover, spammers
would have feedback as to what 'goes' and what does not. Then, one could
implement nonlinear pricing for mass spam, e.g. a spam would cost as
little as a postage stamp, but 10,000 per week returned as spam would up
the price to 50c/mail (the ISP makes $5000 cash per spammer account per
week), 20,000 for $1/mail etc. Sounds good so far, no ?
I mean, if there is no negative feedback built into the system, it will
run away. So far, the positive feedback is the revenue from spam, and it
is not countered by anything. The negative feedback being built now must
balance this, or it will be useless. If Internet stories are true, then
one can 'buy' into a botnet for $25 per thousand of zombies. If returns
are what is also mentioned on the net, then $25 buys the real advertiser
$50 to $250 in business. So to quench this, the cost of running 1000
zombies must be made to exceed $250, or $0.25 per zombie. Since each
zombie could send thousands of emails until caught, putting a price as
small as 1 cent per email returned as spam should drive the cost of
spamming through the roof, first by making small but significant charges
at zombied computer operators appear, who would likely prefer to spend
the spam tax on antivirus programs and proper setup.
Effectively there would be a computer mismanagement charge for people
who do not secure their machines and leave them open to attack,
amounting to $10 or more per month per machine (assuming 10,000 emails
returned as spam at 1 cent each per month). This would prod 'innocent
ignorers' into action. Of course it would do nothing for real spammers,
but they would have to start buying serious bandwidth since zombies
should start being scarce after a while.
$0.01
Peter
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