Will certified e-mail stop spam? (was: unsubscribing... etc)

[wattst-dxuVLtCph9gsA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org]

Quoting Peter <plp-ysDPMY98cNQDDBjDh4tngg at public.gmane.org>:

>
> 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

Let me start by saying that I haven't been actively following this thread so I
may be very misinformed, but you're last paragraph really struct a chord with
me, particularly this sentence: "This would prod 'innocent ignorers' into
action."  Now, I don't know if you are talking about charging business servers,
who should be taking appropriate action to ensure they're not part of the
problem or actual home users (Mom and Pop), but I'm under the impression that
it is the latter.  THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN.  I can just imagine the outrage of
people who are already frustrated by computers having to pay an additional
charge to be on the internet when, I think, a lot of these people are on the
internet only because they feel they have to be.  They are already upset about
paying for something they don't fully understand.

Again, I may have misinterpreted this thread and I did get lost trying to follow
the outline of your plan, so correct me if I have made a mistake here.

Tom Watts
wattst-dxuVLtCph9gsA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml