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

[Paul King]

On Sun, 2006-04-16 at 11:15 -0400, Evan Leibovitch wrote:
<SNIP> 
> Most of the pay-per-use answers I've seen here are hardly worthwhile. 
> They may reduce the volume of spam somewhat, but will not eliminate the 
> larger problem and create new problems and inconveniences of their own. 
> They will allow people who can pay for the privilege to continue to 
> spam, while others who may have a more legitimate or desperate message 
> to get out will be stopped. Turning "general spam" into "spam for those 
> who can afford it" is not IMO a sensible approach.
> 
> - Evan

Good points all, but not having seen the start of this thread, I am
intrigued by the title nonetheless. I agree that paying for email
wouldn't solve anything.

I guess by "certified" would imply to put into place a system by which
all mail that does not possess said "certificate" is excluded from
acceptance by any mailing list or person. I am not sure that that would
be easily carried out, since all email is, in some way, context-
dependent. There is email from a list; there is email from "the wild
beyond" (friends we hadn't seen in some time); there is email from web
pages whom we willingly accepted information be emailed to us (I am
guilty of doing this on occasion); there is email from friends we know
and have frequent contact with; there is email from co-workers in an
office network, often subjected to illicit email.

Anything I can think of that would distinguish friend from foe by said
certificate would likely add to the complexity at the user end. At the
end of the day, someone, somewhere will compromise the "certificate
system", and spam will continue afresh, and you will have to go back to
filtering again.

Sorry if I sound pessimistic.

Paul King


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