February 10, 2004
The Solution to SPAM?
I read that Bill Gates was saying one way to fight SPAM was to charge 1 cent everytime you send e-mail. The idea is that spammers would not have the cash to keep up with it. I think there is a better solution — today.
Why not use the digital signature capabilities that are in most e-mail clients? With digital signatures, you pay a yearly fee, about 15 bucks, to a 3rd party to register your email address. They give you a digital stamp that you can use whenever you want. When people receive the email, the email program verifies the stamp.
So as a mail reading citizen, you have the option of only receiving signed emails. Then spammers would be forced to buy a signature. This creates a paper trail so if you get unsolicated spam, you can report it and they have a fighting chance of tracking it down.
Probably some holes. The certificates need to be cheaper. But just a thought.
For $15 bux I can send a 1st time email to a mass of people -- that's enough damage done.
I agree with Brandon on this one: I think the anonymity is what allows this to continue.
The other fix is to block receipt of mail from any but authorized relayers: smtp.com and hopmail.com are examples, but ISPs could be part of it as well. So if I block unsigned mail and whitelist the relayers who have secured their networks, we should see an improvement.