Re: [OT] Yahoo's Antispam proposal

[richard lyons <richard@the-place.net>]

On Friday 21 May 2004 21:54, James Buchanan wrote:
> > If nothing changes email will soon be unusable.
[...]
> Someone needs to write a really good RFC for a new email "next
> generation" service and make it impossibly hard for spammers, that
> is simple and quick to implement.  No 6-part RFCs with vague
> requirements and a long list of gotcha's.  Quick and simple like
> the orginal SMTP, but locked down and designed around squishing
> spam from the start.

Surely it would be enough to verify authenticity of the from address 
before accepting the content?  No signatures or registers, just open 
a second connection, ask the supposed server if it is sending message 
number xyz and drop the first connection if not.  It would not stop 
spam, but it would prevent faked headers, which includes about 95% of 
spam today.  

If we could get rid of the real crud - the unreplyable emails, we 
could create tools to make a working relationship on terms each of us 
could accept with the advertisers. First you need them to be 
accountable -  you need to know who you are talking to.  

I favour a system of locally held spam.allow and spam.deny files which 
each user could edit or set up through client software.  Your MTA 
would politely refuse all categories unless you accepted them.  So 
when you are shopping for hi-fi, you allow that category.  Once that 
system were available, it would be easy to complain to spammers who 
ignored your preferences, and to boycott those who did not declare 
their category.  Commerce could carry on, knowing it was only 
addressing a prequalified audience, and those who don't want to see 
it could avoid it the same way I avoid the adverts on TV.  And by 
avoiding a total prohibition, we would avoid developing another black 
market and encourage the "good" spammers.

-- 
richard