Consider the source.
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-- John Adams
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Technology not laws
We could eliminate most spam by employing address and domain verification, and enforcing it at the ISP gateways. This was proposed by several groups and advanced in IETF years ago, but we still don't have it. Why not?
Yes, Verify Domains NOW and Addresses down the road
I missed this little gem before. This is part of the solution. By having each domain have a certificate to authenticate that a SMTP (HELO) is originating from it, this will aid in tracking down spammers.
Since the deployment of certificates and software to make all ISP SMTP servers open sessions with client authentication will take a long time and meet with resistance, the cooperating group that does can trust that spammers will be tracked down who use those servers. Mail coming from unauthenticated servers can be flagged for the client email application to decide what to do.
Later, as individuals get their own certificates and as ISP are willing and able to deploye directories of addresses, the second and third steps, in reverse order, can be accomplished: verifying in-bound and out-bound addresses and verifying sender to recipient per message.
Are you surprised?
Can you name one thing the govt has done that actually worked? After we just spent $700,000,000,000 to "save" the economy the market is down around 800 points.
CAN-SPAM
The ultimate solution to SPAM is to impose some sort of fee -- and it can be very small -- for each e-mail that is sent, with the fee paid then being credited to the recipient. For legitimate e-mail users whose outgoing e-mails roughly equal their (non-SPAM) incoming e-mails, the fees paid would roughly equal the fees credited to their account. But, for example, if the charge is as little as one-tenth of a cent per e-mail, the spammers who send out those 150+ billion e-mails would be subject to $150-million in fees. All those who originate e-mails would be required to register with a central registrar that would collect and distribute these fees (for consumers and small businesses, this could be handled by their ISP to reduce transaction costs), such that only e-mails from registered, fee-paying senders would be accepted and delivered. The reason there is so much spam is because it doesn't cost the spammers anything to send it. Make 'em pay, and they'll stop.
CAN-SPAM
Agreed - SPAM exists as an economic problem that can't be solved with technology or the law. Based on the article, the cost of SPAM spread over legit emails is 1.9 cents per email. Impose a charge of 1.5 cents on each email, figure out a secure way for ISP's to reimburse customers, and voila - the economics of SPAM have been wiped out, ISP's save money, and we're all spared the annoyance of spam.
bots
Am i wrong in that most spam comes from bots?
This makes large bills to the real spammer impossible.
You would be dealing with millions of small billings to unwitting users that would be economically impractical.
Most of the spam software is
Most of the spam software is sold by the 'software' companies such as volomp. 30 millions mails a day with such software. Make them responzible to whom they sell there software.
What good does a U.S. law do?
What good does a U.S. law do against spam when most high-volume spammers either set up bulletproof accounts overseas or hijack innocent bystanders to make themselves almost untraceable?
Spam is cheap
and the internet is global. Unless all nations agree on prosecuting spammers and preventing servers from within their borders to act as a way station for spam, the problem won't go away.
One of the anonymous emailers (headline CAN-SPAM) suggested a proposal that has been floating around for years. Charge a small fee for each email that goes out being the first step. This is an idea that's way overdue in being actively tested.
With respect to spammers that are caught and prosecuted. Ban them from the internet for x years (this may be more style than substance). Impound any and all profits and property from those caught and prosecuted.
Click here to "unsubscribe" has been to a large extent, a failure. For legitimate emailers, it works, for the spammers, it means, "hey, I've got a good email address here."
SPAM is cheap, no matter what..
Correct, all countries should work on this, actually not much work, just agree that (ANY!) SPAM is not useful, eats resources and is internationally forbidden by treaties, etc.
Will not happen - it would end the political and economical "expert" messages, reports and ads, "Free Radio", etc also! We all know how marketing, politicians and so on love those even they are about the worst kind SPAM and noise about 98% of time! The old problem, what is SPAM in USA may be just normal information somewhere else and vice versa. And sometimes cause more problems than any e-mail / Internet SPAM can do.
Micro-payments are good in theory, who's going to pay the resources I will need to secure and to enhance my mail server - or any other server which is capable SPAMing? I know who's going to pay it for ISPs - we all! Micro-payments are not any easier or less expensive than macro-payments, need the same customer / bank information! And see in what trouble companies / corporations are today, you mean that we all handle for ex. PCI requirements? Will not happen!
Some day, when you can trust governments, ISPs, treaties, etc NOT interfering private issues and honoring by law guaranteed anonymity we can start identifying the sources - and I'm not holding my breath! "Criminals", etc are easy to handle compared to that.
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