[tlug] Time for the can't-beat-spam form?

["Shannon Jacobs" <shannon.jacobs@example.com>]

> Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2006 12:14:33 +0100
> From: Godwin Stewart <godwin.stewart@example.com>
<snip>
> No offence to Shannon, but solutions like this have been discussed and
> demonstrated unworkable sooooo many times, merely because they rely
> either on immediate global adoption and/or on radical changes to current
> SMTP software. Feeding into SMTP isn't the problem here, it's the SMTP
> to NEMS part which isn't going to work unless new SMTP software is
> written that "speaks" NEMS.

No global adoption and no change to existing SMTP software in the
system I proposed. Purely opt-in on the theory that some people will
like spam-free email. You can even use existing SMTP to carry the NEMS
and let SMTP ignore the NEMS header extensions. (However, that
requires that the validation and cancellation be done at the receiving
end.)

You're supposed to use the form with all the why-it-can't-work options
to check off. However, I can say that I've studied many of those forms
over the years, and the system I suggested doesn't match the
checkboxes. The spammified SMTP universe is not going anywhere. It
will live forever, like COBOL. (Yes, that's a kind of joke, because I
do think that even COBOL will ultimately pass from human ken.)
However, I'm convinced we can define a spam-free email universe by
redefining an email system that eliminates the fantasy of zero cost.