Subject: Re: Engineering to deal with the social problem of spam

From: james woodyatt <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 10:08:15 -0700

everyone--

Here's a silly idea: let's try adding an option for hashcash to APEX.  
(Or has someone already done that?)

If the problem with hashcash is that worms can steal CPU cycles to 
generate hashcash, then let's attack the problem of worms separately 
from the problem of spam suppression.  If the problem with hashcash is 
that poor people are taxed more heavily than rich people for the 
utility of spam suppression, then-- well-- they should upgrade their 
CPU's, now shouldn't they?

And as for those too poor to keep their CPU's current, Let Them Eat 
SMTP.  They clearly have an unhealthy interest in paying to receive 
MAKE MONEY FAST spam, so we should encourage them to continue using 
SMTP anyway.  The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes 
around it.  Let SMTP continue to serve the useful function it serves: 
carrying spam messages.

-- 
j h woodyatt <[email-masked]>

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 01:12:45 -0400

> around it.  Let SMTP continue to serve the useful function it serves: 

Ahem.

I have several million dollars of compute resources at my disposal.
It will take a fairly large hashcash request to make it painful for
me.

There's a *large* number of people still in the 386 world, who are
financially unable to upgrade.  That same hashcash request that will
not inconvenience my hardware will probably kill their box for the
better part of an hour.  You are concluding that they therefor have an
interest in paying to receive spam???

If anything, spam is a *bigger* problem for those on older hardware,
simply because they have fewer computrons available to process it - so
you're basically creating a regressive tax here.

Just because the Internet routes around censorship doesn't mean that
we have the moral right to censor those people who need it the most -
those in underdeveloped countries with repressive regimes.

Just because the Great Firewall of China exists doesn't mean we should
add injury to insult by disenfranchising those who manage to get
around the firewall.

There is junk fax - and the Berlin Wall was brought down by fax machines.

Let's not get this wrong.

---

From: james woodyatt <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 22:30:20 -0700

On Tuesday, Jun 10, 2003, at 22:12 US/Pacific, [email-masked] 
wrote:
> [...]

Yup.  I am.

> you're basically creating a regressive tax here.

And I'm not going to apologize for proposing it.

Look, the phenomenon of spam is already a regressive tax, in and of 
itself.  I'm just looking for a way to get some useful work done in 
exchange for receiving it.  And I certainly won't mind if someone else 
is interested in paying me for the option to use the result of whatever 
useful work your CPU has to do to get your message in front of my 
eyeballs.

> those in underdeveloped countries with repressive regimes.

Who's talking about censorship?  I'm not proposing that we outlaw SMTP.

-- 
j h woodyatt <[email-masked]>
that's my village calling... no doubt, they want their idiot back.

---

From: Dean Anderson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 18:12:59 -0400 (EDT)

> It will take a fairly large hashcash request to make it painful for

Then you obviously have too much compute power for the number of users
that you have.

If you get more users, the compute power to implement hashcash increases.
Hashcash just makes you more vulneralble to a DOS attack, and does nothing
to deter spam. Spammers will still send something that is cheaper than a
postcard.

If you make email cost more than a postcard, _that_ will kill email.
Nothing else will.

> Let's not get this wrong.

Let's not forget that it was UUCP and not the internet that foiled the
coup that imprisoned Gorbachev for 3 days.

		--Dean