RE: Remailer Abuse Solutions

[ph@netcom.com (Peter Hendrickson)]

At 10:34 AM 11/13/1996, Mullen Patrick wrote:
> Sounds like another attempt to raise the cost of using the Net, nothing more.

I am curious which conspiracy you believe I am participating in, other
than the Great Cypherpunk Conspiracy, that is.

Keep in mind that nobody is forced to participate.

> Sure, paying postage (Is $1 really necessary?  Why email when snailmail's
> cheaper??) may reduce general spamming done by local punks, but it does
> nothing
> against corporations which already spend millions on snailmail spamming.

Many people would be happy to read spam mail at $1 a piece.  Assuming you
can scan at a very conservative 3 messages/minute, that's $180/hr. you
can make in the privacy of their own home.

Not enough for you?  Raise the rate.

One dollar is a nice schelling point.  That's why I chose it for my
example.  In practice the people involved are welcome to choose any
amount in any currency they like.

> Also,
> what happens when your long-lost friend comes across your addy and tries to
> email you?  Surely you don't want to charge postage for an otherwise free
> service to him/er.  Maintaining a list of "accepted sources" would be a hassle
> not many people would accept.

Absent highly intrusive global net monitoring techniques, that's what they
are going to have to do anyway.  E-mail is inexpensive.  The advertiser
can justify the expense even if generates a small number of leads.  Expect
more spam.

The alternative to filtering the mail in some way is to create Internet
licenses for every participant which may be revoked for infractions.
These licenses would have to be global.  Big Brother is Watching.

Advertisers do not have a monopoly on spam.  Many people - especially
women - complain about harrassing mail they receive.

> Slight variation is to generate a list of "toll these entities."  A smaller
> list
> (hopefully :-), and generally easier because then it defaults to no-bill.  Or,
> to accomodate superstars/actors/etc, generate files like rhosts.accept
> rhosts.deny in UNIX.  That way, the user may use either/both types of
> filtering.

How will you construct your "toll these entities" list yet accept mail from
any remailer?  Why will spammers not figure out remailers?

> Again, the average user wouldn't want to deal with this hassle, everyone's
> mail
> software would have to be rewritten, and I basically oppose any ideas that
> cost me money for something I already get for free...  :-)

No, everybody's mail software would not have to be rewritten.  That was
the idea.  For instance, it would be easy for users of Unix systems to
use procmail to pre-filter their mail for whatever program they like.
Nota bene: the remailer operator is not offering to filter the users
mail.

"Free" is not always the best choice.  I would gladly pay $10/month to
receive the cypherpunks list if it meant that messages were delivered
immediately when sent.  (I believe these delays hamper the discussion.)
As it is, I can't complain because I am a recipient of John Gilmore's
charity.

I would be interested to hear more about your solution to this problem:
People spam other people who don't like spam but like to receive anonymous
messages.

I would prefer to see solutions in keeping with the Cypherpunks spirit;
that is, no use of force, no use of law, and no loss of anonymity will
be acceptable.

Peter Hendrickson
ph@netcom.com