Re: Excerpt on SPAM from Edupage, 11 February 1997

["Roy M. Silvernail" <roy@sendai.scytale.com>]

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In list.cypherpunks, ichudov@algebra.com writes:

> My opinion on this: I personally feel that this scheme is the way to 
> go for spammers. Obviously, it is possible to build mail readers that 
> would verify some kind of trusted signature on the attached postage, and
> would highlight all such messages. The meaning of signature is "these
> people are not crooks, there really is an encrypted dollar there".

I much prefer the plan where a potential mail correspondant includes an
e-cash dollar directly cashable by me.  If I like the mail (and the
sender), I throw the dollar away and the sender goes on the approved
list.  If not, I keep the dollar, and the sender goes on the twit list.
Paper junk mail costs an advertiser more than $1 per piece, so they'd
still be getting a bargain.  And potentially, some receivers may throw
away the dollar and welcome the spam.

> Clearly, spammers who pay their readers to read their messages (and who
> do get them to read) will have a very high response rate. That may 
> justify adding postage to their letters.

It should also spur development of intelligent agents which can retrieve
this cash without human intervention.  Spammers will doubtless alter
their pages to require more interaction to find the key to the cash.
Then the IA's will be improved.  Then... remember the copy protection
wars?  This isn't necessarily a negative point.

> The advantages are obvious. The disadvantage is a possibility of someone
> stealing the money on the way, if the letters are not encrypted.

Or that the money wasn't there in the first place (absent a trusted
signature system), or the key doesn't exist, or the wrong key is
offered, or the sender put the same e-dollar on all 60000 mails sie
sent and it's already been redeemed.
- -- 
           Roy M. Silvernail     [ ]     roy@scytale.com
DNRC Minister Plenipotentiary of All Things Confusing, Software Division
PGP Public Key fingerprint =  31 86 EC B9 DB 76 A7 54  13 0B 6A 6B CC 09 18 B6
      Key available from pubkey@scytale.com, which works now

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