Re: non-censorous spam control (was Re: Spam is Information?)

[Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>]

William Geiger MLCVXII <whgiii@amaranth.com> writes:
> In <199707311120.MAA00669@server.test.net>, on 07/31/97 
> >  at 12:20 PM, Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk> said:
> >
> >One way to implement this is for other people to pay the author for their
> >articles a penny if they like the article.  That way people who write
> >things which others find interesting to read get subsidized posting.  Is
> >it still free speech if you have to pay for your posts if you're arguing
> >for an unpopular minority?
> 
> This will not work!!!
> 
> Charging for e-mail/news posts will do nothing to prevent spam and
> more than likely increase the noise on such lists. It is the spamers
> who have the money to post volumns of their crap.

For email spam I disagree.  I currently get 10 spams a day or so.  All
as a result of one unprotected post to a USENET group a few weeks
back.  Before that I hadn't posted to USENET for a while and the spams
had nearly died down.

If the spammer had to pay 1c for each spam, he'd be out of business
with his current scatter gun approach.  He'd have to get a lot more
selective, because it would be in his commercial interests to do so.

> Also I think you will find that it will be the fanatics who
> will think it worth the $$$ to get their message out.

Fine by me, so long as they're paying their way, the NoCems from a
reliable rating service will take care of them.

You have more of a point in newsgroups, or mailing lists as the
spammer only has to make one post.

Charging for posts in that scenario only makes sense to stop people
who spew multiple mega-bytes of robo-spam just to be annoying, and for
no commercial gain at all.

NoCems are the real answer to public forums.  Spammers will feel less
incentive to spam when it becomes clear most people have them filtered
out anyway.

> While I find the various mailling lists & newsgroups of intrest the
> majority of them are not thet intresting that I would be willing to pay
> $$$ every time I post a reply to someones questions (most of my posts
> outside of CP are answering questions on programming,crypto, & OS/2). I
> think that the overall quality of the newsgroups would decline if you
> started paying on a per-post basis.

Surely you aren't that prolific a writer that 1c a post would
be a burden on you?

I make what 20 posts a day at peak?  Often 1 or none some days.

> It should be noted that the Bandwith issue is a red-herring. It is an
> antiquated concept from the Fidonet days and does not apply. The bandwith
> of the USENET has been *PAID IN FULL* by every subscriber to an ISP. The
> ISP customers pay for their connections to their ISP who in turn pay for
> their connections to the Access providers who inturn pay for the Backbone.
> The PIPE has been paid for what goes over it not an issue. If all I want
> to do with my T1 connection is ship *.jpg files via ftp 24/7 that is no
> ones busines but my own. If I chooses to use my bandwith to transmit a
> variety of file formats using various protocols
> (HTTP,FTP,GOFFER,ARCHIE,...ect) who are you to say that some formats are
> good and some are not!! (this is not even getting into the content of the
> data being shiped).

That's interesting, and probably true, but still bandwidth is limited,
see.  It is entirely possible for some idiots to consume vastly more
than their share of the shared pipe.

Probably what you're saying is that you like a lot of other "power
users" myself included use more bandwidth than the average neophyte.
So you're in favor of flat charges because it represents a good deal
for you.

Get me on a T1 and I use it, man.  Hmm, I'll just upgrade to gcc 2.7.x
(10 megs later) and then I'll upgrade the OS (another 50 megs later),
and so the day gos on.  Bandwidth hog.

Sitting on the end of this pay per second 28.8k PPP line really cramps
my style :-) I've started buying linux CD sets, and upgrading OS less
frequently.  I'm still on X32a (for linux people) even though it's
expired and tried to disable it's self, I've hacked around the
disablement (set the clock back 2 months for a couple of seconds while
it's starting, and then forward again part way through seems to fix
it) because I don't fancy the cost of 10 megs at 28.8k, nor the
hassle.

Now I would be pretty happy to spend $500 - $1500 a year for a 64k
leased line, or at least for a flat rate phone bill.  But nooo you
can't get that in the UK.  You're looking at more like $10k once
you've factored in leased line + bandwidth leasing.

To compensate I bought a load of BT (phone co) shares, so that at
least in theory I get some of the money they are making.  But the
OFTEL setup (government regulatory body) is killing them with
regulations, which is reducing their profitability.  I'm hanging on to
the shares, as it's supposed to end soonish.

Adam
-- 
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/

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