Spam

[list subscriber]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> [mailto:ukcrypto-admin@chiark.greenend.org.uk]
> Sent: 09 October 2002 22:41
>
> [wiping out spam]... (by replacing SMTP with something else).
>
> This isn't a practical solution. But to keep the crypto angle, people
> have suggested that an SMTP-replacement might only deal in signed mail,
> and so the perpetrators were much more easily traced.

I wonder sometimes if governments secretly quite like and possibly even
encourage the unstoppable wave of spam. It could force us all into a world
where in practice only signed mail (and I mean signed using a certificate
which links to the real-world identity of the sender) will ever get to its
recipient. There would be no point accepting just any old signed mail as the
spammers would then just generate disposable signing keys, the signing would
have to actually mean something.

"Notice to Citizens. For your protection anonymous mail is now banned. Click
here to apply for your official cert without which all your mail will be
black-holed."

Joe