[debate] proposal: this house will legalize spam

[Gadi Evron]

Rob Enderle wrote:
> Bill Gates, some time back, proposed the idea of an email tax.  Something that was a fraction of a penny per email.  It would amount to a couple of dollars for most of us but would virtually halt efforts to send email to an entire country forcing spammers to better target their messages to people who might actually want to purchase and reduce dramatically the cost we all pay in terms of spam filters, wasted storage, and time (to scan the damned spam filters) while helping the government raise money.   This money could even be earmarked to go after malware creators.  

In this email I want to introduce the list to a bit of what spam taught 
me about the world at large, drugs and terrorism. But first, I'd like to 
debunk the idea of email stamps.

Asking for money, or stamps per email, is doomed to fail as the 
technology to avoid it already exists, as I demonstrate below. More 
importantly though--even if it didn't--the solution suggested can not be 
implemented, as my second point will clearly show.

Penny email is an interesting idea for an alternative if our goal was to 
get rid of spam--it isn't--we want to tax it.

But even if we did go with it, it doesn't hold water these days because 
of spam mostly being sent by botnets. Bots will simply send email using 
the email "stamps" they users who own the computer bought.

We have seen similar evolution happen before when ISPs started blocking 
outgoing port 25/TCP. Most user computers couldn't just send email out 
anymore. What this caused was for spammers to develop bots which would 
use the email account of the user to send out spam.

This was negative because:

	1. Email infrastructures were under strain. ISPs had to invest a
	   large amount of money in getting the infrastructure to be
	   able to cope with this amount of outgoing email.

	2. User's addresses would actually be tagged as spammers, unable
	   to send email.

This was positive because:

	1. Service providers could pinpoint who offenders were even more
	   easily.

	2. Service providers could rate-limit how much email regular
	   users are likely to send, to top things off.

	3. Users learned they need to take care of their own security,
	   as their email may get blocked.

In a reactive fighting, both sides evolve when the other introduces new 
means. Blocking port 25 outgoing caused the criminals (or Bad Guys TM) 
to evolve where we wanted them to.

All that said, this technology could never be implemented. Anti-spam 
introduced the world to what is commonly known as FUSSP, or the "perfect 
solution".

Every once in a while a new anti spammer would come along and suggest 
something NEW and AMAZING that would solve all the world's spam 
problems... If only everyone used their solution (or other similar truisms).

Well worth a read:
You Might Be An Anti-Spam Kook If...
http://www.rhyolite.com/anti-spam/you-might-be.html

	Gadi.