Re: OT: GMail and Spam

From: Craig Fink (WeBeGood_at_GMail.Com)
Date: 03/21/05 

Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 22:22:39 GMT

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 18:35:41 +0000, Henry Spencer wrote:

> In article <pan.2005.03.20.21.35.03.423695@GMail.Com>, Craig Fink
> <WeBeGood@GMail.Com> wrote:
>>...Basically, charge a penny per e-mail (write a check), if it's not
>>spam don't cash the check. Still free. If it's spam, the reader
>>identifies it as such, and the check is cashed, charging the spammer.
>>Another concept to increase the cost of e-mail for spammer didn't
>>involve money, but rather computer time...
>
> These ideas, and a lot of other naive anti-spam concepts, neglect the
> fact that a lot of spam now comes via hijacked machines. These are
> legitimate machines, with legitimate network access and legitimate
> credentials, which happen to be no longer under the full control of
> their owners. So the spammers aren't getting the bills, and they have
> an essentially unlimited supply of CPU cycles at their disposal.

Not my concept, but I'll take a hack a reading between the lines.

I wouldn't call it unlimited, not yet anyway. Depending on the algorithm
used, the amount of CPU time could be greatly vary. So if it takes each
machine 1000, 10000 or even 1,000,000 times the CPU time for each e-mail,
the hijacked machine can only send out 1/1000th, 1/10000th or
1/1,000,000th the amount of spam. The hijacker is going to have to hijack
many, many more machines. When the user of the hijacked machine notices
that his machine seems to be moving at a crawl, or his e-mail bill is
growing rather fast, or he ran out of "pay as you go money", he's more
likely to fix his machine. One dollars in your e-mail check book account
would allow you to send unlimited e-mails, but limit the rate to 100
e-mails (a penny per e-mail) at any one time. After that you can't write
any more e-mail checks, or send any more e-mail, until some of those
written checks expire without being cashed (cashed check = spam). Also, to
get the mail through requires a round trip and valid addresses at both
ends, not just a mail server willing to accept and send. It would
have made some the recent "ineffective" anti-spam legislation unnecessary.

The Scientific American article is a good one, and really talks about a
multifaceted anti-spam effort for a spam free future :-J, not a silver
bullet. I just found these two of the more interesting concepts. 

-- 
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @ WeBeGood@GMail.Comn

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OT: GMail and Spam
    ... >>spam don't cash the check. ... >>identifies it as such, and the check is cashed, charging the spammer. ... >>involve money, but rather computer time... ... When the user of the hijacked machine notices ...
    (sci.space.shuttle)
  • Re: OT: GMail and Spam
    ... >>spam don't cash the check. ... >>identifies it as such, and the check is cashed, charging the spammer. ... >>involve money, but rather computer time... ... When the user of the hijacked machine notices ...
    (sci.space.history)
  • Re: Spammer motives
    ... what would the motivation be for a spammer to ... > Cos it costs zero to send spam, so if they get one sale, they've made a ... Multiply that by millions of spam messages and a few hundred ... a lot of spammers make their money by conning other losers into ...
    (alt.computer.security)
  • Re: Stopping Spam
    ... Um, what's the Outlook question? ... | Spammers are in it for the money. ... So they send spam. ... | there has to be some money made by the spammer. ...
    (microsoft.public.outlook)
  • Re: Stopping Spam
    ... Um, what's the Outlook question? ... | Spammers are in it for the money. ... So they send spam. ... | there has to be some money made by the spammer. ...
    (microsoft.public.outlook)