From: Mark Milhollan <mlm@mlm.ath.cx>
Subject: Re: [ANNOUNCE] contrib/hashcash.el spam fighter
Date: 23 Jun 2002 14:36:37 GMT [thread overview]
Message-ID: <m1660a9j4n.gnus.mlm@mlm.ath.cx> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <m3eleygl30.fsf@peorth.gweep.net>
Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:
>* David Masterson <dsm@rawbw.com> on Sun, 23 Jun 2002
>| Why not? And, if the MUA can't, what part does this hashcash.el
>| package (which, I assume, hooks into Gnus) play in things?
>
>Because it relies on the good faith of the sender. Spammers have none.
>
>I do not see what purpose hashcash.el can possibly serve, other than to
>penalize legitimate senders while doing nothing to spammers.
Hashcash is a rate-limiting tool -- forcing a compute intensive operation
delays every message by some amount of time -- primarily useful to the
anonymous remailer and Usenet posting networks. Most people only send a
few dozen or hundred messages per day so they have more time to compute the
hash than a spammer who is trying to deliver as fast as possible. MTA's
that demand Hashcash are likely to drop connections that won't provide them
(so far as I know none of these exist) or discard messages without them
(these exist). Without code to handle it Gnus users will be at a
disadvantage.
The main down-side, which has kept it from being widely deployed for the 6+
years that the technique has been discussed, is that the bit length has to
be set high enough so that spammers using high-end systems are impeded, yet
that same setting tends to take a very long, perhaps intolerably so, time
on an older system.
I agree with you that it's a futile move, spammers will throw cycles at the
problem and keep on spewing, while people with P90's will be limited to a
few messages a day (as long as their system isn't doing anything else).
/mark
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2002-06-23 14:36 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 56+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2002-06-22 12:55 Simon Josefsson
2002-06-23 2:40 ` David Masterson
2002-06-23 4:39 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-06-23 5:12 ` David Masterson
2002-06-23 13:50 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-06-23 14:36 ` Simon Josefsson
2002-06-23 15:20 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-06-23 17:59 ` Simon Josefsson
2002-06-23 21:34 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-06-24 5:41 ` David Masterson
2002-06-24 8:20 ` Kai Großjohann
2002-06-24 12:06 ` Simon Josefsson
2002-06-24 16:05 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-06-24 16:41 ` Simon Josefsson
2002-06-24 19:26 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-06-24 21:14 ` Simon Josefsson
2002-06-25 1:55 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-06-25 2:15 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-06-25 8:56 ` Simon Josefsson
2002-06-25 14:54 ` Stainless Steel Rat
[not found] ` <mit.lcs.mail.ding/02Jun25.104630edt.119271@gateway.intersystems.com>
2002-06-28 14:48 ` Patrick J. LoPresti
2002-06-28 16:30 ` Stainless Steel Rat
[not found] ` <mit.lcs.mail.ding/02Jun28.122222edt.119118@gateway.intersystems.com>
2002-06-28 20:25 ` Patrick J. LoPresti
2002-06-28 21:30 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-06-28 23:03 ` Simon Josefsson
2002-06-29 0:41 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-06-29 11:46 ` Simon Josefsson
2002-06-29 13:56 ` Stainless Steel Rat
[not found] ` <m2u1nmti0u.fsf@tnuctip.rychter.com>
2002-06-29 14:05 ` Stainless Steel Rat
[not found] ` <mit.lcs.mail.ding/m3bs9uxjsh.fsf@peorth.gweep.net>
2002-06-30 0:20 ` Patrick J. LoPresti
2002-06-30 7:23 ` Stainless Steel Rat
[not found] ` <mit.lcs.mail.ding/02Jun28.172137edt.119392@gateway.intersystems.com>
2002-06-30 0:07 ` Patrick J. LoPresti
2002-06-30 7:48 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-07-01 6:37 ` Steinar Bang
2002-07-01 15:20 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-07-01 17:22 ` Steinar Bang
2002-07-01 18:37 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-07-02 10:43 ` Steinar Bang
2002-07-02 15:33 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-07-02 18:23 ` Simon Josefsson
2002-07-02 18:28 ` Karl Kleinpaste
2002-07-02 18:50 ` Simon Josefsson
2002-07-05 22:14 ` Kevin Ryde
2002-07-06 11:11 ` Henrik Enberg
2002-07-07 18:40 ` Simon Josefsson
2002-07-02 18:57 ` Steinar Bang
2002-07-02 21:09 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-07-03 11:45 ` Steinar Bang
2002-07-03 12:35 ` Oystein Viggen
2002-07-03 14:49 ` Stainless Steel Rat
2002-06-25 6:57 ` undo mail catchup w .snapshot .[mumble]rc ? Yeoh Yiu
2002-06-26 19:33 ` Paul Jarc
2002-06-28 4:51 ` Yeoh Yiu
2002-06-23 14:36 ` Mark Milhollan [this message]
2002-06-23 10:54 ` [ANNOUNCE] contrib/hashcash.el spam fighter Simon Josefsson
2002-06-24 18:22 ` Jason R. Mastaler
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