From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/46047 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Lloyd Zusman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: TMDA (was: new spam functionality added) Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2002 08:02:24 -0400 Organization: FreeBSD/Linux Hippopotamus Preserve Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: <87y9brejam.fsf@mail.paradoxical.net> <873ctztyth.fsf@mail.paradoxical.net> <20020801222925.A10502@mastaler.com> <02Aug5.165400edt.119167@gateway.intersystems.com> <02Aug6.103518edt.119321@gateway.intersystems.com> <02Aug6.141550edt.119068@gateway.intersystems.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1028721806 28874 127.0.0.1 (7 Aug 2002 12:03:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 7 Aug 2002 12:03:26 +0000 (UTC) Return-path: Original-Received: from malifon.math.uh.edu ([129.7.128.13]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17cPXA-0007VS-00 for ; Wed, 07 Aug 2002 14:03:24 +0200 Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu ([129.7.128.10] ident=lists) by malifon.math.uh.edu with esmtp (Exim 3.20 #1) id 17cPWt-0006ZD-00; Wed, 07 Aug 2002 07:03:07 -0500 Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Wed, 07 Aug 2002 07:03:35 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (qmailr@sclp3.sclp.com [209.196.61.66]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id HAA24840 for ; Wed, 7 Aug 2002 07:03:16 -0500 (CDT) Original-Received: (qmail 18013 invoked by alias); 7 Aug 2002 12:02:41 -0000 Original-Received: (qmail 17999 invoked from network); 7 Aug 2002 12:02:39 -0000 Original-Received: from home.acholado.net (216.27.138.216) by gnus.org with SMTP; 7 Aug 2002 12:02:39 -0000 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) (uid 501) by home.acholado.net with local; Wed, 07 Aug 2002 08:02:24 -0400 Original-To: ding@gnus.org X-Face: "!ga1s|?LNLE3MeeeEYs(%LIl9q[xV9!j4#xf4!**BFW_ihlOb;:Slb>)vy>CJM (Stainless Steel Rat's message of "Tue, 06 Aug 2002 14:08:02 -0400") Original-Lines: 66 User-Agent: Gnus/5.090007 (Oort Gnus v0.07) XEmacs/21.4 (Economic Science, i686-pc-linux) Precedence: list X-Majordomo: 1.94.jlt7 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.general:46047 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.gnus.general:46047 Stainless Steel Rat writes: > * David Masterson on Tue, 06 Aug 2002 > | Also, if needed, a system could be set up for this purpose that allow > | people with these accounts to send limited numbers of email within a > | given time period, thus making the system unattractive to spammers. > > I like the idea of just making the system unattractive to spammers without > making it unattractive to Joe Average. Agreed ... and for that reason, I putting my two cents in to support Hashcash. And I also support TMDA and others of its ilk ... because in my experience, very few "Joe Average" type folks that I know have had a problem with the couple extra keystrokes or mouseclicks that are necessary to send the initial confirmation message. In fact, several of my "Joe Average" correspondents have written back to tell me that after being introduced to TMDA via my email account, they are off to try to install it and use it themselves. In the ideal email world that I'm envisioning today, there would be some sort of combination of hashcash and confirmation. Most people I know would consider this to be a small and quite acceptable price to pay for spam reduction. In the case of a the small minority who are dead set against email confirmation (and yes, in my experience so far, it IS a small minority), I'd be happy to pre-whitelist those people if I really want to communicate with them ... many of them are vocal about their opposition to email confirmations, which makes it easy for me to identify a lot of them before I communicate. There will still be the occasional person who wants to initiate contact, but who is morally opposed to my confirmation system, and who therefore decides not to follow through once he or she discovers that I'm using such a system. Even in that case, I can see the initial email that this person sent, since I keep a "pending" queue that I review once or twice a day. And if I want to respond to that person, TMDA easily allows me to "release" his or her email and to whitelist the return address. So I can still respond to that person, who then has the choice as to whether he or she wants to continue communicating with me, without any need for confirmation. I believe that only the most die-hard anti-email-confirmation zealots would refuse to continue communicating with someone with whom they originally initiated contact, from whom they received a confirmation request that they ignored, and from whom they subsequently received a gracious reply anyway, with an explanation that confirmation is no longer necessary for them, because they have been whitelisted. And I wouldn't lose a whole lot of sleep if an person like that would refuse to continue the email conversation that he or she originally initiated with me, and which I voluntarily chose to continue anyway, under these circumstances. So for me (and I believe for lots of other "Joe Average" folks), a TMDA-like system is useful and desirable. And as I mentioned, that in combination with hashcash would go a long way towards significantly reducing spam. -- Lloyd Zusman ljz@asfast.com