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MacNNUK · Jun 13, 2011, 02:05 AM

Charge everyone in the world who uses email 1c (1p) per email, prepaid in advance.
Otherwise the email doesn't make it past the ISP.

Not sure how it would work though, down to the ISP's I presume.

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 02:13 AM

Unenforceable, and I'm not sure I understand how punishing the victims of email bombs would reduce spam? Spammers don't use their ISP's SMTP server to send spam.

P · Jun 13, 2011, 03:30 AM

MS proposed something like this about 10 years ago. It eventually developed into requiring 1 cent's worth of CPU time. Minor description here.

reader50 · Jun 13, 2011, 03:57 AM

Perhaps you mean requiring all ISPs to charge 1c per outgoing email. ie - make sending tons of mail cost real money.

It would produce one benefit. Web stores would stop defaulting their spam setting to ON every time a new customer buys something.

lpkmckenna · Jun 13, 2011, 04:00 AM

Here's the real solution to stopping spam: Ars Technica: Three banks process 95% of spam transactions. Cut the lifeblood off at the source.

ghporter · Jun 13, 2011, 05:28 AM

I'm with lpkmckenna - follow the money. Cut the ability of spammers to collect anything at all, and they'll dry up and go away.

But I think a scaled ISP charge might help; if you send less than 100 emails a day (or more if you can somehow prove they're all legit), there is no charge. Send more than 100 but less than 1000, the ISP can charge up to 10¢ each unless you can prove that ALL of them are legit. More than 1000 per day, your ISP can charge up to $1 each, unless you register as a commercial mailer and pay 2¢ each email, or somehow prove every email you send was legit and non-commercial. Low volume users are reevaluated monthly, high volume (>100 daily) are reevaluated weekly. Average the small users over a month, the medium users over a week, and the big ones daily (no possibility of smoothing over big days). Call this a "modest proposal" if you like...

Spheric Harlot · Jun 13, 2011, 05:42 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

I'm with lpkmckenna - follow the money. Cut the ability of spammers to collect anything at all, and they'll dry up and go away.

But I think a scaled ISP charge might help; if you send less than 100 emails a day (or more if you can somehow prove they're all legit), there is no charge. Send more than 100 but less than 1000, the ISP can charge up to 10¢ each unless you can prove that ALL of them are legit.

Gee, I can see that working.

Just the bureaucracy to even TRY and verify that would far exceed the money coming in.

And I'm not even going to think about the impossibility of actually collecting it. Even if you could figure out who was responsible (does a small ISP exploited through a recently uncovered hole in their SMTP server really stand a chance on the market if they have to pay some undisclosed recipients 10 cents on every one of 100 million mails sent on a particular Sunday?

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 06:05 AM

Of course, if everyone were doing things properly* they wouldn't get any spam.

(* Their own email server with the appropriate RBLs and rDNS in place.)

Laminar · Jun 13, 2011, 07:16 AM

Or just use Gmail.

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 07:18 AM

Originally Posted by Doofy

Of course, if everyone were doing things properly* they wouldn't get any spam.

(* Their own email server with the appropriate RBLs and rDNS in place.)

They would get less spam, yes.

There is literally no way charging smtp servers can be enforced. A great deal of spam comes from compromised PCs running rogue SMTP servers. How would you charge for this email?

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 09:05 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

How would you charge for this email?

I wouldn't.

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 09:07 AM

Originally Posted by Doofy

I wouldn't.

Sorry, I meant that for the OP.

How are you this Monday morning? Is the sun shining around Buckingham Palace?

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 09:34 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

How are you this Monday morning? Is the sun shining around Buckingham Palace?

I'm fine and dandy thank you Bess. And yourself?

The sun is, of course, shining around Buck House.

SSharon · Jun 13, 2011, 12:21 PM

Originally Posted by lpkmckenna

Here's the real solution to stopping spam: Ars Technica: Three banks process 95% of spam transactions. Cut the lifeblood off at the source.

This is definitely the way to go.

Athens · Jun 13, 2011, 12:49 PM

I would like to see a totally new system in place. Current one stays as is and as people move away from it dies.

New system

National Postal Services for each country handles all email for that country. So Canada Post for Canada, and US Postal Service run the mail servers. Users buy the email address they want and must show proper identification with it. Should only cost $5.00 for something like 10 000 sent emails and receiving is free. Individuals get a Personal Certificate ID. Companies get a business certificate ID and the entire system operates on SSL and trusted certificates. A user can opt out of all commercial messages, advertising messages and so forth.

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 12:58 PM

^ No thanks. Just because you can't be arsed to run your own server and become spam-free it doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to.

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 01:21 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

I'm fine and dandy thank you Bess. And yourself?

The sun is, of course, shining around Buck House.

I'm having a good day. It is sunny here and I'm feeling the love in the air that is spring. I love you!

Buck house? Hahaha, I thought you were rich, but your house is only worth a buck!

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 01:24 PM

Originally Posted by Athens

I would like to see a totally new system in place. Current one stays as is and as people move away from it dies.

New system

National Postal Services for each country handles all email for that country. So Canada Post for Canada, and US Postal Service run the mail servers. Users buy the email address they want and must show proper identification with it. Should only cost $5.00 for something like 10 000 sent emails and receiving is free. Individuals get a Personal Certificate ID. Companies get a business certificate ID and the entire system operates on SSL and trusted certificates. A user can opt out of all commercial messages, advertising messages and so forth.

No offense, but this is an unbelievably bad idea.

Do you have any idea how expensive the IT infrastructure would have to be to provide an email system that scales to be able to serve everyone in the country?

How much do you think this would cost?

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 01:25 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

^ No thanks. Just because you can't be arsed to run your own server and become spam-free it doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to.

Running your own server and setting up SpamHaus and an RDNS entry is not a magic bullet to being spam free, sorry.

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 01:30 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Running your own server and setting up SpamHaus and an RDNS entry is not a magic bullet to being spam free, sorry.

Works for me, sorry.

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 01:31 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

Works for me, sorry.

I know, and send/receive mail for only yourself, right?

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 01:35 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I know, and send/receive mail for only yourself, right?

"Myself" being a couple of companies, yes.

Just go download CommuniGate Community Edition, stick it on a spare Mac, point it at Spamhaus, engage the rDNS and create a filter to reject everything from "the Bat!" client... ...and you're golden.

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 01:45 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

"Myself" being a couple of companies, yes.

When your email addresses start to circulate a little more among the malware/IRC channels or you have a local infection or something, this may change. I'm not predicting a deluge of spam, what you are doing is smart and wise and I would imagine that part of that is not running Windows, but if it were this easy everybody would be doing this and nobody would ever get spam in the world. An RDNS entry is not a rare luxury, and SpamHaus is already highly popular even among email servers where spam gets through - it's a common first line of defense.

Large email services pay big bucks to companies like Sophos and keep them in business for a reason. Spam is a very expensive problem, and there are many smart people who have found that the first lines of defense are inadequate on their own.

Athens · Jun 13, 2011, 02:07 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

No offense, but this is an unbelievably bad idea.

Do you have any idea how expensive the IT infrastructure would have to be to provide an email system that scales to be able to serve everyone in the country?

How much do you think this would cost?

I dunno but its not impossible. After all they seem to be able to handle delivery of physical mail to every address in the country pretty quickly.

Originally Posted by Doofy

^ No thanks. Just because you can't be arsed to run your own server and become spam-free it doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to.

Nothing stopping you from that. But don't expect to get mail to those that only use official email. Most people would still keep traditional email along side a more robust system like I was suggesting. The advantage I see with my setup is when dealing with companies and online businesses. For a site like MacNN for example I can't see any benefit for them moving to such a system. Im already using something similar now for most of my bills through Canada Posts epost system. Its a dam nice setup which I would love to use between family, friends and general online commerce.

besson3c · 02:33 PM

Originally Posted by Athens

I dunno but its not impossible. After all they seem to be able to handle delivery of physical mail to every address in the country pretty quickly.

It is virtually impossible, trust me.

You would need massive data centers capable of handling, say 600 billion email accounts, redundancy in case of disaster, staffing, semi-regular hardware refreshes, support contracts, security (physical and IT), millions upon millions of dollars of electricity, end user support services, money for software development, and you would need many of this six times over for the IMAP/POP, SMTP, DNS, web servers, and spam filtering server clusters, and then when you are done with that the biggest cluster the world has ever seen for storage of all of this email.

I like you and stuff, but this is not one of your better ideas.

Nothing stopping you from that. But don't expect to get mail to those that only use official email. Most people would still keep traditional email along side a more robust system like I was suggesting. The advantage I see with my setup is when dealing with companies and online businesses. For a site like MacNN for example I can't see any benefit for them moving to such a system. Im already using something similar now for most of my bills through Canada Posts epost system. Its a dam nice setup which I would love to use between family, friends and general online commerce.

You can't even begin to compare the two, sorry.

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 03:42 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

When your email addresses start to circulate a little more among the malware/IRC channels or you have a local infection or something, this may change.

Actually Bess, one of the recommended practices for this server is to create a honeytrap address and intentionally circulate that address amongst the usual channels.

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 03:49 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

Actually Bess, one of the recommended practices for this server is to create a honeytrap address and intentionally circulate that address amongst the usual channels.

What are those channels?

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 03:51 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

What are those channels?

All the IRC/UseNet/malware channels.
What kind of stupid question was that?

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

All the IRC/UseNet/malware channels.
What kind of stupid question was that?

Dude, you're so full of shit.

I'm done here.

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 04:08 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Dude, you're so full of shit.

I'm done here.

CommuniGate Pro: Protection

YOU don't know what you're talking about. Good job you're done here, since you have NO clue.

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 04:24 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

CommuniGate Pro: Protection

YOU don't know what you're talking about. Good job you're done here, since you have NO clue.

The page says:

Since most of those lists are composed by robots scanning Web pages and Usenet newsgroups, place these fictitious addresses on Web pages and include them into the signatures used when you and your users post Usenet messages. To avoid confusion, make the fictitious E-mail addresses invisible for a human browsing your Web pages and/or attach a comment explaining the purpose of these addresses.

Yeah, duh... Creating fake addresses in your signatures and stuff is great. What you wrote was this:

All the IRC/UseNet/malware channels.

Maybe you meant "all the" in the casual sense, because literally, this would be impossible. There are thousands of these, and it is possible to create private password protected IRC channels. This is where the malware scripts do the bulk of their business, last I checked.

What I want to know is if there is any subject in this universe that you aren't an expert of?

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 04:57 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Maybe you meant "all the" in the casual sense

Well duh!

Originally Posted by besson3c

What I want to know is if there is any subject in this universe that you aren't an expert of?

Yes. I'm crap at cooking. Haven't got a clue.
And watching TV. I'm crap at that too.

And that's "expert in", not "expert of".

The sooner you realise I'm awesome, Bess, the better your life will be.

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 05:03 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

Well duh!

I'm sorry for snapping at you. I can never tell whether you are doing a genuine arrogant thing, or just speaking tongue-in-cheek/casually, or committing funny buggers.

Was funny buggers what you accused me of the other day? I can't remember the expression you used, but it was awesome.

In all seriousness, I hope you can appreciate that spam can get far more complicated than the world of CommunigatePro, and that CommunigatePro is pretty unique in going after the low end.

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 05:13 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I'm sorry for snapping at you. I can never tell whether you are doing a genuine arrogant thing, or just speaking tongue-in-cheek/casually, or committing funny buggers.

Usually all three simultaneously.

Originally Posted by besson3c

Was funny buggers what you accused me of the other day? I can't remember the expression you used, but it was awesome.

Yep, probably "funny buggers". It's a local term.

Originally Posted by besson3c

In all seriousness, I hope you can appreciate that spam can get far more complicated than the world of CommunigatePro, and that CommunigatePro is pretty unique in going after the low end.

Dude, CommuniGate Pro is carrier class, so I'd hardly call it "low end".

All Published SPEC MAIL2001 Results

Radicati Group Rates CommuniGate Systems as the Top Player for Hosted E-Mail

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 05:17 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

Dude, CommuniGate Pro is carrier class, so I'd hardly call it "low end".

All Published SPEC MAIL2001 Results

Radicati Group Rates CommuniGate Systems as the Top Player for Hosted E-Mail

It might be better than I'm giving it credit for, but I hardly ever come across reports of people using it in comparison to Sendmail, Postfix, Dovecot, Cyrus, Courier, Exchange, etc. Maybe it's sort of in the same category as Zimbra? If it is, I take back the low end label, it would be more turn-key style...

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 05:32 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

It might be better than I'm giving it credit for, but I hardly ever come across reports of people using it in comparison to Sendmail, Postfix, Dovecot, Cyrus, Courier, Exchange, etc. Maybe it's sort of in the same category as Zimbra? If it is, I take back the low end label, it would be more turn-key style...

Have a read: CommuniGate Pro: Introduction
Field proven for 5,000,000 active accounts. You don't hear it mentioned in comparison to Exchange and the like because it'll hammer them.

Heck, download the boyo and have a play around. It's free for up to five accounts.

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 05:48 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

Have a read: CommuniGate Pro: Introduction
Field proven for 5,000,000 active accounts. You don't hear it mentioned in comparison to Exchange and the like because it'll hammer them.

Heck, download the boyo and have a play around. It's free for up to five accounts.

It doesn't take much to best Exchange in performance, but to Microsoft's credit it can do a trash load of stuff, it isn't going anywhere anytime soon... I would be inclined to take that 5,000,000 number with a *massive* grain of salt too, usually with real life usage those numbers are substantially lower on any given hardware. Way back in the day we went through an assessment of Zimbra, which is similar to CGP.

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 05:58 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I would be inclined to take that 5,000,000 number with a *massive* grain of salt too, usually with real life usage those numbers are substantially lower on any given hardware.

Why would you do that? It's cluster-capable and can run on some big iron.

besson3c · 06:16 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

Why would you do that? It's cluster-capable and can run on some big iron.

5,000,000 active accounts that are being checked semi-regularly would require *insane* hardware, particularly disk. In general these sorts of Groupware solutions do not scale all that well, and I see no reason to assume that CGP would be substantially different enough to make up this huge difference. The whole "field testing" thing is generally just PR fluff anyway.

Athens · Jun 13, 2011, 06:08 PM

Hardware isn't the big limiting factor, bandwidth is. Maybe a decade ago it was hardware but with the computing power of todays computers I wouldn't think 5 million is that out of reach.

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 06:11 PM

In fact, I'll make the claim that it isn't, because the bottleneck is disk I/O of which I doubt has been field tested. You don't generally have a SAN capable of handling 5,000,000 near constant disk requests in your back pocket. The number is probably just a total number of accounts present on the system, the word "active" used in debatable ways.

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by Athens

Hardware isn't the big limiting factor, bandwidth is. Maybe a decade ago it was hardware but with the computing power of todays computers I wouldn't think 5 million is that out of reach.

5 million active accounts also requires a tremendous amount of disk I/O.

I wish you wouldn't make statements along the lines of suggesting that America could provide email to all its citizens based on your gut feelings. I mean, I'm calling out issues pertaining to 5,000,000 accounts being field tested for flashy PR, this is nowhere near 300,000,000!

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 06:19 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Because if its performance is anything like either Exchange's or Zimbra's you'd need ungodly amounts of hardware to host 5,000,000 active accounts. Maybe many of those accounts are inactive and lying dormant and the number is just a reflection of how their database scales, but 5,000,000 active accounts that are being checked semi-regularly would require *insane* hardware. It takes insane hardware just to host 30,000 Exchange or Zimbra accounts. In general these sorts of Groupware solutions do not scale all that well, and I see no reason to assume that CGP would be substantially different enough to make up this huge difference.

Dude, I'm typing this on an 8 core Xeon with 16 GB of RAM and 8 TB of storage. Define "insane hardware".
Intel SR6850HW4? BlueArc Titan storage?
SPECmail2001 Result: CommuniGate Pro Dynamic Cluster with BlueArc & Intel

It's got "clustering of clusters" capabilities too. Really, go play with it.

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 06:24 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

Dude, I'm typing this on an 8 core Xeon with 16 GB of RAM and 8 TB of storage. Define "insane hardware".
Intel SR6850HW4? BlueArc Titan storage?
SPECmail2001 Result: CommuniGate Pro Dynamic Cluster with BlueArc &amp; Intel

It's got "clustering of clusters" capabilities too. Really, go play with it.

You missed my point, but in your defense it wasn't made very well.

My point was about the ambiguous definition of "active" accounts and "field testing". In order to serve 5,000,000 active accounts you would need a crazy powerful SAN of which are not setup in great abundance that would be made available for field testing used for concocting flashy PR.

mduell · Jun 13, 2011, 06:30 PM

Originally Posted by MacNNUK

Charge everyone in the world who uses email 1c (1p) per email, prepaid in advance.
Otherwise the email doesn't make it past the ISP.

Not sure how it would work though, down to the ISP's I presume.

That'd put an end to opt-in newsletters. Ours has a circulation of about 1.7MM, so under your scheme we'd have to pay $17k/mo in emailing fees, approximately 100% of our advertising revenue from producing it. For hobbyists who don't have sponsorships, it doesn't take much to make it not worthwhile.

Doofy · Jun 13, 2011, 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

You missed my point, but in your defense it wasn't made very well.

My point was about the ambiguous definition of "active" accounts and "field testing". In order to serve 5,000,000 active accounts you would need a crazy powerful SAN of which are not setup in great abundance that would be made available for field testing used for concocting flashy PR.

Whatever (bored now).
Can we agree that CGP isn't as "low end" as you thought it was?

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 06:38 PM

Originally Posted by Doofy

Whatever (bored now).
Can we agree that CGP isn't as "low end" as you thought it was?

Yes.

ghporter · Jun 13, 2011, 07:02 PM

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

Gee, I can see that working.

Just the bureaucracy to even TRY and verify that would far exceed the money coming in.

And I'm not even going to think about the impossibility of actually collecting it. Even if you could figure out who was responsible (does a small ISP exploited through a recently uncovered hole in their SMTP server really stand a chance on the market if they have to pay some undisclosed recipients 10 cents on every one of 100 million mails sent on a particular Sunday?

I'm not suggesting that my plan would "work" in actual practice. But the possibility of having to cough up actual money to pay for passing on spam could push some ISPs to pay attention enough to their traffic to actually do something about obvious abusers, meanwhile, firms that send out valid commercial emails could show that they're not pretending to be anything other than commercial senders.

You're probably right in that it's not a really well thought out plan, but look at what happened when some nit-wit mentioned charging for emails way back in the 1990s; people screamed bloody murder and flooded the US Congress with paper mail opposing such a plan. Maybe some "influential suggesting" that such was a possibility would get some anti-spam action. Just a thought...

Laminar · Jun 13, 2011, 07:32 PM

Originally Posted by besson3c

I'm done here.

You promised!

besson3c · Jun 13, 2011, 07:40 PM

Originally Posted by Laminar

You promised!

Yeah, those declarations never seem to work out for anybody on the internet, huh?