From: Bryce <bryce@digicash.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 06:30:28 -0800 (PST)
To: Wei Dai <weidai@eskimo.com>
Subject: Re: game theoretic analysis of junk mail
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.96.970326004814.1233A-100000@eskimo.com>
Message-ID: <199703261430.PAA05866@digicash.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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Wei Dai!  Long time no read!  I hope to see more articles from
you.


 A million monkeys operating under the pseudonym 
 "Wei Dai <weidai@eskimo.com>" typed:
> 
> The junk mail problem (also known as spam) is well known to just about
> everyone who receives e-mail.  There has also been many solutions
> proposed.  Noticeably, the idea of having e-mail senders include ecash
> payments with their mail has come up several times (I believe as the
> result of independent discovery).


I've suggested it several times.  I'm curious who else has 
proposed it.


<snip on game model of problem>


Nice!  I look forward to part 2.  (And part 3, where you go 
ahead and account for the cost of signing up for digital 
payment systems and the cost of managing each 
deposit/payment...)



I think the major problems with the proposal are first making 
digital payment systems ubiquitous and second making the
"unsolicited mail good faith deposit" idea ubiquitous.



Hm.  If we could somehow make the _idea_ gain.. er.. 
"currency" then the problem of spammers would cause more 
people to adopt digital payment systems.  _That_ would be
making a blessing from a curse!


Regards,

Zooko Journeyman, a.k.a. Bryce

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