From: Declan McCullagh <declan@pathfinder.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 10:46:13 +0800
To: Mike <Michael.Johnson@mejl.com>
Subject: Re: Spam-killing PGP5/ecash postage plugin Was Re: Remailer    chaining  plugin for Eudora
In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19970822090126.009e1390@localhost>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970824222027.4298C-100000@cp.pathfinder.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



(I'm stopping in during my vacation...)

On Fri, 22 Aug 1997, Mike wrote:
> If it's $.02 to send a mail to 10000 cypherpunks, then spammers won't
> hesitate to send it. If it's $.02 * 10000 ($200) then only rich people
> (like tcmay) will post here. The only solution I see is moderation and
> censorship, and that can be (and has been) done without e-postage.
> 
> Exactly how do you think that e-postage would decrease spam on mailing
> lists?

That is a simplistic and ineffective way to implement an e-postage fix. A
better way would be to try a deposit, or a third-party rating system for
post quality, or a list of domains that are likely to be free from
spammers, or so on. These have been discussed here before. I even wrote
about them a year ago in Internet World. 

-Declan