Adam Shostack <adam@homeport.org> writes: > The problem is pretty clearly economic in that sending spam is close > to free; it probably makes sense to look at economic solutions. I agree that this is the core of the problem. It costs money to send junk physical mail so people don't try to send an infinite amount. Spam is free. However, I'm not sure that knowing the cause points to the solution. A brick may have broken your window, but the solution involves skill with a putty knife and glazers points, not skill with bricks. In particular, I'm far from convinced that adding synthetic economic structures to pre-existing systems like this helps. You can't get around the fact that it is "free" to spam by trying to artificially charge for sending email or some such. It *is* cheap to send email -- inherently so, and it is not even clear that it is desirable to change that. I think a real problem is that we frequently view the spammers as adversaries rather than as criminals. They are, in fact, largely criminals. They really *have* broken the social contract. They hack open relays and ports on machines to send out their drek, they forge email addresses to avoid mechanisms people have put in place to prevent them from sending you mail. Indeed, they refuse to pay attention to clear signs that someone does not want to receive their crud and try to impose it on people anyway, in the manner that a person might harass you by telephone. They almost universally send out messages advertising fraudulent and near fraudulent schemes far more frequently. I think that, as such, a large fraction of them are perfectly worthy of legal remedies. The problem is that it is nearly impossible to get law enforcement to do anything about them, even when they violate existing law. -- Perry E. Metzger perry@piermont.com -- "Ask not what your country can force other people to do for you..."