Valdis writes: > You're welcome to extend your proposal to handle > bootstrapping communications between people who > haven't before ... There isn't any way to automate this without opening the door to spammers. > ... if the whole intent of the "secret number" > is so I can ignore email without it so I don't > get spam, people can't send me e-mail to ask me > for a secret number so they can e-mail me... Correct. They'll have to ask you in some out-of-band way. There isn't any other option. Any means you provide of obtaining your secret number without your explicit, out-of-band approval will be used by spammers just as readily as by anyone else. There is no unambiguous, automated way to distinguish between spammers and any other sender of unsolicited e-mail. > And if I *still* have to check my mail that > doesn't have the number on it, in case I've missed > a request like that, what has this proposal bought me? Not very much, but for people with a small circle of legitimate correspondents as compared to the volume of e-mail they receive, it might help. In the world of postal mail, the same problem of spam exists, and there is no solution to it. Political figures, celebrities, and organizations receive incredible volumes of unsolicited, junk mail; the one and only way to separate the truly useless mail from legitimate mail is to hire human beings to sort through it. There isn't any other way. And prosecuting those who send mail improperly doesn't work, either; it stops one entity from sending mail, but all the rest continue, so the incoming volume does not decrease. If you send a letter to the President of the United States, he may not read it himself, but the letter will definitely be read by a human being. All incoming mail is read. The same is true for all incoming e-mail. And the President is not the only one having this done. Many celebrities have staff or subcontractors that do nothing but read every piece of incoming mail. There isn't any other option. And prosecuting someone who sends mail illegally, or sends threats, or something like that, does nothing to slow the flow of mail overall. It may be that spam is an insoluble problem. No automated filter can protect against it. No after-the-fact prosecution or lawsuits can slow the flow significantly. No billing scheme can slow the flow of spam without equally affecting the flow of legitimate e-mail, because there isn't really any fundamental difference between the two, except in the eye of the recipient.