On Sun, Jun 08, 2003 at 07:29:32AM +0000, Paul Vixie wrote:
> tytso@mit.edu ("Theodore Ts'o") writes:
>
> > Bare keys will do; consider a system where people keep a list of those
> > keys that they will accept mail. If someone tries to send mail and
> > their key is not on the recipient's list, the mail is returned to them
> > until they can perform a Hashcash calculation consuming a non-trivial
> > amount of CPU time, at which point their key is placed on the
> > recipient's list, and the sender can retry to send the message. If a
> > recipient receives SPAM, they simply drop the key of the sender from
> > their "ok-to-receive" list.
>
> i think that we could write this up as open source and widely distribute
> it and publicize the hell out of it for the rest of our careers without
> ever having it become common practice to reject-with-explaination all
> e-mail that comes from unauthorized senders. therefore it can become,
> at best, a system that radical and highly technical recipients can use.
> we've got a number of those already. (this one sounds new and better.)
In order for this to work, the request for the Hashcalc calculation
has to be done automatically. If it requires manual intervention
where the user sees the reject notice and then has to manually take
action --- of course, it's doomed to fail. So this is something which
would require modification to the MTA's in order for this to work.
The easist way to automate such a scheme would be in the context of
your "replace SMTP" proposal; it's just a matter of using bare keys +
hashcash-style solution, instead of requiring a global PKI.
- Ted