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> The problem is that spam was/is so bad that extreme measures were taken to curb it. Man, and there's such an easy solution, too - just use Hashcash[1] (inven

> The problem is that spam was/is so bad that extreme measures were taken to curb it. Man, and there's such an easy solution, too - just use Hashcash[1] (invented in 1997) and 90%+ of spam disappears overnight (if not more, depending on how high you set the difficulty). Well, ok, "easy" in the sense that We Have An Algorithm For This - it'd still be hard to get email clients/servers to agree on a protocol... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash

throw0101a 5y ago
If there's a compromised machine it will be the victims paying the cost in energy bills for spammer's nefariously installed malware to send garbage.
- throw10920 5y ago
  If there's a compromised machine, the scammer can drain the victim's bank accounts and cost them far more than an electricity bill, and/or mine cryptocurrency directly. Regardless, their spam-sending rate will still be significantly decreased. So, this argument is completely invalid.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > If there's a compromised machine, the scammer can drain the victim's bank accounts […] Not if the machine is a server and was gotten into via (e.g.) a bug in a web app. I don't know about you, but I don't keep my bank account information on the LAMP systems I sysadmin.
    - throw10920 5y ago
      That part of the post was specifically about consumer devices. You missed the rest: > and/or mine cryptocurrency directly. Regardless, their spam-sending rate will still be significantly decreased Your argument remains invalid.
dTal 5y ago
Ah yes, time to break out this old classic: https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt ( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once ( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP ( ) Sending email should be free
- throw10920 5y ago
  It's fortunate that none of those are "checked" in the ASCII art, because none of them actually apply. > Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once False. As a silver lining to the Google/Microsoft email oligopoly, those providers could announce that anyone wanting to send email to those services will have to implement this protocol, and it could be done in less than a year. > Unpopularity of weird new taxes Irrelevant. No taxes involved - there's no money here, and users won't care if their mail takes an extra few seconds to send, because they don't expect email to be low latency anyway > Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money Irrelevant - no new money involved. > Huge existing software investment in SMTP Irrelevant - a small number of server software are used by the majority of users. Also, see earlier point about oligopoly. > Sending email should be free Bad idea, and irrelevant, because it still would be. I suggest you put thought into copypasta before putting it into a comment.

throw0101a 5y ago

If there's a compromised machine it will be the victims paying the cost in energy bills for spammer's nefariously installed malware to send garbage.

throw10920 5y ago
If there's a compromised machine, the scammer can drain the victim's bank accounts and cost them far more than an electricity bill, and/or mine cryptocurrency directly. Regardless, their spam-sending rate will still be significantly decreased. So, this argument is completely invalid.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > If there's a compromised machine, the scammer can drain the victim's bank accounts […] Not if the machine is a server and was gotten into via (e.g.) a bug in a web app. I don't know about you, but I don't keep my bank account information on the LAMP systems I sysadmin.
  - throw10920 5y ago
    That part of the post was specifically about consumer devices. You missed the rest: > and/or mine cryptocurrency directly. Regardless, their spam-sending rate will still be significantly decreased Your argument remains invalid.

dTal 5y ago

Ah yes, time to break out this old classic: https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt ( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once ( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP ( ) Sending email should be free

throw10920 5y ago
It's fortunate that none of those are "checked" in the ASCII art, because none of them actually apply. > Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once False. As a silver lining to the Google/Microsoft email oligopoly, those providers could announce that anyone wanting to send email to those services will have to implement this protocol, and it could be done in less than a year. > Unpopularity of weird new taxes Irrelevant. No taxes involved - there's no money here, and users won't care if their mail takes an extra few seconds to send, because they don't expect email to be low latency anyway > Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money Irrelevant - no new money involved. > Huge existing software investment in SMTP Irrelevant - a small number of server software are used by the majority of users. Also, see earlier point about oligopoly. > Sending email should be free Bad idea, and irrelevant, because it still would be. I suggest you put thought into copypasta before putting it into a comment.