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Spam is totally email’s fault. They should have had disposable email addresses built into the protocol so they would be easy to support. Then when an address st

Spam is totally email’s fault. They should have had disposable email addresses built into the protocol so they would be easy to support. Then when an address starts getting spam, run the spam filter more aggressively on emails to that address or block it entirely. Or they should have included PoW so it takes a little bit of CPU time to send an email (wouldn’t do anything about botnets, but not every spammer has a botnet handy.) I can’t think of any other ideas off the top of my head, but it’s absolutely true that there are ways that email could have been designed to be less of a problem

shadowofneptune 4y ago
I mean, with the networks and processing speed of computers back when email was standardized, sending the email itself would be proof of work, no?
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Less email as proof of work than having a known network address (this was when the hosts file was distributed manually, and bang paths were common) was proof of trust. There were from a few dozens to a few hundreds of hosts on the entire network at this time. Most were educational institutions, meaning a campus sysadmin could run herd over users (if students) or refer to deans / departments (faculty). This from the 1970s through the early 1990s, at which point things began evolving rapidly. Transacting email itself wasn't all that expensive, though for many sites it was batched via uucp or similar mechanisms.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Getting a PhD would have been the work required to get an email address so yes! Then eternal 09/ happened.
- derefr 4y ago
  Proof of Stake as an accepted delegator to a university/government SMTP validator node.
jrumbut 4y ago
Ultimately e-mail is a relic of a time when there was some level of trust (however small) among Internet users. It's always going to be a bit of an awkward fit to today's Internet where you can trust that any and every exposed service will face some attempt at abuse.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Isn’t it just how you handle mailboxes. Let fred@domain.com accept and receive email at any fred+X@domain.com address with ability to block any specific address getting spam. If the friends and family address gets spam, offer a way to create and distribute a new address. For business it is tricker as you want anyone to email you. Here regular antispam measure are probably best.
raxxorraxor 4y ago
DKIM, SPF, DMARC... old tech and it just got reactivated recently. Will take a time to spread. On the other hand people might want to keep pseudonymous and throwaway mails. Nearly the exact same warnings apply here as they would have applied to those that chose Google as a mail provider and now complain about lacking support and account closure. A largely self-inflicted problem. Don't continue this naivete... Spam is annoying, but not a threat. Phishing is to a large degree. That needs user training, people stopping to pay ransoms and sensible IT policies for corporations.

shadowofneptune 4y ago

I mean, with the networks and processing speed of computers back when email was standardized, sending the email itself would be proof of work, no?

dredmorbius 4y ago
Less email as proof of work than having a known network address (this was when the hosts file was distributed manually, and bang paths were common) was proof of trust. There were from a few dozens to a few hundreds of hosts on the entire network at this time. Most were educational institutions, meaning a campus sysadmin could run herd over users (if students) or refer to deans / departments (faculty). This from the 1970s through the early 1990s, at which point things began evolving rapidly. Transacting email itself wasn't all that expensive, though for many sites it was batched via uucp or similar mechanisms.
quickthrower2 4y ago
Getting a PhD would have been the work required to get an email address so yes! Then eternal 09/ happened.
derefr 4y ago
Proof of Stake as an accepted delegator to a university/government SMTP validator node.

jrumbut 4y ago

Ultimately e-mail is a relic of a time when there was some level of trust (however small) among Internet users. It's always going to be a bit of an awkward fit to today's Internet where you can trust that any and every exposed service will face some attempt at abuse.

quickthrower2 4y ago

Isn’t it just how you handle mailboxes. Let fred@domain.com accept and receive email at any fred+X@domain.com address with ability to block any specific address getting spam. If the friends and family address gets spam, offer a way to create and distribute a new address. For business it is tricker as you want anyone to email you. Here regular antispam measure are probably best.

raxxorraxor 4y ago

DKIM, SPF, DMARC... old tech and it just got reactivated recently. Will take a time to spread. On the other hand people might want to keep pseudonymous and throwaway mails. Nearly the exact same warnings apply here as they would have applied to those that chose Google as a mail provider and now complain about lacking support and account closure. A largely self-inflicted problem. Don't continue this naivete... Spam is annoying, but not a threat. Phishing is to a large degree. That needs user training, people stopping to pay ransoms and sensible IT policies for corporations.