Penny Black anti-spam technical solution would stop spam virtually overnight

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This article offers an excellent overview of the economic approach to solving the spam problem. As it points out, Bill Gates is now supporting the idea of a "sender pays" technical solution that would require e-mail senders to pay in either time or money for each message that gets delivered to end-users.

In theory, it's a great concept: put the burden of costs on senders, and you immediately wipe out the profits of spammers. And if you make the cost per email a fraction of a cent, it is simultaneously high enough to eliminate spam while low enough not to interfere with the permission e-mail marketing efforts of responsible e-mail marketing professionals.

The difficulty with the theory is its application, of course: who will manage the micro payments? Where does the money go? And who sets the rates? That's why I believe a better solution involves making email senders pay in terms of time, not money, to send e-mails. This can be accomplished by requiring mail servers to perform time intensive calculations when sending each e-mail. Every outbound e-mail is stamped with the result of the calculation, and receiving e-mail servers can verify that the email in question has been sent by a complying server.

This solution, which is called the "Penny Black" solution, has been under development at Microsoft for quite some time. If this became reality, it would require updates to every mail server on the Internet, but it would also be a near magic bullet solution to the spam problem. If large ISPs like AOL, Yahoo, and MSN stopped accepting e-mail that wasn't Penny Black compliant, every IT administrator in the world would update their mail servers virtually overnight. The result? A spam free world, or at least as close as we'll ever get.

This solution would make spamming prohibitively expensive. Spammers would have to buy hundreds of mail servers and run them 24 hours a day in order to produce any sort of email volume whatsoever. And with profit margins for spammers already quite narrow, this solution would eliminate the spam profits altogether. Furthermore, this solution does not require a highly complex payment system which would undoubtedly be a nightmare to create and administer. But it does require a secure algorithm that cannot be hacked or counterfeited by spammers, because if just one person breaks the code and manages to send out Penny Black compliant e-mail without having to spend the associated CPU time normally required, the whole system falls apart, and we are all back to square one.
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher and author with a passion for sharing empowering information to help improve personal and planetary health He has authored more than 1,500 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, impacting the lives of millions of readers around the world who are experiencing phenomenal health benefits from reading his articles. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a manufacturer of mercury-free, energy-efficient LED lighting products that save electricity and help prevent global warming. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs. He's also a successful software entrepreneur, having founded a well known email marketing software company whose technology currently powers the NaturalNews email newsletters. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and regularly pursues cycling, nature photography, Capoeira and Pilates. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds. Known as the 'Health Ranger,' Adams' personal health statistics and mission statements are located at www.HealthRanger.org

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Related Articles: • Interview with John Levine on the War on SPAM • Put an end to spam and phishing by reforming email • Can-Spam Act court ruling obliterates state anti-spam laws, activists say	Take Action: Support NaturalNews.com Email this article to a friend Share this article on: NewsVine | digg | del.icio.us Permalink to this article: http://www.NaturalNews.com/000844_spam_e-mail_Penny_Black.html Reprinting this article: Non-commercial use OK, cite NaturalNews.com with clickable link. Embed article link: (copy HTML code below): <a href = "http://www.NaturalNews.com/000844_spam_e-mail_Penny_Black.html">Penny Black anti-spam technical solution would stop spam virtually overnight</a>