[thelist] Serious antispam measures

[Ken Schaefer]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: "Jeniffer C. Johnson" <lead at offlead.com>
Subject: RE: [thelist] Serious antispam measures


: So, immediate relief via bandaids aside, what CAN be done, long-term, to
: resolve the spam issue? I know that there are other individuals who have
it
: worse than I do, and I know that the bigger picture is even worse. I first
: got a good grasp of the Big Picture during the Swen Virus outbreak that
hit
: sff.net/Greyware last year
:
(http://www.internetweek.com/security02/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=15200576
: ). Jeffry and Steve had much to say in the aftermath of the attack about
the
: long-term affects of such traffic to the system as a whole.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is definately much worse. :-)

Microsoft has put out a press release indicating that it is intercepting
more than 1 billion pieces of spam a day (!) on it's email sites
(hotmail.com, msn.com etc). AOL also recently put out a press release
indicating that it was stopping more than 780 million pieces of spam a day.

: Just what would be involved in changing
: the way email is handled in order to alleviate this problem?

That's up-for-debate at the moment. :-)

I think there are quite a few different proposed solutions. However
developing something that'll work, be backwards compatible (so that you can
still receive mail from older systems), be easy to implement (so
admins/users wont have hurdles to switching over), educating users on
switching over and *importantly* not having their identities stolen, and
have mail server software, or client systems ported over, and setting up an
central trust infrastructure, will be a challenge.

 :-)

Cheers
Ken