Re: The introduction problem, was Thinking outside the box

On 19 Mar 2013, at 17:50, Paul Smith <[email protected]>
 wrote:

> I don't want 'random' people to email me. In fact I don't know anyone who wants random people to email them.

I'm the postmaster at the University of Sussex. I want random people to be able to email me about problems with  the mail system. 

I'm an elected member of Lewes District Council. I want random constituents to be able to email me about council issues. I want random staff members to be able to email me. I want random local organisations (in and around Lewes) to be able to email me about services that they offer to my constituents, and about how council policies do or could affect their services.

I'm a 48 year old human, I want random people that I've known in the past to be able to email me to catch up. And I want people with connections to my friends and family to be able to make contact with me out of the blue. 

I have an unusual surname. I want random people to be able to email me and ask about my family history. I've met distant cousins, and helped people researching for books they're writing and web sites they're building.

> If I want someone to be able to email me, I currently have to tell them my email address. In my 'brand new email way', I just have to tell them my 'key' as well. I can think up a new notation as well: 'my email address is [email protected]/mailme'. There, that's the key distribution problem sorted :-).


Er, but you just gave your key to the spammers. You might just as well say your email address is [email protected]. The problem here is that discoverability needs to be good for the good guys, but hard for the bad guys. And, until they start sending you the email, you don't know which is which. All you've done is make the email address irrelevant without the key. If you distribute them both in the same way, you've achieved nothing. If you distribute them separately, all you've done is make life harder for everybody who wants to email you.


-- 
Ian Eiloart
Postmaster, University of Sussex
+44 (0) 1273 87-3148