Hashcash for IM2000

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

I was reading an article on K5 about TMDA, and one of the commenters posted a 
link to Hashcash (http://www.hashcash.org). This system looks really 
promising. I recommend reading the FAQ at the site, but in a nutshell it 
effectively makes bulk mail no longer cost effective (it allows people to 
exempt solicited bulk mail from the system, for mailing lists and what not). 
It does this by requiring the sender to compute a partial hash collision 
based on various data (incl. recipient's email address, among other things). 
This takes a fraction of a second to a couple seconds per message (and can be 
computed in the background during composing, for example). It is extremely 
fast to verify that the hash is correct, so receiving mail is not slowed down 
at all. So, the cost is very small for regular email users, but prohibitively 
high for spammers. They rely on sending tens of thousands of messages very 
quickly from a centralized location to be profitable. This system eliminates 
that capability, and thus makes spam no longer profitable. If we incorporated 
this system into our new message notifications (we could call it "Postage"), 
then it would be that much harder to spam using IM2000. Spammers would not 
even be able to do subject line spamming because it would be prohibitively 
expensive for them to send tens of thousands of new message notifications. 
Not only that, but clients could be configured to automatically retrieve 
messages w/ proper postage, and show a warning for messages w/o it (with 
option to retrieve, of course). What do you all think?

Wes Morgan
- -- 
This American dream may be poisonous
Violence is contagious
Crowded or empty
I walk these city streets alone
Whoever brought me here
Is gonna have to take me home

"What I'll Remember Most" - Over the Rhine
- ----------------------------------
Libretech.org - Technology Is Free (http://www.libretech.org)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE/WI2HI89ooLagmnQRAsihAJ451PGmdwxxtJiAZIjFuICkvIsykwCgs/LU
nAxhj0DmRXiA0SvbRq02qLc=
=h1GG
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----