Re: Inexpensive anti-spamware/anti-verminware tactic

JCB> I'm still on the fence about im2000 though.  

You shouldn't be.  It has been separately re-invented in various places on
Usenet no less than three times in the past fortnight alone.  (And those are
just the places where someone else has replied saying "You've just re-invented
IM2000.")  It's an idea whose time has come.

JCB> But djb, among others, already "admit" that it requires external
JCB> efforts (law enforcement, mainly) to truly "work as advertised".

I doubt that he's said that.  I haven't read anything where he has said that. 
And, in any case, it isn't even true as far as I can see.

JCB> And when I imagine how it'd actually be deployed, over the same
JCB> breadth and depth of audience as present SMTP email has, it 
JCB> seems to me like it'd end up having pretty much the same
JCB> weaknesses as SMTP has today, or will have as SMTP is
JCB> incrementally improved.

No, it won't.  The whole point of IM2000 is that by design it does not have
one, particular, very basic flaw of SMTP-based Internet mail.  The notion that
you are buying into, that SMTP will improve in the future and will end up just
as good as IM2000, is a false one.  The two have a very fundamental
architectural difference, which happens to be the nub of the problem.  No
amount of "improvement" to the SMTP-based system will change that fundamental
difference.

Moreover, it is unlikely that SMTP-based Internet mail will improve.  Most of
the changes to it in recent years have (in the long run) damaged, rather than
improved, it.  I don't see that trend reversing.  Indeed, given how many
people have recently expressed the conclusion that changing SMTP won't solve
the problem, it seems probable that SMTP won't change much at all, let alone
change for the better, in the future.

JCB> In particular, a "pull" paradigm is not, from a resource point 
JCB> of view, all that much different from using Greylisting, Defer
JCB> Hostility, or simply not having enough SMTP server resources to
JCB> reliably and quickly accept all incoming email, with today's 
JCB> SMTP infrastructure.

You have a very restricted definition of "from a resource point of view".  You
are taking it to mean only network service availability (because that's the
only respect in which what you describe is actually similar to a "pull
delivery" system).  But there's far more to a resource point of view than
that.  For example:  Storage is a resource, too, and a "pull delivery" system
has significant effects on the distribution of storage costs, causing them to
be _very_ different to the case of SMTP-plus-those-bodges.

Moreover, you are falling into the trap, that people fall into time and again,
of addressing the wrong problem.  The problem isn't denial of network
service.  It's unsolicited bulk mail.  Denial of service is a completely
different (and, as far as I can tell, unavoidable) problem.

JCB> So if we accept (as I have come to do) that anti-UBM tactics 
JCB> that don't precisely target spam and vermin won't "work" in 
JCB> the long run, despite my initial (and ongoing *theoretical*)
JCB> enthusiasm over im2000, I don't quite understand how it is
JCB> anything other than another anti-UBM tactic dressed up as a 
JCB> whole new protocol.

Then I suggest that you go back to the web page whose URL sparked this
discussion, and read the whole of it, right down to the bottom.  

JCB> But im2000 would not necessarily be any more flexible [in
JCB> coping with spam and vermin] than improved SMTP, though it 
JCB> would offer lots less baggage, thankfully.

Again, you are buying into the very dubious notion that an "improved SMTP"
will ever exist.  No-one has yet come up with one, and as such you cannot say
how flexible it might be relative to IM2000.

Moreover, there are some very interesting possibilities that IM2000 yields in
terms of behaviour modification through ostracism, as a matter of fact.

JCB> Surely if only a few "enlightened individuals" use im2000, [...]

From following the news coverage second-hand, I speculate that if an ISP were
to come out with IM2000 this year, popular sentiment is such that it will be
overwhelmed - not with mail but with customers.  (-:

It has some good selling points that can be condensed into marketing slogans. 
"You pay for the size of your 'out' box, not for the size of your 'in' box."
is one such, as I mentioned earlier, that would appeal to just about
everybody.  "No more 'bounce' messages." is, of course, another, also with
wide appeal.  There are yet more still, some with particular appeal to mailing
list owners and to companies.

JCB> (And, let's face it, im2000 *would* be at least a partial 
JCB> retreat against a victorious enemy.)

No, it isn't.  Indeed, quite the converse.  Adopting IM2000 is the
neutralisation of an enemy by completely eliminating the game that is biased
in his/her favour.