Re: Inexpensive anti-spamware/anti-verminware tactic

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

JCB> Well, that's partly due to coming to a conclusion, at which I
JCB> have not personally arrived.  If I believed IM2000 was the One
JCB> True Way, I wouldn't put much effort into improving SMTP either.

You're assuming that it is solely people who believe that IM2000 is the route
to take that have been expressing this conclusion.  That's not the case at
all.  Even people who aren't working towards IM2000 are saying that Just One
More Wafer Thin Bodge To SMTP won't solve the problem.  Ironically, this
simply bolsters the support for the conclusion that SMTP probably won't change
in the future.  People aren't going to put much effort into changing SMTP
because they realise on its merits alone, irrespective of IM2000, that it
isn't, and isn't going to be, the solution.

Which brings us back to the point that basing an argument upon the premise
that SMTP _is_ going to improve is flawed.

JCB> My concern is, what if IM2000 turns out to be a wasted
JCB> opportunity to replace Internet email protocols wholesale, in
JCB> that it ends up not really doing much to combat abuse, costs 
JCB> $$ to deploy and replace SMTP on a sufficiently widespread 
JCB> basis, and also fails to offer sufficient additional 
JCB> flexibility, features, etc. to have really been worth all 
JCB> the work?

(IM2000 _does_ replace the mail transport protocols wholesale, of course.)

A few cost/benefit analyses would be interesting.  But they would have to
factor in the huge cost of recieving UBM and consequently losing messages that
the SMTP-based Internet mail system has.  (-:

And I think that the evidence that people are seriously considering schemes,
such as SPF, that will actually make _more_ radical changes to the
architecture than IM2000 will once all of the (undesirable) ramifications are
followed through, is good evidence that the benefits even of a solution that
involves significant architectural change would be widely seen to outweigh the
costs.

JCB> [...] especially if enough people gain a clearer understanding 
JCB> of the problem and how to solve it, come to a *useful* consensus,
JCB> and work together, they might decide that IM2000 is not really
JCB> the One True Way, rather, another form of message delivery that
JCB> an improved SMTP-like ecosystem should offer, in addition to 
JCB> many others.

That seems very unlikely.  As I pointed out right at the start, people are
thinking this through for themselves and independently re-inventing IM2000. 
(I saw yet another such occurrence just yesterday, incidentally.)