Bill Gates now wants us to pay for email

[Demigorgon]

Becuase it always starts with a penny. (http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/03/05/spam.charge.ap/index.html)

Just like social security wouldn't be touched for anything else, and Federal income tax would be repealed after WW2. It always starts small. Pretty soon we'll be paying $.35 for an email. I don't even want them to "use my computer for a few seconds" either. I don't pay $40 a month for a cable modem for nothing.

Bill Gates is teh debil!

[scribble]

Considering e-mail goes directly from my SMTP server to yours, who the hell am I going to pay my .35 to? You? Myself?

Edit: Sorry, posted before I read the article.

Even in the most draconian form I can imagine, this sort of thing will be circumvented easily. It'll never happen.

[reprise]

Given that the vast majority of spam which I receive is sent from Hotmail accounts, I find Gates' anti-spam stance somewhat ironic.

[TillEulenspiegel]

I don't see it happening on any large scale.
I can see charging business e-mailers ( who incessantly spam us for sex sites and investment schemes) as a cost of doing business, but as for the note to Gran Ma.. It ain't gonna float.

[Eos of the Eons]

I already pay for email. It's part of my cable services for the internet. I'm not paying extra anything for it, or I'll do without and get everyone to leave messages for me via my web pages instead :p

[DangerousBeliefs]

Hey Bill... try installing www.spampal.org ... it's free and easy to use.

[espritch]

it's free and easy to use.

[Bill Gates Mode]
Hold your tongue! There's no profit in "free and easy to use"!
[/Bill Gates Mode]

[Reginald]

I pay the princely sum of £1.50 a month for my pop 3 mail AC in any case. They have some guards in place but they would not be that effective.

However it has to be said that most spam can be avoided by careful use of your mail address, I get no spam on either of my POP3 AC and none on either of my Yahoo mail ACs. (does hotmail sell on your address? I don't know I wouldn't use them)

Charging a minimal sum for sending a mail wouldn't be much of a deterrent in any case.

I still get the odd (by chance) telephone sales person calling me, that costs money, I also get junk mail through the door, that costs money too.......they still come. I would agree that it might weed out some of the minor players. But just like a selective evolutionary process, it would still leave the more efficient, successful spammers.

[Bottle or the Gun]

The government has been trying for years to regulate e-mail just like regular mail. It makes them crazy that there is all that reevnue they think is owed that they can't touch. Think of all the e-mail content that USED to be accomplished by phone, fax or in person and you'll understand why the gov wants a piece of it.

Collection is easy. You pay BEFORE the e-mails are made, just like certain phone services.

While we may not be paying 'e-stamps' you can bet that our cable & ISP fees will go up and we will have to pay for a separate service just like we pay for text messages on a phone.

"And would you like to upgrade to 500 e-mails per month for only $4.99?"

[Mark]

Originally posted by Bottle or the Gun
The government has been trying for years to regulate e-mail just like regular mail. It makes them crazy that there is all that reevnue they think is owed that they can't touch. Think of all the e-mail content that USED to be accomplished by phone, fax or in person and you'll understand why the gov wants a piece of it.

Collection is easy. You pay BEFORE the e-mails are made, just like certain phone services.

While we may not be paying 'e-stamps' you can bet that our cable & ISP fees will go up and we will have to pay for a separate service just like we pay for text messages on a phone.

"And would you like to upgrade to 500 e-mails per month for only $4.99?"

Actually, the notion the the government intended to charge email "postage" was a complete hoax, and has been refuted many times.

[(S)]

Has anyone else heard of HashCash (http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/hashcash/)?

The basic idea is that email servers could require a hash to receive. The hash is computationally expensive -- the average desktop can only generate on the order of a thousand 20-bit hashes a day -- and easy to check; a few hundred thousand can be checked per second. And they can be made even harder to generate by adding more bits to them. To cope with legitimate mailing lists, subscribers would add the list to a 'no-charge' list

This form of postage has significant advantages over real-money currancy. The /most/ significant is that it is completely decentralized: What happens happens only between the sender and the receiver. For the paranoid, Big Brother isn't tracking your emails. For those that hate the architecture of the internet, there isn't a centralized system being bogged down by the tracking of pennies, or which can be attacked to shut down all email transmission.
It is also effectively free; most of us aren't maxing out our computers to the point that the CPU power to generate a few dozen hashes would be missed. It could also possibly work; after all, spammers might actually be able to afford to send a hundred thousand emails out, if it really is just a fraction of a penny [At 0.1 cent, a spammer might actually be able to front the hundred bucks, if one poor fool gives him a thousand.]

[Bottle or the Gun]

Originally posted by Mark


Actually, the notion the the government intended to charge email "postage" was a complete hoax, and has been refuted many times.

Sure. Which is why it's in the process of happening now under the pilot program of charging spammers. Give it a few years.

And don't confuse a hoax with the testing of policy directions to see how feasible the idea is.

[Ladewig]

I'm a bit confused. Will this approach really prevent overseas spammers from forging "postage," or from illegally accessing U.S. computers (as they do now before sending spam) and charging the "postage" to those computers, or from otherwise defeating the safeguards while filling accounts with unsolicitied e-mails?

Furthermore, even if everyone agreed that there could be a way to prevent forgeries and disguised re-routings, does anyone believe that Microsoft is capabale of developing software to effectively accomplish this task? Ha!

[Agammamon]

Gates doesn't want you to pay for email, even a refundable postage. he knows the costs of administering the pay system are greater than what people are willing to pay. This is just one idea being thrown around.


Gates' real idea is to require your computer to solve a computational problem before a recipient gets your mail. Something that will take a couple of seconds per message. This isn't long enough to slow down your average user but someone who sends out 50,000 emails at one second per email will spend nearly 14 hours of real time to do so. The spammer either pays for faster equipment to get the time spent down to a reasonable level or "pays" in time spent waiting, either case reduces the profit margin of spamming.
The complexity of the puzzles can be increased as processor speeds ramp up to remain viable. This has the added benefit of not requiring huge administrative oversight, it is a decentralized system that can be run at either the ISP or user level. No one can get around, it like they can for the current labeling requirement, by connecting from outside the country.
For those who hate The Evil Empire, the software doesn't have to come from TEE, it can be third party stuff.

'Course Congress won't like it since it doesn't require a huge agency to oversee and won't need tax dollars pumped in to keep it running, doesn't require new laws, and worse of all it will actually work.

Gates may be the Devil, but he's a smart one.

[Jon_in_london]

The best way to avoid spam is to register with at least 10 different free porn sites.

[Oleron]

I've a feeling this is just the thin end of the wedge. Next we will see internet 'toll roads' and such like.
BG has had ideas like this before, remember MSN 'channels'.
Why is he interested in spam anyway? Why does he care? Because he sees money somewhere along the line.

[sickstan]

Originally posted by Agammamon
Gates' real idea is to require your computer to solve a computational problem before a recipient gets your mail. Something that will take a couple of seconds per message. This isn't long enough to slow down your average user but someone who sends out 50,000 emails at one second per email will spend nearly 14 hours of real time to do so. The spammer either pays for faster equipment to get the time spent down to a reasonable level or "pays" in time spent waiting, either case reduces the profit margin of spamming.
The complexity of the puzzles can be increased as processor speeds ramp up to remain viable. This has the added benefit of not requiring huge administrative oversight, it is a decentralized system that can be run at either the ISP or user level. No one can get around, it like they can for the current labeling requirement, by connecting from outside the country.
For those who hate The Evil Empire, the software doesn't have to come from TEE, it can be third party stuff.

I see a problem with this approach. Many people are using more primitive machines (Intel 80386 or PowerPC 601, PPC 604) that have served them well over the years, but would take hours to solve a problem that would take exactly 1 second for the latest dual processor 2 GHz G5 or 4 GHz Pentium 4s. This would force people to upgrade their computers for the relatively light task of checking and writing emails on their home computer, also probably forcing a system and software upgrade, again with only recouping the old funcionality. This may sould like a good idea to Bill, who needs everyone to buy newer and newer versions of Orifice and Windoze.

[chulbert]

Originally posted by sickstan
I see a problem with this approach. Many people are using more primitive machines (Intel 80386 or PowerPC 601, PPC 604) that have served them well over the years, but would take hours to solve a problem that would take exactly 1 second for the latest dual processor 2 GHz G5 or 4 GHz Pentium 4s. This would force people to upgrade their computers for the relatively light task of checking and writing emails on their home computer, also probably forcing a system and software upgrade, again with only recouping the old funcionality. This may sould like a good idea to Bill, who needs everyone to buy newer and newer versions of Orifice and Windoze.

The system would be optional.

The intent of the two systems is not to prevent spam but to make it distinguishable from legitimate mail by creating a barrier to entry. People who don't upgrade to the new system to validate their messages will be supported exactly as they are now.

[Agammamon]

As I said, It doesn't neccessarily have to be at the user's machine that this is done. Your ISP could be the checkpoint, as a value-added service. Otherwise addresses you correspond with frequently, and trust, can be given permission to bypass the filter - solving (or at least reducing) the problems caused by old hardware.

[sickstan]

Originally posted by Agammamon
As I said, It doesn't neccessarily have to be at the user's machine that this is done. Your ISP could be the checkpoint, as a value-added service. Otherwise addresses you correspond with frequently, and trust, can be given permission to bypass the filter - solving (or at least reducing) the problems caused by old hardware.

Ah, OK.

[Beerina]

> Something that will take a couple of seconds per message. This
> isn't long enough to slow down your average user but
> someone who sends out 50,000 emails at one second per
> email will spend nearly 14 hours of real time to do so. The
> spammer either pays for faster equipment to get the time
> spent down to a reasonable level or "pays" in time spent
> waiting, either case reduces the profit margin of spamming.

Will never work. Here's why: Desktop computers already encompass a massive difference in computing power. For example, my old computer, still in use, does a Seti-at-Home work unit in about 29 hours. My sparkling new top-of-the-line Alienware does one in just over one hour.

Now, what's "a few seconds" to one person might be a minute or more to another.

And you can't have the sending computer decide it's going to do a weaker problem because it's a weaker computer -- because the spammers would just run FakeSlowComputerToMisleadSpamCatcher.exe and be done with you.

As the years go by, this problem will get worse and worse because, surprise surprise! Most people don't want to (nor have to) upgrade their computers because an ancient Pentium I has plenty of horsepower to surf and read E-mails, and that's all they need. How will my old computer stack up against a year 2020 Alienware that can do a work unit in 10 seconds? I'm not suggesting that many such computers will still be in use then, but the power range will be even greater.

And we won't even get into the specialized hardware industry that will spring up to "process" this data lickety-split. It won't be just Spammers-only to sell to. "Tired of waiting 10 seconds to send an E-mail? Buy this board for only $39.95 and send instantly*."


* In less than 1/10 of a second. PCI and ISA versions available!

[Beerina]

"Tired of waiting 10 seconds for an E-mail? Don't wanna plunk down extra cash for a SpeedSender board? Just sign up with our E-mail server, send your E-mails normally, and let our computers do the work!"

[chulbert]

Originally posted by Beerina
Will never work. Here's why: Desktop computers already encompass a massive difference in computing power. For example, my old computer, still in use, does a Seti-at-Home work unit in about 29 hours. My sparkling new top-of-the-line Alienware does one in just over one hour.

Now, what's "a few seconds" to one person might be a minute or more to another.

And you can't have the sending computer decide it's going to do a weaker problem because it's a weaker computer -- because the spammers would just run FakeSlowComputerToMisleadSpamCatcher.exe and be done with you.

As the years go by, this problem will get worse and worse because, surprise surprise! Most people don't want to (nor have to) upgrade their computers because an ancient Pentium I has plenty of horsepower to surf and read E-mails, and that's all they need. How will my old computer stack up against a year 2020 Alienware that can do a work unit in 10 seconds? I'm not suggesting that many such computers will still be in use then, but the power range will be even greater.

And we won't even get into the specialized hardware industry that will spring up to "process" this data lickety-split. It won't be just Spammers-only to sell to. "Tired of waiting 10 seconds to send an E-mail? Buy this board for only $39.95 and send instantly*."

As I stated before, the system is optional so no one has to upgrade their machines. The system is meant to make spam distinguishable from legitimate e-mail, not to prevent it.

If your machine is insufficient to solve a computation intended to take "fairly modern" machines ten seconds, then you can always opt out of the verification. Such e-mails would be treated as they are now and sent through standard Bayesian filters for categorization.

If this is unappealing to you, you can score e-mails based on the difficulty of the computation sent to the client and the amount completed. Recipients can then set a threshold that incoming e-mails must exceed in order to be classified as legitimate.

For example, imagine the server sends your e-mail client a 500-node Traveling Salesmen problem. This problem outclasses your Pentium I so your e-mail program gives up after one minute, having verified 30% of the problem. This results in a score of, say, 0.30 * 500, or 150. The e-mail program of your recipient can then decide whether or not "150 points worth of work" is sufficient to assume the e-mail is legitimate. If it is, it will appear in your Inbox. If not, it will undergo standard mail filtering techniques.

[Beerina]

How would the server know I successfully accomplished 30% of that travelling salesman problem? However, we'll presume for the moment there are such problems where a 30% solution can be verified by a server easily and that could not be faked.

How would the server know the "correct" solution from a faked one?


Server: Tell me the 10 billionth digit of pi.

Spamming client: Seven!

Server: Ummm, I have no idea if you're correct or not.



The server will have to perform the same calculations itself for every bit of E-mail it receives from a client. It could not do a lookup table or use calculations that can be short-circuited because that can and will be duplicated by dishonest client-side applications.

Therefore the server will be vastly limited by the number of E-mails it can put through into the E-mail system. The server will have to spend every bit of free CPU cycle just pre-generating the answers to the calculations just to maintain what, a few thousand E-mails per day? How many such servers will E-mail companies have to duplicate just to meet what one E-mail server handles today? Hundred, it seems like, from the amount of CPU time required.

[Bottle or the Gun]

So why are white-lists so hard to set up? Let's face it, if I allow only 50 people to send e-mail, then I don't receive the 200 hundred other messages for home mortgages.

[sickstan]

Originally posted by Beerina
How would the server know I successfully accomplished 30% of that travelling salesman problem?

Oh no!!! NP Complete problem sets!!!!