20 Jun
2001
20 Jun
'01
1:40 a.m.
At 06:25 PM 6/19/01 -0600, Richard Erlacher wrote:
I'm not sure why this continues to be the problem
that it is. I agree that SPAM
is terribly annoying, but can't comprehend why it can't be dealt with from the
INSIDE, i.e. simply rewrite the SMTP/POP protocol rules such that mail only
allows a single addressee, and that any server that sees more than one destinee,
either in the "to" field or the CC field, it simply pitches it in the bit
bucket.
If I ever want to send several people the same email, which I've not yet done,
after about 10 years of internetting, I'd simply write a script to do that.
And what about the 99.99% of Internet (read: Windows) users who
liked that "send to two people" feature of Outlook? You expect
them to write scripts? What about all the BCC: mail that gets
sent that doesn't have N addresses in the headers? Gee, if we
limited the size and number of e-mails you could send, that would
help reduce bandwidth, too. Slower computers would be a great
deterrent, too.
THERE HAS GOT TO BE ACCOUNTABILITY on the internet. If
your name, and home
address were in every message you send, you would probably not send unsolicited
email.
If such a rule were in place, I'm sure there are millions of companies
who'd gladly send spam that conformed. In the paper world, it's called
"junk mail" and it seems to be quite popular. In the e-mail world, at
least half the junk I get does have reasonable attribution to the source.
The "problem" with spam is that it apparently works for some scams,
and that there's plenty of people willing to try it.
- John