If the U.S. Postal Service delivered mail for free, our mailboxes would surely runneth over with more credit-card offers, sweepstakes entries, and supermarket fliers. That’s why we get so much junk e-mail: It’s essentially free to send. So Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates, among others, is now suggesting that we start buying “stamps” for e-mail (paid in cpu cycles that we rent to others).
Gates: Buy Stamps to Send E-mail
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I thought I heard mister Gates talking about getting rid of SPAM would be his next achievement, using some kind of software (atleast himself) thought to be great. I guess this proves he can’t really do anything without ruining a free market.
.T
(I realise I’m greatly biased against Microsoft – forgive me, one get’s real enemies if one get’s too big.)
Looks like Bill Gates borrowed the idea from the dating websites eh? Melissa just not enough?
if they started a NEW email called electronic stamp mail.. that you had to pay for.. no one would use it.. its not worth paying for, when you can filter out spam for free.
This “article”, if you can call it that, grossly oversimplifies what Gates is saying. His comments were made in the context of eliminating spam. We already know how to eliminate spam:
1. Make senders and receivers known to one another via verifiable certificates/authentication. The current system is completely anonymous and allows spammers to send unsolicited mail without incurring any signficant cost. Requiring that senders and receivers identify themselves makes it more difficult for spammers to hide.
2. Use a middle-man — essentially an Internet post office — through which all mail would be delivered. If you don’t (or can’t) login to the post office, your mail won’t be delivered. In order to send or receive mail, you would need an active account. Further, in order to send mail in excess of a certain bandwidth, you would need to secure your account with a credit/debit card.
3. Charge for send bandwidth over a certain threshold. The guys that are sending tens of thousands of emails will have to pay for their bandwidth. Since it won’t be cost-effective for them to spam you, they’ll stop doing it.
Assuming that we care enough about the spam problem to undertake these initiatives, we can greatly reduce the volume of spam. This is what Gates is talking about. He doesn’t want the average person to have to pay for email; rather, he’s trying to make it considerably more difficult for the big spammers to reach you.
… comes from the company that (also) introduced the concept of providing free e-mail accounts to people…
… Microsoft!
Shut down MSN/Hotmail, and at least MY junk mail problems will be gone!
Here’s one-in-a-million proof:
From: [email protected]
Subject: V-1-A-G-R-A only $2 a dose!!!
Date: 7 March 2004 3:55:35 AM
To: [email protected]
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received: from optushome.com.au ([203.115.12.41]) by mail023.syd.optusnet.com.au (8.11.6p2/8.11.6) with SMTP id i26H0U106826; Sun, 7 Mar 2004 04:00:30 +1100
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Sender: [email protected]
Content-Type: text/plain;
Oh shit… I wonder where THIS item of spam came from… ?!
I like your solution…
It has all the proper elements of a good proposition. First it makes the system in the hands of ISPs. That can be enforced without a central repository…peer pressure will do nicely. As well as customer rebuke from getting cutoff for allowing cheaters.
Second, it doesn’t require any client software, nor does it break the email standard in any way. It simply slows down the email protocol on the server side. The only problem is when you have rogue ISPs sponsoring spam activities. again, you need some peer-review to make it “undesireable” to sponsor spamers.
Finally, it doesn’t affect normal people. if set up properly, ISPs would have freedom to price accounts for volume similar to how bandwith is handled now. Large corporations that handle 1000’s of legitimate emails would be able to make agreements with their ISPs for acceptable uses. It would all be contractual. Rogue accounts would be severely limited…removing one of the key features of spammers…disposable, unlimited DSL accounts they can just burn up. General users would be limited to something reasonable even 100 outgoing mails a day would suit most people well…but make a home connection worthless to spammers!
The idea of a “solving problem” is novel, but not necessary. I can see the motive to prevent hacking by tying up the exact CPU that’s making the request to prevent hacking, but it would be better to build a dumb system than complex clients…that part’s all about control.
The only other thing that might be interesting would be to scrap the SMTP servers and start over with pure P2P solutions. The only reason spamming works at all is because the system was designed to give priority handling to off-line clients. The spammers are benifiting from the loop hole that allows them to bomb servers with 10000 address at once and not have to deal with all the seperate connections. If you forced sending email clients to directly connect with each server then they’d get cut off pretty quickly trying to spam someplace like AOL…and in real-time too!
The only other thing would be to create a “do not call” protocol for the routers. It would be a protocol to block IP traffic at progressively sooner steps. If I get bombed by a spammer, I’d tell my ISP to stop sending me traffic from said IP. IF the traffic continued, the ISP would tell their ISP to block the traffic too. By the second or third blockage you should have the sender pretty well nailed down…whether it be a lone user, or a rogue ISP. It would be different from normal blacklisting because It would be loggable at each blockage decision rather that reading from a master list. Each entity accepting a block would need to establish criteria for executing it… In the situation of spammers it would provide lots of verifiable input to build cases aginst ISPs rather than just whining about it. IN the extreme case of DDoS attacks it would work too. The messages would go all the way to the offending client machine. The ISPs would have better tools to stem the effects before getting slammed completely. Then personal firewalls could be set to accept shutdown requests from ISPs until the problem was solved… i.e. ISP could send AV updates on a different port and cut off access until the problem was fixed. If you didn’t respond in reasonable time, you’d have the plug pulled!
Have a look on those web hosting companies, they have different packages for customers with different needs. You have to pay more if your web sites have more traffics. Why not use the same method on the email service?
Let’s say,
Normal customers – 1000 emails per month
Cooporate customers – 3000 emails + 0.1 cents per email if over 3000 emails were sent.
…
…
does anyone actually read the article? I am not too fond of Microsoft’s business practice but it doesn’t mean you can just bash everything Bill Gates says. And by the way he didn’t say anything about paying with real money. It just means basically that it will take a few extra seconds to send mail. This does not really affect ordinary people but will be very time consuming when you send out millions of mail. The calculation script or program will be small so it probably doesn’t matter if you have broadband or narrow band connection. I am sure people who comes to this site are pretty smart so let think before bashing everything.
I still think it is a stupid idea:
– If real money is necessary, I have no doubt a free alternative will be developed quickly
– If processor time is necessary, either you can still send lots of spam with a fast computer (or even better, by remote controlling many virus-infected computers), or people with slow computers (like that Pentium 75) need 10 minutes time to send a mail. And even then, new computers become faster and faster in little time.
What really should happen is for Internet Service Providers to assist with combating Spam by working with their subscribers (businesses and home users). Subscribers could forward recognized repeat Spammers to their ISP for review and possible blocking at the ISP mail server. This was done by my web host provider when their mail server identified suspected spam and attached a warning to the incoming mail. I had the option of instructing my web host provider to block the sender at their level. This helped curb Spam and also free bandwidth.
Spam filters set up properly at the end user can also do a lot to stop Spam from dumping to your network (ie: auto-detect and delete). Several Mail programs have built in Spam filters such as those found in MS Office2003, Apple Office, various Linux distributions and thrid party Spam blockers.
I would rather not have a fee whether cash or CPU cycles to use email in my daily life. I want the control of my email to be in my hands. Working with your ISP to filter Spam benefits not only yourself but others as well. Maybe one day laws will be set up to fine Spammers who continue to harrass Internet users with unwanted junk mail even after being warned. Otherwise we will start considering Spam as being just as infective as a virus.
What’s next?…. Are they going to put a meter on my internet connection and charge me by the KB?
It’s bad enough that MS is aloud to continue their monopoly, but charging per email? Crazy.
But then again, considering how much of the internet traffic is caused by the flawed security in the MS email programs… we could put together a class action lawsuit and place all the erroneous charges on Bill’s account… that would bankrupt MS on the next virus outbreak. (maybe not a bad idea afterall
)
I already pay a fee. I don’t need another one not even in CPU cycles.
Why not put that extra CPU time into encryption.
Then we get secure email, and reduced spam.
This would also provide a way to verify the sender. You could prove that you sent a message by verifying an encrypted phrase with your private key. (Assuming there are still no silly restrictions on Public-key cryptography, though a weaker encryption would still have a sufficient cpu penalty and keep the goverment happy.)
The only way you could import some sort of taxation on mail is if you could accurately track exactly where the mail is coming from. Which is the current problem with spammers.. they like to hide.
The move to the technology, like user validation to use an smtp server, is cool. But actually paying money?
No way you could enforce it, no way you could track it, and who would be getting the money?
what about all them legitimate mailing lists with a few thousand people on them.
there are cancer sufferers (and other diseases), all over the world who are kept up to date by mailing lists, they are run for INFO only for free by other sufferers. Who is going to pay for these ?
how many people will die because a once worthwhile service is no longer available.
The problem with american society can be summed up in one word – GREED
>However, I don’t like the idea of having to run third >party uknown code to my PC so I can be “eligible” to send >email or to browse the web
I would bet that it would be collecting info while “solving the puzzle,” too.
I think it is a bad idea to start attaching any caveat to sending email. Governments would just love to jump on this bandwagon. They could add a 1 cent tax to email and tell everyone it is for their own good. Then of course, it becomes the 2 cent tax then 10 cents. Hell, no end to revenue there. Think of the great privacy controlling mechanisms Congress could fund with this.
I don’t like government to make laws reguading the internet but…. if an law should be made I think that spamers should be required to have a keyword or signiture that marks that Email as spam. That way the user can set up any filter he or she wants. The main issue with creating a law here is that it only applies here. we’re doomed.