Apologies - Spam Idiot.

Discussion in 'Network Information, Suggestions and Feedback' started by von Poop, Mar 23, 2009.

  1. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Hot air manufacturer

    Now I know why there are 12 members with names that start with Z :lol:

    "There can be only one!" :D
     
  2. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Funnily I did think of you and then decided to count them on the members list :D
     
  3. plant-pilot

    plant-pilot Senior Member

    On the more usual kind of spam, Otto once suggested to me that emails across the web should be chargeable per recipient.
    Something like 0.1 or 0.01p a message, that way even heavy legit users might get a yearly bill of just a few quid, but anyone wanting to annoy millions with their 'valuable shares' in dead Nigerian oil barons might think rather harder when considering the cost of their daily plague-mails.

    I kind of like the idea. Could kerb spammers a bit and help restrict the flow of the even more pointless PC infections that these buggers help spread.

    The system was actually put forward as a form of 'Email Postage' and to my mind was a good idea.

    For every email sent, as you said, an initial charge of .01 cent is billed to the sender. However, the email system being what it is there was a way that would mean it would remain free, even for mass email senders such as business if the emails were not unsolicited or unwanted.

    All that would be required was that mail clients have an addition of two buttons. 'Wanted' and Unwanted'. On receipt of an email the recipient would click on 'wanted' or even set up wanted to be automatically flagged on known addresses, or click on 'Unwanted' for any spam or unsolicited emails (Spam filters would again flag these automatically).

    These receipts would be sent to the sender's mail server and they would only be charged the .01 cent for emails they sent out to unknown, non existent or recipients that state they didn't want the email.

    Private or legitimate business users would still get the email service at no or very low cost, while spammers would not be able to push out millions of spam emails without incurring a substantial cost. At an estimate of 7 replies for every 1,000,000 spams, those 7 replies would have cost $10,000, over $1000 each. This would certainly make the present system of blanket emails much less economically viable.

    The system was rejected as most spam is now sent from private computers that have been attacked by Trojans and acting as 'robots' for the spammers. It would be the innocent that would be billed or have to prove that they were not part of the scam. But the idea was a good one.
     
  4. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    PP,

    Like all good ideas, there are always the downsides.
    In this case the illigal spammers remaining one step ahead on the technology front.

    I really find it a great pity, that these extremely computer literate people, do not spend their time and considerable effort on legitimate ventures.
    I am sure that some of them would become very wealthy people.

    Regards
    Tom
     

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