more on Email issues

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: "Peter B. Ladkin" <ladkin () rvs uni-bielefeld de>
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 12:06:55 
To:Dave Crocker <dcrocker () brandenburg com>
Cc:Dave Farber <dave () farber net>, ip () v2 listbox com
Subject: Re: [IP] Email issues

Dave Crocker wrote:

    First of all, there are more server implementations than folks tend to
    realize.  Second of all, if you are going to make a fundamental change
    to email, then you should assume that it will change _all_ of the
    components in the service, not just the servers. Third of all, changing
    the software is probably a trivial part of the effort.  It is deploying
    and operating the changes that makes the effort daunting.

I don't see that changing from SMTP to something more friendly to
authentication is going to change IMAP or POP, so I don't see that I
"should assume" that it will. Since the proposed scheme of payments
involves changes to mail exchange and relaying, I also don't see that
people are "daunted" by the prospect of changes to email distribution
protocols.

Your analysis of the social and psychological factors affecting discussion
of spam are interesting, but when all is said and done it is a matter
of devising changes which will be effective, and there is reason to
think that a payment scheme imposed by Microsoft through their market
clout would be somewhat effective. Unfortunately, it would also
disadvantage many e-mail users who are not spammers, and it doesn't
solve the wider issue of interaction authentication.

Your argument that the economic model for e-mail postage schemes is
artifical rather than economically natural is pertinent. That such a
scheme is artificial means that an implementation would have to be in part
political, in that any payment model would have to be imposed and could
equally have been different. The Economist's contention that the economists
are "taking over" from the politicians and techies is misleading; they
would merely be joining in.

PBL

-- 
Peter B. Ladkin PhD FBCS CW(hon)
Professor of Computer Networks and Distributed Systems,
Faculty of Technology, University of Bielefeld, 33594 Bielefeld, Germany
Tel (Vx/msg/Fax) +49 (0)521 880 7319 http://www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de




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