Reader Has Novel Idea - Poll: Could it Work?   3/25/2005 - 1,419 views, 3 Comments

“It seems to me that if we were to make a few simple changes we could pretty well eliminate spam.

First, let’s look at what the spammers have going for them…
1. They can remain anonymous by using trojans, domains that expire, etc.
2. It is easy for them to gather up more zombies.

I propose that we first make a change to our email servers so that any mail coming from someone that is NOT in the white list is accepted to the end of the headers ONLY, and then the rest of the message is rejected.

The rejected email sits on the sender’s server in the retry queue and delivery is attempted again later. The headers are delivered as an email, after being filtered, etc. If and only if the recipient WANTS the email they reply to automatically add the sender to the whitelist, or simply click a button somewhere.

Here are a few of the benefits:
No porn pictures, trojans, viruses, etc are actually delivered (unless you add the spammer to your whitelist).

Security exploits are reduced to those that can be contained in the headers.

Bandwidth requirements are actually reduced for most consumers.

Spammers could no longer remain anonymous. They would have to keep their servers in one spot for extended periods of time.

Spammers would have millions of dead emails sitting on their servers and their bandwidth would be stretched thin.

This change could be added by ANY company that writes email server software, and it would work RIGHT NOW with the current infrastructure.

Now, once that catches on we add one more change.

Replying to the headers could actually release the email on the sender’s server so that it could be delivered immediately if you so desired. It would be like the pickup ticket at the drycleaners.

If anyone has any comments, suggestions, etc. I would enjoy hearing them.”

What do you think, dear readers? Could this work?

Take Wolfjam’s poll here