Okay, before I start, I better state outright that I haven't read the whole
thread.
A recipe for reducing spam.
Ask Gilmore to put a vacation program on his cypherpunks address. At the
same time, invite all current subscribers to resubscribe to one of the
remaining members of the list.
Barring the above, send an invitation to toad.com to resubscribe to one of
the others, that it is about to be disconnected from the net
completly. Put one computer on watching toad.com, and replying to any post
coming from there with a "this is no longer the list" message.
Set up a series of numbered cypherpunks mailing lists. If you are on the
list, you will see the current address in your "To" field. All others will
get a "current address is..." message when they try to send a message to
any cypherpunks address but the current one, the last one, or the next one.
Effects
Virtually no computer generated spam. Computer generated spam would be,
for the most part, incapable of making the transition to a new address. If
the address changes every week, then spam from one channel dies after a
maximum of two weeks. If the current address stays the same for one week,
but the last address is killed after two days, the maximum duration from
one spam source would be 9 days.
Fewer posts from outside the list. Anyone wanting to drop a line would be
forced to send a message, wait for it to bounce and give them the current
address, then send the real address. Few people would go to this trouble,
but it might also be the same few who would send a "heads up" to the list
while not being currently subscribed themselves.
Fewer posts from inside the list. With the exception of replys, where the
"To" field would already be filled in with the current address, unless the
sender has been away for awhile, and is finally going through weeks old
mail, sending a message would require the additional step of getting an
address out of the header of another message. This would reduce the start
of new threads noticably, and the continuation of threads less so.
Fewer requests for readily available information. Since most of the lame
are too lazy to look for information on bomb making anyway, the additional
step of looking up an address from another message should be
deterrant. Since some of these same individuals are likely not members of
the list, this is even fewer who would bother to resend the body of a
previously sent message, just to get the information.
Do I recommend this approach? No. To do so would be to invite the wraith
of people like Tim May. Who would likely be in the right. It would also
be likely to invite the ire of the list operators, who would have to code
this. They would most definately be in the right.
In other words, the seed of an idea. Do with it as you wish, I can take
the heat.
Good luck,
Sean
