> Date: 31 May 1996 08:10:03 -0700
> From: NetPost <netpost@netpost.com>
> Subject: The future of the Email address, Part I
>
>
> The future of the Email address, Part I
>
> Over the past 2 years, I have been sending media releases
> out over the internet via Email, as part of my companies
> NetPOST and NetWIRE services. I've gotten pretty well known
> for doing it the right way, and have benefited greatly by
> never sending spam, and always identifying the person at
> the end of the address before I send them anything. This
> has resulted in me now having clients that are among the
> most famous names on the Internet.
...etc etc...
> IV - An increase in the email terrorism response
>
> I listened to a 20 year-old college student who told me how,
> in less than 20 minutes, he could write a PERL script that would
> nearly destroy any email address he wanted to by sending a 100MB
> email message to it over and over automatically all day long.
> Imagine if ACME spam company irritated this kid. All he needs
> is one valid email address at ACME and he can bring them to their
> knees. He said that this was nothing compared to what he could do
> if he really worked at it.
>
> I expect the creative and angry young rebels to increase in
> number.
>
> - --------------
>
> The reason that email spammers are proliferating is because
> they haven't been given painful enough reasons not to spam.
> That pain can be defined in a number of ways, financial, legal
> equipment or otherwise. I really expect sweeping changes to
> email communication over the next 10 years, and in many
> cases I think they will be positive changes. I do have a
> feeling that email will get more expensive for all of us
> before it's over with.
>
> Regards,
>
> Eric Ward <netpost@netpost.com>
i might note that while at sprint i led an effort to set a definitive
policy and complementary technical design for anti-spam support in our
product (nationwide isp). service providers are starting to wake up
to the fact that if they don't do anything about these sort of
trouble-makers it will be reflected in a _financial_ way. if an isp
becomes known as a haven for spammers, bots, and scientologists, they
will not get as much new business as they like. also, there are
operational and infrastructure-related reasons for providing some
level of support against outgoing and especially incoming abusive use
of services.
jrk
Joseph R. Kiniry
ex-Sprint Multimedia/Internet Services R&D Project Head / Lead Architect
Graduate Student, California Instititue of Technology
kiniry@cs.caltech.edu http://www.cs.caltech.edu/~kiniry/