On Sat, Aug 16, 2025 at 5:47 PM John Levine via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
It appears that Matthew Petach via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> said:
I think we should take a cue from cryptocurrencies, and have a "proof of stake" type of challenge for email messages sent out. The recipient machine doesn't accept a message until the sender has demonstrated they have put some skin in the game as well.
Dwork and Naor invented that in 1992. Clever idea, doesn't work in practice.
OK, I read the paper through, and they put considerably more thought into the calculation side; however, this paper explicitly calls for a centralized Pricing Authority, which is exactly what I'm advocating *against*. In their words: The system requires a single pricing function fs, with shortcut c, and a hash function h. The selection of the pricing function and the setting of usage fees are controlled by a pricing authority. All users agree to obey the authority. There can be any number of trusted agents that receive the shortcut information from the pricing authority. The functions h and fs are known to all users, but only the pricing authority and its trusted agents know c. And this would, in my opinion, be why it's a non-starter. You'll never get a system that requires everyone to adhere to dictates from a central authority. Instead, I'm advocating for a decentralized, one-at-a-time type approach, where the penalty box is in the time domain, so it's easily implemented unilaterally by the receiving side. It's the very opposite of what the paper you're citing proposed. I mean, I know I'm a complete idiot, but at least shoot down my idea for its own flaws, don't shoot it down using a paper that contemplates the exact opposite scheme. ;P Thanks! :) Matt