Previously, Michael.Dillon@radianz.com (Michael.Dillon@radianz.com) wrote:
for some reason people are unwilling to imagine an email system in which an ISP will only accept incoming messages from another ISP with which they have an existing agreement, i.e. rather like email peering.
You say this as if it's surprising that people are willing to accept communications from people they have not yet communicated with before.
There is a difference between an ISP and a person who sends or receives email. I am only suggesting that ISPs should make mail peering agreements, not individuals. When I wrote a weekly column for Internet World magazine, I frequently received email from readers with whom I had not previously communicated because my email address was printed at the bottom of each article. I developped my suggestion with this in mind.
Considering that many of the big spam outfits have gone so far as to buy ISPs or start their own simply for the purpose of spamming, this becomes fairly moot. So I start up a new corporation, buy co-lo space from a provider, register my mail server with them and send all the spam I want until they kick me off the network. Rinse. Repeat. That sounds a lot like our current system today, the difference being you'd use some new database to determine the source of your spam rather than SWIP records. -- Douglas A. Dever dever@snoopy.net http://www.getaclue.net/