The Frog that Croaked
Fred's dead, baby. Fred's dead.
Just as Zed in Pulp Fiction, he went down and out fighting. But in the end, the spammers got the better of him through overwhelming attacks and threats, and Blue Security abandoned their fight against spam, killed our friend Fred and went offline.
So is all lost?
Definitely not. For the first time, someone came up with an idea that not only filtered out spam, but actually made spammers stop spamming. There was a simple great idea at work here: Making a database of email recipients that absolutely detest spam, encrypting it, and forcing spammers to wash their email lists against this database through a measured and legal response, by sending opt-out requests in reply to the spam received, one for one.
What was learned? Primarily that more resources are needed to win the fight. A small startup company is unlikely to be able to cope with the intense attacks of spammers scared witless. At the very least they need to be better prepared. Alternatively, the load must shared among the users in a peer-to-peer fashion, giving the spammers tens or hundreds of thousands (eventually millions) of servers to attack instead of just one.
People who hate spam with every fibre of their beings are working on this at this very moment. But the idea is there for anyone to grab, including the powerful IT giants in dire need of good PR. It's a golden opportunity for a bold move that will make Internet history rather than just another buck. Do you read, Mr Ellison? Mr Gates?
Just as Zed in Pulp Fiction, he went down and out fighting. But in the end, the spammers got the better of him through overwhelming attacks and threats, and Blue Security abandoned their fight against spam, killed our friend Fred and went offline.
So is all lost?
Definitely not. For the first time, someone came up with an idea that not only filtered out spam, but actually made spammers stop spamming. There was a simple great idea at work here: Making a database of email recipients that absolutely detest spam, encrypting it, and forcing spammers to wash their email lists against this database through a measured and legal response, by sending opt-out requests in reply to the spam received, one for one.
What was learned? Primarily that more resources are needed to win the fight. A small startup company is unlikely to be able to cope with the intense attacks of spammers scared witless. At the very least they need to be better prepared. Alternatively, the load must shared among the users in a peer-to-peer fashion, giving the spammers tens or hundreds of thousands (eventually millions) of servers to attack instead of just one.
People who hate spam with every fibre of their beings are working on this at this very moment. But the idea is there for anyone to grab, including the powerful IT giants in dire need of good PR. It's a golden opportunity for a bold move that will make Internet history rather than just another buck. Do you read, Mr Ellison? Mr Gates?
posted by Frode Fanebust at 11:17 AM
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