Subject: Re: [Asrg] E-postage/hashcash - the future

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 13:25:01 +1100

>>In any case, I do see your point, but was just trying to express my
opinion
>>as to what I think will happen if email is chargeable

>It's about as useful as expressing an opinion as to what will happen when
>cars run on water.

Well, thank you for suggesting my opinion was useless

>You have to look at the obstacles to making it happen.  Thinking about how

>nice it will be "when it happens" is a waste of time if it ain't never
>gonna happen.

I don't _have_ to do anything thank you!

I certainly was not suggesting a way to make the situation better, I
fully admit that, I simply I posted my opinion, which is based on what
_I_  think will happen next, regardless of which pay ' system' you plan to
introduce.

>The first obstacle to making it happen is getting the first 1/2 of the
mail
>clients/servers on the 'net to sign-on to whatever plan we propose and
>implementing the necessary changes first, before there is any hope of
>payoff.  The second obstacle is getting end users to agree to cut-off the
>last 1/2 of the mail clients/servers on the 'net (including aunt Sally
with
>her old win95 box that can't be upgraded to a newer message system) once
>"critical mass" has been achieved, to force all the older clients/servers
>to upgrade or die so that the new system has 100% of the message traffic
on
>the 'net.  Both of these are *big* obstacles, and adding ePostage ON TOP
OF
>THIS makes it considerably harder because we add a complicated payment
>scheme on top of a complicated system upgrade.

The only way to stop spam is at the delivery point.
The certificates and/or payment schemes need to be a ISP
level, not at the user level.  The user should not be involved at all.
In my opinion this is an industry problem, not a
problem than needs any action by the user.

>If it were easy it would have happened already by now.  And we would all
be
>driving cars powered by water.

Please, please, please stop using cheesy analogies.  There are already cars
that use
water for fuel.  The reason they are not released for the general public
may not be obvious to you.

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---

From: Barry Shein <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 23:06:52 -0400

> may not be obvious to you.

Sure, because as fate would have it they're only available in Saudi
Arabia where gasoline is cheap and fresh water is very expensive.

       -b

---

From: Jonathan Morton <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 06:04:13 +0100

>> If it were easy it would have happened already by now.  And we would 
>> all be
> Please, please, please stop using cheesy analogies.  There are already 
> cars that use water for fuel.  The reason they are not released for 
> the general public may not be obvious to you.

Just for the record, please distinguish between cars that use water as 
a fuel, and those that use water merely as an agent or catalyst in a 
reaction powered from another source.  If you consider a hydrogen fuel 
cell to be "water power", then 18th-century steam carriages also count. 
  In both cases, the water isn't really the fuel.

--------------------------------------------------------------
from:     Jonathan "Chromatix" Morton
mail:     [email-masked]
website:  http://www.chromatix.uklinux.net/
tagline:  The key to knowledge is not to rely on people to teach you it.