On 5/19/02 11:14 PM, "J C Lawrence" <claw@kanga.nu> wrote:
> I've quite clearly pointed at where I see the "solution" (ie an address
> which is tolerable and even attractive enough to users to be used enough
> to be effective): PKI-based audit trails.
To me, the key issue for all of this is this:
ANY solution ultimately involves some sort of whitelist, where the e-mail
user base agrees that either everyone "does this" or their mail gets
bounced. Doesn't really matter what "does this" is in detail, but
effectively (or in reality, such as moving from SMTP to a new protocol) you
turn things into two e-mail networks: a network of "approved" email and all
of the existing old stuff.
The pain involved in this split is immense. The chaos is massive. And if you
walk around the net you'll see just how many millions of boxes are running
ancient versions of sendmail or unpatched NT or whatever, and you start to
see the logistical problems involved with telling the net "on this date, you
upgrade or your mail starts bouncing".
And THAT headache is dwarfed by this reality: if you don't get AOL on board,
your plan is dead in the water before it starts, because any plan to fix
e-mail that makes AOL mail bounce coming to you, or any mail sent to AOL,
will fail. Period. With a bullet. Then toss in MSN, Hotmail, Earthlink and
the half dozen biggest international ISPs, and get them to agree to the
deal, too.
So any TECHNICAL solution that requires changes to the e-mail universe are
dwarfed by the logistical and political reality that it has to be compatible
with the major ISPs, or you have ot get the major ISPs to buy into the plan,
and the first question THEY will have is "what's in it for me?" and if you
can't answer that with a solid ROI calculation, they'll smile politely and
never return another phone call.
If you want to get some feel for what "let's fix e-mail!" means in the real
world, get involved with the IPV6 stuff. And in all honesty, I think that's
EASIER than fixing e-mail on a technical and political level.... How many
years has it been going on? And how many years before, oh, 2-3% of the net
is shifted over to it?
--
Chuq Von Rospach, Architech
chuqui@plaidworks.com -- http://www.chuqui.com/
Someday, we'll look back on this, laugh
nervously and change the subject.
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