If you are sick of spam, and want to help put an end to it, please read this!!!
We are in the process of submitting the proposal below to some local and national legislators, and I would like to seek any criticism or suggestions. Here it is:
1) Pass legislation that requires that all email is sent through a
government sanctioned (an organization like ICANN or possibly ICANN itself)
clearinghouse which will relay all mail to its destination after verifying
the sender's identity.
2) Establish a quasi government organization or appoint an existing one like
ICANN (the administrator of the DNS system) to oversee a central email relay
system (CERS).
3) The agency in charge of CERS will solicit bids from the private sector
for the creation and administration of CERS.
4) a) The winning bidder will create and maintain a database of e-mail
addresses which will contain each owner's contact information and the IP
address(es) associated with the server(s) responsible for sending e-mail on
behalf of each registered e-mail address. Each registrant's information
would be verified in a financially reasonable manner (such as credit card
info, telephone number, etc..)
b) The designated CERS contract holder will also establish and manage a
highly redundant network of SMTP mail servers worldwide to relay all e-mail
on behalf of CERS (similar to the root servers in DNS infrastructure).
c) The designated CERS contract holder will accept registrations of e-mail
addresses from the general public, charging a nominal annual fee to cover
its operating costs. Just like with the domain name system, each e-mail
address registrant will have the ability to modify their contact info and
the IP addresses used to send mail.
d) The designated CERS contract holder will establish a pricing structure
subject to the approval of the overseeing administrative agency for e-mail
address registration. The pricing structure should accommodate large ISP's
by charging less per registered address when an entity registers 1000 or
more addresses. The target price for these registrations should be about $1
per year per address for high volume registrants, and $3 per year per
address for others. Since there should be more e-mail addresses registered
than domain names, there should be plenty of revenue to run the system,
while the costs for registrants will be very affordable.
5) All ISP's and organizations running mail servers will configure their
incoming mail servers to reject all incoming mail which is not sent by one
of the CERS central relay servers, so if someone tries to send a message
directly from their mail server to someone else's, the receiving server will
not even accept their connection, and return an error immediately (this will
minimize server load for the recipient). If the message is determined to
come from a CERS relay server, the receiving mail server will then query
CERS's database (whois) to match the sender's address with their registered
IP address (which is registered with CERS). If the IP does not match the
return address, the message will be rejected with no bounce to reduce
Internet traffic.
6) All servers set up to send e-mail will send their messages through the
official CERS relay servers, as sending mail directly will be rejected by
the recipient.
7) CERS will match the IP's of all messages being relayed through its
servers with the senders' e-mail addresses, and messages with the address
not matching the IP or an unregistered address being rejected by the CERS
server.
8) As an added level of security, e-mail servers could also be registered with CERS, just like name servers are. Unless the name server is registered, and the IP matches its hostname, no mail would be accepted from it.
9) Last but not least, enforcement. If anyone sends unsolicited e-mail, the
recipient can now find out who it was by use of the CERS online whois query
tool, which will return e-mail address owner's information in real time
(similar to the WHOIS system for domain names). All complaints and legal
action can now be directed towards a real individual or organization. Those
found to be in violation of the anti Spam laws could have their e-mail
address registration privileges suspended or revoked, or be faced with
fines.
I honestly think the above system will work effectively for the Internet as
a whole, as it will eliminate the alarmingly growing trend in Spam, reduce
Internet traffic, plus make e-mail communication more secure, as everyone
would now become accountable for what they send. As for privacy concerns, I feel that e-mail addresses should be treated like post office boxes, as each
holder of a post office box must show valid ID to open a box with the Post
Office. This would accomplish the same goal.
Passing a law requiring the above parameters to be followed by ISP's would be imperative for getting this accomplished, as without such a law, it would be very difficult to get voluntary compliance from ISP's and other infrastructure providers involved.
What do you think of this idea?
We are in the process of submitting the proposal below to some local and national legislators, and I would like to seek any criticism or suggestions. Here it is:
1) Pass legislation that requires that all email is sent through a
government sanctioned (an organization like ICANN or possibly ICANN itself)
clearinghouse which will relay all mail to its destination after verifying
the sender's identity.
2) Establish a quasi government organization or appoint an existing one like
ICANN (the administrator of the DNS system) to oversee a central email relay
system (CERS).
3) The agency in charge of CERS will solicit bids from the private sector
for the creation and administration of CERS.
4) a) The winning bidder will create and maintain a database of e-mail
addresses which will contain each owner's contact information and the IP
address(es) associated with the server(s) responsible for sending e-mail on
behalf of each registered e-mail address. Each registrant's information
would be verified in a financially reasonable manner (such as credit card
info, telephone number, etc..)
b) The designated CERS contract holder will also establish and manage a
highly redundant network of SMTP mail servers worldwide to relay all e-mail
on behalf of CERS (similar to the root servers in DNS infrastructure).
c) The designated CERS contract holder will accept registrations of e-mail
addresses from the general public, charging a nominal annual fee to cover
its operating costs. Just like with the domain name system, each e-mail
address registrant will have the ability to modify their contact info and
the IP addresses used to send mail.
d) The designated CERS contract holder will establish a pricing structure
subject to the approval of the overseeing administrative agency for e-mail
address registration. The pricing structure should accommodate large ISP's
by charging less per registered address when an entity registers 1000 or
more addresses. The target price for these registrations should be about $1
per year per address for high volume registrants, and $3 per year per
address for others. Since there should be more e-mail addresses registered
than domain names, there should be plenty of revenue to run the system,
while the costs for registrants will be very affordable.
5) All ISP's and organizations running mail servers will configure their
incoming mail servers to reject all incoming mail which is not sent by one
of the CERS central relay servers, so if someone tries to send a message
directly from their mail server to someone else's, the receiving server will
not even accept their connection, and return an error immediately (this will
minimize server load for the recipient). If the message is determined to
come from a CERS relay server, the receiving mail server will then query
CERS's database (whois) to match the sender's address with their registered
IP address (which is registered with CERS). If the IP does not match the
return address, the message will be rejected with no bounce to reduce
Internet traffic.
6) All servers set up to send e-mail will send their messages through the
official CERS relay servers, as sending mail directly will be rejected by
the recipient.
7) CERS will match the IP's of all messages being relayed through its
servers with the senders' e-mail addresses, and messages with the address
not matching the IP or an unregistered address being rejected by the CERS
server.
8) As an added level of security, e-mail servers could also be registered with CERS, just like name servers are. Unless the name server is registered, and the IP matches its hostname, no mail would be accepted from it.
9) Last but not least, enforcement. If anyone sends unsolicited e-mail, the
recipient can now find out who it was by use of the CERS online whois query
tool, which will return e-mail address owner's information in real time
(similar to the WHOIS system for domain names). All complaints and legal
action can now be directed towards a real individual or organization. Those
found to be in violation of the anti Spam laws could have their e-mail
address registration privileges suspended or revoked, or be faced with
fines.
I honestly think the above system will work effectively for the Internet as
a whole, as it will eliminate the alarmingly growing trend in Spam, reduce
Internet traffic, plus make e-mail communication more secure, as everyone
would now become accountable for what they send. As for privacy concerns, I feel that e-mail addresses should be treated like post office boxes, as each
holder of a post office box must show valid ID to open a box with the Post
Office. This would accomplish the same goal.
Passing a law requiring the above parameters to be followed by ISP's would be imperative for getting this accomplished, as without such a law, it would be very difficult to get voluntary compliance from ISP's and other infrastructure providers involved.
What do you think of this idea?
