[Nottingham] RE: Pro Licenses and Mesh Networking

[Andy Davidson]

On 3 Oct 2007, at 02:46, Martin wrote:

> Perhaps we do all need to tag on gpg signatures to avoid a chase in  
> the first place.
> It might even clobber all the spam rubbish and scams!

I went through this with Martin 'Mahtin' Levy earlier this year; we'd  
re-implemented rfc2822 on a hamburger napkin, basically replacing the  
EHLO with a certificate based solution.  Mail peers need to trust  
each other - so an ISP's customer, one ISP to another, etc.

If a site is a spam source, its mail peers drop the certificate and  
mail wont progress.  If a botnet controls your pc, it can't direct  
mail in the way it does now as the botnet software wont sit inside  
the certificate trust network.

DNSBLs effectively become x509 CRLs.

Pretty sexy, huh ?  But can you honestly imagine email 2.0 getting  
enough traction with every stakeholder (every mail server, every mail  
client, every isp, every user, in every country) ?  When you can send  
your mates a (shudder shudder..) facebook message which basically  
already maps your relationships with people you want to talk to, and  
allows them to contact you in a 'secure' (in terms of spam  
prevention) environment ?


The other question which gets floated around a lot is whether email  
has had its day.  I get in contact with suppliers and customers via  
IM an awful lot.  And my latest project is designed to make internet  
communications via voice a lot simpler (VoIP, but with enough tools  
to make it simple to use without resorting to proprietary  
protocols !  Its strictly invitation only at the moment - please ping  
me for an invitation).

I hope email doesn't die, its the easiest way to get hold of me, and  
for me to get hold of a lot of people.  But spam makes it difficult  
to use as effectively as I could a year or two ago.

Andy