Just some friction in The Machine

Friday, May 23, 2003


This week I came up with an idea to stop e-mail SPAM. Please feel free to e-mail me with comments if you decide to view the flow diagrams (PDF). This proposal is for a client e-mail system that works as a pre-filter for your e-mail. Whenever you send a message, it inserts a random number into your e-mail and into a local database, when someone replies to an e-mail you sent, their mail gets past the filter. When someone sends you an e-mail that wasn't a "Reply" to an earlier e-mail, then your three way handshake (TWH) pre-filter replies for you and inserts the random number AND attaches about 100K of junk. The person who receives your reply message (sent by your pre-filter) can now hit Reply, and this time it goes through your filter because it is now a "Reply" to an earlier message. If they also have TWH running, then it does it for them, so they wouldn't even see anything different than they do now. If they aren't using a TWH enabled e-mail client yet, then they just hit Reply and forward back the message that your pre-filter sent them.

Points to note:
1. Forces a valid From: header line, so the sender has to receive and respond to your e-mail, and you know what ISP to complain to if there's a problem.
2. The attached filler (~100K) uses their bandwidth. They have to download your "filler" in order to get your random number and Reply to it. 100K is not much if you send less than 100 e-mails a day, but imagine that the SPAMmer gets a million returns each with 100K attachments, their server would get swamped.
3. Backwards compatible with existing e-mail clients, i.e., it won't require your recipient to have special software to deal with your e-mails, or people who send you e-mail to have special software.
4. Implemented by the client, so it doesn't depend on a particular ISP, or even require the cooperation of an ISP.
5. Doesn't require legislation.

I'm about to head out for my holiday weekend. I'm going to go drive my Beamer up the north coast of California and into southern Oregon. It's a beautiful day for a convertible!

Talk to you again on Tuesday. I hope Gene Chapman has an answer by then.


Thursday, May 22, 2003


Use of Patriot Act Expands. Power corrupts. Need I say more?


Wednesday, May 21, 2003


Although this is particular to California, there is an interesting opinion piece in today's Ventura County Star. Tim Herdt discusses how California "bleeds" (my word, not his) nearly 80 billion dollars a year to the federal government. Just to put that in perspective, for a state that is often referred to as the 5th largest economy in the world (just ahead of France), that 80 billion is larger than our state general fund. I happen to live in Sacramento County, so I'm doubly interested in this. However, I think the story gives perspective to every state in the union because it discusses how Joe Citizen doesn't know if he's being over taxed by the feds, the state, the county, the city, or the myriad of local districts, he just knows he's over-taxed, and he still can't get decent schools or police protection. It's a good example of the damage to society from an overly strong federal government usurping power (and money) from local control.


Monday, May 19, 2003


John Snow, the US Treasury secretary let loose the administration's weak dollar policy. You don't have to read between the lines to see what problems fiat money creates. When the value of our money is based solely on the faith and trust in the credit worthiness of the United States government, then it's necessary to control "faith and trust" in order to control the value of currency. Even the slightest comment from a person close to that "faith and trust" can send the dollar spiralling. People's opinions can change rapidly. The Federal Reserve won't be able to control it forever with changes in interest rates. What happens as we get closer to having the prime rate be zero percent? Eventually we declare bankruptcy and default on our debts, yep, all $6 trillion of it. Fiat money always fails, it's only a matter of time.


Sunday, May 18, 2003


Apparently someone in the Nevada state legislature is paying attention. They have Assembly Bill 532 to start issuing state $20 silver coins until Congress takes the issuance of money back from the private bankers. As an aside to We the People, notice that the web address is in the "GOV" domain. Maybe I'll try to register a domain in the "GOV" domain and then sue when they deny me because I'm not a government body. Neither is the Federal Reserve Bank!


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