How can we put an end to spam?
Answer:
Everyone wants maximum protection of their on-line data which can be stored in a fully-encrypted manner. That would satisfy a whole bunch of cloud issues, including the Fourth Amendment as it applies to the Cloud , which is really not framed out.
The larger issue I see is that ALL EMAIL flows over the Internet in 'Clear Text' (readable) form.
We take the precaution as a matter of privacy to be sure to enclose our paper mail in an envelope do we not?
Why shouldn't the same convention and assumption of a right to Privacy apply to mail sent on the Internet? Not just its 'storage'.
That's where OpenPGP comes in. But you can't make it happen unless there is a Federal mandate in place and a Global set of Treaties could unify the supposed: 'Email Postal Encryption Act'.
Making a Mandate should be accompanied by Government Funding to facilitate defraying the cost of bringing Email software applications into compliance over a period of time to the extent that such applications would incorporate PGP and self-signed certificates for encrypted email and make the process of sending a PGP email from an application usability standpoint sufficiently easy for any person to use with a minimum computer literacy level being assumed.
So, why do we get upset about information stored on the Internet when we send clear text emails around the world each and every day?
One side-effect and added 'benefit' of such a change coming into effect is that because of how signed-certificates work, the sender's email address would effectively become 'protected' so no 'bot' could send your email (from your machine if compromised).
ISPs could then rely on making the assumption that if an email isn't enclosed with a signed-certificate and encrypted, then it is in non-compliance and Mandated handling procedures could be applied to handling of such mails and shunt them off line.
The result: few or NO SPAM emails.
Dietrich T. Schmitz
GNU/Linux Advocate
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