Jon Udell [I just discovered that I gave him an 'h' and left out an 'l'] thinks Digital IDs will reduce spam. I doubt it. We’ll just receive digitally signed spam from ‘legitimate’ senders. And there are worse things than spam which coercing people to acquire digital IDs will make worse:
- Microsoft and Palladium (sorry, you can only send mail with a M$-signed ID to a party with a M$-signed ID)
- Ashcroft (”let me see every email signed by X”)
- The Copyright Cartel (”by buying this download, you give us the right to sell your email address to whomever we damn well want to, and if you refuse delivery, we’ll revoke the keys to your Celine Dion albums”)
We have a Constiutional right to anonymous communication, and even the Conservatives on the Supreme Court agree with this. Spam should be fought defensively with filters, and offensively by criminal prosecutions of people who exploit open relays.
