SPAM is a Bug NOT a Crime

SPAM is a bug NOT a crime. And it can be solved today using existed technologies.

What is SPAM

Today, almost everyone who has ever received an e-mail message has also received SPAM. Some would describe SPAM as a plague on the Internet.

SPAM, or more properly e-mail SPAM, is the process of sending nearly identical unsolicited e-mails to groups of people. Typically, these are sent to thousands if not millions of people.

SPAM has become a huge problem. Costing money, time, and man power.

SPAM is a Crime?

Some have charged governments with the duty of stopping e-mail SPAM. Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa whose opinion I respect (on many things) and whose blog I regularly read, wants to stop SPAM by making it illegal, by putting convicted SPAMers in jail, and by forcibly taking away possessions and money from those convicted as SPAMers.

Essential, Michael Geist and other law makers want to stop SPAM by making it a crime.

The Best Laid Plans...

In this case, I adamantly disagree with these lawyers and law makers. I guess the old carpenter's adage is right:

When all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Although, in this case, since we are dealing with law makers and not carpenters the adage should probably be something like:

When you are a law maker, the solution to every problem is to throw people in jail.

It may sound harsh, but no matter how good intentioned these law makers are, in essence that's what their attitudes come down to. Make a new law and make something else a crime. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

To me, hearing a call to make SPAM a crime is asinine if you believe in liberty. And in particular, it's asinine if you believe in freedom of speech. (And I'm not talking about the USA's right to speech which they call the freedom of speech. But actual freedom of speech.)

The ends do NOT justify the means.

SPAM is a Bug!

This seems even more asinine whern you come to the realization that SPAM is just bug. And a fixable bug at that. And that the infrastructure to fix the problem is already widely available and has gained mainstream usage. (More on this later.)

SPAM is Speech (Unfortunately)

SPAM, no matter how undesirable is still speech!

No matter how inconvenient something or someone is, and no matter how many people it inconveniences, there can be no moral justification for forcibly taking away someone's freedom of speech or taking away liberty in general. The ends do NOT justify the means.

And no matter how increadibly annoying these SPAMers are or what my or your personal opinion of them are, these SPAMers still have done nothing morally wrong.

Whenever liberty is being taken away, warning flags should go up in your head. Either their has to be a better way; or doing what they want to do is morally wrong.

Push vs. Pull

As so many students of Computer Science have learnt, there are 2 ways you can design a messaging system. (BTW, e-mail is a messaging system.) You can have messages pushed. Or you can have messages pulled.

Today's e-mail system is a push messaging system. And that's the problem! That's the bug! That's why we have SPAM.

We need e-mail to become a pull messaging system. It's that easy. And that simple.

Pull E-mail

With pull e-mail, e-mail isn't shoved in your e-mail box. But you go and ask people if they have any e-mail for you. That's a very important point.

You only go and get e-mail from people you want to get e-mail from. Your friends, your colleagues, your co-workers, your family. Isn't that the way it should be‽

You might ask, but how do I subscribe to mailing lists? Well, with pull e-mail, mailing list subscribe to you. (Think of a systems like Planet Planet.) So mailing lists still work.

You might also ask, but I'm a business, I need to receive e-mail from people I don't know, how do I do that. Simple answer is, you don't. But you don't need to. You can receive messages from people you don't know with a system other than pull e-mail. And once you have a business relation with them, you can start getting e-mail from that person by added them to your list. (This probably sound more complex than it is.)

Changing to Pull E-mail

Some might say that redesigning the whole e-mail system for this is next to impossible and impractical. I might have been inclined to accept this. And in the past, years ago when I first had this idea, I did think that changing the whole Internet e-mail system to a pull messaging system would be unlikely.

But today, things are different. And today we already have the technologies in place for a pull messaging system. In fact, these technologies have gone mainstream. And there are a great number of developers and organizations which have experience and expertise with these systems.

RSS, Atom, and SPAM-Free E-mail

Today, we already have a working popular pull messaging system in place. RSS and Atom form the basis of this system. These technologies are likely better known for their use in: blogging, podcasting, and vlogging.

A new pull e-mail system could be created based on the Atom format. Very little new technology would need to be created.

Atomic E-mail

The Atom format has gone through the rigorous process of standardization at the IETF, just like the technologies used in the current push e-mail system.

Atom is an XML-based markup language similar to HTML.

Atom was designed with communication and conversations in mind.

Atom can enable a new pull e-mail system.

-- Charles Iliya Krempeaux, B.Sc.