On Sun, 9 Jul 1995, David Boyes wrote:
> Realistically, as the unwashed masses get net access, it's only going to
> to get worse. Stopping it now is essential, while the problem is relatively
> small. In a year, it's not going to be a small problem any more.
 
David, may I ask you - you say stopping it now is essential; how is
that?  Is there a way to stop it?
 
I was thinking that if there were some (virtually) unbreakable encryption
scheme to map each email address uniquely into a password number, then
this number could be stored on the users account - non-readable by
others.  Whenever they send mail, you include this password number in the
header.  Could this be done?  Then the only way to forge email is to
know somehow someones secret password number.  It could be checked by
listserv as a validation.  Makes it harder for certain applications to
work, like Web-based subscription screens.  But it seems to me that it
ought to be possible to do this, and it would greatly cut down on forgeries.
If someone lost it somehow, their site could re-generate it for them.
There must be other ways as well to help reduce bogus subscriptions.
 
Kevin