how to deal with spam for good?

[Doug Hardie]

On Mar 10, 2005, at 01:49, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> The only long term solution that is going to work is modding the
> DNS records to designate an official SMTP server for each domain, such
> a plan has been in the works for a while among the standard bodies
> that know what they are doing.

SPF is only going to address one form of spam distribution.  
Unfortunately it does nothing for the spammers who get their own domain 
and establish their own SPF records.  They can continue to spam away at 
will.  Likewise SPF will not close any of the open relays run by the 
organizations that are pushing SPF.  Those will continue to forward 
spam like they do today.  I suspect the open relays are ahead of their 
SPF checking as we continue to receive mail through them even theough 
they claim SPF is in use.

Spam will only go away when people no longer respond to it.  When there 
is no revenue generated to cover the cost of spamming then it will end. 
  Since spamming is so cheap, it only takes a couple of responses to 
cover the costs.  Probability of finding a couple of morons out there 
is 1.00.  People still respond to the Nigerian scams.....