Hardening lists against spam attacks

[Sandy Sandfort]

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                          SANDY SANDFORT
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C'punks,

On Tue, 31 Dec 1996 ichudov at algebra.com wrote:

> Send a number of unique tokens to each subscriber each day...
> ...
> A database is kept as to who was issued which tokens.
> 
> If tokens are used improperly (to post off-topic materials) the 
> offending subscriber is denied any further tokens.
> 
> The problem of this scheme is (besides its cost) that anonymous users
> will not be truly anonymous.

There is a simple solution to keeping anonymous posters anonymous
under this or any similar scheme.  Volunteers could act as
"gateways" for anonymous posts.  Self-selected list members could
announce that they would forward anonymous posts using one of
their own tokens for the purpose.  (In the alternative, the
gateway volunteers could be given extra tokens solely for that
purpose.)

The gateway volunteers would be a firewall against flames and
spam attacks, but would be a conduit for substantive anonymous
posts.  If gateway volunteers allowed inappropriate flames and 
spams through, they would have *their* tokens reduced.


 S a n d y

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