will spammers early adopt hashcash? (Re: Spam Spotlight on Reputation)

John Kelsey kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com
Tue Sep 14 09:32:59 EDT 2004


>From: Adam Back <adam at cypherspace.org>
>Sent: Sep 13, 2004 4:43 PM
>To: Adam Shostack <adam at homeport.org>
>Cc: Ben Laurie <ben at algroup.co.uk>, bear <bear at sonic.net>, 
>	Hadmut Danisch <hadmut at danisch.de>, 
>	"R. A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>, cryptography at metzdowd.com, 
>	Eric Johansson <esj at harvee.org>, Adam Back <adam at cypherspace.org>
>Subject: Re: will spammers early adopt hashcash? (Re: Spam Spotlight on Reputation)

...
>Essentially whatever resources spammers do have, hashcash is going to
>slow them down because the balance of CPU power vs bandwidth is such
>that 20-bit hashcahs with current hardware is likely to slow down the
>output of a typical consumer destkop+DSL line down by afact or 10-100x
>less spam.  

It sure seems like one other impact of this is going to be that zombie machines can't do much spamming in the background, while letting the user of the machine think he still is in control of it.  I don't know whether they do that now, though.  

--John

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