Spam sucks. Of course, we know this. The point is that spam could be stopped, but the result would no longer be email as we know it today.
Corey Doctorow gave a brief presentation at eTech on the topic of complex systems and parasites; some brief notes follow:
Complex ecosystems are influenced, not controlled.
Continuation of the endangered devices talk from yesterday … as an American, living in the land of the free and the home of the brave, I wonder how we got to a point that one has to ask permission to build certain hardware devices? If nothing else, these productions ought to be protected by the 1st amendment.
Simple, controllable solutions seem ideal at first glance, but in the real world, they don’t work (read: Trusted Computing or the DVD CSS standard).
Here’s a link to Corey’s full presentation.