administrivia: spam control

[Richard Welty <rwelty@domain.elided>]

spam control continues to be an ongoing problem on the internet.

there is a recent development of considerable interest. Rodney Joffe
(better known on the net as the founder of Genuity, an internet service
business which is now owned by GTE), has started what is called SAFEeps.
the gist of SAFEeps is that it actually is that mythical creature that
nobody thought could really exist -- an opt-out service run by a trusted
party.

the theory is that if you go to www.safeeps.com and register your email
address or domain name, spammers who use SAFEeps will stop sending you
spam. i have already registered digest.net, krusty-motorsports.com, and
several other domain names that i manage. 

whether SAFEeps will work or not is an open question. people will have to
trust their email addresses to it, and spammers will have to be decide to
start using it. most of us have ignored opt-out lists such as
"remove-me.com" because they're run by spammers, and we don't trust them.

trust Rodney. i know Rodney, and i know that he can be trusted. give
www.safeeps.com a try. it might actually work. anything would be better
than what we've got on the net right now.

richard