[SpamCop-List] Re: ENCRYPTED SPAM?

[JT]

"Brett" <brett_schulte> wrote in message
news:95a9ap$65u$1
> Wow somebody made an excellent point in alt.spam.  As mail encryption
> increases it could render spam filters obsolete... how do you scan
encrypted
> mail???
>

I don't think it is much of an issue.

- As someone else pointed out, headers are not encrypted
- Each email would have to be individually encrypted. PGP allows
encryption to multiple people, but even with that I'm sure there's a
limit.
- They would have to have a public key for every recipient. For S/MIME,
there is no depository of public keys. For PGP, there is, but it would
still be a nightmare. No more just scanning newsgroups and websites for
addresses.
- This would really only stop message-body scanning, which is not that
common anyway. Most filters are probably based on header information.
- Targeting PGP users would be a mistake, as they are the most technical
and most privacy concious of all internet users.

Some day, encryption will be common and widely available. I'm looking
forward to that, but by the time that happens, I think we'll have dealt
with spam by other, similar methods (encrypted authentication of SMTP
sessions, etc.)

JT