Re: Outgoing mail defaults

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:27:06 -0400 chad <address@hidden> wrote: 

c> On Mar 17, 2011, at 3:02 PM, David Reitter wrote:
>> 
>> Making it listen on port 80 would be easier than installing a
>> server-side script taking a POST request on port 80.  OTOH, Ted's
>> suggestion about the hashcash seems very attractive, especially if
>> the SMTP server would forward bug reports to other packages in the
>> process.

c> Do you think we can expect hashcash to reasonably work in the case
c> were the user hasn't configured emacs, it's not working, and sending
c> mail doesn't work? 

Yes, since it can be implemented in Emacs Lisp.  The idea of "proving
some work has been done" is what's important.  Plus it's not a
well-known algorithm so there's a low chance of random spammers
implementing it.

c> I don't know the details of the hashcash implementation, but a quick
c> internet search suggest that emacs would need to successfully
c> communicate with a subprocess to a binary that isn't likely to be
c> installed.

That's how hashcash.el (now removed from Gnus) operated IIRC.  But
there's no reason we need to do it that way.  See
http://www.gnosis.cx/download/gnosis/util/hashcash.py for an example
implementation.

Ted