Spam Control

Here are some of my ideas to control unwanted spam.

Modifications:

SMTP servers should compare the remote IP address with the MX record for the sending domain. This would prevent spammers from sending email from their home internet connection forged as mail from yahoo, hotmail or some other domain not owned by the spammer. Spammers would be required to purchase a domain name and point the MX record to their IP address. Forged mail is elmininated and the domain name can be blacklisted.
A central database should be used to store contact handles¹ for domain owners. The individual's identity would be validated when registering to prevent multiple forged registrations. A small registration fee would be needed to cover validation costs and small renewal fees to cover maintenance of the system. This step is more complicated than the first step but is needed to more easily blacklist spammers who purchase "disposable" domains to bypass step one.
Domain registrations would require a handle from the above database.
Personal information should not be displayed in whois listings, only the contact handles. Contact information (name, email, address and phone number) would be available to handle owners logged into the database site or upon written request with return address. The system would inform handle owners of those viewing their contact information and the number of requests would be limited per day.
SMTP servers could optionally allow contact handles to be blacklisted.

Advantages:

It would be transparent to users, special clients would not be required.
It would not require users or owners of mailing lists to pay to send emails.
It would not prevent home users from running their own mail servers.
It would not prevent legitimate mass mailers and spammers from sending email but would allow them to be more easily blacklisted.
It would stop spammers from sending forged emails.

1) A handle is something used to identify an individual. Verisign uses handles like "FLnnn" where "FL" is the first letter of your first and last names and "nnn" is a three digit number. Gandi uses the same type of handles but appends "-GANDI". These handles are not portable across registrars and really only serve as a username to the registrar's system.