Home / Blogs

Why We’ll Never Replace SMTP

By John Levine Author, Consultant & Speaker

An acquaintance asked whether there’s been any progress in the oft-rumored project to come up with a more secure replacement for SMTP. Answer: No

Truly, spam isn’t a technical problem, it’s a social one. If we could figure out some way to make mail recipient networks and hosts willing to shun known bad actors, even at the cost of losing some real mail for a while until the bad actors cave, it would make vastly more difference than any possible technical changes. No matter how super secure an improved protocol is, if a mail system operator lets people send spam through it, the recipients still have to decide how they’re going to deal with the sender’s behavior.

The reason that e-mail is uniquely useful is that you can exchange mail with people you don’t already know. The reason that spam exists is that you can exchange mail with people you don’t already know.

NORDVPN DISCOUNT - CircleID x NordVPN
Get NordVPN  [74% +3 extra months, from $2.99/month]
By John Levine, Author, Consultant & Speaker

Filed Under

Comments

Comment Title:

  Notify me of follow-up comments

We encourage you to post comments and engage in discussions that advance this post through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can report it using the link at the end of each comment. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of CircleID. For more information on our comment policy, see Codes of Conduct.

CircleID Newsletter The Weekly Wrap

More and more professionals are choosing to publish critical posts on CircleID from all corners of the Internet industry. If you find it hard to keep up daily, consider subscribing to our weekly digest. We will provide you a convenient summary report once a week sent directly to your inbox. It's a quick and easy read.

Related

Topics

DNS

Sponsored byDNIB.com

New TLDs

Sponsored byRadix

Threat Intelligence

Sponsored byWhoisXML API

Domain Names

Sponsored byVerisign

Brand Protection

Sponsored byCSC

Cybersecurity

Sponsored byVerisign

IPv4 Markets

Sponsored byIPv4.Global

View All Topics