Controlling Spam by Secure Internet Content Selection
Author: Amir Herzberg
ABSTRACT
Unsolicited and undesirable e-mail (spam) is a growing problem for Internet
users and service providers. We present the Secure Internet Content Selection
(SICS) protocol, an efficient cryptographic mechanism for spam-control, based
on allocation of responsibility (liability). With SICS, e-mail is sent with
a content label, and a cryptographic protocol ensures labels are authentic
and penalizes falsely labeled e-mail (spam). The protocol supports trusted
senders (penalized by loss of trust) and unknown senders (penalized
financially). The recipient can determine the compensation amount for
falsely labeled e-mail (spam)). SICS is practical, with negligible overhead,
gradual adoption path, and use of existing relationships; it is also flexible
and appropriate for most scenarios, including deployment by end users and/or
ISPs and support for privacy and legitimate, properly labeled commercial
e-mail. SICS improves on other crypto-based proposals for spam controls,
and complements non-cryptographic spam controls.
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