From a9d0a543dfb2e3a55d12fe78ee59f958cbac873c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Lars Wirzenius Date: Tue, 26 Jan 2021 09:22:55 +0200 Subject: refactor: change how headings are marked up The "#" style of heading makes heading level more visible in Emacs outline view. --- rethinking-email.md | 40 +++++++++++++--------------------------- 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+), 27 deletions(-) diff --git a/rethinking-email.md b/rethinking-email.md index 9066450..d8fe968 100644 --- a/rethinking-email.md +++ b/rethinking-email.md @@ -1,5 +1,4 @@ -Introduction -============================================================================= +# Introduction I am tired of the existing Internet email system, both as a sender of email, as a recipient, and as an operator of an email server. @@ -39,8 +38,7 @@ but I can at least try to inspire more people to think about this and maybe the discussion will end up with something good. -Good aspects to keep ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ +## Good aspects to keep I find the following aspects of the current email system good and valuable and would like a new system to retain them. @@ -64,8 +62,7 @@ valuable and would like a new system to retain them. the time. -Problems with the existing email system ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ +## Problems with the existing email system * Spam, or unsolicited bulk messages. Worse, anti-spam measures drive centralisation, and are still ineffective, especially for those not @@ -154,8 +151,7 @@ Problems with the existing email system the servers secure. -The spam and scam problem -============================================================================= +# The spam and scam problem There are a large number of problems. Rather than attacking all of them at once, let's consider them one at a time, and let's start with the @@ -163,8 +159,7 @@ most obvious problem: spam. As a side effect, the solution proposed below should also solve the scam problem. -Problem statement ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ +## Problem statement The spam problem can be stated as follows: @@ -182,8 +177,7 @@ The scam problem can be stated as follows: > recipient with malware. -Overview of solution ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ +## Overview of solution * Every email user has one or more identities, represented by cryptographic keys. @@ -199,8 +193,7 @@ gotten it from Christopher Lemmer Webber and Taler, and who knows where it originated from. -Digital identities ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ +## Digital identities In this approach, each email user can have as many email identities as they want, and each identity is represented by a key pair for public key @@ -229,8 +222,7 @@ from you, and the miscreant has to convince me that it's you. (This needs further thought.) -Digital signatures ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ +## Digital signatures For the purposes of this discussion, assume a way to digitally sign messages that covers the whole message, including its metadata. The @@ -245,8 +237,7 @@ an identity, but its signature can't be verified, the message is rejected by the recipient's email software. -On encryption ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ +## On encryption To solve the problem of surveillance, email encryption is going to be needed. However, it doesn't seem to be necessary for solving the spam @@ -254,8 +245,7 @@ and scam problem, so it's not discussed, for now. A future version of this essay may address that. -Digital stamps ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ +## Digital stamps A digital stamp is a digital token issued by a recipient which gives a sender the capability to send one or more messages to the recipient. @@ -332,8 +322,7 @@ I emphasise that the recipient decides what stamps are valid. Their mail server does not have to issue stamps to anyone who asks, if the recipient doesn't want email from strangers. -What next? -============================================================================= +# What next? Do you think the solution proposed in this essay for spam and scam will help? If not, why not? Can you see a way for a miscreant to circumvent @@ -349,8 +338,7 @@ merge request or send patches. [GitLab issue system]: https://gitlab.com/larswirzenius/ideas/-/issues -Other proposals to improve email -============================================================================= +# Other proposals to improve email There have been a very large number of proposals to improve email over the years. This is an incomplete list of them. @@ -362,9 +350,7 @@ critique of the proposal. -References -============================================================================= - +# References --- title: "Re-thinking electronic mail" -- cgit v1.2.1