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Doors and Spam
Imagine a condominium with several dozens our hundreds of tenants. As they built the condominium in a time when Man Was Good, the appartments and the whole building has doors. But after Generic Fall of Man, theft went through the roof, so the tenants gather to discuss the situation. One proposal is to fit the condominium with "doors", secured by "locks". Keys will fit to the front door and to one appartment respectively. However, the proposal meets stiff resistance:
- So I have to use that 'key' whenever I go to work and return home? I don't mind leaving my appartment open, but so I am forced to still take that key with me in order to open the main door! And what if I misplace it? I would be locked out of my own appartment!
- I've got a cat. Surely, she can't use a key? She would have to stay in the appartment the whole day or leave with me and stay outside until I return. But Minky likes her freedom! (further uproars ensues by tenants complaining about "Minky" dropping off mice in their appartment)
- Even if I don't misplace the key, it is terribly impractical. Consider you're returning home with two heavy bags of groceries, now you have to search that key! I don't want that.
- People in wheelchairs will find it difficult to open that door! You simply can't block out handicapped people, can't you?
- There is little of worth in my appartment but I should pay the same price to install these doors? They only favor the rich. Why don't just the rich lock up their own stuff and keep us alone?
- That's right, if people wouldn't keep valuable stuff anyway, there would be no problem!
- What is if the appartment is on fire and the door is locked? If I can't find the key on time, I'd face a horrible death!
- Yeah, just another campaign of fear by ACME United Lock & Door - do we know what plans they have in mind once we depend on doors? I say it will be the same as with printers - the locks come cheap, but the keys will cost us!
- This is just another government plan to intrude our privacy - now they can track finger prints on the door knobs. But that will only be the first step - I've read about plans to secretly build RFID chips into keys and tracking devices into locks.
- Once people feel unwatched in their locked appartment, who knows what they will do? Someone could murder someone right next to me without me noticing!
- What if my neighbours washing machine has a malfunction? I experienced that once and I could go up to shut the faucet in order to minimize the damage. I don't really want to stand before a locked door while my appartment drowns!
So no doors would be installed, Minky would be happy and people would keep complaining about ongoing thefts. The spam problem is similar - there have been proposals, but usually, they've been knocked down. Issues are similar - too costly, would break compatibility, would gain one company too much power, has anyone thought about the 3rd world and I want to keep my home brewn mailserver without having to pay 100 bucks to some evil certificate authority. And yes, this is all a ruse by the government to impair anonymous communication.
People say there is no solution from spam - but I don't take that. What there is not is the united will to do something about it. Probably, the problem will never be solved. E-Mail will just become next to unusable at some point and be superceded by some superior means of communication. With doors and cat flaps.
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