Make spammers pay, Bill Gates says

A spam-free world by 2006? That's what Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates is promising. "Two years from now, spam will be solved," he told a select group of World Economic Forum participants at this Alpine ski resort. "And a lot of progress this year," he added at the event late Friday, hosted by U.S. talk show host Charlie Rose. Gates said Microsoft, where he has the title of chief software designer, is working on a solution based on the concept of "proof," or identifying the sender of the e-mail.

One method involves a human challenge, or requiring the sender of an electronic pitch to solve a puzzle that only a flesh-and-blood person can handle. Another is a so-called "computational puzzle" that a computer sending only a few messages could easily handle, but that would be prohibitively expensive for a mass-mailer.

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