[IP] President Bush using challenge-response for his email

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Mike Masnick <mike@techdirt.com>
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 01:15:33 -0700
To: declan@well.com, dave@farber.net
Subject: President Bush using challenge-response for his email

Declan, Dave,

Just read this article:

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6330165.htm

about how the Whitehouse has now made it more difficult to email the
President.  Since the two of you are interested in both tech and political
issues, I thought you'd be interested in the story just from the angle of
"now the Whitehouse is making it even more difficult to be heard".

However, I think, the more interesting point is one I discuss here:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20030718/018227_F.shtml

President Bush has really started using "challenge-response" technology to
get rid of spam (and to better sort emails).  It works exactly like the
basic challenge response systems: (a) you email the President (b) instead
of getting the email, you receive a reply telling you to go to a webpage
(c) at that webpage, you need to perform certain tasks to prove you are
human (though, the ones on the Whitehouse page are a bit more cumbersome
than most C-R systems).

So, now, the bigger question is whether or not Mailblocks, the company that
claims to own patents on "challenge-response" will sue the Whitehouse?

Mike
Techdirt.com



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