I`m not so sure with this approach, I like the idea of email being a medium similar to the telephone. Lets not add additional layers of security to it unless they can be transparent to the end users. I do agree that something needs to be done with the spamming issue, although I fear that the media are creating more FUD about this then need be.

For another suggestion how about people actually talk to one another..as in converse with another person via speech, this is fairly secure, and also mostly free from spam (excpet for those annoying people who butt in to your conversation) I seem to get 100s of emails containing one sentance, which to me is as pointless as spam (unless of course Timezone differences are a factor). I see people in the same office sending email to someone two desks away, or chatting via AIM to someone across the desk. Whatever happened to just talking???

And I don`t think a book on internet security for complete retards would sell, or at least it would not be the panacea you think. End users, all the millions of them, want stuff that works, they don`t want to have to know how to install diigital certifcates or pgp, they want to type an email, press send and leave it at that. Creating this enviornment is the task that faces us, leave the behind the scenes work to security folk, but take endusers out of the equation as much as possible. Give them simple stuff that works, and won`t destroy their computer every month (does that mean getting rid of MS Windows?). I just think that all the talk of educating users etc.. which we often dicuss on here is a somewhat wasted effort, sure tell them that mail from someone you know with a file attached called "Hot chicknaked.exe" is probably bad, but thats it.

I may have gone off topic here, so apologies if I have... its just that everyday I see tech folk blurting out to people how they need this or that, and the folks who sign the cheques ask why? and they get some lame answer explaining that it will do xxxxxx and stop yyyyyyy and they really don`t care. The majority of users are not techies, and have no wish to be, they just want to send and email to grandma with a picture of their new dog attached. See this whole thing is what Linux needs to address to gain acceptance...but thats a whole other conversation...