zlacker

> It can (that's why it's being pursued)

No, it can't -- see bellow; there's also no quantitative objective stated or communicated. Hence, it is not controllable, whether it achieved the stated objective or not. What would happen, if it doesn't achieve it? Nothing, because it was not promised clearly enough, just in some vague way.

But it happens to achieve different goal -- for example, even more concentrating the control over general computing into fewer hands.

Would it be rolled back, if it doesn't achieve the stated goal? Of course not; it will achieve the hidden ("it just happened, who could ever know, pinky swear") goal, and that's important. Not the pretend-goals that was used to sell it to the general public.

Now, why it won't achieve the stated goals: because spam is problem also with closed systems. Ever got a junk call? Users use only "approved" devices, and even if the system can put limits on the source, it also limits how the destination can protect itself. The important thing with spam, scams, etc. is, what whenever there is a possibility to make money, the scammers will find a way. Even with low-tech approach (like hire a bunch of human operators of the approved machines). They weren't stopped even when what they did was illegal, why do you think RA achieve what the law didn't? To make things worse, the closed nature made it more difficult for the victims to save evidence of the spam, scam.

So of course it won't reduce the scams. But it will make the situation worse for us all. And web losing to proprietary platforms? It will certainly lose, when it is turned into one of the proprietary platforms.

>>vetina+(OP)
Spam is much less of a problem with closed systems. BTW phone calls aren't a great example. The global telco system has enough players that it's closer to email than Facebook, and telcos are classed as common carriers so there's a limit to how much spam fighting they can do.

I don't really know what to tell you. This stuff does work extremely well, it's unambiguously the case. Google already use a software-only form of RA on the web and have done for years. It cut through spam like a knife through hot butter. They could already detect 10 years ago if a Python script was pretending to be Chrome, or if Chrome was pretending to be Firefox, or if IE was being driven by VBScripts or an IE WebView was embedded into apps that then manipulated the web page externally. No hardware chips or new web standards needed! But, the approach used is/was in the end just a neat hack, and it's guaranteed that spammers will eventually defeat it. Perhaps they already did. I guess there must be a reason why this proposal surfaces now, given the ideas aren't new.

> To make things worse, the closed nature made it more difficult for the victims to save evidence of the spam, scam.

I don't quite follow the logic here. Why wouldn't they be able to save evidence?