POLITECHBOT -- The proliferation of spam-blocking software incorporating challenge-response technology could lead to the death of e-mail. Challenge-response systems require the human sending a message to perform a simple task such as clicking on a link or typing a special password to get past the barrier. The problem is that many challenge-response systems are poorly designed, and could causes big headaches for administrators of legitimate e-mail newsletters (such as Enterprise Ireland's mailings). Editors of the Macintosh newsletter TidBits have warned "that we will not answer any challenges generated in response to our mailing list postings. Thus, if you're using a challenge-response system and not receiving TidBits, you'll need to figure that out on your own."
Declan McCullagh: Spam's cure could be worse than the disease
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