Simplicity is often overlooked my the masses.

Your suggested solution would work however most people use web based email and as such rely on their email service providers to filter out the junk mail. Although the main reason that spam and other threats to e-mail continue is due to the trait shared by all of our species - laziness.

Our esteemed colleague who wrote this article is merely a business man and as such buzzwords like killer app run rampant in his brain wherever a problem arises. Someone commented that as driving is restricted to the able so should the use of IT, computers and the internet be restricted to the able - this solution however unlikely is surely the most sensible because no computer literate user will ever fall for a "click here to win ..." or a fake email sent from a bank because they are not idiots or uninformed. Phishing targets the computer illterate - you granny, CEOs and general populace who should not in my opinion be allowed anywhere near a computer - such as you would not let a mentally challenged individual to operate heavy machinery or a plane so should we not allow non techies to use systems that can compromise the efficiency and security of the internet.

On the solution of regulated ID's, for those who have not read 1984 by George Orwell I sincerely reccommend you do. RFIDs are such an implementation and within a year or less of its use intelligent and curious minds have already found ways of manipulating and breaking the security of that service rendering it essentially useless and more of a security risk if implemented.

As I previously stated simple methods often elude the masses - pgp and other techniques such as verified senders/ recievers list and blocking email addresses exist for those who care to use more than the percentage of brain power required to execute muscle memory to perform tasks such as e-mail.

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