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Now I've gotcha! If I, Dale Thorn, an ordinary person (not a commercial mailer), realize somehow what your snail mail address is (an analogy), and I send you a personal letter, are you saying I don't have the "right" to do so? Even if I am aware that you redistribute the letter, as, say, a newspaper such as the L.A. Times would?
Yes this is a fine analogy. You have the right to send whatever letters you want; you don't have the right to demand that any particular thing be _done_ with those letters once they arrive, in the absence of some contract to the contrary.
I'm guessing that what you're saying is something to do with the content or size of such a mailing, yes?
Noooo... What I was saying was that even such a simple service as a mailing list raises some complex issues about agency and responsibility. Did _you_ send MMF to all those people, or did Gilmore? What if Gilmore had a MMF filter in place? What if you evaded it? What if Gilmore only broadcasts signed messages and you signed the MMF? What if you paid to have it broadcast? So what _I'm_ saying is that there are some complex issues about this kind of cyberspatial event, but that the realspace substrate is relatively simple-- it's Gilmore's computer and you have no moral authority to demand that he do or not do any particular thing with it. In the following, you appear to take exception to both of these claims, or at least to the first one-- I'm not sure.
But whatever the case, I'm not "doing something with" your mailbox if I send you a snail mail letter, and I'm not "doing something with" your computer if I send you a posting. It's you who know the result of opening up your computer to the phone lines, and it's up to you to post *your* "rules", and to date, I don't recall any postings from John Gilmore to me or the list regarding such rules, just a few little tin-plated dictators doing it in his name.
I'm still not sure if you are just prone to colorful rhetoric, or if I have really upset you with something I've said. If the latter, I still don't understand what, exactly. Bryce -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2i Comment: Auto-signed under Unix with 'BAP' Easy-PGP v1.1b2 iQB1AwUBMqL5UEjbHy8sKZitAQEukQMAjS4etLT4pRzoQGrQrNr77m8NwEs4+VYC coIbBNqnVtllRg5eofMUaJvX8zZQKicnwF7ZiT1SxnAlHygOMcnFztI8oJS3HNG5 lpo86+8rtiLjx4jPC4zntGxCrPkECCS3 =UPBq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----