David Scheidt wrote:
On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, TruthMonger wrote:
Spamming is an 'imaginary' felony, as are anonymity and encryption.
Spamming is theft of services, sir. I am forced to pay for a "service" that I did not request. I, and everyone else, pays for spam either directly in connect time, or because my ISP wastes bandwidth handling the stuff. I am not that much bothered by that it is advertising, or pure junk, but that I pay for it.
The thievery is taking place at the ISP level. I live in the boondocks where the phone company charged $5.00 per hour for InterNet access, until they lost their monopoly, after which their rates magically dropped to $1.00 per hour. My hook-up rate remains around that rate because of competing ISP's being required to pay vigorish to the government-owned teleco, far beyond their actual costs. If I lived in the 'big city', then I would be able to avail myself of the $19.95-unlimited-connection charges. Thus, any 'spam' I received would only cost me my time and energy, as opposed to the money that the teleco robs me of under cover of their government-supported monopoly. NEWS FLASH!!! You were born into a world where even your momma's tit competed for your attention, time and energy. When your mother's breast-milk dried up, did you petition the government to have her tit imprisoned under 'Truth In Advertising' laws? Did you demand that the government force her to refrain from bringing her tit into your presence, where it would compete for your time, attention and energy? When my mother's breast-milk dried up, I learned to reach for the bottle (as Anheiser-Busch will gladly verify). In all of my time on the InterNet, I have responded to and enriched only one (count 'em, *1*) of the personages who have sent an unsolicited email to my account. In doing so, however, I have effectively endorsed the value (be it in an exceedingly minor way) of those who bring their UCE/Spam to my attention. You take the position that your ISP 'wastes bandwidth' handling 'spam'. If you are paying them to do so, without requiring that they provide you with an option in return for the money that you are paying them, this is not the fault of those who deem that you may be interested in their product/cause/bullshit. As well, since the 'spammers' are obviously receiving a response that makes it worth their while to continue their efforts, it is obvious that others on your ISP may not regard their missives as wasted bandwidth. Sometime ago, plaidworks.com complained about someone 'abusing' their system by subscribing the CypherPunks list, among others, to their massive mailings. The fact of the matter was, they left their system open to being 'used' in the manner it was, in order to gain maximum profit without going to the expense of putting safeguards in place which would prevent others from using the resources they made available to the InterNet for their own purposes. NEWS FLASH!!! The InterNet is a communal endeavor. Resources are shared among those who choose to actively participate in the infrastructure and the technologies of which it is composed. Those who wish to participate in only a portion of the activity and resources shared on the InterNet can do so if they are willing to take the actions required to limit their participation and/or exposure on the InterNet. I do not use Gopher. The use that others make of the program is not a 'theft of services' that 'wastes' the bandwidth of my ISP. My ISP does not provide Telnet access. They do so in order to prevent me from availing myself of cheaper services which are available at ISP's which are not restrained by their monopoly To me, *this* is 'denial of service.' Because of the armed robbery of the government-monopoly ISP that is available to me, it costs me an unacceptable amount of money to go to USENET. I don't go there. Spammer