By the way, a few minutes with Google turned up other instances of Esther Dyson's spamming. Here's just one such URL, along with the opening paragraphs: http://channel.nytimes.com/1998/03/28/technology/28dyson.html March 28, 1998 I Got Spammed by Esther Dyson: Release, the Old-Fashioned Way By LISA NAPOLI ecently, I got a note from the publisher of Release 1.0, the venerable newsletter put out by the venerable (and mythic) godmother of all things digital, Esther Dyson. It wasn't a casual e-mail. It wasn't a letter asking me to write for the newsletter. It wasn't even a personal note asking me to have lunch, or attend her annual conference (which took place this week in Tucson, where, for the first time, non-Release subscribers were permitted to attend.) The note was plain old-fashioned snail mail spam, asking me to fork over nearly 700 bucks for a subscription. Dear Lisa, Esther Dyson and Jerry Michalski believe that someone who's achieved your stature in our industry should be part of the Release 1.0 family. That's why they've suggested I write this letter to you. Stature? How did they measure that? Did Jerry Michalski remember sitting at the same table with me at a conference luncheon once? Did Esther ever read my now deceased column, Hyperwocky? Did some computer notice my name on all those mailing lists?