"Dr. Jai Maharaj" <jai@mantra.com> writes:
The commission of crimes such as forgery and censorship is not an acceptable excuse to stop the flow of information, even if the free flow is perceived by some as a crime.
I define usenet spam as "the same message posted to more than 10 newsgroups without crossposting." By this definition, spam has very little information content. It is almost totally redundant. Instead of posting 1 message, 1000 messages are posted. The 2nd through 1000th message add no more information than the first. This would not be a problem if the network had infinite bandwidth and storage capabilities. However, finite bandwidth and storage means that every flow of spam "information" necessarily restricts the flow of other information. If the network were at full capacity and you were forced to make a choice of what information would flow, what would it be? Would you cancel the 999 redundant copies of a 1000 group spam, or would you cancel 999 random non-spam messages? I know, you would upgrade the network, but that is not viable. It will always be possible to generate more spam than the network can handle. Here's an analogy--consider a small physical bulletin board on a university campus that is divided up into sections for different categories of bulletins to help organize the postings. The sections might be "official university announcements", "concerts and movies", "clubs", "for sale or trade", and "miscellaneous". There is a sign at the top of the bulletin board that reads "Bulletin Board Rule: Only one copy of an a flyer may be posted." This is a public bulletin board--anyone can hang things on it. Now, let's say someone comes along and decides to plaster the entire bulletin board with 25 big blue sheets that each read "Make Money Fast! Call 555-1212 for details!". These 25 big blue sheets cover up most of the other announcements on the bulletin board. Let's also say that whoever made these big blue ads used "free" university photocopiers, where the cost of each copy is paid for by the university. Personally, I would consider it quite a service if someone ripped down 24 of these big blue sheets and put them in the recycling bin, leaving only one remaining sheet either on the "for sale or trade" or "miscellaneous" portion of the bulletin board. I claim that this analogy is reasonably close to the usenet: the bulletin board has limited space (bandwidth), is divided into topics (newsgroups), has some rules of use (netiquette), and has some distributed costs associated with using it (everyone pays indirectly for the copy machine). Since this is an analogy, and not the actual usenet, there will be differences between the real-world bulletin board and usenet. I'm sure these will be pointed out to demonstrate why taking down the 24 blue sheets is censorship and limits the free flow of information. What about the information on the bulletin board that is covered up by the 24 blue sheets? Is that information not effectively censored by the blue sheets? On usenet, spam takes up server space that could otherwise be used for legitimate articles, thus causing those articles to expire much faster than if there were no spam. The legitimate articles are "covered up" (censored) by the spam. Is it "free expression" to walk into a restaurant and start yelling and screaming so loud that no one else can carry on a conversion? Even if it is, you'd better be prepared for the management to ask you to leave. If you fail to comply, they would likely call the police and have you removed for disrupting their business. What if you yell just loud enough to be annoying to everyone in the restaurant, but they can still converse if they make an effort to ignore you? Any reasonable restaurant management would still ask you to quiet down. The "management" of usenet has made a simple request: don't post the same message to 1000 newsgroups or your messages will be asked (or forced) to leave. I agree NoCeM is better than cancelbots. But I think objective cancelbots (anything posted to more than 10 groups and not crossposted is cancelled, etc.) are better than a server full of spam. -Rob -- Robert W. Brewer PGP 2048-bit Key ID: 03E0E635 Jesus rules! FP: 6327 8034 7BDA D144 B40C C5E2 F760 13BB