We are accustomed to seeing useless messages of various sorts on this and other electronic forums. Messages that quote a long article only in order to add "Me too" at the end, messages of no interest to anyone but the individual they are directed to, content-free banter, ego-driven flame wars, and so on. They still happen -- inexperienced people are always joining the net -- but most people eventually learn to avoid making these faux pas. Anonymity brings a new class of useless message, of which the following from Black Unicorn <unicorn@net.digex.access> is a recent example. I quote it in its entirety:
Having worked in Liechtenstein banks, I can assure you numbered accounts exist.
"Black Unicorn" is an obvious pseudonym, and I'm assuming that it is not one with an established reputation. (For all I know, "Black Unicorn" might be as famous as the Legion of Doom, but for the sake of argument I'll assume that it isn't.) What is the use of an unsubstantiated assertion, from an unreputed[*] source, with no means of verification? Having read Black Unicorn's bald asertion, I am as ignorant as before of whether numbered accounts exist, in Liechtenstein or elsewhere. New ideas or arguments can be useful regardless of their source. Likewise pointers to places where evidence may be obtained. Assertions by reputable sources may be taken on trust (I place far more weight on Perry Metzger's comments about numbered accounts than the Black Unicorn's). The quoted message does none of these. It is wholly useless, a waste of its author's time, and of ours. [*] "unreputed": a word I just coined as an opposite to "reputable", meaning not "disreputable", i.e. having a bad reputation, but having no reputation at all. -- ____ Richard Kennaway __\_ / School of Information Systems Internet: jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk \ X/ University of East Anglia uucp: ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk \/ Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.