On 30 Mar 2001, at 10:44, Declan McCullagh wrote:
I invite all cypherpunks subscribers to let this censorhappy -- not to mention humorless -- sysadmin know what they think about spam complaints over a joke posted here: "J.A. Terranson" <measl@mfn.org>
If you check out the mfn.org web site, Missouri FreeNet, you will note Mr. Terranson is Mr. MFN, or at least one of them. Mr. Terranson has over 20 years experience in the BBS and Internet business. A real pioneer you might state. He either has no humor or he fails to completely understand what he reads. I find many of the anti-spam folk to be as bad as the spammers. Where do you draw the line? If people are so keen to jump on spammers they fail to properly understand the nature of a post you have a big problem. Imagine what would happen if your local police force was given authority to police spammers? If the police had the intellectual ability of Mr. Terranson many Cypherpunks would soon be in jail in a digital age version of the Inquisition. A long time ago, or what seems a long time ago, I supported the notion that the Cypherpunk list be moderated. At the time a major concern was 2 or 3 or 4 posts a day from an anonymous source disparaging the character of Tim May. It was assumed the source of the posts was Dimitri Vulis (spelling?). It was decided that there should be moderation and I thought it would be good. I now understand the problems with that approach. The question is how do you deal with spam? The anti-spam folks are looking more like bigoted Nazis racing to launch complaints on anything resembling spam. Lots of users will complain to their ISP when the ISP implements anti-spam measures as their mailbox is obvious broke as there are no messages in it. I try not to read spam and would never buy anything from anyone who spams or calls me at home. I would love to be forever rid of spam but don't believe we can trust politicians to write the right law. Idealistically we could all not buy anything from spammers and eventually they would realize there was no return from spam and stop but some newbie schmuck is always going to buy something from the spammers so that won't work. Anyone have any thoughts on eliminating spam other than filters and hitting the delete key or button? Virtually Raymond D. Mereniuk Raymond@fbntech.com FBN - Delivering on the policy of "Lowered Expectations" http://www.fbntech.com/service1.html