-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On 3/21/98 2:42 AM, Anonymous (anon@anon.efga.org) passed this wisdom:

Life itself is a double-edged sword. To compete with the shotgun spammers, those who wish to target an audience which is likely to have a specific interest in their product or cause have need of a database which will help them to categorize the interests of those who traverse the <WWW.> In doing so, they run the risk of being lumped in with those who use the same technology to monitor the same users in order to work against their self-interest.

Exactly, to lump all mass emailers into one homogenous category is all wrong. I subscribe to a list people running Mac Performa series PowerPCs (almost all PPC 603/e)/v). We recently had someone who had apparently subscribed to the list and lurked and built up a mailing list of posters to the list to whom he later sent a solicitation ... it was quite appropriate and as targetted as you can get, active participants in a highly specific group ... you shopuld have heard the weeping an gnashing of teeth ... the bandwidth comsumed by compliants was a thousand fold greater than the solicitation itself! SPAM is the boogeyman of the hour. Yes there are bad spammers out there and a modest knowledge of your mail client will handle 95% of them straight to File 13, but I really do want to receive many of the solicitations I get, I actually do buy things ... Just my .02 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBNRPt0T7r4fUXwraZAQGLzwf+MHxH65MoIWtch+sOqgOkEkJX6CKQWHGK QaF411/xf3Yma2zQpV0Vu9UqcHaqBXf+HFxgEmh8hDfneTQHOa81IX9zZPBQ2EXv qeo+ANIDzJzUNSQ+V1SKkgWzDF74VVPXTfBElYYvoox+9LMwHyzTcSiUh4JaN9EN 5cpkyvq+rgzv0QuIHKileSDZRW3BfXK8jA/yUCZ/WkV3eWG4RNavR+Cv7PCsGq4j f9YCrd6cU+4cs4g2gpA8Oc9HK5sKquNrChQY1lZc3hWeFCyKO1uc/8eIAX3MxVAV cRtvJ/SLMqcd+FNIiEstCNCs7SsGB37jbO9RdmY4ZNLxZgtk/BVojQ== =87S8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Brian B. Riley --> http://members.macconnect.com/~brianbr For PGP Keys <mailto:brianbr@together.net?subject=Get%20PGP%20Key> "The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sing the best." -- Henry David Thoreau