Alt.poly spam
Cally Soukup
with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
to any message Ghugle knows about.
I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
--
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend
to the death your right to say it." -- Beatrice Hall
Cally Soukup sou...@pobox.com
songbird
> Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me
> spam, with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
> He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't
> resolve to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
> I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
yes, twice even. slag 'em. (as a policy i never visit
sites that are advertised this way)
songbird *peeps*
Brooks Moses
> Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
> with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
> He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
> to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
> I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
Yup, and I sent a complaint (with full message headers) to
ab...@adelphia.net, since it was sent from one of their cable-modem
connections.
- Brooks
Griff Sanford
> Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
> with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
> He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
> to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
> I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
>
Yep.
Griff, laconically
--
Weird person extraordinaire - http://griffen.livejournal.com
:::If my cluelessness annoys you, see http://www.nldline.com for an
explanation of its source:::
Teal
> Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
> with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
> He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
> to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
> I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
Yup.
Teal
--
My website: http://tealspace.chromatic-dragonfly.com
"The Muppets didn't show a Siamese cat giving her boss a blowjob."
- Miche, on the subject of Bad Movies
Taliesin
> Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
> with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
> He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
> to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
> I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
Yep. I got the same message.
Tal
--
http://www.erospro.com
J.Jasper
Cally Soukup wrote:
>
> Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
> with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
> He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
> to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
> I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
Yo.
Metal.Fem
<sou...@pobox.com> wrote:
> Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
> with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
> He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
> to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
> I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
Yes.
MetalFem
D A Galletly
I don't know ;-) I usually go through and expunge all mail that's
sent directly to me (rather than from a mailing list) that satisfies
neither of the following two conditions:
i) is from someone whose name/handle/email address I know
ii) has a subject that sounds as if it would be worth my while to read the
message
before commencing reading my email. I adopted this policy on signing up
to a topica mailing list, and finding that they started spamming me
without hope of unsubscribing. Anti-social gits.
--
+ Diana Galletly <dag...@eng.cam.ac.uk> +
+ http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~galletly/ +
Xiphias Gladius
>Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
>with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
>He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
>site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
>to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
>I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
Wouldn't know: SpamAssasin + email filtering = *POOF*.
I recently realized that the vast majority of email I get is spam, the
vast majority of snail mail I get is junk mail, and the vast majority
of phone calls I get are telemarketers. I'm currently throwing out
junkmail unread, deleting spam unseen, and hanging up on telemarketers
without saying a word. After the holidays, I'm going to go into the
post office to get on the "no bulk rate mail" list, hope that the
American federal governement gets a decent do-not-call list
legislated, and continue to refine SpamAssasin.
- Ian
Scott
> Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
> with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
> He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
> to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
> I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
I get so much spam I probably didn't even notice this one when it came
through. I'm sure it was in there somewhere, and I'm using Yahoo's
spam protection, which is actually very good and lets me bulk delete a
whole bunch of spam with one click.
I agree, I wouldn't visit any site that uses newsgroup trolling as a
means of attracting people. I'm starting to seriously spend too much
of my day worrying about spam, too, and I feel that's it's only going
to get worse, until it becomes some sort of epidemic and the govt has
to step in.
Scott
Bearpaw
>
> I recently realized that the vast majority of email I get is spam, the
> vast majority of snail mail I get is junk mail, and the vast majority
> of phone calls I get are telemarketers. I'm currently throwing out
> junkmail unread, deleting spam unseen, and hanging up on telemarketers
> without saying a word. After the holidays, I'm going to go into the
> post office to get on the "no bulk rate mail" list, hope that the
> American federal governement gets a decent do-not-call list
> legislated, and continue to refine SpamAssasin.
They weren't legislated , and I dunno how decent they'll be in
practice, but the FTC has handed down new rules that will set up a
national-level do-not-call list.
<http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/12/donotcall.htm>
Tougher to do this with email, unfortunately.
Bearpaw
--
~~~~~~~~~~~ bear...@earthlink.net ~~~~~~~~~~~~
"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter
how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good."
- Jimmy Carter, 10 December, 2002
serene - Sandra Vannoy
> with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
> He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
> to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
> I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
I got it at an old address I rarely check any more, but not at this one.
serene
Vicki Rosenzweig
>Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
>with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
>He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
>site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
>to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
>I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
Yes. Particularly annoying because it didn't trigger any of my spam
filters (including the mental "this is crap" that lets me delete the
Nigerian spams unopened if they don't get routed to the "trash"
folder).
--
Vicki Rosenzweig v...@panix.com http://www.redbird.org
"I'm a patriot. I love my decadent, cosmopolitan, self-indulgent,
racially-mixed, godless, intellectually dilettante, drug-abusing,
promiscuous, queer-loving country. And its flag is the Stars and Stripes."
-- Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Tendyl
>Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
>with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
>He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
>site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
>to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
>I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
Yep. I sent my complaint to my email provider and asked them to deal
with it. Just wierd...
How many of you did he take the "spam-traps" out of your listed email?
Seems like he's not got much else to do does it?
Tendyk
----------------------------------------------------------------
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair.
Then I thought...wouldn't it be worse if life were fair and
all the terrible things that happen to us come because we
actually deserve them?"
-Marcus Cole, Babylon 5, 'A Late Delivery from Avalon'
undauntra
>Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
>with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
[snip]
>I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
Here.
Frog
"undauntra" <unda...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:o8c40v02qu0o2v4uj...@4ax.com...
--
Frog, the Fat Man of Love
"Sure I am fat, but I am so FREAKING adorable it doesn't matter."
Michael Rosen
> with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
> He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
> to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
> I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
Awww, gee, and I thought I was speshul.
--
Michael Rosen
LoRe
news:3E013DD7...@cits1.stanford.edu:
Di-toe.
--
LoRe
Taliesin
I hate spam, and junk mail and telemarketing phone calls. However, and
as much as I would like to make the damn calls stop, a little thing
called the US Constitution prevents that from being legislated.
Telemarketing is free speech, and speech must be protected. A
telemarketer should remove anyone from their call list who asks to be
removed, and having laws regulating that are fine (if you like laws, and
I pretty much don't. I'd rather we put our efforts into human values
education and worked toward making nicer people who lived cooperatively
rather than antagonistically, but that's just me.) But the telemarketer
has to be allowed to call at least once before an individual can request
to be removed from a call list.
Also, even though many e-mails are junk mail, if there is a means of
contacting the sender and of unsubscribing from their mailing list they
are not, legally, spam. They're unwanted, they're annoying, but they are
not, legally, spam.
I hate to side with the bad guys on this, but this time they do have the
law (the US Constitution) on their side.
Vicki Rosenzweig
-0500:
>Cally Soukup <sou...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
>>Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
>>with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>>
>>He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
>>site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
>>to any message Ghugle knows about.
>>
>>I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
>
>Yep. I sent my complaint to my email provider and asked them to deal
>with it. Just wierd...
>
>How many of you did he take the "spam-traps" out of your listed email?
No data here. I don't use spam-traps on my email address. (Procmail
recipes and Eudora filters, yes.)
J.Jasper
Taliesin wrote:
>
> Xiphias Gladius wrote:
>
> > On 18 Dec 2002 19:51:25 -0600, Cally Soukup <sou...@pobox.com> wrote:
> >
> hope that the
> > American federal governement gets a decent do-not-call list
> > legislated, and continue to refine SpamAssasin.
>
> I hate spam, and junk mail and telemarketing phone calls. However, and
> as much as I would like to make the damn calls stop, a little thing
> called the US Constitution prevents that from being legislated.
> Telemarketing is free speech, and speech must be protected.
*cough* bullshit. Free speech doesn't count if I'm footing the fucking
bill, and I can't choose to lock the speech out of MY property. Or are
you contending that MY phone in MY home and MY email box are public
property?
Xiphias Gladius
wrote:
>Xiphias Gladius wrote:
>
>> On 18 Dec 2002 19:51:25 -0600, Cally Soukup <sou...@pobox.com> wrote:
>>
> hope that the
>> American federal governement gets a decent do-not-call list
>> legislated, and continue to refine SpamAssasin.
>
>I hate spam, and junk mail and telemarketing phone calls. However, and
>as much as I would like to make the damn calls stop, a little thing
>called the US Constitution prevents that from being legislated.
>Telemarketing is free speech, and speech must be protected.
The error here is the assumption that a corporation has civil
liberties. A corporation does not have a right to free speech. Or,
rather, it shouldn't. Civil liberties are things that people have.
Because we're people.
We can argue about the question about whether we are "endowed by [our]
Creator with certain rights," or whether they're just sorta there, or
what -- but they belong to *people*.
- Ian
LoRe
news:51250vsali8jprh2c...@4ax.com:
> On Fri, 20 Dec 2002 02:24:23 GMT, Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>
>>Xiphias Gladius wrote:
>>
>>> On 18 Dec 2002 19:51:25 -0600, Cally Soukup <sou...@pobox.com> wrote:
>>>
>> hope that the
>>> American federal governement gets a decent do-not-call list
>>> legislated, and continue to refine SpamAssasin.
>>
>>I hate spam, and junk mail and telemarketing phone calls. However, and
>>as much as I would like to make the damn calls stop, a little thing
>>called the US Constitution prevents that from being legislated.
>>Telemarketing is free speech, and speech must be protected.
>
> The error here is the assumption that a corporation has civil
> liberties. A corporation does not have a right to free speech. Or,
> rather, it shouldn't. Civil liberties are things that people have.
> Because we're people.
"Shouldn't."
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood
--
LoRe
not sure how many First Amendment protections corporations currently have
in the US
J.Jasper
I don't care if it's an individual or a corporation. If they want free
speech, the can have it. Just not with me, on my phone, or in my
inbox.
nicole
> Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
> with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
> He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
> to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
> I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
i did.
nicole
--
the reply-to email is a spam trap! if you'd like to reach this poster, please
email her at nicole [at] ocella [dot] com. thank you!
nicole
<tendyl....@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Cally Soukup <sou...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> >Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
> >with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
> >
> >He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> >site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
> >to any message Ghugle knows about.
> >
> >I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
>
> Yep. I sent my complaint to my email provider and asked them to deal
> with it. Just wierd...
>
> How many of you did he take the "spam-traps" out of your listed email?
took it out of mine.
> Seems like he's not got much else to do does it?
obviously, the site's not doing to well!
nicole
lol-ing about
Aureal
"Brooks Moses" <bmoses...@cits1.stanford.edu> wrote in message
news:3E013DD7...@cits1.stanford.edu...
> Cally Soukup wrote:
> > Someone calling him or herself "jrus...@hotmail.com" has sent me spam,
> > with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
> >
> > He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> > site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
> > to any message Ghugle knows about.
> >
> > I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
*raises hand* My, but they're thorough. I've made what, about three posts
here recently? Sheesh. ^^;
>
> Yup, and I sent a complaint (with full message headers) to
> ab...@adelphia.net, since it was sent from one of their cable-modem
> connections.
What are the guidelines on reporting abuse like that? Should I put a [SPAM]
tag in the subject, or include a little note at the top saying it's unwanted
spam, or what?
--
Aureal
-"The path from legitimate suspicion to irrational paranoia is far shorter
than you think."
Jean-Luc Picard, "The Drumhead"
Jalapelena
>
>Xiphias Gladius wrote:
>
>> On 18 Dec 2002 19:51:25 -0600, Cally Soukup <sou...@pobox.com> wrote:
>>
> hope that the
>> American federal governement gets a decent do-not-call list
>> legislated, and continue to refine SpamAssasin.
>
>I hate spam, and junk mail and telemarketing phone calls. However, and
>as much as I would like to make the damn calls stop, a little thing
>called the US Constitution prevents that from being legislated.
Nope. All speech is subject to what are called time, place and manner
restrictions--you're free to put up a web page espousing your views, or to
run off flyers and offer them to those who wish to take them, but you can't
hire a sound truck and drive through residential neighborhoods at 3 am.
>Telemarketing is free speech, and speech must be protected.
Telemarketing is commercial speech, and is subject to far more restrictions
than political and non-commercial speech. For example, the Federal Trade
Commission has the authority to punish those who make fraudulent commercial
statements. All speech is subject to libel and slander laws as well.
>A
>telemarketer should remove anyone from their call list who asks to be
>removed,
s/should/must. The magic words that must be respected are "Put me on your do
not call list." Failing to do so is punishable by fines.
>and having laws regulating that are fine (if you like laws, and
>I pretty much don't. I'd rather we put our efforts into human values
>education and worked toward making nicer people who lived cooperatively
>rather than antagonistically, but that's just me.) But the telemarketer
>has to be allowed to call at least once before an individual can request
>to be removed from a call list.
>
>Also, even though many e-mails are junk mail, if there is a means of
>contacting the sender and of unsubscribing from their mailing list they
>are not, legally, spam. They're unwanted, they're annoying, but they are
>not, legally, spam.
There's no single legal definition of spam. Many states have laws regulating
unsolicited commercial and/or bulk e-mail, but they vary widely. I suspect
you're believing what you read in spam, which is never a good idea. Many
spams contain a reference to Senate Bill 1618. That was a truly terrible
law, which passed the Senate in the summer of 1998, and died in the House.
Bills that don't pass have no legal force and effect. Those statements that
say "Persuant to <some bill> this mail cannot be considered spam if it
contains <some things>," are absolutely meaningless. You can consider e-mail
to be Cheerios or a pony if it makes you happy. It may or may not be
actionable under the law, but you can consider it to be anything you want.
Those statements carry the same amount of weight as me saying "According to
thought waves beamed to me by my dog, this mail cannot be considered spam if
you print it out, wad it up, and stuff it up your nose."
>I hate to side with the bad guys on this, but this time they do have the
>law (the US Constitution) on their side.
Not really. A friend of mine gave the antispam movement a very memorable
quote: "Speech is not free when it comes postage due." Unsolicited bulk
e-mail causes receiving systems to incur non-trivial costs without their
consent. Telemarketing is banned to cell phones in many states and there is
a federal law prohibiting junk faxes for that very reason: the law
recognizes that cost-shifting is a significant wrong.
I'm a professional spamfighter and privacy advocate, incidentally, not just
a pedant ;-)
skattrkattr
> with the header "Your alt.polyamory posting."
>
> He or she appears to be advertising some sort of dating and/or sex
> site. He or she even included a message-id number that doesn't resolve
> to any message Ghugle knows about.
>
> I'm ticked off. Anyone else get spammed?
>
better to ask, did anyone *not* get this spam!
--
~cheers,
skattrkattr~
Jalapelena
aur...@subdimension.com says...
>What are the guidelines on reporting abuse like that? Should I put a [SPAM]
>tag in the subject, or include a little note at the top saying it's unwanted
>spam, or what?
Preserve the original subject line; it helps abuse workers "fingerprint" your
mail, so they can easily determine how many complaints they've gotten regarding
a particular incident. Include full e-mail headers, and don't alter them in any
way. A little note at the top saying you received this and didn't ask for it is
useful. If the mail you're reporting was received at an account other than
the one you're reporting from (i.e. you're reporting spam to your Yahoo mail
account from your ISP mail account), mention that. You don't need to include
whois lookups, or traceroutes, or long explanations as to why spam is bad; that
just makes the complaint harder to process for the nice folks at the ISP's
abuse desk. I have no reason to suspect that you would send anything other than
a polite complaint, but in case someone else is considering sending a rude or
flaming complaint, I'll just say please don't; the abuse desk workers are there
to help you, and they take a great deal of abuse from spam reporters and their
spam sending customers. It can be a pretty thankless job.
But *do* complain about the spam you receive! I don't care for automated tools
like spamcop; they're often wrong, and many abuse desks don't find those
complaints useful and so don't act on them. It's pretty simple to learn to read
headers and determine where you should complain. You certainly don't have to
complain about all the spam you receive, but pick one every week and compose a
complaint. Complaints have a very real and beneficial effect in causing abusers
to lose their access, and ISPs strengthen their Acceptable Use Policies in
response to complaints from time to time. Also, if you're curious about how the
'net works under the hood, learning to read e-mail headers and using that
information to target complaints accurately can teach you a great deal.
Now I will put my soapbox away, I promise. ;-)
J.Jasper
Jalapelena wrote:
>
> In article <DdyM9.459$313.94...@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com>,
> aur...@subdimension.com says...
>
> >What are the guidelines on reporting abuse like that? Should I put a [SPAM]
> >tag in the subject, or include a little note at the top saying it's unwanted
> >spam, or what?
>
[...]
> Complaints have a very real and beneficial effect in causing abusers
> to lose their access, and ISPs strengthen their Acceptable Use Policies in
> response to complaints from time to time.
This assumes the mail server sending the spam wasn't hijacked.
Brian
alt.polyamory.
Me!
Or if I did, Pobox caught it and it routed to the bit bucket.
Brian
Probably inviting more spam with this message, but oh well.
--
ICQ# 68214833 http://linenoise.livejournal.com
.
Life is a sexually transmitted terminal disease.
Jalapelena
If it was hijacked and is an open relay or open proxy, then reporting it is
even more useful. Many folks don't know their server is vulnerable until it is
abused, and new exploits are found every day--a server that was secure last
week can be abusable this week.
Elynne
@shaw.ca wrote...
> better to ask, did anyone *not* get this spam!
I did not. I suspect that my address showed up just a smidge too late
to be harvested. :]
- Elynne, who will probably get all sorts of other spam instead
--
When I face the
mountain of knives,
the mountain of knives
of itself breaks up.
- Kuan Yin Great Compassion Mantra
Taliesin
> Taliesin wrote:
>>Xiphias Gladius wrote:
If you have a telephone and a listed number (listed in a phone book or
on the internet, somewhere the general public has access to it) the
presumption would be that it is okay for anyone in the world to call
you, unless and until you request specifically that that individual stop
calling. (In the case of an individual calling on behalf of a company,
the "no-call" request should stop all calls from the company not just
from that individual.)
Your phone, in a sense, (along with your mail box and your e-mail box)
is public property, as I say, in a sense, because the existence thereof
presumes you are inviting communication, that you are not invoking a
right to privacy. Having an unlisted telephone number, for example,
would indicate, to some extent, an assertion of your privacy rights. But
if that's not the case, individuals and companies are free to contact you.
Telephone companies charge more for an unlisted phone number. Your phone
number, when issued, is automatically entered into the database and that
database is available in the telephone book and on-line. The reason for
having a listed phone number is so that people who want to contact you
can. You haven't given up a right to privacy at that point, you simply
haven't invoked it.
As for the cost to you, the issue is with the source of the cost. If one
person sends you fifty unwanted, unsolicited e-mails on a given day and
thus clogs your Inbox, causing you to spend time and effort to delete
them, that's spam. However, if fifty different companies send you one
e-mail on a given day, and the cost to you in deleting those e-mails or
unsubscribing from those mailing lists is about the same as for the
fifty e-mails from one source, it's not the same because each company
only sent one e-mail. You can't blame any single company for clogging
your Inbox.
I had a problem with a spammer who sent many e-mails with very large
files that filled up my allotted space on the server of my ISP, filled
it to capacity so that legitimate e-mails were bouncing back to the
senders. This, obviously, was serious as it effected my personal and
business communications. I was able to get the problem taken care of to
some extent, but I still occasionally get an e-mail or two containing
the same (or similar) large files.
There's no easy answer to the problem. And when the problem costs any of
us time or money it's serious, I'm not saying it isn't. But speech must
be protected.
You are not obligated to listen to anyone's speech. But the speaker's
right to speech most be held sacred, must not be infringed upon. If you
don't want to take a particular phone call, you can hang up, you can let
the answering machine take the call, you can do lots of things to
prevent yourself from hearing the other person's speech, but you do not
have the right to prevent hir from speaking; no one does.
Taliesin
The intent of corporations in their original form was simple; to allow
two or more persons to act as a single entity.
Farmer Smith and farmer Jones both want to buy a tractor but each only
has half the money needed. What to do, what to do? Form a corporation,
pool their resources and buy the tractor they need. They could call
themselves The Farmers, Inc., Smith and Jones, Inc., or Two Guys Who
Formed A corporation To Buy A Tractor, Inc. and their corporation gets
to legally act as a person (a corporate person or corporate entity)
within certain restrictions. Neither Smith nor Jones owns the tractor,
the corporation does, but both can use the tractor.
While it would have been better, in my opinion, if the original owner of
the tractor Smith and Jones wanted to buy, had worked cooperatively with
them to find some other way of resolving the problem, the basic purpose
of incorporating is to allow two or more individuals act as one
individual (again, within certain restrictions). Corporations don't have
all the rights individual persons do, but they have some (limited) rights.
My understanding, anyway.
David Dyer-Bennet
> Telephone companies charge more for an unlisted phone number.
Last I looked, it's *much* wierder than that.
On the first phone line at an address, listing is the default, and
being unlisted is an extra-cost option.
However, if you add a *second* phone line at the same address (unit;
they know about duplexes and apartments and such), on that second
line, being unlisted is the default, and being listed is an extra-cost
option.
(And the base rates are the same on the two lines.)
Ain't that pretty? It's extortion, pure and simple.
Of course, if the second line was for the computer, you can get a free
unlisted number out of it, by advertising the unlisted number to
friends, and not having a phone to ring on the listed number. This
does confuse old friends trying to find you through the phonebook,
though.
(Facts based on US West practice in Minneapolis in 1995/96, the last
time I established new phone service.)
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd...@dd-b.net / http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/
John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net
Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info
Miche
"skattrkattr" <bobk...@shaw.ca> wrote:
/raises hand
Miche
--
So what if the universe is a pointless mass of hydrogen refuse powered
by entropy. I'm spreading ketchup on a rubber duck, and after that I'm
going to brush its teeth. So there.
-- Rob Landley
Bill Seligman
I did not. (I searched my Trash folder to make sure; I haven't emptied
it since May, 2002). It's possible that the ".fake" I add to my sender
address did the trick.
I do get tons of sex-related spam on another e-mail address, since (with
lack of foresight) I once used it un-masked in Love@AOL.
And I get megatons of spam at my e-mail address for optonline.net --
which I've never used, nor have I given it to any human being or
computer. This tells me that the optonline mail server is either not
secure, or that optonline sells their e-mail list without asking
permission from their subscribers.
--
Bill (remove ".fake" to reply)
Bearpaw
>
> Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
> > Telephone companies charge more for an unlisted phone number.
>
> Last I looked, it's *much* wierder than that.
>
> On the first phone line at an address, listing is the default, and
> being unlisted is an extra-cost option.
>
> However, if you add a *second* phone line at the same address (unit;
> they know about duplexes and apartments and such), on that second
> line, being unlisted is the default, and being listed is an extra-cost
> option.
>
> (And the base rates are the same on the two lines.)
>
> Ain't that pretty? It's extortion, pure and simple.
It's even weirder. I don't know how it works in other locations, but
in the Boston area:
1) It costs extra to be able to see the phone number of whoever is
calling you. (Caller ID)
2) It's possible to prevent Caller ID from working when you call
someone who has it. (Blocking. There are good (and bad) reasons for
being able to do it. It's free under Verizon, but I think some
companies charge extra for it.)
3) It costs extra to screen out unidentifiable calls. (Anonymous Call
Rejection or Call intercept)
4) It costs extra to trace "annoying, threatening and harassing phone
calls". (Call trace)
See the implication? It's a privacy "arms race" that the phone
company profits from.
Bearpaw
--
~~~~~~~~~~~ bear...@earthlink.net ~~~~~~~~~~~~
"War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter
how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good."
- Jimmy Carter, 10 December, 2002
Jalapelena
No. You are completely and totally wrong. Your e-mail spool is not like your
postal mail box or your telephone, not at all. If I want to send you a letter,
I have to put a stamp on it. If I want to call you, I pay the toll cost
associated with the call. If I send you e-mail, *you and your ISP* pay most of
the cost; there is very little incremental cost associated with sending e-mail.
It's about as costly to send ten thousand pieces of e-mail as it is one
million, so there's no cost-based limit to how many people one can annoy with
unsolicited bulk e-mail.
Free speech is indeed a precious thing, and I believe in it fervently. However,
I believe that I shouldn't be forced to subsidize the speech of others without
my explicit consent, and that's what unsolicited bulk e-mail is. That's wrong.
Mail servers are private property. They are in no way, shape or form public
property, and there is no way anyone can reasonably construe them as such.
umar
>I hate spam, and junk mail and telemarketing phone calls. However, and
>as much as I would like to make the damn calls stop, a little thing
>called the US Constitution prevents that from being legislated.
>Telemarketing is free speech, and speech must be protected.
Telemarketing is not free speech; it's an invasion of one's privacy.
Moreover, the United States constitution of 1787 is a dead letter nowadays
as far as its guarantees of freedom are concerned.
You may recall that the Supreme Court declared a few years ago that
campaign contributions could not be restricted by law because they were
a constitutionally protected form of form of political speech. But
yesterday I read that the Bush regime just arrested a bunch of people
for contributing to an organization it doesn't like (Hamas?).
Face it, folks: it's all over.
umar
Romanadvoratrelundar
> Bills that don't pass have no legal force and effect. Those statements that
> say "Persuant to <some bill> this mail cannot be considered spam if it
> contains <some things>," are absolutely meaningless. You can consider e-mail
> to be Cheerios or a pony if it makes you happy.
[...]
> I'm a professional spamfighter and privacy advocate, incidentally, not just
> a pedant ;-)
Yay for you! I'm just going to bask in how well you're arguing this, if
you don't mind.
--
Copyright 2002 Kylee Peterson. Still no hyperlinks allowed.
"I sometimes wonder how people are able to maintain relationships without
animal noises." -- Arthur D. Hlavaty
umar
>On the first phone line at an address, listing is the default, and
>being unlisted is an extra-cost option.
>However, if you add a *second* phone line at the same address (unit;
>they know about duplexes and apartments and such), on that second
>line, being unlisted is the default, and being listed is an extra-cost
>option.
What happens if after the second line is installed, you cancel the first
one?
umar
umar
>In article <tjzM9.124350$Qr.32...@news3.calgary.shaw.ca>,
> "skattrkattr" <bobk...@shaw.ca> wrote:
>> better to ask, did anyone *not* get this spam!
>/raises hand
Actually, I haven't got it... yet.
umar
Jalapelena
>
>Jalapelena <jalap...@yahoo.com> wrote in <atuf11$ek3$1...@bob.news.rcn.net>:
>
>> Bills that don't pass have no legal force and effect. Those statements that
>> say "Persuant to <some bill> this mail cannot be considered spam if it
>> contains <some things>," are absolutely meaningless. You can consider e-mail
>> to be Cheerios or a pony if it makes you happy.
>[...]
>> I'm a professional spamfighter and privacy advocate, incidentally, not just
>> a pedant ;-)
>
>Yay for you! I'm just going to bask in how well you're arguing this, if
>you don't mind.
Thank you ;-) I know that I'm very fortunate to be able to work at something i
love and feel passionate about, and I remember it every day.
Mean Green Dancing Machine
Jalapelena <jalap...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>I'm a professional spamfighter and privacy advocate, incidentally, not
>just a pedant ;-)
All right, now you've piqued my curiosity. What exactly does a
"professional spamfighter" do?
--
--- Aahz <*> (Copyright 2002 by aa...@pobox.com)
Hugs and backrubs -- I break Rule 6 http://www.rahul.net/aahz/
Androgynous poly kinky vanilla queer het Pythonista
[Compared to Occam] "You should use Hanlon's Razor instead, for a
closer, smoother shave." --ro...@ennui.org
Taliesin
> In article <3E027F65...@earthlink.net>, xxx...@earthlink.net
says...
>
>>Xiphias Gladius wrote:
>>
>>>On 18 Dec 2002 19:51:25 -0600, Cally Soukup <sou...@pobox.com> wrote:
>>>
>>hope that the
>>
>>>American federal governement gets a decent do-not-call list
>>>legislated, and continue to refine SpamAssasin.
>>>
>>I hate spam, and junk mail and telemarketing phone calls. However, and
>>as much as I would like to make the damn calls stop, a little thing
>>called the US Constitution prevents that from being legislated.
>>
>
> Nope. All speech is subject to what are called time, place and manner
> restrictions--you're free to put up a web page espousing your views,
or to
> run off flyers and offer them to those who wish to take them, but you
can't
> hire a sound truck and drive through residential neighborhoods at 3 am.
Right. But I can stand on a soapbox on the corner at three AM and preach
my message to whoever passing by will listen. The reason you can't blast
from a sound truck is that the individuals who might not wish to hear
your speech are unlikely to have available the necessary tools to block
themselves from hearing your sound blasted speech. However, tools like
e-mail filters can block a lot of unwanted email, and answering machines
can handle phone calls for people who are asleep or away from home. If a
cheap, commercial technology was available to prevent you from receiving
(hearing) the speech from a sound truck, then using a sound truck to
deliver your speech at three AM would be permissible under the law, I
would think. (And, no, a shotgun is not acceptable technology for
dealing with a sound truck at three am. :) A little humor there, heh
heh.) (And the reason you can speak on a street corner at three AM is
that other people on the street can walk away from you thus preventing
themselves from heaing your speech.)
>>Telemarketing is free speech, and speech must be protected.
>>
>
> Telemarketing is commercial speech, and is subject to far more
restrictions
> than political and non-commercial speech. For example, the Federal
Trade
> Commission has the authority to punish those who make fraudulent
commercial
> statements. All speech is subject to libel and slander laws as well.
Right, again. But commercial speech still has some protections; that's
all I'm trying to say here. We must always be careful with regard to
restrictions we put on any type of speech. If someone comes up with an
excuse for restricting one type of speech, then others can come up with
excuses for restricting other types of speech. That's dangerous. You
don't think somebody's going to try some day to, I dunno, close down
this NG because the values presented here are not always of the
mainstream and that our way (polyamory) could corrupt the basic values
of the nuclear family that are the American Way of life? That would be
not good. We gotta protect everybody's right to speak 1) because it's
right and the First Citizens wanted it that way, and 2) to assure that
our own right to speak (the right of those of us living in or supporting
polyamorous relationships and other alternative modes of living) isn't
taken away from us.
>>A
>>telemarketer should remove anyone from their call list who asks to be
>>removed,
>>
>
> s/should/must. The magic words that must be respected are "Put me on
your do
> not call list." Failing to do so is punishable by fines.
Right, still again. I "should" have written "must" but I "must" have
written "should" for some reason. Oh, well.... (A little more humor....)
Here's a copy of the statement about the anti-spam bill that I received
in an unsolicited e-mail, just this morning.
"Anti-SPAM Policy Disclaimer: Under Bill s.1618 Title III passed by the
105th U. S. Congress, mail cannot be considered spam as long as we
include contact information and a remove link for removal from this
mailing list. If this e-mail is unsolicited, please accept our
apologies. Per the proposed H.R. 3113 Unsolicited Commercial Electronic
Mail Act of 2000, further transmissions to you by the sender may be
stopped at NO COST to you!"
It may or may not be a bad bill; I haven't seen the language of it yet.
However, I agree with the principle. That's the point I was making. I
was in error in my wording, however, which may be interpreted to give
the bill the force of law which it does not have. I thought the bill had
passed. My error. Sorry.
>>I hate to side with the bad guys on this, but this time they do
have the
>>law (the US Constitution) on their side.
>>
>
> Not really. A friend of mine gave the antispam movement a very
memorable
> quote: "Speech is not free when it comes postage due." Unsolicited bulk
> e-mail causes receiving systems to incur non-trivial costs without
their
> consent. Telemarketing is banned to cell phones in many states and
there is
> a federal law prohibiting junk faxes for that very reason: the law
> recognizes that cost-shifting is a significant wrong.
Costs are always there, even if they're not directly monetary. It costs
me time to sort out junk mail received at my mailbox. There's a large
trash can situated next to the mailboxes in the apartment complex where
I live. Lots of us dump the junk mail directly into that trash can
before we even take mail into our apartments. However, the minutes add
up; I lose money by receiving this junk mail because I'm spending time
sorting it rather than doing something that earns me money. On the other
hand, Domino's just sent some coupons to me, unsolicited. Pizza tonight.
Mmmmmm!
> I'm a professional spamfighter and privacy advocate, incidentally,
not just
> a pedant ;-)
By all means, please fight the good fight. If you can stop spam without
violating First Amendment rights, go for it.
Taliesin
> See the implication? It's a privacy "arms race" that the phone
> company profits from.
While about the phone company rather than the internet, this kind of
supports my position that spam/junk e-mail can be handled with the tools
and laws already available. The more we erect barriers against spam the
harder the spammers will try to force their material thru our barriers.
That's why I've been saying that the best way to deal with spam is to
let the e-mails in and then unsubscribe from the sender's e-mail list.
If that doesn't work, then get the authorities involved, report the spam
to your ISP, etc.
Tal
--
http://www.erospro.com
Ayana Craven
Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Bearpaw wrote:
>
> > See the implication? It's a privacy "arms race" that the phone
> > company profits from.
>
>While about the phone company rather than the internet, this kind of
>supports my position that spam/junk e-mail can be handled with the tools
>and laws already available. The more we erect barriers against spam the
>harder the spammers will try to force their material thru our barriers.
There is a problem with this notion. The caller pays for phone
calls, the sender pays for snail mail. The receiver pays for email.
>That's why I've been saying that the best way to deal with spam is to
>let the e-mails in and then unsubscribe from the sender's e-mail list.
>If that doesn't work, then get the authorities involved, report the spam
>to your ISP, etc.
If there aren't laws against SPAM, what does "get the authorities
involved" do for you ? And my ISP cannot do anything to stop a
spammer using wide-open dialups or somebody's misconfigured server.
"Report the spam to your ISP" doesn't do anything to stop spam,
unless your ISP is dedicating someone to tracking spam and making
complaints, or to updating email filters (which means you're paying
someone's salary to keep spam from your mailbox).
The reality is that the model on which the network and the email
system were built didn't allow for people who would abuse the
systems. So we end up with news servers that handle 90% spam and
maybe 10% actual content, and mail servers that handle an even
higher percentage of spam. And we pay for the bandwidth and the
storage used by the spammers.
Lots and lots of people have proven that "unsubscribe from the
sender's list" just gets that email address marked as valid, and
sold to more spammers. I haven't done that experiment in a little
over a year now, myself, but I doubt the situation has changed.
I don't know that laws are a good way to deal with the problem, but
I know for a fact that "unsubscribe" is not.
Ayana
--
I think that we have to consider the possibility that he's a
Promise Keeper.
-- Lisa, discussing soc.bi
Miche
> Bearpaw wrote:
>
> > See the implication? It's a privacy "arms race" that the phone
> > company profits from.
>
> While about the phone company rather than the internet, this kind of
> supports my position that spam/junk e-mail can be handled with the tools
> and laws already available. The more we erect barriers against spam the
> harder the spammers will try to force their material thru our barriers.
>
> That's why I've been saying that the best way to deal with spam is to
> let the e-mails in and then unsubscribe from the sender's e-mail list.
Which just lets the spammers know someone is reading the stuff that goes
to that address, which means your address gets sold to more spammers.
Repeat ad nauseam (ie until you're _really_ sick of the spam).
> If that doesn't work, then get the authorities involved, report the spam
> to your ISP, etc.
I regard that as Step 1. Except s/your/the spammer's.
Janet Miles
<au0cc6$3b99s$2...@ID-138960.news.dfncis.de>, umar wrote:
Depends on your phone company and the person who takes the cancel order.
Based on personal experience, Bellsouth, 2001/2002: We had two lines, then
we got cable modem and dropped the one that had been the "first" number.
The person who took the cancel order gave me the same information David
Dyer-Bennett posted, that normally it was an extra charge to be unlisted,
but since it was already unlisted (as a "second" number), we could leave it
that way and she wouldn't add the charge back on.
It's quite possible that at some future point Bellsouth will notice that we
have only one line and it's unlisted, and will start charging us for that,
but at that point, I probably won't complain.
JanetM
--
Posted by Janet Miles <janetmiles at chartertn dot net>
Brooks Moses
> How many of you did he take the "spam-traps" out of your listed email?
> Seems like he's not got much else to do does it?
Weird ... actually, he just used my old posting address, which doesn't
have spam-traps. (The current one doesn't either, nor did the one I was
using a couple of months ago, but the latter did have "fake" ones for
research purposes.)
I think that some basic ones, like yours, are likely auto-removed by a
lot of harvesters, without personal input. Thus my attempts at
researching the matter, which basically resulted in virtually no data.
I still only get about one per week to this address, compared to a
half-dozen per day to the old one.
- Brooks
Cally Soukup
> Bearpaw wrote:
I know someone who "unsubscribed" from every email list that mailed
him. He now gets something like ten *thousand* spams a day. Those
"unsubscribe" emails tell a spammer that your email address is live.
The main way spammers make money is to sell lists to each other, and
guaranteed "live" addresses are worth more to them. And being an
active (and, more importantly, vocal) spam-fighter got him on even MORE
lists, by way of revenge.
I'm not saying don't fight spam -- I am saying that replying to spam is
almost always a really bad idea. Read the headers, and report spammers
to their ISPs (assuming they're not stealing bandwith from open relays
and the like, so you can figure out who they really are). But never,
ever reply directly to a spammer. And it's best not to use a mail
reading program that is part of or opens a browser, because spammers
can put html "bugs" into spam that'll tell them you opened their spam,
which in turn tells them your address is "live".
--
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend
to the death your right to say it." -- Beatrice Hall
Cally Soukup sou...@pobox.com
Elynne
> And it's best not to use a mail
> reading program that is part of or opens a browser, because spammers
> can put html "bugs" into spam that'll tell them you opened their spam,
> which in turn tells them your address is "live".
Really? Huh. Like, a Yahoo email account?
- Elynne, who's only just started getting spam, and anticipates getting
a metric assload more sooner or later
- and yes, that was a completely gratuitous use of the phrase "metric
assload," why do you ask?
Vicki Rosenzweig
There are at least two problems with this. One is that in most cases,
using the "unsubscribe" on spam just confirms that someone is reading
email sent to your address, and makes things worse. (And even if they're
honest abou the "unsubscribe" command, they probably got your name
from a CD of email addresses and you'll still hear from everyone else
who bought that CD.) My ISP has fairly good anti-spam policies, and I
still get quantities of crap every day.
The larger problem with this approach is that, well, aren't you the
one who was saying there shouldn't be laws about this? So how can I
get the authorities involved, if no crime has been committed?
--
Vicki Rosenzweig v...@panix.com http://www.redbird.org
"I'm a patriot. I love my decadent, cosmopolitan, self-indulgent,
racially-mixed, godless, intellectually dilettante, drug-abusing,
promiscuous, queer-loving country. And its flag is the Stars and Stripes."
-- Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Jalapelena
But that's not true of e-mail. When you filter the mail after it's received,
the only thing you do is to reduce the nuisance value of the mail. You do
nothing to mitigate the costs associated with receiving mail.
AOL estimates that 20-30% of a subscriber's monthly fee is directly
attributable to spam--preventing their users from sending it, dealing with
spam sent to their users, and taking legal action against those spammers
they can't easily block. Other ISPs may spend even more--a basic Brightmail
installation for a small to medium sized site can easily cost $100,000 per
year. Companies don't subsidize this out of the goodness of their
hearts--they pass these costs on to consumers. This is, in essence, a spam
tax. I am paying for e-mail that I don't want and never asked for. That's
deeply, completely, thoroughly Wrong. It must not stand.
>If a
>cheap, commercial technology was available to prevent you from receiving
>(hearing) the speech from a sound truck, then using a sound truck to
>deliver your speech at three AM would be permissible under the law, I
>would think. (And, no, a shotgun is not acceptable technology for
>dealing with a sound truck at three am. :) A little humor there, heh
>heh.) (And the reason you can speak on a street corner at three AM is
>that other people on the street can walk away from you thus preventing
>themselves from heaing your speech.)
The reason you can't use a sound truck at 3 am is not because it can't be
easily avoided; it's because while you have the right to speak, you don't
have the right to force me to listen, and you certainly don't have the right
to infringe on my use of my private property in order to speak. Spam does
the same thing--it uses my bandwidth, my disk space and my time.
> >>Telemarketing is free speech, and speech must be protected.
> >>
> >
> > Telemarketing is commercial speech, and is subject to far more
>restrictions
> > than political and non-commercial speech. For example, the Federal
>Trade
> > Commission has the authority to punish those who make fraudulent
>commercial
> > statements. All speech is subject to libel and slander laws as well.
>
>Right, again. But commercial speech still has some protections; that's
>all I'm trying to say here. We must always be careful with regard to
>restrictions we put on any type of speech. If someone comes up with an
>excuse for restricting one type of speech, then others can come up with
>excuses for restricting other types of speech. That's dangerous. You
>don't think somebody's going to try some day to, I dunno, close down
>this NG because the values presented here are not always of the
>mainstream and that our way (polyamory) could corrupt the basic values
>of the nuclear family that are the American Way of life? That would be
>not good. We gotta protect everybody's right to speak 1) because it's
>right and the First Citizens wanted it that way, and 2) to assure that
>our own right to speak (the right of those of us living in or supporting
>polyamorous relationships and other alternative modes of living) isn't
>taken away from us.
But spam isn't about what people say, it's about *how they say it*. I hate
content filters, like SpamAssassin--they're stupid and simpleminded and are
dangerous in inexperienced hands. I've been involved with infertility
support groups--do you have any idea how much (solicited) e-mail gets caught
in bad filters? It's terrible. You can and should be able to say anything
you want. I only object when I have to pay for your speech.
It was an awful bill. This is just spammer BS, designed to dissuade you from
complaining. Don't drink the Kool Aid ;-)
> > Not really. A friend of mine gave the antispam movement a very
>memorable
> > quote: "Speech is not free when it comes postage due." Unsolicited
bulk
> > e-mail causes receiving systems to incur non-trivial costs without
>their
> > consent. Telemarketing is banned to cell phones in many states and
>there is
> > a federal law prohibiting junk faxes for that very reason: the law
> > recognizes that cost-shifting is a significant wrong.
>
>Costs are always there, even if they're not directly monetary. It costs
>me time to sort out junk mail received at my mailbox. There's a large
>trash can situated next to the mailboxes in the apartment complex where
>I live. Lots of us dump the junk mail directly into that trash can
>before we even take mail into our apartments. However, the minutes add
>up; I lose money by receiving this junk mail because I'm spending time
>sorting it rather than doing something that earns me money. On the other
>hand, Domino's just sent some coupons to me, unsolicited. Pizza tonight.
>Mmmmmm!
And you can make them stop by going to the post office and invoking the
pander law.
> > I'm a professional spamfighter and privacy advocate, incidentally,
>not just
> > a pedant ;-)
>
>By all means, please fight the good fight. If you can stop spam without
>violating First Amendment rights, go for it.
It's all about the cost-shifting. You should get all the mail you *ask for*,
but none you don't.
Cally Soukup
> In article <au3ejp$1p4$1...@wheel1.two14.net>, sou...@pobox.com wrote...
>> And it's best not to use a mail
>> reading program that is part of or opens a browser, because spammers
>> can put html "bugs" into spam that'll tell them you opened their spam,
>> which in turn tells them your address is "live".
> Really? Huh. Like, a Yahoo email account?
I'm not familiar with Yahoo email accounts, but it does seem likely.
As I understand it (and I may well be wrong in all or in part) the
"bug" works by putting an invisible "image" (often 1x1 pixels) into the
email. To render the page, the image has to be fetched from the
spammer's server. And (this is the nasty bit), the image name is
actually connected to the email address (usually in a long,
non-human-readable way, but it could be as simple as
"draco...@yahoo.gif". Then they can pull all the image accesses out
of the server's log, and that tells them who opened the email.
Which tells them two things: A) that the email address is live, and B)
that the holder of the address at least sometimes opens spam. This
makes your email address gold. And selling email addresses is where
most spammers actually make money.
> - Elynne, who's only just started getting spam, and anticipates getting
> a metric assload more sooner or later
> - and yes, that was a completely gratuitous use of the phrase "metric
> assload," why do you ask?
Is a metric assload larger or smaller than an Imperial assload?
Note that I've been on Usenet for almost a decade using an unmunged
address, and only get 10-20 spams a day. Usually fewer. But I'm very
careful about what email I open, and I use a non-graphical email
reader. And, of course, I'm lucky enough that the few newsgroups I
post in seem not to have too many harvestors working them.
Taliesin
> Quoth Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net> on Sun, 22 Dec 2002 02:38:16 GMT:
>
>>That's why I've been saying that the best way to deal with spam is to
>>let the e-mails in and then unsubscribe from the sender's e-mail list.
>>If that doesn't work, then get the authorities involved, report the spam
>>to your ISP, etc.
>
> There are at least two problems with this. One is that in most cases,
> using the "unsubscribe" on spam just confirms that someone is reading
> email sent to your address, and makes things worse. (And even if they're
> honest abou the "unsubscribe" command, they probably got your name
> from a CD of email addresses and you'll still hear from everyone else
> who bought that CD.) My ISP has fairly good anti-spam policies, and I
> still get quantities of crap every day.
>
> The larger problem with this approach is that, well, aren't you the
> one who was saying there shouldn't be laws about this? So how can I
> get the authorities involved, if no crime has been committed?
I'm just saying be careful with the free speech area of this issue.
Perhaps some new laws will have to be made to deal with the spam
problem; that's fine with me (if necessary) as long as those laws don't
interfere with anyone's First Amendment rights.
When I say it's fine with me, here, I mean that I don't endorse that as
the best or most appropriate approach. I think other methods, that I've
already commented on, like human values education that creates more
socially aware and socially responsible human beings, is a better
approach, in the long run, to solving the problem. Create people who
genuinely care about the other people with whom they share this planet
and spam won't be a problem.
umar
>- Elynne, who's only just started getting spam, and anticipates getting
>a metric assload more sooner or later
Oddly, I don't get a lot of spam at home, even though I post here using
an unmunged address. But at work I get huge amounts of the stuff, and
we've recently begun using spamcop's blacklist to suppress it. We also
use procmail sanitizer, which I recommend highly, to filter out HTML
links and executables in e-mail (I don't use it at home, though, since
I read mail with pine).
I've had one bad experience with spamcop so far: one day in September
they listed a bunch of AOL mail servers -- there seems to have been
a spam flood from one or more AOL addresses -- and some of my cow-
orkers who use AOL for business e-mail (despite my urging them not to)
suddenly found they couldn't e-mail anyone in the Company.
umar
Vicki Rosenzweig
That is, literally, a utopian solution--to almost any problem. Improve
all humans, and you've not only solved the problem of spam, but such
larger problems as war and slavery. The problem with this approach
is that people have been trying to do it for millennia, with little if
any progress.
Jim Roberts
umar wrote:
Most of my e-mail is spam, but I don't care. There are worse problems. I
have also signed up for a number of e-mail lists, such as NASA, Slate, and
Medscape that I just delete along with the spam. And, anyway, I've always
liked SPAM. Call me a hick or a bottom feeder (lots of SPAM on the bottom
of the north atlantic), but it is damned good if fixed right.
My wife won't even look, as she was raised on SPAM, and I like the original
fatty version that saved Britain. Color me Condemned.
jimbat
Taliesin
> In article <3E0525A9...@earthlink.net>, xxx...@earthlink.net says...
<snip>
I see now what you're saying about the costs. That wasn't clear to me
before. And I agree with you.
However, the same is true of many cost we incur in daily life. The US
Post Office has said that one of the reasons for the increase in stamp
prices is the cost of fighting postal fraud and theft. We pay higher
prices for many things because of fraud, theft, etc.
<snip>
Right. Filters are bad. They often block useful information in addition
to the spam. And sometimes don't even block the spam.
You make a very good point about not what is said but how it is said:
"spam isn't about what people say, it's about *how they say it*". And,
again, I agree.
Still, and to go back to my example on corporations with Farmer Smith
and Farmer Jones, I would like to know why Smith and Jones can't (or
shouldn't) e-mail everyone who might be interested in their company to
tell them about their new company. Suppose Smith and Jones, of the newly
formed corporation of Smones, Inc., want to rent out their services,
plowing fields or hauling loads with their new tractor. Why shouldn't
they be allowed to tell everyone that they are offering this service?
They're honest men, they'll charge a fair fee for their work, and
they'll do the job on time. So why, at least, can't they send a message
to everyone on alt.farmreport or alt.tractors or any other farm-related
newsgroup. Or why can't they buy an e-mail addy list from someone whose
complied a list of people who've visited farm-related websites or posted
to farm-related NGs?
How are Smith and Jones supposed to know whether or not you're
interested in their service unless they ask you? If you say you're not
interested, fine. But shouldn't they have the right to ask?
> It's all about the cost-shifting. You should get all the mail you
*ask for*,
> but none you don't.
But if you really need someone to plow your field, then an e-mail from
Smones, Inc. might be just what you want.
I understand the cost-shifting issue, but I still want Smith and Jones
to be able to contact the people who they think might be interested in
their service. I want to protect their right to speak.
Tal
--
http://www.erospro.com
Taliesin
> Quoth Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net> on Sun, 22 Dec 2002 23:59:07 GMT:
<snip>
>>I'm just saying be careful with the free speech area of this issue.
>>Perhaps some new laws will have to be made to deal with the spam
>>problem; that's fine with me (if necessary) as long as those laws don't
>>interfere with anyone's First Amendment rights.
>>
>>When I say it's fine with me, here, I mean that I don't endorse that as
>>the best or most appropriate approach. I think other methods, that I've
>>already commented on, like human values education that creates more
>>socially aware and socially responsible human beings, is a better
>>approach, in the long run, to solving the problem. Create people who
>>genuinely care about the other people with whom they share this planet
>>and spam won't be a problem.
>>
> That is, literally, a utopian solution--to almost any problem. Improve
> all humans, and you've not only solved the problem of spam, but such
> larger problems as war and slavery. The problem with this approach
> is that people have been trying to do it for millennia, with little if
> any progress.
I see progress in this area every day. But I also see a lot of
backsliding, I'm sorry to say. We've made great strides, worldwide,
("we" -- the people of this planet) is combating racism, moved forward
in women's rights issues, instituted policies to protect the
environment, many other good things.
Utopian? Sure it is. And that's good. Aim high, always. Be the best we
can be.
I've got a very clear picture in my mind of how it can be; I can see how
change can come about, how progress can be made. Many moons ago, I
mentioned that I was going to write something called the BIG POST on
communities and social change. We eventually passed by that topic so I
put that message aside, never posted it, never finished writing it. I'm
thinking now that it might be a good idea to finish writing it and post
it here. Maybe it can still be useful.
Tal
--
http://www.erospro.com
Miche
Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Still, and to go back to my example on corporations with Farmer Smith
> and Farmer Jones, I would like to know why Smith and Jones can't (or
> shouldn't) e-mail everyone who might be interested in their company to
> tell them about their new company. Suppose Smith and Jones, of the newly
> formed corporation of Smones, Inc., want to rent out their services,
> plowing fields or hauling loads with their new tractor. Why shouldn't
> they be allowed to tell everyone that they are offering this service?
Sure. As long as it's on their dime.
> They're honest men, they'll charge a fair fee for their work, and
> they'll do the job on time. So why, at least, can't they send a message
> to everyone on alt.farmreport or alt.tractors or any other farm-related
> newsgroup.
Because the charter says "no advertising". If they continue to
advertise on the group after being told to knock it off, they may lose
their account if enough people complain to their ISP.
> Or why can't they buy an e-mail addy list from someone whose
> complied a list of people who've visited farm-related websites or posted
> to farm-related NGs?
Because then the recipients are paying for the ad.
How would you like it if your mail carrier knocked on the door and said
"this has been sent to you postage due; forty cents please", and when
you open the envelope you discover it's an ad _you didn't ask for_?
That's what spam is.
The cost of each spam is not as high as forty cents, but the cost does
mount up.
> How are Smith and Jones supposed to know whether or not you're
> interested in their service unless they ask you? If you say you're not
> interested, fine. But shouldn't they have the right to ask?
Sure they can ask. But they shouldn't expect me to pay for it if they
do. If they want me to pay them to ask, I'm going to tell them to go
away and never darken my door again.
> > It's all about the cost-shifting. You should get all the mail you
> *ask for*,
> > but none you don't.
>
> But if you really need someone to plow your field, then an e-mail from
> Smones, Inc. might be just what you want.
Nope. That's what the Yellow Pages and the classified pages of my
newspaper are for.
> I understand the cost-shifting issue,
I'm not sure you do.
> but I still want Smith and Jones
> to be able to contact the people who they think might be interested in
> their service. I want to protect their right to speak.
There are plenty of ways for them to get their message out _without
costing their customers money just to hear it_.
Teal
> I understand the cost-shifting issue, but I still want Smith and Jones
> to be able to contact the people who they think might be interested in
> their service. I want to protect their right to speak.
They can speak to people who have consented to listen just as much as
their little hearts may desire. But I don't consent to listen. Why
does their "right to speak" trump my "right not to listen"? (And I'm
not interested in hearing about constitutional rights, since I'm not
in America and nor are a lot of the spammers who spam me.
If every business within coo-ee of where I am decided to tell me about
their services whether or not I had asked for this information, I
would be deluged with "information" to the point where I would be
unable to keep up, even were I inclined to make a full-time activity
of it. Which I am not. Frankly, I'd rather struggle on without their
"information". If I want to buy an X, I'm quite capable of looking for
information about Xs at that point in time. If those selling Xs want
to take out an ad in the Yellow Pages (or whatever business directory
is appropriate to the locality in question) then I can go look up "X
makers and sellers" in the directory when I want an X, and they'll
have gotten their message out to me in a far more effective way than
mailbombing me with unsolicited "information" would ever have done.
You seem very keen to support and encourage spammers, Tal. Possibly
it's just your native idealism speaking, but I can't help wondering
just a little bit whether you maybe have a vested interest in the
topic. Could it be the case, perhaps, that spamming is something that
you have yourself done at some point, and thus you feel a need to
justify it?
Teal, who thinks that Smith and Jones would do very well to take out
an ad in the Yellow Pages, and that they should keep their other
advertising crud to themselves thank you very much
--
My website: http://tealspace.chromatic-dragonfly.com
"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn
them behind us; leaving nothing but a memory of the smell
of smoke and a presumption that our eyes once watered."
- Tom Stoppard
Xiphias Gladius
wrote:
>Still, and to go back to my example on corporations with Farmer Smith
>and Farmer Jones, I would like to know why Smith and Jones can't (or
>shouldn't) e-mail everyone who might be interested in their company to
>tell them about their new company. Suppose Smith and Jones, of the newly
>formed corporation of Smones, Inc., want to rent out their services,
>plowing fields or hauling loads with their new tractor. Why shouldn't
>they be allowed to tell everyone that they are offering this service?
If THEY are paying to advertise to me, that's okay by me.
If I'M being forced to pay to accept their advertisement, that's not
okay by me.
- Ian
Elynne
> Elynne <draco...@yahoo.com> wrote in article <MPG.186f2a26e...@News.CIS.DFN.DE>:
> > In article <au3ejp$1p4$1...@wheel1.two14.net>, sou...@pobox.com wrote...
> >> And it's best not to use a mail
> >> reading program that is part of or opens a browser, because spammers
> >> can put html "bugs" into spam that'll tell them you opened their spam,
> >> which in turn tells them your address is "live".
> > Really? Huh. Like, a Yahoo email account?
> I'm not familiar with Yahoo email accounts, but it does seem likely.
> As I understand it (and I may well be wrong in all or in part) the
> "bug" works by putting an invisible "image" (often 1x1 pixels) into the
> email. To render the page, the image has to be fetched from the
> spammer's server. And (this is the nasty bit), the image name is
> actually connected to the email address (usually in a long,
> non-human-readable way, but it could be as simple as
> "draco...@yahoo.gif". Then they can pull all the image accesses out
> of the server's log, and that tells them who opened the email.
> Which tells them two things: A) that the email address is live, and B)
> that the holder of the address at least sometimes opens spam. This
> makes your email address gold. And selling email addresses is where
> most spammers actually make money.
Huh. I have HTML disabled on incoming emails, and the thingy that
doesn't open attachments automatically, and when I can tell that an
email is spam I delete it unread - but hm. I'll keep an eye on it.
Thanks for the explanation of how that works.
> > - Elynne, who's only just started getting spam, and anticipates getting
> > a metric assload more sooner or later
> > - and yes, that was a completely gratuitous use of the phrase "metric
> > assload," why do you ask?
> Is a metric assload larger or smaller than an Imperial assload?
I think it's slightly smaller - a metric assload is .764 of one whole
Imperial assload. But Imperial counts the individual asses in dozens,
rather than tens, which makes conversion a pain in the - well. :P
> Note that I've been on Usenet for almost a decade using an unmunged
> address, and only get 10-20 spams a day. Usually fewer. But I'm very
> careful about what email I open, and I use a non-graphical email
> reader. And, of course, I'm lucky enough that the few newsgroups I
> post in seem not to have too many harvestors working them.
>
Yeah, I never got more than a half-dozen spams daily or so, and so far
I've recieved less than a dozen actual spams at my Yahoo address.
Still, it's something to "look forward to"...
- Elynne, pondering the nature of assloads
Bratman
Elynne wrote:
> In article <au4uab$dhj$1...@wheel1.two14.net>, sou...@pobox.com wrote...
>> And selling email addresses is where
>>most spammers actually make money.
I just had to jump into this thread here cuz I never saw the original
one. I'm curious about something. Does anybody actually know someone
personally and directly (not a friend of a friend of a friend sort
of thing) who works for a company that makes money off of selling
valid email addresses and collects such addresses via spam?
I'm not denying that it seems perfectly logical that money
could be made this way, I just have never met anyone who is involved
in a company that does so.
>>Is a metric assload larger or smaller than an Imperial assload?
>
>
> I think it's slightly smaller - a metric assload is .764 of one whole
> Imperial assload. But Imperial counts the individual asses in dozens,
> rather than tens, which makes conversion a pain in the - well. :P
Can I sig this? I'm a little tired of my spellchecker flagging every
single word in my current one.
Will
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Homepage http://www.bratman.org
ICQ 124522078 Webcam http://Bratman.camarades.com/
"Selfomatically I semiautoespy proaddifying socioidioms is a
flexointermutual way to say exresomething without alacking
to inreifically exsilencing anything. Antigenerally with
enheed of anthrocoitiality." -Adam Wick
Ryk
<micheinnz-A8B26...@news.itconsult.net>
Miche <mich...@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>In article <3E07480B...@earthlink.net>,
> Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net> wrote:
Tal, I didn't miss talking with you at APC, although I did hear you
speak on several occasions. My impression was that you wanted to be a
media coach, teaching us all how to sell ourselves and our 'lifestyle'
in a soundbite environment. I didn't get the impression that there was
any substance back there. IMNSHO that makes you part of the problem.
>
>> Still, and to go back to my example on corporations with Farmer Smith
>> and Farmer Jones, I would like to know why Smith and Jones can't (or
>> shouldn't) e-mail everyone who might be interested in their company to
>> tell them about their new company. Suppose Smith and Jones, of the newly
>> formed corporation of Smones, Inc., want to rent out their services,
>> plowing fields or hauling loads with their new tractor. Why shouldn't
>> they be allowed to tell everyone that they are offering this service?
I'd be perfectly fine with them writing to everybody they have ever
done business with before and everybody they had a good reason to
believe might be interested in their services. Much of the spam I
receive these days is written in languages I don't speak. Much of the
rest is written in English and putatively comes from Africa, promising
me millions. I also get unsolicited mail from people/corporations who
do have a reasonable expectation that I might be interested in what
they have to say. That doesn't feel like spam, so much as junk mail,
and I don't mind hand deleting it because 1/1000 actually turns up
interesting and 10 or 15 minutes isn't much time to spend in coming
up with an interesting idea.
>Sure. As long as it's on their dime.
Much as I hate my paper junk mail, it's asynchronous and requires much
less personal cost for me to throw away than it cost the sender to get
it to me. It mostly pisses me off from the waste paper direction.
If I ran the zoo, I would extract a fee on email messages (and
probably usenet posts). It would be tiny enough that people who hand
typed each message and sent it to a handful of addressees wouldn't
even notice. Like a penny an addressee. I don't think it would be
wrong to ask everybody who sent me unsolicited mail to come up with a
"penny for their thoughts". It would probably be reasonable to ask
usenet posters to come up with a quarter for every post. Even for the
most prolific posters here it wouldn't be much more than the cost of
high speed access.
Ryk
J.Jasper
I have a limit on the capacity of my mailbox. Paper spam often
overflows it by a large amount, causing me to have to expend effort and
time to get to the post office.
Elynne
wrote...
> > I think it's slightly smaller - a metric assload is .764 of one whole
> > Imperial assload. But Imperial counts the individual asses in dozens,
> > rather than tens, which makes conversion a pain in the - well. :P
> Can I sig this? I'm a little tired of my spellchecker flagging every
> single word in my current one.
> Will
*squeak!* I'd be absolutely delighted. :) I am curious, though... what
does your current .sig file *mean*?
> "Selfomatically I semiautoespy proaddifying socioidioms is a
> flexointermutual way to say exresomething without alacking
> to inreifically exsilencing anything. Antigenerally with
> enheed of anthrocoitiality." -Adam Wick
- Elynne, picking reluctantly at the paragraph, but it makes her brain
hurt
Bratman
Elynne wrote:
> *squeak!* I'd be absolutely delighted. :) I am curious, though... what
> does your current .sig file *mean*?
>
>
>>"Selfomatically I semiautoespy proaddifying socioidioms is a
>>flexointermutual way to say exresomething without alacking
>>to inreifically exsilencing anything. Antigenerally with
>>enheed of anthrocoitiality." -Adam Wick
>
>
> - Elynne, picking reluctantly at the paragraph, but it makes her brain
> hurt
Well it was a response to a post in soc.bi from someone
bringing up the term "flexual" as the new hip term to describe
someone who is bisexual. Because the term bisexual is so clearly
not descriptive and clear enough.
--
Will
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Homepage http://www.bratman.org
ICQ 124522078 Webcam http://Bratman.camarades.com/
Ayana Craven
ChickPea <ma...@cleopatra.co.uk> wrote:
>In alt.polyamory, ay...@panix.com (Ayana Craven) (Ayana Craven) wrote in
><au3h7b$s68$1...@panix3.panix.com>::
>
>|>That's why I've been saying that the best way to deal with spam is to
>|>let the e-mails in and then unsubscribe from the sender's e-mail list.
>|>If that doesn't work, then get the authorities involved, report the spam
>|>to your ISP, etc.
>|
>|If there aren't laws against SPAM, what does "get the authorities
>|involved" do for you ? And my ISP cannot do anything to stop a
>|spammer using wide-open dialups or somebody's misconfigured server.
>|"Report the spam to your ISP" doesn't do anything to stop spam,
>|unless your ISP is dedicating someone to tracking spam and making
>|complaints, or to updating email filters (which means you're paying
>|someone's salary to keep spam from your mailbox).
>
>using a reverse-address ploy to mailbomb you by proxy, in which case it's
>worth formally notifying your ISP so that it's a matter of record that you
>did *not* send the originals. There are many kinds of "authorities" besides
>law enforcement- most ISPs have an acceptable use policy that prohibits
>spam. Losing an account doesn't kill 'em off, but it slows 'em down some.
>
>Your ISP *can* do something about open relays: it can notify the
>owner-of-record, and if nothing is done it can blacklist the IP address
>and/or domain.
Why expect your ISP to notify the owner-of-record ? I can do that
myself, and do. Blacklisting IP addresses (or blocks, or whatever)
is a huge task. panix actually does have someone who spends a good
bit of time on it, and an address for forwarding spam that's made it
past the filters. But most ISP's don't, and most such reports don't
do anything.
Unfortunately, I think at this point the most useful thing most
non-tech people can do is ask their ISP to use tools like ORDB and
spamassassin. I'm in favor of giving spammers their very own
permanent netblock, so the rest of us can ignore traffic from that
block, but I don't think it will work....
Ayana, alternatively we could make spam illegal, with a penalty of
"no net access at all", backed up with 10 years jailtime if they get
online again, but then we end up with country-by-country
connectibility
Taliesin
> You seem very keen to support and encourage spammers, Tal. Possibly
> it's just your native idealism speaking, but I can't help wondering
> just a little bit whether you maybe have a vested interest in the
> topic. Could it be the case, perhaps, that spamming is something that
> you have yourself done at some point, and thus you feel a need to
> justify it?
No, I don't spam. And I'm insulted that you would think that I would.
Maybe it is idealism, I dunno. But I do know that people's rights have
to be protected.
Taliesin
It appears it's not the message, but the cost of the message that is the
problem for a lot of people. So, are we saying that unsolicited e-mails
would be acceptable if the cost was incurred by the sender rather than
the recipient? That would be fine with me, provided the cost was
reasonable. It would, I guess, protect the sender's right to speech.
But if we let economics dictate this, then those with more money will be
able to do more advertising (e-mail advertising and other types). Many
people can't afford to take out a full page ad in the Washington Post or
LA Times. But e-mail is cheap and easy. It can help equalize economic
imbalances. Small farmers like Smith and Jones (from my hypothetical
example) can compete with MegaFarm Conglomerate International, Inc. on
nearly equal footing with a website and e-mail. Or should be able to.
We must keep the costs of the internet down, so that economics doesn't
determine who gets the right to speak.
Tal
--
http://www.sexworkerliterati.com
Gwynyth
> But if we let economics dictate this, then those with more money will be
> able to do more advertising (e-mail advertising and other types). Many
> people can't afford to take out a full page ad in the Washington Post or
> LA Times. But e-mail is cheap and easy. It can help equalize economic
> imbalances. Small farmers like Smith and Jones (from my hypothetical
> example) can compete with MegaFarm Conglomerate International, Inc. on
> nearly equal footing with a website and e-mail. Or should be able to.
Yes, but why can't they limit their email to people who have explicitly
expressed interest in their product (either by signing up on an email
list for announcements from their website, or by signing up on an
explicitly ad-posting list or whatever other information vector?)
That's what the .marketing or personal ads newsgroups do, after all -
cordon off the advertising so that people who want the information can
find it fairly easily, but also so that people who *don't* want to see
it don't have to.
One of the problems with your system is particularly true with large
purchases, by the way. After you have bought LargeProductX - well, yes,
you might be interested in them in general. But you're unlikely to be
buying one again real soon (because it's a big expensive purchase) and
so you might only want to read stuff about how to protect that
investment, or maintainance, or whatever for at least a few years.
Most of my spam recently seems to be rather poorly targetted. A whole
lot of it seems to be assuming, for example, that I'm looking for hot
sexy women (I'm female and heterosexual, so .. erm, no. And even if I
did, I wouldn't want someone who thought mass emails to an untargetted
audience was the way to find a partner). More amusing on this level are
the ones which want me to increase the size of my penis. (Ok, erm,
increasing something that doesn't exist would be a nice trick, I
suppose.)
The only targetted actual *product* advertising I get are things I've
actually said I wanted to be emailed about. I have no objection to
getting those emails because *gasp* I said I wanted them in the first
place.
I do, on the other hand, object to the Nigerian scame mails, and to the
ones containing explicit sexual language and information (some of it
quite probably illegal: I've had more than a few 'under 18' things come
in, and those I do report if I'm not swamped when I see them). And
that's 90 or 95% of the unsolicited mail I get.
I have no objection to folks using email as an advertising tool. I *do*
object to them filling my inbox without asking (and one of the reasons I
no longer check my polyamory.org account every day is that I've gotten a
couple of viruses in there, so I'm no longer downloading it to my home
machine. I go in and delete them by telnet every day or two.) Why should
one of my email accoutns be made unusable simply because it's a valid
email address that I use in harvestable places? Why does *their*
apparent right to advertise (including stuff that's completely
inappropriate for me) win out over my use of my email account?
Targetted (especially *requested*) advertising, I have no problems with.
But that's not what the spam is, mostly, at least for me and the people
I know. It's the untargetted completely wrong (and illegal) stuff.
--
Gwynyth * gwy...@polyamory.org * http://www.polyamory.org/~gwynyth
Miche
Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net> wrote:
Yes. My right not to have to pay for something I did not request and do
not want needs to be protected.
Miche
ChickPea <no-spam-...@cleopatra.co.uk> wrote:
> In alt.polyamory, Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net> (Taliesin) wrote in
> <3E027F65...@earthlink.net>::
>
> |I hate to side with the bad guys on this, but this time they do have the
> |law (the US Constitution) on their side.
>
> Piffle. The 1st amendment gives them the right to speak, not to be heard.
And it really _really_ doesn't give the right to charge the listener to
hear something they didn't ask to hear.
Miche (lives in a country not covered by the First Amendment anyway)
Xiphias Gladius
wrote:
>In article <3E089D56...@earthlink.net>,
> Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> Maybe it is idealism, I dunno. But I do know that people's rights have
>> to be protected.
>Yes. My right not to have to pay for something I did not request and do
>not want needs to be protected.
I agree, at least for the general case. I could come up with a
hypothetical situation which didn't follow this pattern. (And this,
let me make clear, has nothing to do with spam. It's just basic
philosophical policy noodling for fun.)
For instance, I think that a case could be made that it could be
reasonable to use tax money to pay for some political advertisements,
to allow smaller-party candidates to have a voice. That could be a
case of making people pay for information they did not request and do
not want.
But that's very different than Farmer Smith and Farmer John sending
a...@io.com through zzzz...@io.com mail saying "HOT NEW TRACTORS!", and
making io.com pay to deal with all those messages.
- Ian
Vicki Rosenzweig
>Teal wrote:
>
>
>> You seem very keen to support and encourage spammers, Tal. Possibly
>> it's just your native idealism speaking, but I can't help wondering
>> just a little bit whether you maybe have a vested interest in the
>> topic. Could it be the case, perhaps, that spamming is something that
>> you have yourself done at some point, and thus you feel a need to
>> justify it?
>
>
>No, I don't spam. And I'm insulted that you would think that I would.
So you agree that spamming is something that no decent person would do?
Then why are you so sure it's a good thing for hypothetical businesses to
be able to spam?
LoRe
news:ponh0voccklq1soun...@news.panix.com:
> Quoth Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net> on Tue, 24 Dec 2002 17:44:26 GMT:
>
>>Teal wrote:
>>
>>
>>> You seem very keen to support and encourage spammers, Tal. Possibly
>>> it's just your native idealism speaking, but I can't help wondering
>>> just a little bit whether you maybe have a vested interest in the
>>> topic. Could it be the case, perhaps, that spamming is something that
>>> you have yourself done at some point, and thus you feel a need to
>>> justify it?
>>
>>
>>No, I don't spam. And I'm insulted that you would think that I would.
>
> So you agree that spamming is something that no decent person would do?
> Then why are you so sure it's a good thing for hypothetical businesses to
> be able to spam?
Wouldn't that be the "defend to the death your right to say it" thing?
--
LoRe
Jim Roberts
jimbat
Leslie
In <3E089D88...@earthlink.net>, Taliesin said:
> But if we let economics dictate this, then those with more money will
> be able to do more advertising (e-mail advertising and other types).
Well, yeah. Big companies with money can do more than small companies
with no money. Your point being -- ?
> Many people can't afford to take out a full page ad in the Washington
> Post or LA Times.
Well, yeah. See above.
> But e-mail is cheap and easy. It can help equalize economic
> imbalances. Small farmers like Smith and Jones (from my hypothetical
> example) can compete with MegaFarm Conglomerate International, Inc. on
> nearly equal footing with a website and e-mail. Or should be able to.
Oh, I thought you were going to say that the Post and the Times should
give them free advertising space. Like email is virutally free, because
they transfer the bulk of the cost *to the receipient*. Having a
website is just fine, because then S&J are paying their own costs.
> We must keep the costs of the internet down, so that economics doesn't
> determine who gets the right to speak.
Say WHAT? The have to have a computer first before they can access the
internet. Do you propose giving free computers to everyone so that
they all have equal access to the internet? How about free cars for
everyone so they can equally access their freedom to travel?
Economics always DOES and always HAS determined who gets to get their
message out. The right to freedom of speech does not include the right
to be given a printing press. Or the right to take up bandwidth belonging
to someone else.
Here, if you want to know all about spam, and why it's bad and must
be stopped, check this site out:
Leslie, this isn't rocket science.
--
** "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane." - J. Buffett **
*** The FAQS of Usenet: <news:news.newusers.questions> ***
**** If you love any of your rights, defend all of them. ****
Miche
Xiphias Gladius <i...@io.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Dec 2002 10:25:52 +1300, Miche <mich...@myrealbox.com>
> wrote:
>
> >In article <3E089D56...@earthlink.net>,
> > Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> >> Maybe it is idealism, I dunno. But I do know that people's rights have
> >> to be protected.
>
> >Yes. My right not to have to pay for something I did not request and do
> >not want needs to be protected.
>
> I agree, at least for the general case. I could come up with a
> hypothetical situation which didn't follow this pattern. (And this,
> let me make clear, has nothing to do with spam. It's just basic
> philosophical policy noodling for fun.)
Alrighty. :)
> For instance, I think that a case could be made that it could be
> reasonable to use tax money to pay for some political advertisements,
> to allow smaller-party candidates to have a voice. That could be a
> case of making people pay for information they did not request and do
> not want.
Well, that's the thing. I agree with this. It's actually how NZ works,
but I'm not sure of the details of party size threshholds, how many
electorates they hav to have candidates in, that kind of thing.
> But that's very different than Farmer Smith and Farmer John sending
> a...@io.com through zzzz...@io.com mail saying "HOT NEW TRACTORS!", and
> making io.com pay to deal with all those messages.
You're exactly right.
songbird
> Xiphias Gladius <i...@io.com> wrote:
...
>> But that's very different than Farmer Smith and Farmer John sending
>> a...@io.com through zzzz...@io.com mail saying "HOT NEW TRACTORS!",
>> and making io.com pay to deal with all those messages.
>
> You're exactly right.
the other aspect is sheer practicality. could a person
deal with 6+ billion spam messages if everyone decided that
spamming was ok? you'd rapidly see the trusted list system
with shunning develop even more rapidly than it already is
(caller id is one version of it). it's pretty much how i
operate already (and how many people do as in they never
read messages from people that they don't know already).
songbird *peeps*
Miche
"songbird" <song...@anthive.com> wrote:
I do, but only if I have good reason to think that they are not spam.
Brian
>Vicki Rosenzweig <v...@redbird.org> wrote in
>news:ponh0voccklq1soun...@news.panix.com:
>
>> Quoth Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net> on Tue, 24 Dec 2002 17:44:26 GMT:
>>
>>>No, I don't spam. And I'm insulted that you would think that I would.
>>
>> So you agree that spamming is something that no decent person would do?
>> Then why are you so sure it's a good thing for hypothetical businesses to
>> be able to spam?
>
>Wouldn't that be the "defend to the death your right to say it" thing?
That may be what Tal's going for. But I really don't think it applies.
It's not a question of their right to say it. They have every right to say
it. The don't have the right to force me to listen, nor do they have the
right to make me pay for it.
Brian
--
ICQ# 68214833 http://linenoise.livejournal.com
.
Reference Manual: Object that raises the monitor to eye level. Also used
to compensate for that short table leg.
John Palmer
>
>I'm not saying don't fight spam -- I am saying that replying to spam is
>almost always a really bad idea. Read the headers, and report spammers
>to their ISPs (assuming they're not stealing bandwith from open relays
>and the like, so you can figure out who they really are).
As a nitpick: using an open relay isn't *QUITE* stealing; it's
more like "misuse of a public accomodation". (This is assuming my
understanding of open relays is correct.)
Morally, it's the same kind of thing, but I'd reserve stealing
for someone who broke into a non-open smtp server and used it to send
spam. An open relay specifically exists to forward on email from
someone who connects to it.
--
Everything I needed to know in life I learned in Kindergarten. Like:
"Do not try to understand the bunny; that is impossible. Instead, try
to understand the truth... there *IS* no bunny, but there is still a home
to come to."
John Palmer
wrote:
>In article <au3ejp$1p4$1...@wheel1.two14.net>, sou...@pobox.com wrote...
>> And it's best not to use a mail
>> reading program that is part of or opens a browser, because spammers
>> can put html "bugs" into spam that'll tell them you opened their spam,
>> which in turn tells them your address is "live".
>
>Really? Huh. Like, a Yahoo email account?
>
>- Elynne, who's only just started getting spam, and anticipates getting
>a metric assload more sooner or later
>
>- and yes, that was a completely gratuitous use of the phrase "metric
>assload," why do you ask?
Minor peeve:
It's *BOATLOAD*, not *BUTTLOAD*.
But you didnt' say buttload, so I guess I can't complain.
Nevertheless, despite the feeling one has one constipated (or, worse,
impacted), butts don't hold that much.
Apologies if you were referring to large, braying quadrupeds.
John Palmer
wrote:
>I'm just saying be careful with the free speech area of this issue.
>Perhaps some new laws will have to be made to deal with the spam
>problem; that's fine with me (if necessary) as long as those laws don't
>interfere with anyone's First Amendment rights.
Washington's done a fine job with it. An advertisement that has a
misleading subject line, or that comes with forged headers, or from a
false email address, is subject to civil action.
However, to take advantage of it, you have to include your email
address on a list of "Washington email addresses" that's kept by one
or more groups.
I believe the law applies to an email sent from Washington, or to
a person in Washington.
>
>When I say it's fine with me, here, I mean that I don't endorse that as
>the best or most appropriate approach. I think other methods, that I've
>already commented on, like human values education that creates more
>socially aware and socially responsible human beings, is a better
>approach, in the long run, to solving the problem. Create people who
>genuinely care about the other people with whom they share this planet
>and spam won't be a problem.
The problem, of course, is that one never "creates" people. In
the end, it can be argued that no one 'educates' people, either, just
as, in most cases, doctors and other healers don't 'heal' people.
Steve Pope
> Cally Soukup <sou...@pobox.com> wrote:
>> I'm not saying don't fight spam -- I am saying that replying
>> to spam is almost always a really bad idea. Read the headers,
>> and report spammers to their ISPs (assuming they're not stealing
>> bandwith from open relays and the like, so you can figure out who
>> they really are).
> As a nitpick: using an open relay isn't *QUITE* stealing; it's
> more like "misuse of a public accomodation". (This is assuming my
> understanding of open relays is correct.)
In previous times, open relays were the norm and it was
expected that any piece of internet mail might go through
any relay. It was in no way "theft". Having an
infrastcuture consisting of open relays made email more
reliable.
These days, open relays have been declared Wrong.
A person operating one is though to be doing a Bad Thing
because they are believed to encourage spam.
My belief is that most spamfighting measures do not
reduce the amount of spam, but do reduce the reliability
of email delivery.
Steve
John Palmer
>
>
>Mail servers are private property. They are in no way, shape or form public
>property, and there is no way anyone can reasonably construe them as such.
Nitpick: I believe an open relay is an implicit invitation to be used
publically. It may not be intended that way, but there's no way of
knowing from the outside. Use of it is rudeness that I think most
folks wish *COULD* be legislated against, but it's too subtle a
distinction to allow for effective legislation, IMHO. Unless each
prosecution could be first put before a grand jury of Lensed
individuals (ref: the Lensmen series by EE Smith)
I agree with you regarding pop servers, however. (But with cheap
diskspace, and cheap-ish bandwidth, I'd have to be less in agreement,
if each spam were tagged with an "advertisement" flag that only the
end user could use as a filter. Note: "Less" agreement; I'd still
agree, but I'd feel more squishy on the issue.)
John Palmer
wrote:
>The intent of corporations in their original form was simple; to allow
>two or more persons to act as a single entity.
The corporation's purpose is to create a separate entity that is
solely responsible for certain actions, particularly, losses.
If I give you $50,000 to start a business, and I control some of
your business decisions, and you get hit for a $30,000,000 lawsuit, I
can be tagged for some of the liability, and I can lose everything I
own, if the liability is high enough. But, if I buy 50,000 shares of
your corporation at $1 each, I'm only buying a share of the future
profits, and I'm only liable for that initial investment.
>
>Farmer Smith and farmer Jones both want to buy a tractor but each only
>has half the money needed. What to do, what to do? Form a corporation,
>pool their resources and buy the tractor they need. They could call
>themselves The Farmers, Inc., Smith and Jones, Inc., or Two Guys Who
>Formed A corporation To Buy A Tractor, Inc. and their corporation gets
>to legally act as a person (a corporate person or corporate entity)
>within certain restrictions. Neither Smith nor Jones owns the tractor,
>the corporation does, but both can use the tractor.
This is as easily handled as a partnership. The difference is, if the
partnership runs into liability, Smith and Jones are jointly liable
insofar as it was a partnership decision. (Pretend they gave the
purchase price of an Acme X1 tractor, and drive an Acme X10-AAA off
the lot, accidentally, or on purpose. If the depreciation of the Acme
X10-AAA is higher than the purchase price of the Acme X1, Smith and
Jones now both owe money, as individuals who are in the partnership.)
John Palmer
>Taliesin <xxx...@earthlink.net> writes:
>
>
>>I hate spam, and junk mail and telemarketing phone calls. However, and
>>as much as I would like to make the damn calls stop, a little thing
>>called the US Constitution prevents that from being legislated.
>>Telemarketing is free speech, and speech must be protected.
>
>Telemarketing is not free speech; it's an invasion of one's privacy.
>
>Moreover, the United States constitution of 1787 is a dead letter nowadays
>as far as its guarantees of freedom are concerned.
>
>You may recall that the Supreme Court declared a few years ago that
>campaign contributions could not be restricted by law because they were
>a constitutionally protected form of form of political speech. But
>yesterday I read that the Bush regime just arrested a bunch of people
>for contributing to an organization it doesn't like (Hamas?).
>
>Face it, folks: it's all over.
Well... there *IS* a slight difference there. An organization
that conducts activities other than the equivalent of flatulence
(releases of noisy, foul-smelling quantities of hot air)is different
from most political parties and political action groups. However, if
that money was given, even to a blatant, obvious cut-out middlebeing,
then I'd agree with you. No one should have the right to say that a
person can't be gullible.
My biggest beef to date is that receiving something from Al Queda
is now "providing material support". (Emphasis on the middle word, of
course.)
Steve Pope
> Steve Pope <spo...@speedymail.org> (Steve Pope) wrote
>|These days, open relays have been declared Wrong.
>|A person operating one is though to be doing a Bad Thing
>|because they are believed to encourage spam.
> Whatever the ethics or other issues of the situation, many ISPs
> will pull your account for having an open relay.
Yes, but only because they are being pressured by a small
band of blacklisters who object to open relays.
Steve
(The Other) Sandra
blood red wine, and cried:>>> And selling email addresses is where
>>>most spammers actually make money.
>
>I just had to jump into this thread here cuz I never saw the original
>one. I'm curious about something. Does anybody actually know someone
>personally and directly (not a friend of a friend of a friend sort
>of thing) who works for a company that makes money off of selling
>valid email addresses and collects such addresses via spam?
>I'm not denying that it seems perfectly logical that money
>could be made this way, I just have never met anyone who is involved
>in a company that does so.
This may be a cynical response, but if I were a spammer, I don't think
I'd broadcast the fact to my friends and acquaintances. It must be a
guilty pleasure indeed.
Sandra
--
San...@get.fucked.org.uk: no, I'm the *other* Sandra :::: "If you're
with her and she's with me and no-one wants to fight/What we've got to
ask is... who sleeps with who tonight?" Poison Girls, 'Menage Abattoir'
(The Other) Sandra
the blood red wine, and cried:
>wrote:
>
>>In article <au3ejp$1p4$1...@wheel1.two14.net>, sou...@pobox.com wrote...
>>> And it's best not to use a mail
>>> reading program that is part of or opens a browser, because spammers
>>> can put html "bugs" into spam that'll tell them you opened their spam,
>>> which in turn tells them your address is "live".
>>
>>Really? Huh. Like, a Yahoo email account?
>>
>>- Elynne, who's only just started getting spam, and anticipates getting
>>a metric assload more sooner or later
>>
>>- and yes, that was a completely gratuitous use of the phrase "metric
>>assload," why do you ask?
>
>Minor peeve:
>
>It's *BOATLOAD*, not *BUTTLOAD*.
>
>But you didnt' say buttload, so I guess I can't complain.
>
>Nevertheless, despite the feeling one has one constipated (or, worse,
>impacted), butts don't hold that much.
>
would have thought.
Ayana Craven
ChickPea <ma...@cleopatra.co.uk> wrote:
>In alt.polyamory, ay...@panix.com (Ayana Craven) (Ayana Craven) wrote in
>
>|Ayana, alternatively we could make spam illegal, with a penalty of
>|"no net access at all", backed up with 10 years jailtime if they get
>|online again, but then we end up with country-by-country
>|connectibility
>
>makes each email cost a cent/penny, for the first 100/day, then 10
>cents/pence each for the next 1000- and then 10 dollars/pounds each for the
>next n. Most legitimate users could cruise along for free or near enough;
>even bulk emailers who have a legitimate purpose could contain the cost
>(though it might make some of them consider whether they *really* need to
>send me multiple copies of everything, or an almost-identical post most days
>(listening, Amazon?)- no bad thing in itself). We could even have a
>"tax-free" band- say 20 a day for personal use.
>
>The trouble with the net is: who, in this context, do "we" need to be?
The trouble with that solution is that it's not possible to enforce.
What does "send email" mean ? Use POST when talking to an SMTP
server ? Spam programs can include their own SMTP programs. The
next generation of SMTP is supposedly going to help address this
problem, but the software and protocols currently in use don't allow
us to insert controls at the sending side. A good ISP will have a
throttle that keeps any given user from sending out more than X
email messages per day, but again, that does nothing about the
spammer who has their own mail server or a program that contacts
recipient machines directly.
It looks to me like the choices are to deal with the problem
socially (make spamming unattractive by making the penalty
sufficiantly severe) or technologically (change the transport
mechanism). The latter is exceedingly difficult because you have to
change so very many programs, and an effective change wouldn't be
backward compatible. The model of "recipient will accept email from
anybody" is simply vulnerable to abuse.
Ayana