At 5:23 AM -0500 3/26/98, Rich Sena wrote:

On Sun, 22 Mar 1998, Dean Anderson wrote:

...

Ah. Only girls with lowcut blouses and short skirts are raped. Since I don't wear lowcut blouses or short skirts, I have nothing to worry about, and shouldn't be concerned. Rape is OK, since it only happens to the sleazy girls. Uh Huh. When can I screw the interns? Say, you aren't hosting any porn or uncensored webcams are you? Boy, I think they're sick. Lets make sure we disconnect the entire lot, and any ISP/NSP who refuses to cooperate we'll just DoS them until they are pounded to dirt, like AGIS. Hey look, I think they are irresponsible. I'm justified in harassing them and publishing false routes etc. Right?

I expect some kind of gaussian distribution of harassment develops where everyone gets harassed by some lunatic, and can't do anything about it. Eventually, somebody mails a bomb. To me? To you? To some kid in Vermont? You're smarter than that. I think. Besides, I react badly to coercion. So do most people. Thats why we need laws. Sensible ones at that.

What type of crack are you on Dean? Your analogy is a mockery of the whole

No crack. Just a cool, drug-free and relaxed guy, who thinks these anti-spammers need to get a life or maybe a dog to get rid of some stress. My analogy is a mockery of something. We just disagree on what it's a mockery of. Anti-spammer terrorists have no moral high ground. Even the Islamic fundamentalists believe they are doing Allah's work. Anti-spammers believe they are making the world what? More convenient?

Whose responsibility is YOUR dog - and if you don't curb your dog, and I have to, I will definately make sure you do not enjoy and want to avoid the experience in the future.

Ok, here's a metaphoric response: Unfortunately, you don't get to kill the neighbors dog because it shit in your yard. True, in many big cities, there are ordinances which require dog owners to scoop up their dog shit, and keep all dogs on a leash. In most places places however, there aren't any such ordinances. You find shit in your lawn, tough. Go to the city council. Get an ordinance passed. Until you get an ordinance passed, and even if you do get an ordinace passed, it's going to be illegal to shoot your neighbors dog. I don't have any dogs. But I'm not going to stand idly by while you start shooting up the neighbhood trying to get rid of dog shit. I'm also not going to participate in your scheme to poison all the dogs in town. Dogs shit. Its what they do. You have to put up with a little shit in life. People act like the world is about to end because of a little dogshit. "Must... Stamp.... Out.... Dogshit... Kill... Dogs... At... All... Costs... Break... Gun... Laws... Shoot... Kill... Save... Humanity... From... Dogshit..." You're drooling. ;-) So, basically, I think anti-spammer terrorists are just like the jerks who run around trying to have dogs put to sleep, all because they are so terribly upset about a little dogshit in their lawn. Its not a big deal. After the next rain, its fertilizer, and their lawn grows greener. Some people are just over-reactive assholes. End of metaphor. How about that. Two issues we disagree on. On the other hand, there are some things about spam that should be regulated. There are postal service laws which apply to junk mailers, which prohibit things like pyramid schemes, a few other obscure crimes that happen via postal mail and could possibly happen over email. Junk mailers also must remove people from lists within 30 days. The post office maintains the list of who to remove, not the junk mailers. These are all quite reasonable things to apply to spammers. I'm for that. Just not for banning spam, nor violating laws to stop it, nor for vigilante activity in general. The paper or electronic media over which these crimes are committed shouldn't really matter. My proposal has been to make these laws essentially media-independent. It curbs the abuse legally. It just doesn't satisify the radicals who want to ban spam at any cost. --Dean ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Plain Aviation, Inc dean@av8.com LAN/WAN/UNIX/NT/TCPIP http://www.av8.com ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++