1: Re: Mail Bombs and the CDA; 2: Netiquette lecture

[Kurt Cockrum]

Doug said [blank lines collapsed]:
>Re: The Following Message
>What's the appropriate response to porn spam?
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 17:17:45 +0000
>From: john134 at iceland-c.it.earthlink.net
>To: You at aol.com
>Subject: Hey Baby!! XOXO
><A HREF="http://www.totallynude.com/">Click Here</A>
>18 and over only!
>[...]

First, get a grip.  I don't know why the CDA is mentioned in the subject-line
of this post, unless it's a subrosa attempt to find some "legitimate" use of
the CDA to curb spammers.  Frankly, spam is *preferable* to the CDA.

While this is a spam, it's not a porn spam.  It's a spam that *mentions*
a pornographic site (maybe -- unless you've visited the site, you don't
really know).  There's a *crucial* difference.  The map is not the territory.
The signifier is not the significand.  The name is not the object.  The
pointer is not the thing pointed to.  Get it?

I have found a pretty effective way of responding to spams is to mail back
the offending posting [ a *complete* copy (which, as I discuss further
below, will be *no* *problem* for most of my readers), with appropriate quoting
conventions applied ] to the various concerned parties, which in *this* case
would be:
	root at iceland-c.it.earthlink.net
	postmaster at iceland-c.it.earthlink.net
	abuse at iceland-c.it.earthlink.net
	root at it.earthlink.net
	postmaster at it.earthlink.net
	abuse at it.earthlink.net
	root at earthlink.net
	postmaster at earthlink.net
	abuse at earthlink.net
That's 9 recipients (3 users at each of 3 addresses)!  Talk about leverage,
and it's in your hands, not theirs!  The "root" and "postmaster" users should
exist on every site, and it's their job to get this stuff (among other things).
The "abuse" pseudo-user is rapidly becoming a convention precisely because
of the spamming phenomenon.  In this case, it's pretty likely that earthlink.net
is the ISP and will take some sort of action.  At the very least, your
dissatisfaction has been duly registered.

You will notice that no reply went back to john134 in the above example.
You should never reply directly, but always to those who are likely
to be in positions of authority over john134 and his ilk.  It's pretty likely
that john134 is not a real human being.
If you reply directly to john134, your name will trigger whatever response
mechanism was planned: your e-mail address gets collected as a responder to the
spammer's message, as planned, and you set yourself up to get more of the same.
Don't collude with your oppressors! :)

Be prepared for a number of these to bounce (just throw them away); often
you will get back replies thanking you for bringing it to somebody's attention.
And if you ever get back *threats*, *save* *them*!  Their ISP and/or the cops
will be *very* *interested* and you can cause them lots of trouble.

CHANGE_OF_SUBJECT:
I have another beef, which applies to nearly every posting I see these days,
including those from old.net.hands who ought to know better.
I am sick and bloody tired of seeing replies to postings quoting the whole
                                                                     ^^^^^
damned thing they are replying to, as if all of our memories were so short
^^^^^^ ^^^^^
that we needed that stuff, repeated again and again and again, preceded by
ever-increasing strings of ">" ad nauseam.

Take note that replies to spam-mail to originators is about the only instance
where quoting the whole message back could be regarded as appropriate and proper.
Frankly, complaints *about* spam that quote the whole message being referred
to as spam, sent to non-spammers, are spam themselves.  Don't recurse on spam!

Doug, in your posting, there were no less than 68 *empty* lines being
quoted.  You *could* have taken the trouble to edit them out, but you chose
not to, or just-as-bad, don't know how to.  Now what I want to know is why
people should take your complaint seriously when you are such a netiquette
violator yourself, whether wittingly or unwittingly.

Come on, you newbies, it's about time you got your Mail User Agents under
control (Read the Manual, dammit!!!!!), so that when people see your posts,
they don't immediately tag you as a net.tyro (or a net.old.hand that doesn't
give a shit) and lower their index of respect accordingly.  Like..., *edit*
on the reply (if you can't take time to do that, why should others take the
time to read what you post?).  It takes up storage space and wastes bandwith,
which I'm sure you are all acutely aware, is a *scarce* resource.

>[68 deleted empty lines... see? what you are looking at is a convention to
  indicate elision, i. e. where material was deleted.  It's a good idea to
  do this for the sake of Truthful Context, i. e. when somebody sees the
  elided quote, they don't assume it's the whole thing.  When I'm not lecturing
  newbies specifically (like right now), I often use the construction ">[...]"
  to indicate that editing was done. ]

With the advent of widespread net communications, you all had better get aware
that you are all, rolled into one, authors, editors and publishers.  It's the
                                            ^^^^^^^
middle role that is being slacked on.
--kurt
  a fan of H. L. Mencken, whom I know would just *love* the net!  :)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *  From the Listowner  * * * * * * * * * * * *
.	To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to:
majordomo at scn.org		In the body of the message, type:
unsubscribe scn
END