From: nobody@REPLAY.COM (Anonymous)
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 07:47:38 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Is spam really a problem?
Message-ID: <199802231547.QAA29528@basement.replay.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Hi!

'Masque' here again. The same one who wrote the
original 'Is spam really a problem?' post. (I
won't attempt to prove that :-).

I'm really astounded at "sunder's" PK based 
solution; it's akin to proposing decapitation
as a cure for pimples.

>It eats up your valuable time.  You might not see it for what it is, but
>it is an interruption of normal service.  It's annoying as having your
>pager go off durring sex and having to call back your boss instead of
>ignoring it.  (Presume you can't shut off your pager.)  It takes away
>from the continuity of life.

You can't even come up with a valid analogy. Any
pager I've ever carried could be put in silent mode.
With email, you decide when to check it, and if you 
have two brain cells to rub together you can identify
and kill spam reliably on just the Subject and Sender
data, without reading it. To reiterate, it takes me
less time to manually kill spam than to trash the junk
in my snail mail. Spam is simply Not A Big Problem, and
much less an irritation than telemarketer calls.

What do you propose?

>Have every sendmail server use a PK scheme to talk to every other
>server and authenticate the connection.  Have every sendmail server accept
>mail only from those whose key is verified.

Oh boy. Mandatory signing, with registered keys. Great. Why not
also require people to have their SSN's tattooed on the inside of
their forearms? That way, if some one is so foolish as to say 
something you didn't want to hear, you'll know 
who to sue 'for the theft of your valuable time'.

You're doing the Surveilance State's work for it.  
People who whine 'there oughta be a law' 
everytime anything in life goes against their 
expectations are helping build Big Brother. 
This is called 'being a Useful Idiot'.

>Further, some of us use ISDN to get their email and transferring the
>extra junk adds to the pay/minute connections.

So the rest of the world should give up privacy and anonymity to
fix your poor choice of service provider? You made your bed; now
lie in it.

sunder: get a grip. Coercive legislation is simply not the
appropriate solution for such a minor problem as spam.

guy@panix.com writes:
>Why are you asking the cypherpunks list?

Because I'm active on the list, and I spend more
time here skipping messages about spam than
I do killing actual spam.

Masque.