From hungary-online-owner Fri Dec 1 16:27:59 1995 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id QAA17836 for hungary-online-announce-out31415; Fri, 1 Dec 1995 16:27:59 -0800 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id QAA17827; Fri, 1 Dec 1995 16:27:46 -0800 Received: from steve@isys.hu () via =-=-=-=-=-= for hungary-online-announce@hungary.yak.net (17825) Received: from kingzog.isys.hu (KingZog.iSYS.hu [194.24.160.4]) (fnord) by nando (8.6.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id QAA17819 for ; Fri, 1 Dec 1995 16:27:20 -0800 Received: from [194.24.160.22] (bubba.iSYS.hu [194.24.160.22]) by kingzog.isys.hu (8.7.Beta.11/8.7.Beta.11) with SMTP id BAA16253 for ; Sat, 2 Dec 1995 01:27:12 +0100 (MET) X-Sender: steve@mail.isys.hu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sat, 2 Dec 1995 01:30:41 +0100 To: hungary-online-announce@hungary.yak.net From: steve@isys.hu (Steven Carlson) Subject: (HOL-A) stop the spam! Sender: owner-Hungary-Online-announce@hungary.yak.net Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net Don't you hate getting junk in your "in" basket? I had fun writing this piece. Hope you enjoy reading it. =steve= -- stop the spam! hungary-online by Steven Carlson As you walk into my Budapest apartment house you pass a long row of mailboxes. One of them is mine. Located conveniently below my mailbox is a wire trash basket. Most of my mail goes straight from the box to the bin in one smooth arc. This motion nicely sums up the state of today's postal system. Most of my mail is either bills or junk mail. I want neither. Isn't it odd that all around the world, governments are subsidizing the delivery of information we don't want? And now I'm getting junk mail on the Internet. Except on the net we call it spam. Remember that Monty Python skit about a group of Vikings ordering breakfast? It seems every dish comes with a serving of that funny processed meat. The frustrated customer has an endless menu to chose from, as long as he accepts his serving with: "spam, spam, spam, spam ...". On the net, 'to spam' means to spew a commercial message to hundreds of discussion forums. No matter what the topic, you end up scrolling through postings with titles like GET RICK QUICK! Would you like a taste? I quote: PLEASE READ AND ANALYZE THE FOLLOWING AND DETERMINE IF $5 IS WORTH KNOWING IF THIS IS REALLY POSSIBLE!!!!! Dear Friends, My name is Dave Rhodes. In September 1988 my car was reposessed and the bill collectors were hounding me like you wouldn't believe. I was laid off and my unemployment checks had run out. The only escape I had from the pressure of failure was my computer and my modem.... -------------snip------------- The problem is that online direct mail, spam, gets results. The cost of sending 10,000 messages is so trivial that even if only ten people respond the effort is still cost effective. Of course, strip mining is also very profitable - especially when you don't have to replace the landscape. Who cares about the view, right? The issue is not whether the Internet should be commercialized. That has happened. The issue is whether the Internet will be a useful tool or a cesspool of irrelevant drivel. Spam is information pollution. Spamming is now a major issue on the commercial online services. Recently CompuServe took a stand against Promo Enterprises, a company which has been mass mailing to CompuServe's subscribers. As a result, Promo created a mechanism on their website for users to "unsubscribe" themselves from the mailings. However Promo doesn't advertise this feature. Oops. I had to dig around the Promo website to discover those instructions. If you've been getting junk mailed by Promo and want them to stop, send a message to with the message: "remove" (no quotation marks). Unfortunately CompuServe has no legal grounds to stop Promo from mass mailing CIS members. Promo seems to be protected under the First Amendment, which defends the right to free speech. I'm no lawyer, but I'd argue that Promo's activities are more like graffiti, which is categorized as vandalism and not protected speech. Bulk mailings degrade the quality of CompuServe's service. How can we protect the online world? What happens if every fly-by-night scam artist decides decides to bombard the net with spam? To some degree the net protects itself. The most logical reaction is to complain to the sender of the spam. That in itself is often enough to stop the spammer. It's the logic of the net. If I send a 30K message to 10,000 people and each of them returns it, that means 300MB of data comes flying back at me. That's enough traffic to overwhelm most servers. If this happens my Internet provider will simply shut down my account and tell me to apply elsewhere. And that's exactly what happens to most first-time abusers. Some spammers, however, are very persistent. They find ways to hide their identity. In response, Internet activitists have created blacklists . Others use a tool called the CancelMoose (tm) to delete multiple postings from Usenet . Still others take more draconian measures. In a recent issue of the Computer Underground Digest , writer Pat Townsend desribed his pursuit of the self-styled "Spam King." Townsend identifies the person as Jeffrey A. Slaton of Albuquerque, NM. In his article "Attention Spammers: The War Has Started" Townsend advocates striking back at Slaton in the following manner: I quote: Since *they* do not seem to care what sort of irrelevant junk they sent out to every newsgroup and mailing list they can find, I see no reason why netters can't simply return the courtesy, armed with such details as: home address, home phone number, social security number of the spammer when known, banking information of the spammer when known, other personal details, etc. Many other personal details about Mr. Slaton are available at I admit this sort of action makes me apprehensive. I and most other Internet users strongly support individual liberties like free speech. I have misgivings about putting spammers on blacklists, harassing them over the telephone, or publicizing private information. However I also sympathize with Townsend's radicalism. If unchecked, bulk mailing will destroy the usefulness of the Internet. It's time to fight back. Most of all, I resent having information forced on me. I already have more data than I can deal with. In the info-saturated environment of the Internet the ultimate value is our attention. Let me repeat: our attention is commercially valuable. That should be respected. Just because someone stands at the top of an escalator handing out leaflets doesn't mean I'm obligated to take one. I expect to be compensated. I expect value for my attention. This is the new paradigm of the information age: If you want my attention, entertain me, serve me, inform me, support a cause I believe in. Don't just shove your message in my face and expect me to respond. This creates a challenge for businesses on the Internet, as well as an opportunitity. Many businesses are finding innovative ways to earn the attention of their potential customers by adding value to the net. I'll talk about some of their methods in my next column. Thank you for your attention. Steven Carlson is Net Media Manager at iSYS Hungary, an Internet provider in Budapest, Hungary. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright (c) 1995. Permission granted to redistribute this article in electronic form for non-profit purposes only. My byline and this message must remain intact. Contact me for reprint rights. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Carlson http://www.isys.hu iSYS Hungary info@isys.hu steve@isys.hu "The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is it's inefficiency." - Eugene McCarthy ############# # This message to Hungary-Online-announce@hungary.yak.net # was from steve@isys.hu (Steven Carlson) # # To unsubscribe, # send "unsubscribe" to # For a full subscription (rather than this announcement-only subscription) # mail "subscribe" to # Send mail to for more information, # or to if you need human assistance. #############