🚀 go-pugleaf

Dr. Michael Mancini wrote:
> 
> Bill Nienhuis (billn@whidbey.net) wrote:
> : > This is the person responsible. Perhaps you can do something creative with
> : > this information.
>

Bill Neinhauis wrote:
> : A person has gained access to my mail account, and has caused me undo stress as a result.  I have a suspicion
> : who it is because they gave my old address.  Please excuse this post, and I hope this is the end of this
> : problem.
>

Mancini wrote: 
> You have spammed the Internet with an illegal pyramid scheme, and
> therefore deserve all the UNDUE stress you are currently receiving.


-------
Mancini-not-a-doctor, where DID you learn to read?  He was 
saying someone else sent the original from an old account of 
his. 

You always do enjoy being spiteful.

It's not a pyramid sceme. But it is illegal and it's called 
a ponzi sceme.



Reading is Fundamental: 

Breaking the Chain
------------------
  by Adam C. Engst <ace@tidbits.com>

  My article on chain mail in TidBITS-324_ elicited more 
responses
  than I'd anticipated. They fell into a couple of 
categories that I
  found interesting, and I thought I'd share some of the 
information
  with you.


**Creative Responses** -- Several people wrote in with 
creative
  responses to chain mail messages. One group keeps a list 
of ten
  volunteers who are willing to receive chain mail messages 
from
  anyone within that organization who can't bring themselves 
to
  break the chain of a "bad luck" message. Needless to say, 
those
  ten volunteers delete the messages to ensure that the 
chain goes
  no further, and the people who forward the mail don't 
worry about
  a spate of bad luck.

  There's also a clever piece of chain mail that frees "its
  recipients from the need to send future chain-letters." I 
have no
  idea how effective it is, but it should confuse the 
superstitious
  types (what happens when you have one chain mail note 
promising
  good luck if you send it along, and another promising bad 
luck if
  you do?).

  A number of people requested my boilerplate response to 
chain mail
  messages I receive. My impression is that many people feel
  uncomfortable informing the senders of chain mail of what 
they've
  done wrong, especially since people who forward chain mail 
seldom
  act out of spite. This bit of text is no masterpiece of 
prose, but
  feel free to use it as a reply to anyone who sends you 
chain mail.

  "By forwarding that message to me, you have participated 
in
  electronic chain mail, which not only irritates everyone 
involved
  but is also an abuse of the Internet. You have allowed 
someone to
  exploit you for their purposes. Even worse, you have 
helped them
  exploit even more people and waste more time, bandwidth, 
disk
  space, and money. It's bad enough to be a victim, but it's 
worse
  to become an accessory. If everyone forwarded every piece 
of chain
  mail to the number of people requested, normal email 
delivery
  would grind to a halt, thanks to the exponential growth of 
chain
  mail. Please do not ever forward chain mail again."

  Finally, Mark Horne <mhorne@ucla.edu> comments:
  For chain letters that involve sending money via the U.S. 
Mail
  (which is illegal, and commonly referred to as a "ponzi" 
scheme),
  you can alert the United States Postal Service by sending 
a hard
  copy of the offending document to:

    Postal Inspector In Charge
    United States Postal Inspection Service
    Operations Support Group
    222 South Riverside Plaza
    Suite 1250
    Chicago IL 60606-6100

  They'll investigate, send warning letters or take legal 
action as
  appropriate, and send you a letter explaining what 
transpired (it
  may take a long time, however).

<http://www.usps.gov/websites/depart/inspect/chainlet.htm>


**What about worthy causes?** Several readers wrote in to 
say they
  felt chain mail about worthy causes was justified in some
  instances. I feel there is no cause worthy enough to 
justify
  abusing the Internet via chain mail. Those that use chain 
mail to
  promote a cause risk far greater damage to their 
reputations.
  Using chain mail for worthy causes suffers from two basic
  problems.

  First, even if the information in a piece of chain mail 
was
  accurate at one time, situations change. The classic piece 
of
  chain mail is the one that requests that postcards be sent 
to
  Craig Shergold, a dying boy in England. Guess what? Craig 
was
  cured, he's quite a bit older now, and the postcards keep 
coming,
  overwhelming the local post office. Craig was a classic 
good
  cause, but chain mail turned his wish for postcards into a
  nightmare.

<http://www.eff.org/papers/eegtti/eeg_81.html#SEC82>

  Second, there are without a doubt a ton of good causes. If 
they
  all decided to use chain mail in order to raise money or 
gain
  support, the Internet would be swamped. Then there's the 
issue of
  differences in opinion - your good cause may be my 
anathema, and
  vice versa. Of course, once a good cause proved 
successful, how
  far behind would the con artists and scam mongers be? The 
only way
  to deal with chain mail is to stop it whenever it rears 
its head.

  Worthy causes can use other tools available on the 
Internet to
  garner support. For instance, the Web is ideal for 
disseminating
  information. You can update a Web page with the latest 
information
  so what's disseminated is never inaccurate. A Web page can 
also
  provide source information so people can check for 
themselves and
  decide if they agree with you. You can even collect names 
for an
  online petition on a Web form.


**Identifying and Analyzing Chain Mail** -- I'd like to 
leave you
  with a few bits of advice on how to identify and analyze 
chain
  mail.

* Look for specifics, especially a cut-off date, a court 
case
  number, or an FCC docket number. Most chain mail doesn't 
contain
  much specific information, because otherwise people would 
see that
  it was a hoax.

* Look for an authoritative source. Who is the message from
  originally? Who forwarded it to you? (Be wary if you don't 
know
  the person who forwarded it.) Remember, it's easy to forge 
email.
  Also, if the message doesn't come with an email address or 
Web
  page from which you can get more information, it's likely 
to be
  chain mail.

<http://www.crew.umich.edu/~chymes/newusers/Think.html>
<http://www.utopia.com/mailings/rre/chain.letter.petitions.h
tml>

* Verify the situation. Recently there was a furor over a 
proposed
  newsgroup called rec.music.white-power. The first chain 
mail
  message I saw exhorting people to vote against the group 
didn't
  contain the call for votes (CFV) and without the CFV, 
there was no
  way to tell when the voting would end. Research in 
DejaNews
  revealed the voting had been over for almost a month, but 
the
  results hadn't been released. You must take everything 
with a
  grain of salt, but the more information you have, the 
better.

<http://www.dejanews.com/>

* Finally, don't be gullible. Just because something appears 
in an
  email message doesn't mean it's true or has any bearing on
  reality. Think before you act and encourage others to do 
the same.


$$

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