🚀 go-pugleaf

In can.infohighway, bs904@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Andrew Nellis) wrote:

=>I run the spam desk at the National Capital FreeNet.  Last year we
=>got so much junk at one point that legitimate mail could not get
=>through.  It was taking hours to connect to the SMTP server, and
=>e-mail was being lost as it sat in queues for days waiting to be
=>delivered.  AT&T says that UBE, Unsolicited Bulk E-mail, accounts
=>for as much as 20% of their incoming e-mail.  AOL puts that figure
=>closer to 30%.  Our own statistics showed that it was 40%, and when
=>we started rejecting mail from spamming domains, more than 500,000
=>pieces of junk e-mail were turned away every day for about 20,000
=>members.

Spam is excessive multiposting (EMP) of an article to many newsgroups,
one at a time. E-mail and usenet are separate and distinct functions
within usenet. Somewhere along the line during the past couple of
years the term seems to have taken on a meaning that seems to
encompass damn near everything that people find objectionable
about some aspects of internet use.

Over the years I've been amazed at the number of people whose sole
interest and investment in the internet consists of nothing more than
participation using freeware and shareware software (for which there
has been no contribution) who seem to feel that that participation
carries with it some 'rights' of internet, and in particular usenet,
administration.

What is even more objectionable however is the number of people
are actually involved in the administration of the internet who allow,
condone, and encourage this attitude to further their own agenda.

If you don't like junk e-mail, or what shows up in usenet, then use
software that allows you to detect and filter it...even if it means
that you have to actually spend a few dollars.

Freedom of expression and freedom of speech is a double edged
sword, not a double standard. Before you start firing off too many
missives to civil rights organizations, and encouraging others to do
the same, take some time to think about whose agenda it is that
you're promoting.

Promoting censorship doesn't serve anyone purpose, and it just
might come back to haunt you one day.