Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!kyoto
From: kyoto@pawl.rpi.edu (Jesse N. Schell)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Prodigy
Message-ID: <'4&^6&|@rpi.edu>
Date: 14 Nov 90 03:19:27 GMT
Sender: Jesse Schell (kyoto.pawl.rpi.edu)
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
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Nntp-Posting-Host: pawl5.pawl.rpi.edu


   The Prodigy dilemma is a fascinating one, which brings up many
questions. Should the owners of a BBS be allowed to read your mail?
The only answer I can see to this is that the owners of the BBS should
make their policy clear...If they are going to read your messages, you
should know about it. I can see one day soon, however, people are going to
want a BBS where the owners guarantee that they will not read private 
messages. This would be difficult to implement, but not impossible...
   Is the US government going to have a US mail Email network in the
future? Will we trust them with it? How will we know if the FBI is reading
our mail? I don't think it could work... I mean, they can still tap our
phones and open our mail if they want, but it is so much easier to
intercept an electronic message...
   I think that prodigy can do anything it wants to, but if it had made
its policies about the disputed topics more well known, there would be
less of an argument now. What do others think? What is the future of
privacy in relation to Email and BBS's?

    Are you tired of annoying junk mail? Consider this:
1) By law, if you receive obscene mail, you can return it to the
post office, who must lodge a formal complaint with whoever sent the
offending mail.

2) The US Mail's definition of "obscene" is "anything that a person
thinks is obscene".

Putting 1 and 2 together, an ingeneous solution to the problem of
incessant junk mail appears....return any  or all junk mail to the post
office, claiming that it is obscene! This strategy may confuse some
people, but it will prbably get you off of a bunch of mailing lists!