Path: utzoo!telecom-request Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1991 14:09:37 GMT From: Peter da Silva Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Mystery Solved (was: Strange Phone Calls) Message-ID: Organization: A corner of our bedroom Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 291, Message 8 of 10 Lines: 26 tr@samadams.princeton.edu (Tom Reingold) writes: > It's sort of like stealing a tenth of a penny from everyone's > bank account and making millions of dollars. Can you argue that it > cost no one a significant amount therefore your deed is insignificant? The Moderator replies: > His individual calls to individual phone numbers might well > have been obnoxious; they were most likely not illegal. Your repeated > telephone calls, intended to harrass, were illegal. Of course this gap between legal and illegal calls, one causing X amount of grief to one individual, the other causing (X+delta)/N grief to N individuals, is a wonderful example of how complex a society can get without being civilised. Why should *anyone* have more of a right than anyone else to make unsolicited and annoying phone calls? What if Tom had set his autodialler to call a few hundred households and given them that same message? peter@taronga.uucp.ferranti.com