Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucivax!ucla-cs!gast
From: gast@lanai.cs.ucla.edu
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: 87K
Message-ID: <1991Jun29.024839.14134@cs.ucla.edu>
Date: 29 Jun 91 02:48:39 GMT
Sender: usenet@cs.ucla.edu (Mr. News Himself)
Reply-To: gast@CS.UCLA.EDU (David Gast)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 26
Originator: gast@maui.cs.ucla.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: maui.cs.ucla.edu


I just want to let all of you know that I am recently placed
a value of $87,000 on my name.  If I suspect any of you have
my name in any of your computers without the proper license
from me, expect some knocks on the door in the middle of the
night.  :-(

I'd be willing to bet that AT&T has a lot of information on people
in its computers that the people do not want AT&T to have.  AT&T
might even say the information is valuable.  After all, if it were
not valuable, wouldn't they get rid of it?

It would actually be comical if it were not so sad.  AT&T maintains
they have a right to sell -- without my consent and without compensating
me -- ANI information about me to any 800 or 900 number I might call.
AT&T also maintains that login.c is worth $87,000.  And then there is
Kenneth Griffin, an American Telephone & Telegraph Co. official and past
head of the American Telemarketing Association; he was quoted in the
WSJ as saying "... worries that the Bulmash crusade will 'regulate us
and put us out of business'".  What business?  Calling people without
their permission.  In fact, harassing people over the telephone who
have explicitly told AT&T they don't want to be called by AT&T for
telemarketing purposes.  If some telemarketer wants to call me, they
should get a license from me to call.

David