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From: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Mark Ethan Smith: For real?
Message-ID: <5272@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Wed, 30-Sep-87 01:34:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: jade.5272
Posted: Wed Sep 30 01:34:22 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Oct-87 19:39:29 EDT
References: <378d6016.b8ab@apollo.uucp> <5261@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <2050@kitty.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 47

In article <2050@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes:
<	I view the presence of anonymous and deceptive posters as a cancer
<which seriously undermines the quality and integrity of Usenet.  I call upon
<any system administrator having "Smith" accounts to:
<
<1.	Post to the Net any identifying information in their possession
<	about "Smith".
<
<2.	Revoke any accounts (such as "Smith's") which have pseudonyms.

And I view the above as horsefeathers. Firstly, it's hard to tell what
you are complaining about.

Are you complaining that era1987@violet.berkeley.edu isn't tied to
some real name?  Do you think that it should be "mark," like yours? Or
maybe mes, like mine? Nuts to that. The UCB Computer Center, unlike
many other facilities, allows users to choose whatever they wish as a
login name.  This is a *good* thing. It allows people freedom of
expression in their user names. So we get era1987, sikukkut, kittycat,
antwerp, and the like. Likewise, those that force their idea of what
users name should be (leading to attrocieties like "mwmeyer", or
AA1487) don't always use the same names. So long as the poster in
question always puts the same signature/name (choose one) in the
posting, who cares? I recognize people by that, not by some bogus
network address. As far as I can tell, MES has always signed things as
MES. What more do you want?

Or are you complaining that you can't find a physical person to map to
"era1987@violet.berkeley.edu"? So what? You think you can find a
physical person to map to "mwm@eris.berkeley.edu"? If so, it's because
I've chosen to make that information publicly available. But you may
not be able to anyway. Likewise, I don't know a physical person to map
to "larry@kitty.UUCP". Doesn't bother me - why should it?

I will assure you that we can find MES if we really want to. Either
that, or turn off era1987 for non-payment of bills :-). I assume that
people responsible for kitty.UUCP can find you if they need to. Since
I can always complain to postmaster@site or root@site or some such,
there's no need for me to be able to find any given user on a site. So
long as this remains true, no user is really anonymous on USENet.

	<mike
--
The sun is shining slowly.				Mike Meyer
The birds are flying so low.				mwm@berkeley.edu
Honey, you're my one and only.				ucbvax!mwm
So pay me what you owe me.				mwm@ucbjade.BITNET