Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!porthos.rutgers.edu!webber From: webber@porthos.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) Newsgroups: news.sysadmin Subject: Re: what can we do about electronic "junkmail" (was Re: Portal...) Message-ID: Date: 26 Jul 88 02:51:39 GMT References: <7475@cup.portal.com> <2618@kitty.UUCP> <860@hodge.UUCP> <2943@utastro.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 27 In article <2943@utastro.UUCP>, werner@utastro.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) writes: < within the last 3 days I received 2 messages by personal e-mail, < which are clearly of the "junkmail" variety: one from Portal and one < from the "newly founded" Unix Today editor ... < I sent back a CLEARLY worded reply, explaining my displeasure, but < knowing how ineffective I have been discouraging telephone solicita- < tion calls, I believe that there is a need to find a way to discourage < "future" reoccurences ...not from the same people, who I trust will < respect my wishes never to hear from them again (though they may well < write to *YOU* next week..), but from the next "smart cookie" < who discovers that this is a cheap way of doing advertising < "on someone else's dime" ... or go prowl the nets for a "sucker" On the Arpanet, the tradition was to send the junkmailer a copy of the online lisp documentation. On Usenet, faking a few sendsyses in their name seems to be developing a tradition. Originally people avoided this because of its obvious annoyance to the intermediate sites, but now that the Backbone sanctions such usage of the net, it would appear to be open season. Who knows, if they get enough junk they may actually have to drop off the net due to phone bills or difficulty in finding a feed. While you might think that this would be ineffective in your case, just remember that the junkmail you recieve today was probably sent to someone else yesterday who didn't do anything to make them think that such was improper usage of the net (3 points to the first person to correctly dereference all the pronouns in this sentence). ---- BOB (webber@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)