Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!eecae!netnews.upenn.edu!rutgers!att!alberta!ubc-cs!fornax!mcdonald
From: mcdonald@fornax.UUCP (Ken Mcdonald)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Wargames Dialer
Summary: What about basic politeness?
Message-ID: <863@fornax.UUCP>
Date: 2 Feb 89 11:26:04 GMT
References: <436@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU> <27200018@mcdurb> <69693AXS101@PSUVM>
Organization: School of Computing Science, SFU, Burnaby, B.C. Canada
Lines: 28

In article <69693AXS101@PSUVM>, AXS101@PSUVM.BITNET (Adrian Sullivan) writes:

> way of finding them (yet). with this program, i'll be able to dial every
> number in town :) and find them all [also finding all my univerities
> 
> --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--
> -Adrian Sullivan, Vice President PAMUG    == -==- Little Mac BBs
> --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--== -==- (814) 238-4276
> - axs101@psuvm.bitnet axs@psuarch.bitnet  == -==- 2400/1200bps
> --==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--== -==- 8-n-1  24hrs

While I doubt Adrian Sullivan would dial every number in town, the
existence of a program as the auto-dialer raises a disturbing question--
to what extent are we allowed to inconvenience others, for our own
convenience.  I'm kind of disappointed that people would even consider
using a program like the one mentioned about.  Is it really worth it to
make thousands of people answer a wrong number just to find a few
(probably mostly useless) modem numbers?  If if all BBS operators and
users started searching for other BBS's this way, they would create a
major annoyance for "normal" phone users--including themselves!

So think before you have your computer dial all the numbers in the
phone book.  If what you are doing is reasonable, then its reasonable to
expect lots of others to do the same thing--and if this causes problems,
then the activity wasn't very rational in the first place!

Ken "'Scuse the Typos" McDonald
{...!ubc-cs!mcdonald@fornax.uucp}