Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!snorkelwacker!spdcc!xylogics!world!bzs
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Ponzi schemes on USENET
Message-ID: <1990Feb27.005639.7329@world.std.com>
Date: 27 Feb 90 00:56:39 GMT
References: <10670@june.cs.washington.edu>
Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
Lines: 32
In-Reply-To: ka@cs.washington.edu's message of 9 Feb 90 22:59:47 GMT


>The first time that the chain letter appeared, several people posted
>to the net saying that they had contacted postal authorities or the
>FBI, and the system administrator shortly announced that he had
>eliminated the offender's account.  At least one person has notified
>postal authorities about the recent posting.
>
>Are there other things that we should be doing?  For example, should
>we add a warning about chain letter scams to the USENET documentation?
>				Kenneth Almquist

Does anyone have any indication that even one person ever fell for a
USENET chain letter scam? (don't tell me about dumb hicks(tm) who fall
for these things from time to time, not even sure how many of those
are left out there.)

Perhaps we're overreacting a tad, are you sure all this sound and
fury is for anything?

Without a victim perhaps it's sufficient to just go tell the guy's
system admin and leave it at that if it's not repeated. Why all the
vindictiveness? Because there might exist someone so dumb they'll send
a dollar (A DOLLAR) out?

The messages raving about these things have cost everyone on the net
far more, and are sent to a helluva lot more than five people.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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