Re: Post and Hide? as Anti-SPAM

From: Alun Jones [MS MVP] (alun_at_texis.com)
Date: 12/24/03 

Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2003 19:38:37 GMT

In article <I5rFb.727$wX2.459@newssvr27.news.prodigy.com>, "Cubit"
<no@no.not> wrote:
>On Optin's Home webpage they have posted the email address of their lawyer.
>Since I know this newsgroup is harvested regularly for some nasty SPAM, I
>thought it would be fun to post the lawyer's email address in this
>newsgroup. The SPAMmers would get spammed!

SPAM is a registered trademark for a brand of potted meat. For the
unsolicited email kind, or for off-topic newsgroup posts, please use "spam",
or at the beginning of a sentence, "Spam". Hormel have been kind enough
_not_ to pursue trademark violation suits against anti-spammers, so please
do them the courtesy of not violating their trademark.

>Unfortunately, I don't know how to make a USENET posting that is
>untraceable.
>
>How do you Post and Hide?

You don't. Spam is wrong. Spamming is wrong. Spamming spammers is wrong -
you are merely showing yourself to be no different from the spammers that
you're trying to attack. Where is your moral high ground when the spotlight
turns to you? How can you say "I hate spam, and spam should be removed from
the Internet" if you're only too happy to engage in it yourself?

If it's okay to spam in support of your chosen cause, or to hurt those that
you feel have wronged you, then it's okay for everyone to spam for the same
reasons. And, as you've discovered, many spammers see their chosen cause as
"making money", and the people who have wronged them as "anyone who tries to
prevent spam from coming to them".

As a result, any justification you care to make for actions you take causing
the spammers or their lawyer to receive spam are equivalent to
justifications spammers make for sending their spam. If you can't draw the
line between good and evil, how do you know where you stand?

Alun.
~~~~

[Please don't email posters, if a Usenet response is appropriate.] 

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