All about SPAM: NPR

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John F. Kennedy

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain. Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

Thu, 08/15/2002 - 20:51 — charlie.collins

NPR had a pretty good story about SPAM today. They interviewed one of the founders of Junkbusters and they interviewed a "commercial emailer". They explained what spam is, how it is sent, and the interviewed spammer explained that he gets several death threats a week (and he would not comment on whether or not he uses open relays in asia to send his crap).

The spam clown in the interview states that he is NOT a spammer because he will remove people if they contact him and ask to be removed. Thats a load of crap. As scrupulous as the person emailing printer toner, viagra, teen xxx and penis enlargement 88 times a day to millions of email addresses may indeed be, does anyone really think that the "removal" process is legitimate? Even if it were, that still certainly does NOT change the SPAM facts. I dont want it in the FIRST place. If users OPT IN and then receive it is legitimate, if you just blast away and require the onus to be on them to OPT OUT, that is NOT legitimate.

My take on SPAM is well known. Its a waste of time and money and should not be tolerated. It should be illegal just like junk faxes are. It is very sad that something like this needs legislation, but it does. People are stupid enough to continue to SEND spam and people somewhere are apparently even more stupid and actually RESPOND to spam. (Who are these people that respond? Who knows these people? has any one EVER responded to a spam email? It is baffling.)

If it is mass, commercial and unsolicited then it is SPAM. The spammer they interviewed actually said he is doing the world a service because he "does not waste trees to provide the service". And he stated "it doesnt hurt anyone". The tree thing is irrelevant, yeah I hate junk MAIL too and it should not be allowed, but thats another matter (the post office and the timber industry wont let any regulation of junk mail ever happen, oh no, they and the DMA are great buddies). As for the "doesnt hurt anyone" line, thats where the clowns are wrong. It costs companies and individuals MONEY. It wastes bandwidth, CPU cycles, time, etc. It hurts the credibility of the entire Internet and ALL legitimate e-commerce because REAL email pertaining to REAL purchases and or valid interests that actually were

Anyway, ranting over for now, its an interesting story to listen to. Checkit via the link (AUDIO).

All about SPAM: NPR