Re: Fucking Sheeple / Re: Does Spamming Really Exist? Um, yes.

[Integration <abrams@philos.umass.edu>]

> > projects for the 4th Reich.
> Right on, Ian!
> I'm tired of these anonymous cowards, hiding behind a fake address
> such as dev.null, putting down those of us who recognize the need
> of petitioning our government to put an end to using the InterNet
> for purposes which are against the wishes of the majority.
> > 1.  Its theft of services because its using my bandwidth to "harrass" my
> > customers.
> Exactly. I have been complaining to my ISP about their forwarding posts
> from the CypherPunks list that I disagree with. Despite my complaints,
> they allow this harrassment to continue.

December 8, 1997:  Today at work, I got an email from a company selling 
genital enlargers.  I was shocked: how did they get my email address?  I 
sat there at work, reading this email.  Then, as if waking from a dream, 
I looked at my watch.  I had wasted 5 whole minutes of my work time!  I 
quickly deleted the email, and went on my merry way.

December 10, 1997:  It happened again.  This time they wanted me to buy 
Disco albums from the 70's.  I was irate!  Susan overheard me mumbling to 
myself, and told me that just recently, she had received an email from an 
unknown source that had the word 'masturbate' in it.  I asked her if it 
was a harrasing email, and she quickly explained that it was an email 
regarding a certain medical condition, for which the emailer had a 
medical cure.  But still, she said.  She did look pretty flustered.  I 
shook my head and looked at my watch.  Damn!

January 23, 1998:  I just learned how to install email filters.  I can 
now block email marked 'bulk mail' or with certain generic 'to' fields.  
But it took me a goddamn day to install the damn filter.  I was talking 
to Joe, and he said that last week, he had to do the very same thing!  It 
seemed our whole company was up in arms!

January 30, 1998:  Joe, Susan, some others and I met with your system 
administrator today and asked him to install the filter automatically for 
everyone in the office.  He seemed hesitant, and even balked at doing it 
until we convinced The Boss to knuckle him under until he did it.  We 
were all very relieved.

February 15, 1998:  Stan, our system administrator, has been having a lot 
of trouble meeting all of the various filtering needs of the office, and 
so he said he is going to meet with our area service provider and see if 
they can do something in their system that would filter out more of the 
junk getting in to our office.  Today, someone said they had received 
email from some list of crypto punks or something like that.  I asked 
him, "What the hell is this world coming to?  Why can't we just be free 
of these goddamn punks and freaks cluttering our email with trash!"  He 
nodded righteously, and explained that he'd just subscribed to that 
crypto punk list last week, and he couldn't believe that he had to read 
such shit.

April 1, 1998:  I was reading the newspaper today, and an article caught 
my eye.  It said that a nationwide consortium of ISPs had gotten together 
and banned all email that met a certain basic description.  'Junk Mail' 
they called it, and it ranged from 'unwanted' list mail to anything 
'indecent' or 'obscene' or obvious 'spamming' type email.  Apparently, 
sophisticated lexical gates were being put in place on a huge number of 
servers nationwide to help stop the spam.  I was so happy I almost cried.

April 2, 1998:  The United States Government passed an emergency 
Communication Freedom Act, citing as a primary reason the acts of the 
consortium of ISPs.  The Government cited business interests as a primary 
reason for instituting a change in the policies of the ISPs.  The article 
in today's Times said that the newly formed Bureau of Internet 
Communications Privileges would meet with the consortium of ISPs, as well 
as other ISPs that had not agreed to the terms of the consortium, to work 
out a mandatory, fair and equitable agreement for validation of internet 
materials.  The Government was adamant that business related emails 
should, in some form or fashion, be allowed, even as 'spam', given proper 
certification.  I realized that I didn't mind that email trying to sell 
me a genital enlarger that much after all.

June 4, 1998:  Today at work, Stan, the system admin, held a meeting for 
managers.  He wanted to explain to us the new Government Certification 
System (TM).  The Government instituted a policy and technical 
implementation of it that would have the following features: (1) all 
personal email would be automatically parsed for indecent content in 
accordance with FCC rules, with the exception of 'adult channel' email, 
which required a special fee-based service, also certified by the 
Government, to be attached to one's account.  (2) all business email 
would be queued in a Certification Queue, and would be inspected for 
content if it was registered as 'bulk mail'.  Only companies who 
registered and paid a nominal fee to the Government would be allowed to 
use 'bulk mailing'.  (3) all encryption would have to be done with a 
key-escrowed encryption service.  That would insure that the Government 
could validate Certification on every email.  Incomprehensible email or 
otherwise suspicious email would be subject to instant deletion.  At 
work, things were going smoothly: Susan and Joe had no complaints.  I was 
so relieved that finally the Government had stepped in and fixed the 
Internet.

December 21, 1998:  Today in the Globe, there were two very interesting 
articles about the new Government Certification System.  The first 
article claimed that the system was now completely in place, and had even 
begun having noticeable effects: email and web traffic were down by .25% 
over the last 21 days!  Workplace reports on annoying and harrassing 
email or web content were down dramatically!  Businesses had jumped to 
sign up for certification, and according to the report, the Government 
claimed that the revenues generated were 'at least enough to fund the 
project and associated costs'.  What a relief for the economy!  The 
second article was more scandalous: apparently, 3 women had independently 
reported that President Clinton had 'cybered' with them on IRC chat 
channels.  One woman claims that he even made 'lewd and unbecoming' 
remarks.  The Bureau will be required by a Federal Court to turn over the 
transcripts and any necessary cryptographic keys next Monday for all 
sessions over the last 4 weeks.  This will help confirm or deny the 
allegations being pressed against the president.

January 1, 1999:  As I was walking down the Parade Route this morning, 
the headline on the Times caught my eye: "Group of Cryptographers 
Arrested".  I walked over to the machine and put in some change.  The 
article reported that a group of Cryptographers from the University of 
Berkeley and MIT were arrested on charges of including an unpatented and 
uncertified encryption scheme in freeware products distributed by the 
GNU/FSF.  The four professors claimed that they had repeatedly filed for 
patents but had been denied.  They also explained that the software in 
which the alleged 'cryptography' was bundled in was only for use in 
securing personal home systems from unauthorized personal use.  The 
Government issued a statement to the effect that cryptography is 
cryptography.  I did not really understand the details of the article, 
about the cryptography and the legal arguments and stuff, but I sure was 
mad at those four professors!

January 8, 1999:  What a scandal!  The mayor of Los Angeles was arrested 
today for 'the use and distribution of unauthorized pornography'.  The 
mayor claims that he only sent the pictures to his friend in Sacramento.  
But the law is the law.  The fine is supposed to be $250,000!  I was very 
disappointed in they mayor.  Imagine: SWIMSUIT photos!

January 11, 1999:  I just received my first subscription to Government 
Unix Magazine today.  The feature article was about Linux.  Apparently, 
Linux applied for Government Certification for Use of the Internet for 
Commerical and Distribution Purposes, and was turned down.  Government 
officials said that, "Linux is not a government approved project.  The 
people who wrote linux were a bunch of hackers.  The code is distributed 
for free.  That means anyone can go out there and put viruses and 
encryption right in the software!  How could we certify such a project?"  
In other news, Microsoft, after receiving certification from the 
Government, got permission to sponsor its own Automatic Updates Channel.  
Anyone connected to the internet will be automatically updated with 
upgrades and patches of MS Windows software.  Non-windows users will be 
alerted repeatedly and incessantly by email that they don't have Windows 
until they finally break down and buy it.

January 28, 1999:  Today, two teens were arrested and detained 
indefinitely by undercover agents who claimed that they had intercepted 
an encrypted transmission issuing from one of the teens' computers that 
was encrypted with an unknown protocol.  The transmission was headed for 
Russia, and authorities suspected that the teen was sending sensitive 
information illegally.  When I read the report, my heart filled with 
pride!  Home of the Brave, Land of the Free, the *U* *S* of *A*!