On Wed, 24 May 2006 15:58:22 -0700, "Peter Duniho"
wrote in
::

The only thing Larry is wrong about here is his misguided attempt to try to
get people to stop responding to spam.

Perhaps you are able to suggest a superior course of assault on
spammers.

Not that he's incorrect about the underlying facts, but that it's futile to
even attempt to do so.

With reasoning like that, there's no need for laws in this nation of
ours; we should just open our borders and let the flood of immigrants
overwhelm our nation's systems of justice and social services.
Futility be dammed; I'll resist in any way I can, rather than submit
to criminality.

Spammers, taking advantage of Internet bandwidth paid for by everyone else, need only
the very tiniest response rate. Larry could get everyone he contacts to
stop replying, have them get everyone THEY contact to stop replying, and
have everyone those contacts contact to stop replying, and it still wouldn't
make a dent in the incentive to spam.

Only a reduction in responses to spam will effectively have any impact
on spammers. While you may well be correct in you analysis of
futility in the scenario you put forth, it is the only power we have
at this time. Perhaps, when/if the IP address assignment scheme is
ever improves so that unassigned IP address traffic is routed to
dev/null, there may be a better course of action. Until that time, I
believe we all have a responsibility not to reward spammers by so much
as opening their unsolicited e-mail or clicking a link in the Usenet
articles.

Just because you feel that such a course is futile, does not make it
unreasonable considering the present lack of alternative actions
available at this time.