Good aviation forum I found

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.

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...
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.

Of course I am.

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;

What an absurd conclusion. Using your logic, you could justify dress codes
as a preventative measure to rape.

Calling in question one particular proposed solution to a problem in no way
implies a general lack of concern for the problem. To assert otherwise is
to engage in the same sort of "if you're not with us, you're against us"
crap that the war-mongerers engage in.

[...]
Only a reduction in responses to spam will effectively have any impact
on spammers.

Absolutely false. "A reduction" will accomplish nothing. It is true that
"a complete elimination in responses" will have an impact on spammers, but
that's a different goal than "a reduction". We've already had "a
reduction", and we only have MORE spam. In fact, "a reduction" without "an
elimination" only encourages more spam, because as the response rates go
down, the number of spam messages needs to go up in order to maintain or
increase the same total number of responses.

Furthermore, eliminating responses to spam is NOT the only way to have an
impact on spammers. There are other effective means, which have actually
been used successfully so far. We are very early in the fight against spam,
and effective techniques need to be given time to work. But they are
working, and none of the effective techniques involve bothering to try to
get people to not respond to spam.

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.

Again, not true. Rather than lobbying the Usenet community, you could be
lobbying your own politicians to make effective anti-spam laws. "Only
power"? Hardly.

[...]
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.

Don't take it personally. I never called your approach "unreasonable", just
"futile". If you want to keep at it, be my guest. I made a simple comment
about the likelihood of it being useful, nothing more. If you want to turn
it into a big argument, be my guest, but your approach will still remain
futile, and you'll be wasting precious time you could be using to fight spam
on fighting me instead. Now that seems silly.

Pete