KS> If someone really wants to make a fugghead of himself he 
 KS> can do so even on FIDOnet.  All that's required is 
 KS> sufficient supply of bbss carrying the desired echo, so 
 KS> that they can just keep moving from one to the next.

Not necessarily.  Word of a twit gets around quickly in many local nets;
if several local sysops announce trouble with a particular twit, I put
his name in the trashcan file (words nobody can use in their name), and
he can't use a fake either 'cuz if we have his phone number (which I use
for voice-validation).

 KS> In fact if a sysop is careless and doesn't do session level
 KS> passwords, the fugghead can even make up a fake packet 
 KS> with a fake backtrail and dump it on the system.

Any twit THAT knowledgeable and determined won't be stopped by much; if
the locals put up barriers, he'll call LD....

 KS> As for ISPs, it is NOT generally in the sysadmin's best 
 KS> interest to tolerate spam if only because of the 
 KS> mindboggling amount of return mail that it generates.  
 KS> That stuff takes up a lot of space.  

Not a worry if the site HAS a lot of space -- as apparently many of the
ones I have complained to, do!

 DA> ONCE in a while, if you're REALLY lucky, EMAILING their
 DA> postmasters (NOT POSTING A FOLLOWUP!!!) MIGHT do some good.

 KS> However it's best to make sure you got the right target - 
 KS> frequently you get spams with forged returns.  Check path data.

On this side of the gateway, WHAT path data???  All I can check besides
the From or Reply-To is the message-ID....

 KS> Be it noted that the gateop is now filtering out
 KS> most of the spam

THANK YOU, GATEOP!!!

 KS> Many people on the usenet side also have access
 KS> to spam filter software, whereby they can filter out a lot
 KS> of it, using various schemes.  Making it easy to ignore them.

I've even rigged up something (a set of NetMgr scripts plus some batch
file magic) to filter out some spam on this side -- including BOUNCING a
certain misplaced flamewar!

 KS> Or of course..
 KS> (to what I remember of "Bless 'em all", which is probably 
 KS> wrong but what the heck)

 KS> Filk 'em all!
 KS> Filk 'em all!

Er, um, yes, this echo DOES have a topic, sorry... now, to get back on
track....

 Filk up, filk up,
 While I'm in my cups,
 That's a promise, if I can . . . .
___
 * MR/2 2.1 NR *