On Sun 20-Jul-1997  6:15p, John Mudd wrote:
JM> greetings!
JM> sorry to intrude in your thread, but i have my entry for the stupid
JM> question of the week.
hehehe  You're not intruding, everyone is welcome!
JM> in 2500 words or less, what exactly is the meaning of spam?
JM> i have seen th eword used as a noun and a verb. a spam; to be spammed;
JM> to spam, etc. 
John...  I have not been in the echo in a couple days, so I am just now 
catching this (it was also copied to my mailbox where I am reading it now) 
and I am SURE that someone must have told you by now... If not...
SPAM: Useless items posted into echos, newsgroups, mail, that are not on 
topic, have no purpose, and only serve to waste bandwidth and your hard drive 
space.
Usually advertisements from some web page or online service.  Rarely from a 
legit business.  And on the 'net, you will see the same message posted in 
5000 newsgroups at the same time from the same source.
And since this IS a free country, they are FREE to post this crap all they 
want.  BUT!  I FIGHT BACK!
I recently was reading message in a technical newsgroup and what do I get?
When I had downloaded all the articles, along with them came several binary 
files (which is always the case these days), and I had my newsreader setup to 
display binary files (show pictures, sound audiofiles, etc), and guess what?
In the middle of wading through the other spam that my filters didn't catch, 
and picture was displayed.  It was a naked kid, a very young naked kid, and 
someone's hand was in the picture doing unmentionable things to said kid.
I have to say I was offended.  Don't get me wrong.  I am not offended easily, 
and I have even bought pornography.  I have also checked out the nudie pics 
in the alt.binary* newsgroups.  But, that was of my own choice, AND, was from 
areas that *I* was interested in...
Next, this is illegal in just about every country that I know of.  even the 
possession of this sort of material can land your but in jail.  (remember the 
case a few years back where the guy was downloading porn from the internet, 
kiddie porn?  he did some time, and yet the same thing could happen to ANYONE 
who got the same pic that I did)...
I fired off a letter to the ISP of the originator, and was pleased to get a 
reply back telling me (it was carbon copied to 500 other people as well) that 
they did not approve of that activity either, and that they had stopped 
service for the person!!!!!!!!!  yeah, and there was much rejoicing.
To make matters even better, the ISP took it upon themselves to call the 
local authorities (it was in Bologna Italy) and report the incident!
That said...  I think the pornography on the internet is just fine, when it 
is kept the areas it belongs in.  I have always believed that a person with 
children were responsible for what their kids were doing on the computer, and 
if the kids were looking at dirty pictures, it was the parents fault.
I guess if enough people out there post xxx rated pics in childrens areas, we 
WILL see censorship on the net in a big way.  I dread that day.
W5UGD
DR. John M. Hoyt / AKA Warren Peace  -  C-Link! International Coordinator
                                     -  Fido Net 391 NC/EC
--- CNet/4
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