[Some compiled submissions... Brad is a provocative and intelligent writer. Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/p-03768.html --Declan] --- Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 13:25:41 -0700 From: Brad Templeton <btat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Subject: Re: FC: Brad Templeton on DOJ "TIPS" informant plan: Operation TIPS-TIPS Organization: http://www.templetons.com/brad Declan, a lot of people sent mail about enjoying the idea of TIPS-TIPS, so to spread the meme further, I made a web page for Operation TIPS-TIPS; http://www.all-the-other-names-were-taken.com/tipstips.html Report suspected citizen informants here! On a more serious note, to read an essay on why surveillance is bad for freedom, called "A Watched Populace Never Boils," go to: http://www.templetons.com/brad/watched.html --- Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 13:19:31 -0700 From: Brad Templeton <bradat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Cc: politechat_private Subject: Re: FC: A defense of David Scott Anderson and resume spamming On Wed, Jul 10, 2002 at 12:15:56PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: > personally, i would not have reported him as a spammer, but deleted the > mail. he is just trying to find a job. many, myself included use free addys > as a privacy and protection measure. otoh, he over reacted to your Job hunting provide an interesting bellweather test on the spam issue. For example, many people seek to define spam as "UCE" and pass laws against that, even though it's pretty easy to demonstrate that it is abuse of bulk mail which is at the heart of the spam problem, since _*true*_ person to person e-mails could never create a sufficient annoyance to be worthy of much attention. A classic E-mail I have received which is banned by such laws goes as follows: "Hi. I've been following your company for some time now. I am particularly interested in the work you have been doing on _X_ and _Y_ and your product _Z_ is I think the best designed in the field. For <various reasons> I think you're doing some of the best thinking in the area. I don't see any open job reqs on your site that match my skills, but nonetheless I think you are the sort of company I would like to work for, and I have the following particular skills. Might you be interested in interviewing me?" Now these letters are not common, but I have gotten them and have interviewed people who sent them. There is no need to ban them but the anti-UCE zeal (as opposed to anti-UBE) has led to it. However, I must take the counter tack on the resume spammer, who is not writing a personal E-mail of this sort, but just blasting mail to people who are not even employers. The argument above forgets one of the core issues at the soul of spam. No one spammer is responsible for ruining E-mail. It's like litter or air pollution. Together, the spammers are making our mailboxes useless. Even if we get rid of the sociopath spammers, we can't allow an exception for those down on their luck. If every mother with a sick child were to mail everybody they could, we would not be able to use our mailboxes. And a mother with a sick child is much more in need than an out of work programmer. There are, unfortunately, a million worthy causes out there, so you can't say, "spam is OK if it's for a worthy cause." Those worthy causes have to find another channel to promote themselves, one meant for many-to-one messaging. E-mail is not it. --- Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 15:30:30 -0700 From: Brad Templeton <bradat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Subject: Re: FC: Internet Society denies press credentials to online publication Message-ID: <20020602153030.B26571at_private> References: <5.1.1.6.0.20020602131818.01a08e98at_private> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20020602131818.01a08e98at_private>; from declanat_private on Sun, Jun 02, 2002 at 04:35:35PM -0400 Organization: http://www.templetons.com/brad X-UIDL: b8c97a6daaa1710d89e73ea759cafe83 I doubt it. Since the dawn of the net, this question has been boiling under the surface. When everybody can be a journalist, the question of the privileges of the press is different from the questions of the freedom of the press. If anybody can be press, you can't give free press passes to events. You can't have everybody crossing the police line or sitting in the press box. I won't pretend I didn't make use of the privileges of the press when I was running an online newspaper. But there will have to be some line. It is important that we pay attention to that line, because many of the privileges of the press are there to protect the freedom of the press. In particular, they are the unelected representatives of the people who go where all the people can't go to let the people know what's going on. If everybody can't go in, somebody has to. This problem has existed for a long time with pool reporting of military actions, where even the big press can't all get access. What's vital is that the government not be allowed to make the arbitrary determination of who is and isn't press. That means there need to be some sort of objective test. For a private society, though, the test is likely to be subjective. --- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Jul 22 2002 - 02:24:46 PDT