On Wed, Dec 03, 1997 at 05:36:37PM -0500, Jim Wise wrote:

> Using the mail system for its intended purpose (sending mail) is not
> theft of service.  If I use your system as a relay without your
> permission, this is theft of service.  If I use your system as an
> originator without your permission, this is theft of service.  If I send
> you mail, this is not theft of service, no matter how badly you don't
> want to receive the mail I'm sending.

There are people who have to pay extra for all foreign data transfers,
including mail.  The more spam is sent to your domain from the US (that's
where most spam originates, anyway), the more you have to PAY.  I really
think this is theft - sending mail at someone else's expense - without
their permission.

> If you don't want to receive mail, take down SMTP.

You know this isn't a real solution.

> If you don't want to receive specific types of
> mail, use procmail.

This doesn't keep the mail from being transferred - so it doesn't help
with the costs at all.  The messages must be stopped _before_ they
cross the border - OR we will have to pay for the data.

This is one reason why I hate spam.  I would hate it even if I didn't
have to pay - here we can put a label on our mailboxes (the real ones)
and tell we don't want to receive ads and other free material - and it
works.  On Internet, you can't do that and that's a problem.  Our law
even says the companies sending ads must say where they got your
address from and you can tell them to stop and/or remove your address
from that list.  So, these spams are kind of illegal here.

  -jm