posted 02-23-2004 08:01 PM               

February 23, 2004

To all:

Three or four years ago, it was branded as an "internet hoax". It was condemned as such, for example, in sites like www.snopes.com. Now, it has re-emerged, with apparent initiative behind it, namely, the prospect of having to pay for using email.

Originally, it was suggested that the Post Office, fearing a fall-off in their own services, proposed a charge on the use of email, commensurate with the charge for physical mails. That was roundly denounced as nothing more than a fabrication, by "those in the know".

In the Monday, February 23, 2004, edition of The Star Ledger - available through www.nj.com - can be seen the article, glibly entitled: "If a check's in the e-mail, maybe spam won't be". It details the recommendation, by none less than Bill Gates, that, to combat spamming through email, charges should be levied for its use, similar to buying a stamp for a letter through the Post Office! The "argument" given is that: "the new federal 'Can-Spam' law" is "failing to curb junk e-mail."

"If there's at least some cost to it", Jim Nail, an analyst at Forrester Research is quoted as saying, "they will have to stop and think about it." Nail is depicted as fearing that "spam could kill e-mail."

The article then obligatorily observes that as many as one quarter of all internet users "are throttling back e-mail use in disgust", and that: "A record 60 percent of all e-mail was unwanted junk last month", according to Brightmail, which bills itself as an "anti-spam company".

In the: "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, flies like a duck, migrates like a duck and lays eggs like a duck" vein, it has all the appearance that the earlier threat was, indeed, true! Astonished, perhaps, by the strength of outcry among computer users, the government may have backed off. But they never seem to let hold of an idea that promises them the chance to pocket more taxpayer dollars. But the dodge of "protecting the Post Office" didn't seem to fly, so they evidently had to come up with a new one.

Enter the concept of spam. For that matter, apparently, enter spam! There was not a great deal of reference to spam in the years before the Post Office "hoax", even though email had already been around for some time! And that seems to be because there was not that much spam, at that time! Spamming seems to have exploded only in the past few years. Just in time, it seems, for government to use it as an "excuse" to attach usage rates to email!

And don't think at least a part of the proposed new charge won't go to government! Anyone who thinks that corporations and the government don't have their hands in each other's pockets, but amicably, they, evidently, haven't seen much of government in operation for the past century or so! Even if Microsoft were to claim the new charge for themselves, it would, eventually, go into "federal initiatives to curb continuing spam usage"!

And don't think that won't go into political cronies' pockets!

But, as with all evident fraud, the deceit always pokes out through the holes in their story!

Among other things is the sheer description of the "problem"! In truth, how many can truthfully claim themselves to have been as put upon by spam as is claimed by the apparent co-conspirators in this swindle? How many, really, can say they've "cut back on email use" simply because spam messages came in? You just delete them, that's all. Someone comfortable enough with their computer to use it for emailing would be equally comfortable with getting rid of spam! Are you reduced to a sodden mess at the prospect of having to throw junk mail away, when you receive it? In short, there is, to start, no evident grounds - or even truth - to the "official" claim of spam being unpleasant for email users!

And, for that matter, spammers are already "paying" to send emails. It's the charge everyone pays, in one form or another, for internet connection! There would be no legitimacy to assaying a new charge. And, if they can afford large-scale operations to send out so many messages, they could handle the new charge more readily than someone who uses emails for regular communications, and such!

And, for that matter, why should another tactic come into play? Why isn't the "Can-Spam" initiative working? Supposedly, sending spam now has jail time associated with it! Why isn't it being levied against perpetrators? The "excuse" might go that not enough people are putting themselves on the "No Spam" list, for the spammers to be prosecuted. But, then, that is the computer user’s prerogative! If they don't go on the "No Spam" list, it's because the spam doesn't bother them as much as the apologists for this new proposal are - evidently fraudulently! - suggesting! The government, then, is taking on the role it so often claims to oppose, namely, protecting people from something they don't mind!

But it is, apparently, the very root story of spam that seems to offer the largest holes in the case for email charges! Among other things, as mentioned in the article, spam seems to boil down into three distinct categories: cheap prescription drugs; sexual enhancement therapies; and Nigerian schemes. But the people offering anything illicit or illegal through these are very profit-minded, themselves. If the schemes didn't work, they would have pulled out long ago! And there is little record, if any at all, of computer users being un-savvy enough to have fallen for any swindle through emails! For that matter, too, if stopping the spammers was so important, why doesn't the government legislate for back-tracking methodologies that could allow the tracing out of someone who sent an unwanted email? Simply send the email, with any and all attachments, to some government website, and let them find out who sent them! The Post Office seems very successful at requiring that business mail pay certain fees; such a system could, presumably, control unwanted business email without putting a weight on the non-commercial user. Why can’t government do that? One reason they might not is that they, themselves, are deluging computer users with the spam!

For that matter, it should be mentioned, the “argument” about the Post Office suffering due to email seems equally spurious. Since the dawn of email, the price for letters has increased at least 10%, at about 2 cents more, every couple of years, or so. In addition to that, though, charges on packages have all but skyrocketed! Package rates rise, regularly, now, about every couple of years, or so, too. Also, the “system” with packages rates involves something they call “zones”. Depending on how far a “zone” is from you, even in this country, the rate can quadruple from what’s listed! But, while the “system” will tell you how much you pay to send a package to a particular “zone”, they make it particularly difficult to find out which “zone” different locations are, compared to you!

Equally suspicious is Microsoft's place in suggesting this new move! Placing charges on emails would only threaten the popularity of one of the company's offerings, and no company that got as big as they did legitimately ever did so by encouraging something that would restrict interest in something they were selling!

But, it is through the uncanny coincidence of the torrent of spam with the retrenchment from the earlier suggestion; the fact that government seems to have enacted no useful measures to really try and address the matter; and the fact that, using complaints in a completely unique way - namely, as an incentive for actually, supposedly, "improving" people's lives! - that government is taking us back to the very same spot they were at, several years ago!

Advance to the rear!

This is, though, beginning to look like only part of an overall action by Microsoft to gain unethically broad control over more than just its part of the marketplace. In the article, Microsoft Creates a Stir In Its Work With the U.N.”, in the Monday, February 23, edition of The New York Times, a $1 billion “gift” from the company to the U.N., putatively as part of a job-training program for the developing world , was described as accompanied by surreptitious contributions to a United Nations business standards group. It is asserted that Microsoft is trying to “undercut support for a set of business-to-business electronic transaction standards developed by the United Nations and an industry-sponsored international standards group.” In short, Microsoft seems to have set its sights on controlling all communication, by computer.

They led the way in opening up the internet, and, now, they want to turn it into the “information toll road”! If they even allow you admission to the system at all! And don’t expect government not to be working with them in the evident attempt to yoke all form of communication!

There is no reason not to see the spam situation as government inspired, even, likely, government enacted, to pave the way for assaying charges on email usage! There is no reason not to assume that the government itself has been the source of the spam, to inspire distaste for it, and calls to the government to act to stop it! Whatever way they choose to! The use of emails to maintain the communications that have disseminated embarrassing and even personally incriminating material government evidently doesn't want known, as well as its place in facilitating letters to the editor, and such, seem an eminent reason for a dictatorship posing as a "democracy" to seek to squelch the system!

And this administration does, apparently, have a proclivity for abridging Constitutional freedoms! Among other things, they established a system of, essentially, "No Free Speech Zones" near wherever the president is to show up. Officially designated "Free Speech Zones", where protestors can carry signs condemning the president's actions, are usually set up a mile or more away! Where the president is to be, however, no “expression” except for blind, mindless, soulless, slavish worship of Bush policies is permitted! To even just carry a sign criticizing the president in a "No Free Speech Zone" is to risk arrest, and several people have been hauled in for just that! A sixty-year-old engineer was one case, and two nuns were another!

Welcome to America!

This seems only another step in a plan to abolish free speech altogether!

To assert that this is not a government plan has, apparently, no more validity than asserting, three or four years ago, that it was just a “hoax”!

But this means that, among other things, letters to the editor, can be a potent force to stop this apparent missile aimed at freedom of speech. Letters to the editor, even to editors of newspapers not in your area, or even your state, can, apparently, have a significant effect. Writing to your mayor, your governor, your Senators and your Congressmen can equally well inform them of the fact that you view this askance, if not with extreme suspicion! This is supposed to be a government of the people, but, it can be said, that can’t happen unless the people get involved, at least to indicate when something is unfair to them!

posted 02-23-2004 08:17 PM            

Havent had a spam problem in quite a while...in fact..I have no idea how much spam im actually getting.