Mailboming sites for spam

[sn@panix.com (S. Nass/PANIX)]

Someone wrote to postmaster@panix.com and said some folks at
rec.music.gaffa have been talking about mailbombing sites associated
with the magazine spam that surfaced here recently.  I wanted to
address the issue here, because I don't know how many people are
contemplating this, and I would like them to think a little about the
issues involved before they do that.  I'm going to address issues as
they related to PANIX, because I don't know a lot about the other
sites.

Mailbombing the associated sites is a really bad idea. Someone spammed,
not even off our site, pointed it at a trial account on PANIX which we
terminated as soon as we found out, and people want to mailbomb us? I
think those frustrations are misdirected. Why mailbomb a site like
PANIX, where our system rules already prohibit spamming and we've tried
to do what damage control we can? I believe the other sites may also
have been similarly misused.

Think about it this way -- people run a shop, and you go in there
with your brother, and some lunatic tourist who's in the shop
stabs your brother and runs away before anyone can catch him. The
mailbombing threat is like wanting to beat up the shopkeeper. The
lunatic's action is already taking a toll on the shopkeeper, who had
the shop closed while the police came by, had to spend time the
shopkeeper didn't really have talking to the press and helping with the
investigation, and now people want to beat him up? Grief is one
thing, taking it out on the wrong people is another.

Although such mailbombing is trivial for us to deal with, I thought you
might want to consider that mailbombing the associated sites this idiot
used would be taking it out on folks who are also the victims of this
person's idiocy. PANIX is already getting a lot of mail from folks who want
to make sure we're aware. The first piece of e-mail is useful so
we can catch it early, especially to the site the spam originated
on. Having lots of people mailing is is counter-productive, but we
appreciate the intent. Having people mail us malevolently is
inappropriately punative and accomplishes nothing other than  to
allow you to take your aggresions out on people who were not at fault
here.

Sorry to consume even more bandwidth on this, but I wanted people
to think about this, with regard to this spam and future ones.
Please reply by e-mail rather than posting unless you think this
newsgroup has not already seen enough on this subject. -S.
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Simona Nass                                               Staff Account
PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC                 sn@panix.com
-- 
Simona Nass                                               Staff Account
PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC                 sn@panix.com