[109673] in Cypherpunks
freedom of spam (was: Re: benchmark print suplies )
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Zooko Journeyman)
Thu Apr 1 03:57:37 1999
To: Alex de Joode <usura@replay.com>
cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
In-Reply-To: Message from Alex de Joode <usura@replay.com>
of "Wed, 31 Mar 1999 20:09:32 +0200." <199903311809.UAA15632@mail.replay.com>
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 01:32:08 -0700
From: Zooko Journeyman <zooko@wildgoose.tandu.com>
Reply-To: Zooko Journeyman <zooko@wildgoose.tandu.com>
Hey AdJ:
I respect you and the things you do, but I have to say that you
would be wrong to sue this person for their digital
transmissions.
If you do, the Zooko Industries Spam Defense T-Shirt I gave you
at HIP '97 will shrivel up in the wash and all the lettering
will fall off.
I was serious about those silly slogans, you know: "I may
disagree with every spam you send, but I will defend to the
death your right to send it.". [*]
> We are an organization based in The Netherlands, and it
> has come to our attention that someone is using an
> email adress of one of our autoresponder to spam the
> Internet with 'print and toner supply'.
>
> This gives us a bad name, and we have to commit resources
> to deal with all the complaints.
This is a real problem, and I hope you can solve it. Perhaps
you should look for an alternative solution which doesn't
involve all of the expense and uncertainty of employing a
gigantic bureaucratic thug organization to threaten the guy
into shutting up.
I am an absolutist about free speech, but not, like some
people, the sake of absolutism itself or for the sake of moral
simplicity. Instead, I am an absolutist about free speech
because in every case that I am aware of, freedom of speech
provides for better values in the long run than violence-backed
censorship does.
Hopefully your problem, too, can be solved better with a
freedom preserving solution.
Regards,
Zooko, Journeyman Secret Admirer
[*] "to the death" can be understood to be hyperbole here.
I'm not risking my life to defend anybody's freedom of speech
in the forseeable future. Of course, Voltaire didn't take up
arms to defend the unpopular speech of _his_ day, either. But
hopefully with the tools available to us we can accomplish a
lot more through non-violent means than have our predecessors.
P.S. Dear DMV,PhD,KOTM and RW,ofKM: I'm terribly sorry you've
never gotten your Spam Defense shirts. An ex-girlfriend took
one of them (but not because cared strongly about freedom of
spam, I think), and years later I've never brought myself to
send the one remaining shirt to one or the other of you. Hm.
I could, with Solomonic sagacity, cut it in two and mail you
each half...
P.P.S. AdJ: If you describe your problem in more detail maybe
I or some other cypherpunk could help you solve it. One "naive
approach" that comes to mind is "ask the guy to stop".
