[12191] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
"Arizona Lawyers Form Company..."
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Mon May 9 03:38:40 1994
Date: Mon, 9 May 1994 00:50:17 -0400
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Cc: walkerl@iscmed.med.ge.com, com-priv@psi.com, internauts@mr.med.ge.com
In-Reply-To: "Rob Raisch, The Internet Company"'s message of Sun, 8 May 1994 13:32:21 -0700 (PDT) <Pine.3.85.9405081349.A358-0100000@hmmm>
>From: "Rob Raisch, The Internet Company" <raisch@internet.com>
> This would suggest to me that the next most visible target for
>mail bombing would be their service provider, and this I think is the tact
>that will prove an efficient strategy against C&S' particular brand of
>socially unacceptable behavior. I would imagine that Marty Schoffstall
>will have something to say about C&S' behavior when PSI's livelihood is
>threatened.
I'm gonna argue against this suggestion...
Here we all pride ourselves on how the net is sort of an anarchy,
certainly an open place, and we don't need no mommy (happy mother's
day mom!) or daddy, and then the first person who does something we
don't approve of and wham, we're looking for an authority figure to
blame it on (in this case PSI) and try to force to make it all better.
It's just an act of frustration, no? Surely there has to be some
better way to deal with such trespasses than simply looking for some
target of convenience and saying "fix it or we'll kill your dog*!"
Now how about if the collective mind of internet sits down and thinks
for a few minutes on what can and should be done about these things
other than just sticking someone else with the problem?
Otherwise this begins to just sound like the Hatfields vs the McCoys.
Worst of all, you know the wrong someone is going to get shot in any
vigilante scenario. I know, I've had it done to me.
Some guy recently was absolutely livid, he wanted the state militia
out, he wanted the FBI, he wanted to kill, you could sense it in his
notes to us. It was about some customer here posting ads "for cars in
his used car lot" on a forsale group. Well, I looked into it, the guy
just owned three or four cars personally he wanted to get rid of, they
were his personal cars, they were registered in his name, what's the
problem? This other guy just jumped to the conclusion that if someone
was selling four cars then *obviously* this was abuse of the net,
obviously someone who just can't conceive of one human being owning
four cars I guess.
Even when I thought I had it cleared up he wouldn't back off really
and kept babbling about the moral equivalent of a used car lot or some
such nonsense. I mean, who gets to play god and tell a person like
this that his neurons need a lube or maybe replacement with
factory-certified parts? So what do you encourage him to do? Mail bomb
us because he's too pigheaded to admit he made a mistake or just has
such a hatred of people who sell cars or something that he figures
he's right regardless of the facts? There's a reason why courts etc
have process and procedure.
Ya know, sometimes people are wrong or over-react or whatever. I mean,
I guess that guy in LA who shot someone else in traffic thought he was
right also, at least at the moment. I have little doubt the other guy
cut him off or whatever, but c'mon.
There has to be a better way.
* Or whatever, on the internet you can never be quite sure.
-Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die | bzs@world.std.com | uunet!world!bzs
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