[12264] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: ALERT:reducing redundancy on the net
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Roger Bohn)
Thu May 12 04:17:03 1994
Date: Wed, 11 May 1994 18:42:21 -0800
To: Meeks Defense Fund <fund@idi.net>, com-priv@psi.com,
telecomreg@relay.adp.wisc.edu, roundtable@cni.org,
COMMUNET@uvmvm.uvm.edu, alt-politics-datahighway@cs.utexas.edu
From: Rbohn@ucsd.edu (Roger Bohn)
>> You are encouraged to repost this message. But please, we urge
>> you to keep proper Net protocol in mind when reposting or cross
>> posting this message.
I apologize for sending this message to so many groups, but as you'll see,
wide dissemination is relevant to the content.
We all know the story of poor Craig Shergold, who still receives postcards
after many years. Let's start a convention that chain letters like this
have "issue dates" and "expiration dates" on them. That way, even if the
letter bounces around the Net indefinitely (I received a "Send cards to
Craig Shergold" message two months ago), at least the discerning reader
will realize that the message should not be forwarded again. Think of it as
a (beneficial) disease which becomes much less infectious at the expiration
date.
There is no way to get this behavior by sending a message "Brock Meeks
saved; don't send money" to the original address list. The follow-up won't
propogate to the same places. So, if you propogate this Brock Meeks
message, why not stamp "Issued approximately May 10, 1994; do not resend
after October, 1994" on it?
Roger Bohn
"Bandwidth is not free; it only looks that way because someone else is paying."
