From alan@curry.epilogue.com Fri Nov 3 02:39:27 1995 Return-Path: Received: from curry.epilogue.com by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for /com/archive/cube-lovers id AA16466; Fri, 3 Nov 95 02:39:27 EST Received: (from alan@localhost) by curry.epilogue.com (8.6.8/8.6.6) id CAA18206; Fri, 3 Nov 1995 02:39:27 -0500 Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 02:39:27 -0500 Message-Id: <3Nov1995.011909.Alan@LCS.MIT.EDU> From: Alan Bawden Sender: Cube-Lovers-Request@ai.mit.edu To: Cube-Lovers@ai.mit.edu In-Reply-To: Kathryn Kelly's message of Fri, 3 Nov 1995 01:00:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: Magazine Spam First off, let me apologize for sending a message that has nothing whatsoever to do with Rubik's Cube. But I know from private electronic mail that many of you were very annoyed by the six copies of the "magazine club" advertisement that were distributed through Cube-Lovers during the last month. I've been urging people to just sit tight and ignore the messages, because it wasn't entirely clear where the mail was actually coming from. All that appeared certain was that the ads were being gatewayed through an Internet Service Provider in New York named "American Network, Inc" (domain name IXC.NET). Recently I've been talking to the responsible folks at American Network. They are quite apologetic about the whole thing, but apparently the miscreant is working through accounts that they give away free for the asking. So they actually have no way to track the jerk down. They don't even know how many of their accounts might all belong to the same person! This whole experience has apparently woken them up to what a -bad- idea that is, and they're going to stop. Besides cleaning up their act about granting free anonymous accounts, they also tracked down the post office box number that the miscreant uses for his business. And they have a request: Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 01:00:07 -0500 (EST) From: Kathryn Kelly ... We wish you to do something for us. We have the address where the individual sending out this material receives his physical mail. Please send a letter of complaint to the postmaster at Postmaster Staten Island NY 10312 Regarding the person at this address: Magazine Club Inquiry Center Att. Internet Services Department P. O. Box 120990 Staten Island NY 10312 0990 So those of you who really want to complain to somebody, here's your chance. Compose a nice letter to the Postmaster at the address above explaining that the folks running the business at that P.O.Box are engaging in anti-social behavior on the Internet. Unfortunately, I don't believe there is anything -illegal- about what this jerk is doing (although it is closely analogous to some things that are illegal to do with a telephone), so it wont work to demand that the Postmaster actually -do- anything, but work up a good complaint anyway. Finally, I urge you all -not- to respond to this message in public. If you have further thoughts on Internet advertising, electronic mailing list administration, or clever acts of revenge, you can send them to -me-, but don't CC your message to Cube-Lovers as a whole. The whole point here is to keep Cube-Lovers relatively free of off-topic mail. As the list administrator I get to send out occasional administrivia such as this message because I do actual -work- to keep the list running. And yes, I am still working on some new list management technology that should eliminate problems like this in the future. (And yes, I know all about MajorDomo, listserv, and their relatives -- you don't need to enlighten me about them.) - Alan (Cube-Lovers-Request@AI.MIT.EDU) (I never imagined when Dave Plummer and I started this list in 1980 that one day I'd be spending significant time trying to prevent people from using it to sell magazines. Amazing.)