Just re-reading my post. To be clear, I don't mean at all to sound like I'm advocating disrupting the Internet to preserve traditional power bases. Rather, I mean to suggest that we who value democracy and responsibility through decentralization should be aware that there may be incentive for certain bad guys to undermine the Internet and its decentralizing effect. -Hugh _______________________________________________ Hugh Reilly XEN Technology Group | LinuxLab 600 Bay Street, Suite 405 Toronto ON M5R 1G6 tel: 416-204-9951 fax: 416-204-9723 email: info-2K4XOyu7qTosA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org _______________________________________________ http://www.xen.ca | http://www.linuxlab.ca

From: "Hugh Reilly" <hughreilly1-PkbjNfxxIARBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org> Reply-To: tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org To: tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org Subject: Re: [TLUG]: SOT: shitfs in spam trends and topics Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2003 10:10:46 -0500

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From: Matthew Rice <matt-s/rLXaiAEBtBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org> Are you suggesting that we are receiving unintelligible e-mail because some group [terrorists, fbi, cia, csis] are trying to send messages to each other. Do you supposed that they are sending a lot of them and getting the e-mail addresses wrong or that they are sending a lot of them to confuse the trail to the intended recipient?

If you were to ask me, I'd say that this is similar to the book _Snow Crash_. Microsoft is sending out these seemingly unintelligible e-mails and anyone that looks at them has their brain 're-wired' into liking M$.

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you."

A couple of notes to feed the paranoia: 1. One of my jobs is to handle incoming customer email at the Toronto Sun. Of course, 90%+ is spam. Many of these messages contain "nonsense" verbiage, I think designed to outfox spam blocking. But reading this "nonsense" can often give the impression that the creator is not operating in a strictly mercantile role.

2. A few years ago, I presented a paper at the McLuhan Program on the "Information Ecology", wherein I described how the emerging Internet was a radically decentralizing force which was undermining traditional power structures, and that disrupting the Internet was a logical strategy for maintaining traditional power base. It seems the spam epidemic is certainly undermining the value of email. For example, I now tell Sun customers that "just because you sent the email is no guarantee that we received the email". If spam blocking becomes the norm, we can expect that 5% +/- of legitimate emails just won't get through.

-Hugh

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