In article
>
A newsweekly article, Karen, is a work of radical compression. I know all
about Monty Python, but that's as close as I could get in seven words or
less. You're supposed to be a writer; let's see you do better.
In article
Howzabout "Large numbers of identical articles in public discussion areas?"
Seems to me that would also be a Good Thing in terms of not disseminating
more misinformation about things like the distinction between mail and
news... which I'm sure you have a handle on. Don't you consider it good
practice to print correct information?
Oh, wait... seven words. Hmmm. Here are some ideas:
Too bad I don't identify myself primarily as a writer. ;-)
Hope this helps. Still, I must admit you've come a ways since the "meat
tossed into a fan so it fills up the air" episode.
In article <4i9c57$5rh@seagull.acs.brockport.edu>
erik@seagull.acs.brockport.edu (erik seielstad) writes:
Here I'd say the mailbombing was simply accomplished by
different means than the traditional mailing of core files.
PED's "authoritative" definition just makes him looks silly to
those of us who know better. It's not that it's *so wrong*, it's that
the "accent" is so *off*, immediately revealing him to be really far out
of his depth. It's like a old dad trying to pal with his teen son using
teen slang, "Hey son, my day at work today was just so *radical*, dude".
Well, you can go off on a long linguistic discussion of what "radical"
means, and maybe formally a case can be made for the usage, but it's
just obvious he's slumming, and trying to cop a cool he doesn't
have.
I think far too big a deal is being made of it, but since PED's
reputation is so low, I fully understand why this is happening. At
another level, he's like Inspector Clouseau:
"I am the victim of a SPIM!" "A spam you say?" "Yes, a SPIM!".
The general goofiness and confusion evident in his column also adds to
this impression.
But Clouseau was a movie character, and PED's a _Time_
editor. Scary.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (ped@well.com) wrote:
"Time prides itself on providing some of the best Internet coverage in
the business," Time wrote in their July 3rd issue. "But then, we have an
unfair advantage. His name is Philip Elmer-DeWitt."
That was, of course, the "Cyberporn!" issue.
In <4i6nsa$6pm@seaweed.acs.brockport.edu>
erik@seaweed.acs.brockport.edu (erik seielstad) writes:
>I'll stand with Ped on this - If you asked 90% of the internet
I believe you are gravely mistaken about the problem here.
The problem isn't that PED was not "spammed". He was, stretching
the term only slightly.
The problem is that both you and PED are missing the fact that
I had higher hopes for you, though.
[ I added misc.news.internet.discuss ]
In <96071.105547DWM7@psuvm.psu.edu> Dinty W. Moore
>Re Spam: spam began as cross-posted Usenet messages, then grew
to
And if you look carefully at PED's postings, you will note that he
himself does not seem to realize that "spam" has traditionally referred
to Usenet postings, and that its use to refer to email is very
recent.
>A reporter from NBC News called me the other day, asking about online
Usenet users recognize reporters for the inaccurate slime that
they often are. Since this is an uncontrolled, unedited medium,
inaccurate journalism is quickly exposed. Reporters are not used to
having their errors publicly pointed out. In traditional print
journalism the readers see only what the magazine chooses to publish.
On Usenet readers see anything anybody wishes to show them -- including
those who think some journalist made a boo-boo.
So Usenetters are well aware of just how inaccurate and sloppy typical
journalism is. They are therefore reluctant to talk with reporters.
They know they will almost certainly be misquoted. And they know that
a retraction will almost certainly not appear.
Reporters interpret all this as defensiveness. The reporter in
question could have been more objective and asked you questions that
did not assume that Internet lovers are defensive. Instead, he make
sure he would be proven right. I would not be surprised if he
imagined the conversation going thus:
>If we attack the reporters who are trying to cover the Net, we will
Your TIME articles constantly confuse between the two. It seems to me
that you yourself are not sure whether the two are the same thing or
different things.
I won't insist that you use the terms with the "correct" meanings. No
matter what the meanings turn out to be, I know you will come up with
something different and then post fifteen articles about how you are
right and how so-and-so used some term with such-and-such meaning. (I
haven't forgotten about your silly claim that the flooding algorithm
used by Usenet makes porn "pervasive".)
All I ask that whatever meanings you assign to the terms "Usenet" and
"the Intenet", you be consistent with yourself.
You started out by referring to "Internet jargon" when defining spam.
Now you're talking about Usenet's reputation. How about if you stick
to one of these terms in any given discussion? This constant switching
between the two is not only confusing to your readers, but also makes
your own lack of confidence in your knowledge quite apparent.
If you would like to see some examples, of consistent usage, just
observe what I write. When referring to both, I say "Usenet and the
Internet". When referring specifically to one of them and not
necessarily the other, I use the specific term. And when arguing about
one, I argue about *it*, not one or the other randomly. I of course
believe that the two are not the same thing.
You don't have to. But if you choose to believe they are the same
thing, wouldn't it make more sense to just use one of the terms and not
the other?
*Sigh* I realize I'm talking to a journalist.
> : I'd heard about "spam"--Internet jargon for machine-generated junk mail...
>
> Oh for chrissakes, Phil, don't you even know the proper definition of spam?--
Philip Elmer-DeWitt ped@well.com
TIME Magazine www.pathfinder.com
From: abbyfg@tezcat.com (Abby Franquemont-Guillory)
Newsgroups:
alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.culture.internet,alt.culture.usenet
Subject: Re: From TIME: Elmer-DeWitt Gets Spammed
Date: 11 Mar 1996 13:15:54 -0600
Organization: Breakfast at Tezcat.
>In article
Many identical articles in public discussion areas
Identical articles posted many times (Oooh! Five words!)
Multiple identical posts (Three! Three words! Ooh!)--
________________________________________________________________________
Abby Franquemont-Guillory "You're the Lord of Darkness? Big deal.
abbyfg@tezcat.net What was your username again?"
From: sethf@athena.mit.edu (Seth Finkelstein)
Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.culture.internet,misc.news.internet.discuss
Subject: Re: From TIME: Elmer-DeWitt Gets Spammed
Date: 14 Mar 1996 19:35:18 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>Seth Finkelstein (sethf@athena.mit.edu) wrote:
>: On the other hand, I think in this case his error worked in our
>: favor. If he really did use the correct term - "mailbomb", he would stir
>: up impressions of physical bombs and the Unabomber.
>
> but he wasn't mailbombed either. He was secretly subscribed to
>mailing lists. Nobody SENT mail to ped (or the other 35 people
I think "mailbomb" is a better fit, on the concept of "having
one's mailbox made useless by sheer volume", versus "spam", the core
concept of which I take to be "multiple instances of *the same item*".
Some people seem to be saying common usage is mutating "spam" into "any
large-scale interference", removing the previously critical element of
multiple copies of the same item. Maybe, after this _Time_ column,
that's so :-).--
Seth Finkelstein sethf@mit.edu
Disclaimer : I am not the Lorax. I speak only for myself.
(and certainly not for Project Athena, MIT, or anyone
else).
From: destiny@crl.com (David Cassel)
Newsgroups:
alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.culture.internet,alt.culture.usenet
Subject: Re: From TIME: Elmer-DeWitt Gets Spammed
Followup-To:
alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.culture.internet,alt.culture.usen
et
Date: 11 Mar 1996 23:33:02 -0800
Organization: CRL Network Services (415) 705-6060 [Login:
guest]
: A newsweekly article, Karen, is a work of radical compression.
[...]
: that's as close as I could get in seven words or less.: --
: Philip Elmer-DeWitt ped@well.com
: TIME Magazine www.pathfinder.com
From: Rahul Dhesi
Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.culture.internet
Subject: Re: From TIME: Elmer-DeWitt Gets Spammed
Date: 14 Mar 1996 06:34:48 GMT
Organization: a2i network
>community they'd probably agree he was spammed.using a word with one of its many meanings
is not the same thing asleading the reader to believe that the word is defined to
have only one meaning.
I don't expect PED to under the difference. it's moderately subtle and
therefore beyond his grasp.
--
Rahul Dhesi
From: Rahul Dhesi
Newsgroups:
alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.culture.internet,misc.news.intern
et.discuss
Subject: Re: From TIME: Elmer-DeWitt Gets Spammed
Date: 11 Mar 1996 22:27:15 GMT
Organization: a2i network
>include multiple e-mails, and I see no reason why it shouldn't
apply to
>machine-generated listserv e-mailbox stuffing. In fact, I
think PED was
>right on the mark here.
PED's readers now know an inaccurate definition of "spam". It's one
thing to use a word in a narrow context with one of its several
meanings. It's another to fool readers into learning an inaccurate and
incomplete definition.
>addiction, and one of the first questions out of his mouth was "Why are
>Internet lovers so defensive?"
Are those exactly his words? He seemed to have asked a very leading
question.
Reporter: Why are Internet lovers so defensive?
You: Well, they really are not.
Reporter: See what I mean?
>insure that only reporters who know nothing about the Net will write
>about it.
Regrettably, with the exception of a few publications (e.g. Wired and
Internet World), it's the rule rather than the exception that only
reporters who know nothing about the Net are writing about it. There are
not many exceptions. PED is not one of them.
--
Rahul Dhesi
From: destiny@crl.com (David Cassel)
Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.culture.internet,misc.news.internet.discuss
Subject: Re: From TIME: Elmer-DeWitt Gets Spammed
Date: 15 Mar 1996 16:42:41 -0800
Organization: CRL Dialup Internet Access (415) 705-6060 [Login: guest]
Seth Finkelstein (sethf@athena.mit.edu) wrote:
: >PED's readers now know an inaccurate definition of "spam". It's one
: >thing to use a word in a narrow context with one of its several meanings.
: On the other hand, I think in this case his error worked in our
: favor. If he really did use the correct term - "mailbomb", he would stir
: up impressions of physical bombs and the Unabomber.
E-MAIL BOMBERS TARGET THE PRESIDENT -- AND A TIME EDITOR
That was the description in the Table of Contents. (Just saw it today...)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
"For the record, the cyberporn issue sold like shit." Philip Elmer-DeWitt
From: Rahul Dhesi
Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.culture.internet,alt.culture.usenet
Subject: Re: PED missed this
Date: 14 Mar 1996 20:27:41 GMT
In
>Ever wonder why Usenet has such a great rep in the rest of the world?
Would you please be consistent? If you believe that "Usenet" and "the
Internet" are synonyms, I suggest picking one of the two terms and
always using it. if you believe they are different, please use the
appropriate term.--
Rahul Dhesi
Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.aol-sucks
From: dporter@skyenet.net (Don Porter)
Subject: Re: Internet World May: Editor's Notes
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 22:55:02 GMT
In article <317a3804.663241@news.panix.com>,
eric@panix.com (Eric Berlin) wrote:
>Now you're just in a plain bad mood, right? Clearly you don't
>believe that IW thinks Spam is *good.* The story--if I'm not
>mistaken--is simply that Spam has been more or less grudingly
>accepted, and no longer does each new stupid Spam begin a wave of
>revolt along the lines of C&S.
Geez, Eric, I sure hope IW doesn't take that tack in its forthcoming
article. For one, I don't think it's accurate. As far as I'm concerned,
there's been no acceptance, grudging or otherwise, of Spam on the Net. I
still consider it so much garbage and try to give it a decent burial when I
run across it.
What your editors may seem as "acceptance" is much more likely resignation
in the face of there being so many idiots out there who think of the Net as
their personal road to riches. It's a recognition that we're fighting an
uphill and, perhaps, losing battle. But acceptance? No way!
From: stile@ionet.net (Howard Wilson)
Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.aol-sucks
Subject: Re: Internet World May: Editor's Notes
Followup-To: alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.aol-sucks
Date: 23 Apr 1996 10:44:36 GMT
Organization: Internet Oklahoma
Eric Berlin (eric@panix.com) wrote:
:
: Now you're just in a plain bad mood, right? Clearly you don't
: believe that IW thinks Spam is *good.* The story--if I'm not
: mistaken--is simply that Spam has been more or less grudingly
: accepted, and no longer does each new stupid Spam begin a wave of
: revolt along the lines of C&S.
Look, I respect both of you, and Internet World, but you can stop the bullshit
right now, and remove the wool from your eyes right now. It has NOT been
"grudgingly accepted", or in any other way accepted. The battle is
being waged daily. The fact that we are superior to the spammers does not
mean we have accepted it. The last spammer similar to C&S was little Jeffy
Slaton, who stopped spamming (then tried to start email spam). He is
currently being investigated in New Mexico. The postal service is collecting
information on the magazine scam Krazy Kevin has been engaging in.
"Accepted" is not the word for it. Currently we have the upper hand in
regards to spam, and I will thank you both to NOT encourage it.
Howard
--
Minister of All Things Digital & Electronic, and Holder of Past Knowledge
stile@ionet.net Cabal# 24601-fnord | "And my soul from out that shadow that
I speak for no one but myself, and | lies floating on the floor, shall be
no one else speaks for me. O- | lifted --- nevermore! - The Raven
This account does not speak for ioNET in any way.
From: trebor@sirius.com
Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.aol-sucks
Subject: Re: Internet World May: Editor's Notes
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 08:04:12 -0700
Organization: Sirius Connections
herriman@cris.com (Richard Cretan) wrote:
>eric@panix.com (Eric Berlin) wrote:
>>The story--if I'm not mistaken--is simply that Spam has been more or less
>>grudingly accepted,
>I wasn't in a bad mood, but you're putting me in one with this
>nonsense. Spam hasn't been "grudgingly accepted." Who in the world
>told you that? If there hasn't been a daily "revolt along the lines
>of C&S," it is because there better means for dealing with it in the
>form of cancels and administrative discipline of account holders.
>That's anything but acceptance -- it's action.
I have yet to see a single post agreeing with this magazine's position on
spam.
Accepted? *boggle*
From: destiny@crl.com (David Cassel)
Newsgroups: alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.aol-sucks
Subject: Re: Internet World May: Editor's Notes
Followup-To: alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.aol-sucks
Date: 25 Apr 1996 14:17:59 -0700
Organization: alt.aol-sucks Anti-Defamation League
Claude D. Bilbo (cbilbo@bham.mindspring.com) wrote:
: Perhaps now would be a good time to ask the magazine to explain their
: own definition of SPAM.
"Oh for chrissakes, Phil, don't you even know the proper definition of spam?"
A little more than a month ago this came up in alt.internet.media-coverage.
Karen Heyman complained that "I've Been Spammed" by Philip Elmer-DeWitt
showed Time's Senior Technology Editor didn't understand his topic. (The
author of Time's "Cyberporn" cover story was writing about forged mailing
list subscriptions, but calling the resultant deluge "spam".)
Philip (again) complained that the internet was being picky, but others
pointed out that the word "spam" is a part of internet culture. A common
language -- shared words with clearly-defined meanings -- held together a
community which spans all ages and geographic locations.
Mixed in with some Orwellian talk about "whoever controls the words
controls the thoughts" was a good discussion. (Read it at
http://www.crl.com/~destiny/aimcspam.htm.)
And that's my point. That's Usenet's great strength. A major commercial
magazine ran a headline that said "E-mail Bombers Target the President" --
and a bunch of people jumped on him.
The article went on to say that "Gene Steinberg, a free-lance writer from
Scottsdale, Arizona, is convinced he made the hit list because he publicly
defended America Online on a Usenet newsgroup called alt.aol-sucks." To
hear Time tell it, Steinberg, a biased AOL-booster and AOL Forum Host, was
terrorized for offering a different opinion. Others think Steinberg
cooked up a wild story and ran crying to Time because...a bunch of people
jumped on him.
In any case, once again alt.aol-sucks is at the nexus of commercial
services, the internet, and the media. The Wall Street Journal quoted two
of its participants-- Ascirider (9/8/95) and Mimi Kahn (1/18/96). The San
Francisco Examiner quoted alt.aol-sucks posts requesting AOHell as
evidence that a hacker crackdown was working--then backpedalled when other
alt.aol-sucks posters contacted them, running "Hackers Still Plaguing
America Online" four weeks later.
Playboy, Time, Gannett News Services...all recognize that with a mixed
collection of individuals grouping around the same topic, you can get alot
of noise--and some invaluable information.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt chooses to hide out on "The Well"--a premium service
offering Usenet-style boards with a hefty cover charge. The exclusivity
offered by this media watering hole shields him from the noise, and the
flames.....
....and learning the proper definition of spam.
destiny@crl.com /\ Time magazine and alt.aol-sucks: the connections
/ \ http://www.crl.com/~destiny/time.htm
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