Arthur S. Alexion on 11 Feb 2004 03:58:02 -0000


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Re: [PLUG] VoiceNet Rumors?


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On Tuesday 10 February 2004 08:49 pm, gabriel rosenkoetter wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 09:34:55AM -0500, Arthur S. Alexion wrote:
> 
> > I haven't logged on to usenet for at least six or seven years.  My
> > recollection of those times, however, was theat there were a few new
> > groups every time I logged on.
>
> Your recollection is correct. But the newsgroups implied in the
> article about the Voicenet case have been around since the early
> '90s, so the suggestion that a new group slipped through is an
> inadequate defense in their case. (Imho, the right thing for
> Voicenet--or their child company, whoever's actually the plaintiff--
> to do is plead guilty to whatever lesser offense they can get this
> down to so that no one ends up in jail and they don't wind up in
> financial ruin. Then they need to clean up their act: we're talking
> about five minutes of INN configuration here. They should have
> already done this, provided they're not prevented from doing so by
> some sort of gag order. Suing the news station, if they really
> didn't notify Voicenet of the situation in advance of showing up
> at the same time that police cruisers did, is something only worth
> attempting if Voicenet is sure they're right.)
>
> > Sorry for nit-picking, but even at the five a week
> > rate you mention, that comes to over 250 a year, an addition for each and
> > every business day.
>
> But the default for INN is to NOT accept new group feeds. Also, the
> new groups that pop up weekly are almost never porn. They're about
> new computer games, new comics, new discussion groups. Simply never
> adding new groups is one option, adding only those that their users
> request is another, taking a glance and deciding which may interest
> any of their users and accepting those is the Right Thing to Do.
>
>
> Having one vaguely pornographic image of a child pop up in
> alt.lifestyle.furrie (I don't think that exists, and I'm not
> checking) wouldn't resulting in the firestorm we're hearing about.
> Carrying alt.binaries.pictures.preteen would (and rightly so).

Thanks.  (a) It's been a long time since I had any experience with newsgroups, 
and (b) I never understood how they worked when I did look at them.

My skepticism here comes from seeing things go wrong when they can.  Moreover, 
I agree with your blame of the legislature in the first instance.  Often what 
makes a law bad is that it is too susceptible to being misapplied.  I cringe 
when I hear legislators/politicians defending a bad law by saying ¨c'mon, 
nobody is going to apply _______ to that kind of circumstance¨, when, of 
course, someone will.

- -- 

- --

_______________________________________
Art Alexion
Arthur S. Alexion LLC
arthur [at] alexion [dot] com
aim: aalexion
sms: 2679725536 [at] messaging [dot] sprintpcs [dot] com

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