AnarchoCyphertopian technologies (wasRE:[extropy-chat]Reccommendations for a mailing list)

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sun, Feb 13, 2005 at 01:22:15PM -0600, kevinfreels.com wrote:

> But there is no motivation to give you anything for free. Spammers pay for
> internet connections too. They contribute to the overall number of users and

No, most of them do not. A large fraction of people (no doubt, several list
members here as well) host spamming malware on their computers.

(No, running a virus scanner is not enough, and
http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-10045910.html?part=dl-ad-aware&subj=dl&tag=top5
&Co is no panacea, either. A thorough screening and removal takes an hour or two
for a professional). 

Spam and viruses has pushed your friends offline, Spike? Why didn't you tell them that 
Apple Mac doesn't have any known viruses, and there are providers who will
filter your mail for you? Or mail agents which will?

http://www.apple.com/macmini/
with 512 MByte RAM and internal Bluetooth/WiFi (optional for some folks) will
set you back $673 (Apple Care another $149). Will work with your existing
screens and USB/Bluetooth keyboards and mice. Almost completely silent, check
it out. You can still keep your beige box on the network, and access it via
FreeNX or VNC, if you have to run Redmond-only software.

Speaking of Mac, if you have iSight, and a large library, give Delicious
Library from http://delicious-monster.com/ a spin ($29 download, free demo). You
catalogue your books by holding the barcode into the camera, and the system
then looks up the matching info via Amazon web services, and populates your
database (with cover images and description, if available). Really Quickly.

> as the number of users goes up, holding the cost per user down. Since they
> use a lot of bandwidth it may not actually decrease, but removing the

Stop propagating the myth that spamming is a major drain on bandwidth (why do
people here insist posting mere speculations?). Peer-to-peer traffic is by
now the dominating traffic on the internet. And aint't that a good thing?

> spammers would decrease the users which in turn may cause an increase to
> costs to consumers.
> 
> In a way, the ability to send spam creates a demand for the bandwidth that
> we all like to have available to us. Internet marketing firms increase the
> number of businesses that rely wholly or at least partially on the internet
> for their success.  With a lower demand comes less bandwidth and hugher cost
> per user. Has anyone actually made an attempt to document the positive

Malware removal is a veritable cottage industry.

> aspects of spam? Surely it can not be all negative or it would not flourish
> as well as it has. Does everyone so hate spam that they have a kneejerk
> reaction to it and never even consider what positive effects it may have?
> How can anyone expect to defeat it or get rid of it when they can;t even
> look at it objectively?

I understand there's a large ecology around processing animal excreta,
and random detritus in general.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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