Something to ponder:
A school bus is riding a bunch of children home. One of the kids
on the bus thinks it would be funny if he pokes his friend in
front of him in the bum with his freshly sharpened pencil. A car
races in front of the school bus at 80km/h, and the school bus
driver slams on the breaks. The kid with the pencil is shot
forwards quickly, and his sharp pencil stabs the kid in front of
him in the arse. It goes in DEEP and hits some internal organs.
The kid is rushed to the hospital, and the injury is taken care
of. The parents of the child sue the school board, and bus
company, the driver, and anyone else that could possibly have
money to rake. There is a government inquiry into this, and
public outrage. The government passes a new law that makes it
illegal for pencils, pens, and other sharp objects to be allowed
outside a pencil case on all school buses in the county.
Sound strange to you? Sound rediculous? How could the
government POSSIBLY police this? How could they know if someone
has a pencil? Would they actually charge a 8 year old kid with
"Subsection 253 subparagraph 3 - Pencil out of case on
schoolbus"? This law is not only rediculous, but it is a TOTAL
WASTE of taxpayers money, and is 100% unenforceable. It carries
NO meaning.
Why did I mention any of this? Because it is a TRUE STORY. The
above story I heard on CBC radio about a year or so ago. It
happened somewhere in the states, however I don't recall where.
If you're interested in verifying it, I'm sure it is on the
internet somewhere, most possibly on CNN, or some other large
site. The point however is that when we "pass laws" of "make
rules and regulations" we often do not solve the problem at all
anyways.
For any solution to the problem of l-k being signed on to various
mailing lists, I can think of 10 new WORSE problems that it
causes. Problems that either affect me directly, or will affect
many others on the list, or both.
Lets just get back to business here, FRY the idiot's internet
access account through the proper channels, and if necessary,
press charges if any such laws that allow such apply. I would
consider the attacks to be of the sort that attempt to bring a
computer system down. "Computer vandalism" if you will.
Leave the working system WORKING. Change the system, and watch
it break. The likelyhood of this kind of problem becoming a
regular occurance on l-k is next to nil. I'm sure all of you
polititcians out there will love to fix the problem - each in a
way that is acceptable to yourself with complete disregard to
everyone else and the problems they now face such as not having
web browser access all the time, or not wanting to bother with
web forms (I know I *WILL* *NOT*). Not all systems even HAVE a
browser on them, nor even CAN have. Not all machines are running
on x86 hardware you know...
Anyways, go on and argue about this for a month or so. Maybe the
arguing will generate even more email than the combined sum of
all of the list subscriptions would anyways.
Something else to think about: Even though l-k got subscribed to
200 mailing lists or whatever, I've yet to see a SINGLE posting
from ANY of those mailing lists actually enter the l-k mailing
list and get exploded. So either l-k is configured in some
miraculous way to drop such garbage on the floor, or else the
maintainers at vger are incredibly quick and on their toes.
Keep up the good work vger! And don't change a thing, it works
great!
-- Mike A. Harris Linux advocate Computer Consultant GNU advocate Capslock Consulting Open Source advocateNeed a room? Rooms Plus Travel Guide http://www.roomsplus.com
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