<Multimedia>If you wish this posting to be a multimedia experience, go to http://www.netspace.org/~dmacks/internet-songbook/lart-lart-lart-the-spammer... and sing the contents of that page to yourself while reading.</Multimedia> NZNOG People, Three days ago I posted to this list, saying
Just over a year ago, there was discussion on this list of spamming by
one Julian Angelo. He has now approached me, asking to have these references removed from the NZNOG archive. It seems that prospective employers who look up his name on the web find these archive entries, a fact which may not be helping his career any.
If any network operator has an objection to these entries being removed from the archive, could they please contact me directly.
I had a number of reasons for doing things in this way. For one thing, I do not see myself as owner in the usual sense of that word of this list or its archive. For another, the content of email sent to me in response to such an enquiry might conceivably be actionable. I also take the view that spammers are thieves who must be shown the error of their ways and encouraged to live useful, constructive lives. I am in principle very happy with the idea of editing the names of the guilty out of publicly-readable archives a suitable period after their offending ceases. The chance to gain useful employment would then be one of the reasons why they would give up their vile activities in the first place. My request to be contacted directly was followed by close to fifty emails to the list. Some had particularly disappointing content. The acceptable use policy for this list states that character assassination is unacceptable. It also states that discussion unrelated to Internet technical and operational matters is not appropriate. Discussions of a legal nature are particularly discouraged. This has not been a good week for this list's s/n ratio, nor for constructive discussion. I am all in favour of a certain amount of humour of questionable relevance, but there was little of that here. The only such contribution was Matt Camp's, which observed "I'm sure there's a lesson there. f33r the far-reaching p0w3rz of NZNOG! [...] we shall [...] smite the career prospects of spammers and script kiddies with our flaming LARTting tool of justice!" I have doubts about his spelling of LARTing, but I too am sure there's a lesson here. As I've already said, I see publicity and its withdrawal as a useful tool in encouraging spammers into the paths of righteousness. Regrettably, the point was not taken up by others. My thanks to those who did respond directly to me. The suggestion that by altering the archive's contents on any occasion I might become responsible for all of its content was one I had not previously considered. Other opinions expressed fell into two groups. Some subscribers believed that an apology was called for before Mr Angelo's name was removed from the archive, while others felt that archives should not ever be altered. Some of this latter group observed that archiving an apology from Julian Angelo would give prospective employers a full piucture of events. I count four subscribers in the first group and thirteen in the second. Removing from the count people I believe not to be staff of network operators, and the subscriber who expressed both opinions, leaves three in the first group and eight in the second. I feel myself to be bound by this expression of the views of subscribers, and will not seek to have the archives changed. At no point has anyone even implied to me that Julian Angelo has done anything wrong since the events of July 2000. I went into this thinking that was the question. Donald Neal List Administrator/Muggins <Multimedia>You can stop singing now.</Multimedia> -- Donald Neal Mobility & Calling Platforms Network Delivery Telecom New Zealand Ltd --------- To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog