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From: eli@ursa-major.spdcc.com (Steve Elias)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: 
Date: 16 Aug 89 04:10:27 GMT
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X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 302, message 1 of 9

another fax article...

>From: johnl@esegue.uucp (John Levine)
>Newsgroups: alt.fax
>Subject: Re: Junk Fax: urban legend?
>Date: 13 Aug 89 16:50:00 GMT
>Reply-To: johnl@esegue.UUCP (John Levine)
>Organization: Segue Software, Cambridge MA


In article <132@ssc.UUCP> tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) writes:
>I just can't BELIEVE all the stuff I am reading in print media about
>Junk Fax.  ...
>Is this really a problem?  I think not.  ...

It's real, all right.  The problem is not so much that the machine is tied
up so you can't send anything (although this apparently happened to the
governor of Connecticut when the incredibly stupid junk faxers were flooding
him with junk faxes urging him not to sign an anti-junk-fax bill.  He signed
it, of course.)

The problem is that you come in in the morning or after lunch and find your
fax machine's hopper full of junk faxes using up your expensive fax paper to
advertise overpriced fly-by-night vendors of fax supplies.  Another problem
is that junk calls tie up your line and make it more difficult for people
from whom you want to hear to contact you.  The junk faxers would send junk
mail except that they know that we're already smart enough to throw that
away without looking at it.

The problem is really no different from that of junk phone calls in general,
just that you have a pile of paper to remind you of it.  I'd define junk
calls as making more than four identical or substantially similar calls in a
single day to callees who have not requested it, and outlaw that.  This would
not accidentally also cover mechanical and human voice junk phone calls.  Bah.

I suppose that when fax machines are commonly attached to computers and
people preview their faxes on the screen before looking at them, it'll be
less of a big deal to ignore them, but they're still a pain in the neck.
--
John R. Levine, Segue Software, POB 349, Cambridge MA 02238, +1 617 492 3869
{ima|lotus}!esegue!johnl, johnl@ima.isc.com, Levine@YALE.something
Massachusetts has 64 licensed drivers who are over 100 years old.  -The Globe