Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!netsys!vector!telecom-gateway From: eli@ursa-major.spdcc.com (Steve Elias) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: (none) Message-ID:Date: 16 Aug 89 04:10:27 GMT Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US Lines: 42 Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us 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