On Sat, Sep 06, 2003 at 11:46:47PM +1000, Russell Coker wrote: > On Sat, 6 Sep 2003 18:22, Ava Driscoll wrote: > > I have sent a complaint regarding SPAM abuse to Yahoo regarding the > > originator of the SPAM. Perhaps I am not the only Ava Driscoll in the > > world. However, it is the name of my web portfolio site and the only > > name I ever had. I am against SPAM and it hurts to have it associated > > with my name in any way. It is disappointing that someone would use > > your mailing list and it shows up as no. 1 and 2 when I use my name. I > > The solution is really simple, become more popular!
Given the tone of Driscoll's messages to us, whom are innocent
bystanders in this affair, I think your solution is quite unlikely to
happen.
Driscoll appears to be one of those people who just needs someone to
bitch at. Actually responding to the person makes them more likely to
act as if you are accepting responsibility, and they become increasingly
more harsh, shrill, and strident, and before you know it they're
threatening to sue you even though you did nothing wrong and have
nothing to do with what they're upset about.
Our mailing lists have an email address, just as Driscoll does. Virus
and worms put the two together randomly and automatically.
Driscoll's message implies to me that he/she feels it is our
responsibility to preserve his or her (according to Google) almost
non-existent reputation, not up to him or her to develop a good one in
the first place.
Let me make it really simple:
* The Debian Project is not responsible for the "Joe Job" forged
emails created by SoBig.F and similar worms that infest Windows
systems around the globe.
* The Debian Project is not responsible for Google's search engine.
As I understand it, the algorithms they use to generate their page
rankings are a very closely guarded secret. Even if the Debian
Project were motivated to help you restore your reputation to its
minimal status before the SoBig.F worm struck, we could not
reasonably do so without the cooperation of Google, Inc.
The best thing we Debian Developers (and other interested subscribers to
this mailing list) can do when we get mails from complaining people like
this is to ignore them, as I'll wager the majority of other people
Driscoll has mail-blitzed have done. The more we commisserate, the more
these people's irrational minds associate us with the cause of their
troubles.
And yes, I have CCed [EMAIL PROTECTED] on purpose in this
message. Yes, I'm a very blunt person and I don't sugar-coat things
when people do the Internet equivalent of ringing my doorbell every five
minutes to complain about how some shopkeeper 12 miles away wronged
them.
Ava Driscoll, please go away. We can't help you. We have work to do,
developing an operating system that is far less susceptible to the type
of email worm that has forged mails from you and literally millions of
other people -- I get spams "from myself" every day. If you'd let us
return to our work and stop irrationally and hysterically holding
innocent parties responsible for the bad actions of others, maybe we can
get back to making the world the kind of place where SoBig.F worms don't
happen.
Ava Driscoll, your grievance isn't with us. Write your Congressman or
State Legislator and ask them to take the phenomenon of UBE (Unsolicited
Bulk Email) more seriously.
Best wishes, and please don't reply to this message. I suspect I'll
never have cause to mail you again if you'll just leave me and my
friends in the Debian Project alone (in other words, stop mailing us).
--
G. Branden Robinson | Don't use nuclear weapons to
Debian GNU/Linux | troubleshoot faults.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | -- US Air Force Instruction 91-111
http://people.debian.org/~branden/ |
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