I stand corrected Re: [ga] A blast from the past ... We are all engaged in activities relating to, or in support of, official US Government business.

[Joe Baptista <baptista@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry folks - wrong person.  When I posted this I was thinking of Kent 
Crispin.  Not Mark.  Thanks to Karl Auerbach for bringing this error to 
my attention.  Still an interesting little archive.

cheers
joe baptista

Joe Baptista wrote:

> We all remember Mark Crispin of the icann famed crispy crocket twins 
> who said "We are all engaged in activities relating to, or in support 
> of, official US Government business."  Thats icann in a nutshell.  
> Here is a blast from the past - its an email message using the old 
> arpanet email rules.  Enjoy. Joe
>
> 10-MAY-78 23:20:30-PDT,3281;000000000001
> Mail-from: SU-AI rcvd at 7-MAY-78 2058-PDT
> Date: 7 May 1978 2057-PDT
> From: MRC at SU-AI (Mark Crispin)
> Subject: MSGGROUP# 696  in reply to Jake's message about advertising
> To:   MsgGroup at USC-ISI
> Redistributed-To: [ISI]<MsgGroup>Mailing.List;154:
> Redistributed-By: STEFFERUD (connected to MSGGROUP)
> Redistributed-Date:  8 MAY 1978
> I agree with Jake about suppressing advertising for many of the same 
> reasons as I disagreed with suppressing subjective messages about 
> QUASAR. The ARPAnet is not, as Jake pointed out, a public resource; it 
> is available to pretty much a select group of people (high school kids 
> regardless!). We are all engaged in activities relating to, or in 
> support of, official US Government business. ARPAnet mail therefore is 
> more of an "interoffice memo" sort of thing than a trade journal, not 
> intended for public distribution although not "top secret" either.
>
> Even MsgGroup is in this class; however inappropriate QUASAR is to 
> MsgGroup's intent (and it was inappropriate) I feel that any 
> censorship can only lead to worse things later on. I am sure that DCA 
> realizes this also; otherwise the ARPAnet would have been curbed long 
> ago. Whether or not QUASAR is a fake is a valid topic to be discussed 
> among the computer science community via the ARPAnet; although it is 
> inappropriate for MsgGroup. If there is sufficient interest, another 
> group should be created whose purpose and interests embrace this issue.
>
> I don't see any place for advertising on the ARPAnet, however; 
> certainly not the bulk advertising of that DEC message. From the 
> address list, it seems clear to me that the people it was sent to were 
> the Californians listed in the last ARPAnet directory. This was a 
> clear and flagrant abuse of the directory!
>
> I am not sure as to how far this should be carried though. I would not 
> mind hearing from DEC about their new products via ARPAnet mail, but I 
> would expect considerably more technical content and considerably less 
> of a sales pitch. Where is the line to be drawn between this sort of 
> thing (if it is to be allowed at all) and advertising? Another point 
> Jake mentioned which concerns me is that of employment hunting (by 
> employee or employer). Is that to be taken to mean that a person 
> cannot establish contacts at another ARPAnet site and poke around 
> about a possible position there? Is this really unfair to non-ARPAnet 
> people? Allow me to point out that at times a job is created in order 
> to have a particular person on the staff, and if that person is 
> unavailable, the job won't exist.
>
> This all seems worthy of examination by the MsgGroup community, as it 
> involves how electronic mail is to be used. Something else; I would 
> greatly appreciate it if all comments about this make a distinction 
> between ARPAnet mail and mail on another (possibly commercial) 
> network. Saying that electronic junk mail is a no-no on the ARPAnet 
> doesn't answer the question. I shudder to think about it, but I can 
> envision junk mail being sent to people who implement Dialnet, and no 
> way it could be prevented or stopped. I guess the ultimate solution is 
> the command in your mail reading subsystem which deletes an unwanted 
> message.
>
> -- Mark
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------


--
Joe Baptista                                www.publicroot.org
PublicRoot Consortium
----------------------------------------------------------------
The future of the Internet is Open, Transparent, Inclusive,
Representative & Accountable to the Internet community @large.
----------------------------------------------------------------
 Office: +1 (202) 517-1593
    Fax: +1 (509) 479-0084

begin:vcard
fn:Joe Baptista
n:Baptista;Joe
org:PublicRoot Consortium
adr:;;963 Ford Street;Peterborough;Ontario;K9J 5V5 ;Canada
email;internet:baptista@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
title:PublicRoot Representative
tel;fax:+1 (509) 479-0084 
tel;cell:+1 (416) 912-6551
x-mozilla-html:FALSE
url:http://www.publicroot.org
version:2.1
end:vcard