[ Inspired by several incoherent and contradictory messages from AGIS,
  prior to their reform in late 1997. ]

From: kfl@clark.net (Keith Lynch)
Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.email
Subject: Statement from EGREGIS PR (AGIS PR parody)
Date: 12 Nov 1997 05:19:02 GMT

From: prflack@egregis.net
Subject: Statement from EGREGIS PR

Ladies and Gentleman,

Although I have been the Manager of Public Relations at EGREGIS
only since Monday morning, I have noticed the ongoing conversation
concerning EGRGIS and our policy on the sending of unsolicited
commercial bulk e-mail.  Many of the postings I have read have been
all too accurate, so I will make an effort to muddy the waters as to
the position of Egregious Goons Ripping off Everyone Global Internet
Spammers, Inc.

Three years ago, our Beloved Founder, Phil Lawless, had a vision.

But since he was arrested for posessing the drug which gave him that
vision, he had to come up with some kind of scam to quickly raise
money for his defense.

His first thought was to become a drug dealer.  But rival drug dealers
soon convinced him otherwise.  So he turned to the Internet, since its
inhabitants are peaceful and honest, like sheep ready to be fleeced.

It soon became evident that running an Internet site was harder than
it sounded.  Money needs to be spent for decent hardware, software,
and personnel.  But this didn't fit with Lawless's vision, which
didn't involve *spending* money.  So he had to find some way to sell
extremely crappy and unreliable service.  Who would pay for such a
thing?  Obviously, people who were unwelcome on any other site on the
net.  And who would those be?

So EGREGIS signed up dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of people
who wanted to flood the net with chain letters, pyramid schemes, ads
for porno web pages, ads for gadgets to steal cable TV service, ads
for "stealth" spamming software, and other material even more unsavory.

Well, ok, it was still dozens, not thousands.  But it looked like
thousands, ad they kept changing their names to evade filters and
lawsuits.  FlyByNite.COM at P.O. Box 123 would become ScamsRUs.COM at
P.O. Box 321, then MegaMoneyMoneyMoney.COM at P.O. Box 213, all
before the week was out.

When more and more people, including the FTC, the FCC, and ten other
government departments started complaining, EGREGIS came up with a new
plan.  From now on, all our customers would be required to go through
a special EGREGIS site, which randomly altered the headers and relayed
the spam off overseas sites so that nobody could figure out the junk
was coming from us.  This also reduced the load on our own servers,
allowing Phil to hock some of them to get money to pay back his loan
shark.

Also, complainers were directed to a web-based video game that we
developed.  The way it was played was for each user to come up with as
many e-mail addresses which reach him as possible, to try and connect
to the web site and enter them all before it craps out, and then to
jump back to e-mail, receive and memorize a list of random six digit
numbers, go to a different web page, and enter the numbers, and see
whether they're accepted, rejected, or the web page times out.  The
goal of all this is to take up so much time that the users are too
busy to send complaints.  Also, it gave us a long list of validated
addresses to sell to our customers.

To clarify:  It has never been our intent for Net users to receive mail
in their e-mail boxes that they wish not to receive.  We do not send
UCE, our customers do.  Our customers have always been prohibited from
sending UCE.  We do not censor, as it would be a violation of our
customers' inalienable free speech rights.  Complaints invariably turn
out to be about spam from non-EGREGIS customers who are just trying to
get us in trouble out of jealousy.  Complaints are always taken very
seriously, and every one is studied by a team of our top Internet
experts for several hours each.  Our remove list is working perfectly.
Complaints are regarded as unsolicited messages which waste our time,
and complainers will be reported to the FBI and CIA.  We just want
to help make you aware of some of the wonderful bargains that are
available on the net.  Please send complaints, as we value them
highly.  Our remove list never worked, because "hackers" broke in and
sabotaged it.  Please give it time.  Many people greatly value being
repeatedly spammed, and it would be evil censorship to force them
to only receive messages on lists they signed up for.  We never
claimed to have a remove list.  Complaints should only be sent to
devnull@egregis.net.  Please re-register on our remove list, since
unfortunately our dog ate it.  Our policy has always been the same,
and always will be.  We promptly disconnect anyone who spams, for
instance Scamfraud Wallace and Picklejar.  We are offering a $25,000
reward for information leading to the arrest of whoever is responsible
for the crash of our mailserver when Phil tripped over the cable and
knocked it to the floor.  We only disconnected Scamfraud Wallace and
Picklejar because of ping attacks and security concerns.  We had no
idea that Scamfraud was a crook.  We remain best of friends with
Scamfraud, and wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.
Third-party relaying and header forgery is strictly prohibited.  As of
last Tuesday, we are no longer accepting new customers who spam.  We
will never stand in the way of our customers' right to sell software
for third-party relaying and header forgery.  Watch our website for
our new AUP, which I know you are going to like.  We don't like spam,
but unfortunately all our customers tricked us into signing a contract
promising them free service until the end of time regardless of
anything they do.  All customers are bound by our AUP, except for old
customers which are bound by the new AUP, and new customers which are
bound by our old AUP, until it comes time for them to renew, at which
time we will write yet another AUP, or maybe two or three of them.  To
be removed, you must send a notarized letter from President Clinton
and five cabinet members testifying that you are authorized to ask
that your address be removed.  We are not spammers.  We feel your
pain.  I thank everyone for their patience and civility while we
attempt to resolve this issue in a professional manner.  I hope this
has clarified our new policy, which has always been in place, and
never changed.  "Ethics" is Phil U. Lawless's middle name.

We recently terminated ChainLetters73.COM for violations of our AUP,
and will closely look into recent allegations that our new customer
ChainLetters74.COM is also in violation, though we suspect the
complainers simply neglected to register with their remove list.

Dayson Jelker
Public Relations Flack for EGREGIS

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