Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2005 10:49:09 -0400 (EDT)
From: dicconf <dicconf at radix.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Freebies List Spammed
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

On Mon, 25 Jul 2005, Ted White wrote:

> From: <ronkean at juno.com>
> [...]
>>
>> There is someone in the Libertarian Party who accumulates the email
>> addresses of her correspondents, and possibly also some other addresses.
>> Then, every so often, she sends out some political blurb or announcement
>> to the whole list of addresses, as 'undisclosed recipients'.  The number
>> of addresses is probably no more than a few hundred, and may even be just
>> a few dozen.  Each time she does that, she probably gets a few
>> complaints, and I believe that she will remove from the list of addresses
>> anyone who asks to be removed.  Also, she makes no effort to hide her
>> identity, and she provides an adddress where she may be contacted.  So is
>> that spam?  To me, it seems like a grey area.
>
> Not to me.  That is much like those folks -- we all know some -- who send
> out jokes periodically to a list which may well be made up of their entire
> address book.
>
> My definition of spam, pragmatically derived, is that a) it is sent out in
> mass amounts (measured in the thousands and up), b) its sender is always
> disguised, and c) it is, 99.9 times out of 100, a scam or ripoff.  The
> person you describe sends out "mailings" which appear to meet none of the
> criteria I gave.

This is sounding like we're trying to make the same distinction
professional propagandists had to make many years ago: "white" propaganda
[no relation, Ted], which goes out from a real and named source; "grey"
propaganda, which comes from an unidentified source; and "black"
paopaganda, which gives a false source -- like those phony press releases
the Allies sent to German papers/radio stations using the name of a real
Nazi government news agency, Skorpiondienst.

-- Dick Eney

  OPERATION CRIFANAC PUBLICATIONS
http://www.crifanac.net/Index.htm
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