On Mon, Jan 05, 2004 at 02:46:15AM -0000, John Levine wrote:
An exact definition spam is a political topic, not a technical one,
and is not within the purview of ASRG.
I have read a article in a message board (german) and the author made the
argument that spam is also a problem of context:
http://www.heise.de/security/news/foren/go.shtml?read=1&msg_id=4831635&forum_id=51300
(I'll try do do a rough translation/interpretion of the examples).
If I write a sentence even in this forum (e.g. in the sig)
"it is cold out there so you should buy and wear warm clothes"
it is neither advertising nor spam. It's simply a statement related to
the current weather situation for most of the subscribers in the
"winter" zone of this planet. Some may even interpret it as a well
meaning hint.
If the sender is <insert name of company producing winter jackets>
the context changes caused by the sender of the message and a lot of
people will make a relation to "sender is producing winter jackets"
and the statement will be seen in a completely different light and
some will interpret it as advertising.
It also depends on the contents of the message. Sending this
statement to a user in Alaska will probably produce a different
reaction (even in terms of nuissance) than sending it to someone
living near the equator (who by chance doesn't even know what "cold"
means ;-))))
\Maex
--
SpaceNet AG | Joseph-Dollinger-Bogen 14 | Fon: +49 (89) 32356-0
Research & Development | D-80807 Muenchen | Fax: +49 (89) 32356-299
"The security, stability and reliability of a computer system is reciprocally
proportional to the amount of vacuity between the ears of the admin"
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