Charlie's Diary

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Sun, 11 May 2003

Lords Discover Spam

The following exchange in the House of Lords, which took place earlier this year, made it into the hallowed pages of Hansard, the official record of the proceedings of the British government:

Lord Renton: My Lords, will the Minister explain how it is that an inedible tinned food that lasted for ever and was supplied to those on active service can become an unsolicited e-mail, bearing in mind that some of us wish to be protected from having an e-mail?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I am afraid that I have not been able to find out why the term "spam" is used, but that is the meaning it now has. It is a matter that should be taken very seriously because it not only clutters up computers but involves a great deal of very unpleasant advertising to do with easy credit, pornography and miracle diets. That is offensive to people, and we should try to reduce it.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I can help the Minister with the origin of the word. It comes from aficionados of Monty Python, and the famous song, "Spam, spam, spam, spam". It has been picked up by the Internet community and is used as a description of rubbish on the Internet.

More seriously, is the Minister aware that up to 85,000 pieces of unsolicited e-mail are received by the Parliamentary Communications Directorate each month? Will he join me in congratulating the directorate on its valiant efforts to filter out that menace, given that a high proportion of it is rubbish advertising from the United States and that some of it consists of profane material? The directorate is battling against a rising tide; the Government's assistance is needed in combating it.

It's nice to see that Their Lordships wish to protect us from spam because it consists of rubbish advertising from the United States -- and some of it is profane.

On a more serious note, Lord Sainsbury added: "We aim to implement by the end of October this year the privacy and electronic communications directive. This includes requirements that unsolicited e-mails may be sent to individuals only for the purpose of direct marketing with their prior consent, except where there is existing customer relationship between the sender and the addressee. Consultation on the draft regulations started on 27th March and closes on 19th June." And apparently there's a multilateral EU agreement on spam in the works. In a fit of sanity, their Lordships refrained from prescribing technical fixes: "we do not want to specify what ISPs must do, because different people require different levels of protection."

The exchange ended:

Lord Mackie of Benshie: My Lords, can the Minister think of a name for the enormous amount of unsolicited ordinary mail we receive?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, when I have a moment I shall bend my mind to that question.

Anyway, regardless of whether they achieve their goal of sanitizing the internet, we now have an answer to the very important question of whether the denizens of the House of Lords are familiar with Monty Python.

[ Link ] [ Discuss spam ]



posted at: 21:36 | path: /spam | permanent link to this entry

Wow

I thought things were a bit slow today ...

[charlie@antipope charlie]$ w 8:39pm up 74 days, 8:29, 4 users, load average: 54.32, 70.26, 68.31
USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
charlie pts/0 82-41-202-133.ca 4:50pm 1:13m 3.69s 3.64s mutt
charlie pts/1 82-41-202-133.ca 4:50pm 1:03m 9.58s 9.52s slrn
feorag pts/2 82-41-202-133.ca 6:23pm 12:15 0.11s 0.11s bash
charlie pts/3 82.41.202.133 8:38pm 2.00s 0.20s 0.12s w

Yes, mail loops (on someone else's server, to which two of your local users subscribe) are Not Your Friend.



posted at: 21:00 | path: /misc | permanent link to this entry

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