eli@spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) (08/16/89)
johnl@esegue.UUCP (John Levine) writes: !In article <132@ssc.UUCP! tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) writes: !!Junk Fax. ... Is this really a problem? I think not. ... ! !It's real, all right. The problem is not so much that the machine is tied !up so you can't send anything (although this apparently happened to the !governor of Connecticut when the incredibly stupid junk faxers were flooding !him with junk faxes urging him not to sign an anti-junk-fax bill. He signed !it, of course.) ! !The problem is really no different from that of junk phone calls in general, !just that you have a pile of paper to remind you of it. I'd define junk !calls as making more than four identical or substantially similar calls in a !single day to callees who have not requested it, and outlaw that. This would !not accidentally also cover mechanical and human voice junk phone calls. Bah. don't Bah! a law like one that you describe would be completely reasonable, i think. junk phone calls and junk fax are a pain in the hooter. but the anti-junk-phone bills in massachusetts didn't do a thing to stop the calls. consistent federal and state laws would be required. not bloody likely! !I suppose that when fax machines are commonly attached to computers and !people preview their faxes on the screen before looking at them, it'll be !less of a big deal to ignore them, but they're still a pain in the neck. yeah. as someone who has worked extensively with both voice processing and fax processing PC machines -- it always ticks me off to see (hear) people using these technologies to make unsolicited and ridiculous phone calls... i pity the poor sap who sends me my first junk fax... there are plenty of techniques for getting back at the junk phone callers -- i'm sure some enterprising netters can come up with methods to defeat junk-fax-twerps. -- ... Steve Elias (eli@spdcc.com);6172399406;6178906844;6178591389; {} /* */
ram@nebulus (Richard Meesters) (08/17/89)
eli@spdcc.COM (Steve Elias) writes: > johnl@esegue.UUCP (John Levine) writes: >!In article <132@ssc.UUCP! tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) writes: >!!Junk Fax. ... Is this really a problem? I think not. ... >! >!It's real, all right. The problem is not so much that the machine is tied >!up so you can't send anything (although this apparently happened to the >!governor of Connecticut when the incredibly stupid junk faxers were flooding >!him with junk faxes urging him not to sign an anti-junk-fax bill. He signed >!it, of course.) >! >!The problem is really no different from that of junk phone calls in general, Hey, you can hang up on Junk phone calls, and they don't waste any resource other than your time. > don't Bah! a law like one that you describe would be completely > reasonable, i think. junk phone calls and junk fax are a pain in > the hooter. but the anti-junk-phone bills in massachusetts didn't > do a thing to stop the calls. consistent federal and state laws > would be required. not bloody likely! > i pity the poor sap who sends me my first junk fax... > there are plenty of techniques for getting back at the > junk phone callers -- i'm sure some enterprising netters can > come up with methods to defeat junk-fax-twerps. The technique I always figured would work best (If the junk fax included a fax number) was to photocopy several black pages (leave the photocopier open) then fax these back to the junk faxer. If he doesn't catch this right away, it will do wonders to the thermal printhead used in fax machines. This may sound a bit extreme, but I hate having time and thermal paper wasted by these idiots. Regards, -- Richard Meesters | | Home Phone: | .sig under construction (416)321-6982 |
mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) (08/17/89)
I think that, rather than cluttering up the legal system with yet another law, the best course of action is to let nature take its course. As someone else said, there are lots of ways to take vengeance against junk fax messages: After all, if they're trying to get your business, they've got to have their phone number on the fax, or even (Oh, Joy!) their fax number. A suggestion that appeared on the net some time ago was to take their junk fax, scrawl "DON'T CLUTTER MY FAX MACHINE WITH THIS GARBAGE!" across it, Xerox it a few times, tape the copies end-to-end in a loop, and fax it back to 'em. Or, call their salescritter and raise hell. Emphasize that you wouldn't touch their product if it was the only one available. Run it up the chain of command of the company. I'm sure the fertile imaginations of the net can think up much more (and much worse.) -- Mike Van Pelt When guns are outlawed, Headland Technology/Video 7 only Carl Rowan will have guns. ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp
tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) (08/21/89)
I have seen several postings about how to get back at junk faxers. I suspect that these wont work, unless the person you are aiming all those black pages at is really using a fax machine. I suspect that services like Mr. Fax use one of these fax nodes where you can load in an image and have it simultaneously autodial through many telephone lines to a bunch of machines at once. In this case, there is no fax machine to receive the 'get-even' image on. Last year I got an ad sheet (via US Mail, not junk fax :> ) from a firm selling a service where you could call there main computer and upload an image file along with a list of phone numbers. These are then sent as data out to various nodes around the country that dial up the machines closest to them, sorted by area code. (oops...shoulda said 'their' in line 2 of this paragraph) Still haven't hear from anyone who has received a ton of junk fax... only people pissed off about the IDEA of it. Tad Cook tad@ssc.UUCP
bam@pnet12.cts.com (Bret Marquis) (08/22/89)
tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook) writes: > > > >Still haven't hear from anyone who has received a ton of junk fax... >only people pissed off about the IDEA of it. > I've had fax machines in several of my offices and for a while even had the main fax number listed in a directory. To date, I've only received 6 'junk' fax messages, none of them more than a single page and all advertising some product or another. No hassle and no problem. In fact we were rather amused. Prolly feel entirely different if our machine and fax paper were consumed by continous incoming ads but that hasn't been the case... Bret Marquis UUCP: uunet!serene!pnet12!bam ARPA: crash!pnet12!bam@nosc.mil INET: bam@pnet12.cts.com