stanley@uu.psi.com (John Stanley) (10/22/90)
In the Network Guide Special Edition, and a recent normal edition, the comments have been made that a flood of email to a user does not prevent him or her from receiving wanted, or sending outbound, email. Those who believe this, please consider the following points: 1. Disk space is never unlimited, and a flood of email can quickly fill a disk to overflowing. If this is the main system disk, this can cause catastrophic failures. Even places like AT&T do not have unlimited disk space. A catastrophic failure of the system most certainly will prevent sending email. Before someone says "ahh, but this is poor system management and not the emailer's fault", consider the parallel to poor system management which allows guessable passwords on root accounts and cracker breakin's. The system worked until someone said "hey, lets all send mail to this system". 2. Bandwidth is limited. Some companies are linked to the network only through UUCP and a 2400 baud modem. If the mail flow reached the point where the modem is in use 24 hours a day, when would outgoing mail be sent? Of course, they should get a 9600 baud modem. They should connect another system to the outside. Consider the parallel to junk phone calls and the suggestion that the recipient should get a second phone line if they want to be able to make calls. 3. Money is limited. Some email systems charge for messages. When the costs reach a certain point, guess what will be cut off? Consider flooding an 800 number with calls. When an 800 number is no longer cost effective because it is clogged, it gets turned off. 4. Patience is limited. Those same companies using UUCP generally have a friendly gateway that connects them for free. If the manager of this free gateway determines that his system is overloaded because of a flood of mail to one of his feeds, the easiest way to solve the problem is to cut the feed. All of a sudden, no incoming or outgoing mail. If someone decided to initiate a flood of mail to me, I would quickly be overloaded. During the times I am getting my mail feed I am not only unable to generate outgoing or read incoming mail, I am unable to make voice phone calls. I have had to dump a UUCP connection at times when I needed to make other calls. If the flood came to my CIS account, it would quickly reach the point where I could no longer afford to read it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get a 9600 baud modem. Get a second phone line. Get a multi-tasking UNIX box so I can at least read and write mail while the flood comes in. Right. Get a life. I have better things to spend money on than the preventing the possibility I might someday be overloaded with mail. If the solution doesn't save me money, I can't implement it. Sounds a lot like a business, doesn't it? Finally, there was a comment about a flood of email to a corporate leader not causing any damage. It most certainly will. At the extreme, it will cause the termination of email to that site for one of the above reasons. At least, it will make the executive stop reading his own email, if he still did. Instead of having the ear of the boss, the emailer will have the ear of the secretary who will probably not understand anything in the mail and who will lump it in with "complaints". A flurry of email messages will also decrease the signal to noise ratio of the medium to the point that the effort to find the pearls is not worth the benefit. BTW, thanks for the network issue, and yes, please, Marty -- information on using fred@wp.psi.com.
telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (10/22/90)
I'd like to respond to some points raised by John Stanley in his article to the Digest. Mr. Stanley raises all sorts of dire predictions about what he terms a 'flood' of email to any given person or site on the net. He points out that an overflow of mail can crash the system, and that even big commercial systems are not exempt. Then he says, when this inevitable crash occurs, because of people like myself suggesting that one might write letters to persons in authority, there will be other consequences: Because the lines will be clogged 24 hours per day, mail will not be able to get out. Because money is limited, some email systems charge for messages. Therefore when this becomes too expensive, it will be cut off. Company presidents will be forced to have their secretary dispose of the mail unread, lest they (the president) should be confronted with ideas and thoughts from the customers. Doesn't it occur to you, Mr. Stanley that news takes much more time to transmit than mail, and usually, a lot more space on the disks to maintain? Why not cut off news instead, Mr. Stanley? After all, some of it is quite vindictively written, is it not; and about many of the same companies mentioned here, no? I'll tell you what, folks: Let's just all shut our mouths and say nothing. Let's all go back to the old single server BBS lines and leave three line messages for each other asking for pirated programs we can run on our C-64. Isn't that all this medium is supposed to be good for? You want to demonstrate the legitimacy of the electronic press? Then begin to use it, and see to it the right people have the opportunity to read it. One of two things will happen: Either they will completely squash it, or they will begin to hold it in strong respect. I'll gamble on the latter, because if the former is the case, what have we lost anyway? I have never suggested that a vindictive effort be made to swamp or 'flood' a system. But at the same time, I'll be damned if I have someone like Mr. Stanley tell me I should not enourage people to write and express themselves lest the dire consequences he predicts come true and some site cuts itself off from the outside world rather than have to deal with the real and powerful force of email and electronic publishing. In the next issue of the Digest, another writer will continue this topic. Patrick Townson TELECOM Moderator
ndallen@contact.uucp (Nigel Allen) (10/25/90)
I don't think that there's anything morally wrong about encouraging people to write (electronically or physically) to the chairman of AT&T. That having been said, I should point out that corporate chief executives have staffs of people to screen their mail. Vice-presidents are more likely to read mail addressed to them. So does anyone want to post the e-mail address of the AT&T vice-president responsible for international long distance, and an MCI regional vice-president or two? Nigel Allen telephone (416) 535-8916 52 Manchester Avenue fax (4167) 978-7552 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6G 1V3