[spam] letter from Jon Postel

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Peter Bachman <peterb () cequs com>
Date: June 10, 2004 3:00:56 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: [spam] letter from Jon Postel


Dave,

Got an email addressed from Jon Postel today. Of course it was an 
infected
W32.Netsky.D Worm that had scanned through someone's hard drive for 
email
addresses, and not an message from the great beyond being channeled 
through
a DSL connection.

Still it's a self-generated ironic comment by the network, on the sad 
state of
email within the network. The great computational expense generated by
sending spam out into the network is obviously wasted on trying to sell
Viagra; that much bandwidth and computing power is evolving into 
something
else; perhaps a very primitive early form of network intelligence that's
linking up bits of information in odd, but somewhat predictable ways.

Now if the "random spam monkeys" can type up and send me an unpublished 
mss
from William_Shakespeare () stratford-upon-avon co uk I can make money 
fast.
I'll be waiting near the trash bin of my bayseian filters looking for
submissions.

Cheers,

Peter Bachman

peterb () cequs com

Can a machine think?

"You insist that there is something a machine cannot do. If you will 
tell me
precisely what it is that a machine cannot do, then I can always make a
machine which will do just that"  J. von Neumann 1948 Princeton, NJ


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