From: merlin@neuro.usc.edu (merlin)
Newsgroups: misc.forsale.computers
Subject: Wholesale Squandering of Tax Dollars by Frivolous Net Postings
Date: 16 Apr 1992 05:43:04 -0700
Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: neuro.usc.edu

>I haven't been bothering with the flames here.  I've been sending little
>alert messages to their sysads.  If you want to stop someone from posting
>commercial ads here, that's the way to do it.  This causes all kinds of
>excitement for a student who posts commercial ads.

While this approach may appeal to a few people who want to preserve the
"net" (whatever that means given the highly distributed nature of usenet
news posting circulation) for their own private "non-commercial" postings
-- I am concerned that such efforts towards censorship may result in the
reimposition of relatively strict limits on information which users will
be allowed to transmit via this medium.  Remember, there was a time when
all ARPANET users were required to have a current federal contract to be
able to access the government subsidized educational network facilities.

I suspect the people who actually provide the money to support many of
the network links (congressmen, national program officers, members of the
office of management and budget) might not be too happy with the volume
of non-educational non-research non-government purely personal material
which is daily carried by federal tax dollars, state tax dollars, and (if
you think about it carefully) tax subsidized nonprofit organization funds.

Moreover, if those same people begin an investigation into the volume of
pornographic material (pictures and text) transmitted by tax subsidized
facilities there will be even more incentive to shut down casual access.

Finally, public common carriers (telephone companies and the like) who
are losing revenues to a federally subsidized "bypass" of their monopoly
networks and government sponsored tariffs may also object to casual use.

Can anyone actually document cases where some local administration went
so far as to actually pull the plug on network access because some few
commercial postings happened to be mixed in with the virtual torrent of
frivolous communications transmitted through their network facilities?
What is the actual basis for the frequent loud complaints about a few
commercial postings in these newsgroups?

When did INTERNET/NSFNET/USENET/WHATEVERNET become the private bulletin
board for funding the circulation of relatively frivolous communications
which are not at all related to the purposes for which the underlaying
network communication facilities were established?  With the reawakening
of public interest in the wholesale squandering of government resources
how long can any one of us expect to preserve our individual "right of
access to subsidized network facilities" while decrying how a few other 
individuals elect to utilize their access to the same facilities?

Personally, I limit complaints to other system administrators and senior
campus officials to the few cases of outright fraud revealed by the net.
My problem with complaints about frivolous postings by individual users
is (1) sysadmins often react with gestapo like tactics where they are not
at all warranted and (2) such complaints bring us all closer to the day
when the free ride on tax dollars for frivlous communications is ended.

My advice to people in this newsgroup who might raise a hue and cry each
time someone posts a commercial message is -- lay low!!  The louder you
complain about frivolous postings -- the more likely someone paying the
freight for your network access will terminate your own network access.

--merlin (system administrator for a dozen+ systems at <hostid>.usc.edu)

p.s.  Consider this -- even the "rn" newsreader says it costs thousands
of dollars to post a network news article -- take that warning seriously.
In my opinion, too much frivolous material is transmitted via this very
costly medium -- so much material that it forces the addition of costly
network enhancements long before they would ever be required by "real"
educational, research or government purposes.  As government subsidized 
network facilities face closer financial scrutiny relatively draconian 
restrictions on network access permission are likely to be imposed.  The
days when we can freely abuse this incredibly rapid and capable medium
for the exchange of ideas and information are becomming quite limited.