On Fri, Mar 23, 2001 at 11:44:55AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
| > http://www.moongroup.com/stories.php?story=01/03/23/5398918
| rather than simply sit here and seethe that AOL has blocked non-AOL
| instant messaging, let me make a humble suggestion. anyone in the
| linux community who is outraged by this should simply filter all
| AOL email into /dev/null.
|
| think about it. the linux community, based on sheer size, now has
| considerable clout. imagine the effect if a significant part of that
| community decided, en masse, to reject any AOL-related email.
| people can use procmail to junk it; web sites can drop AOL-origin
| requests; routers can toss AOL packets. obviously, there may be
| legal or contractual issues, but people who put up web sites
| certainly have no obligation to service all requests.
|
| it's time to get over just being pissed about this, and do something
| about it. if AOL wants to block traffic, perhaps it's time to
| play that same game, and see how long it takes AOL subscribers to
| start feeling the rejection. let *them* complain to their own ISP.
|
| comments?
This is about as smart as aid sanctions to oppressive foreign regimes.
The innocent (and typically opressed - AOL no exception!) masses suffer
and the regime uses it for propaganda ends (not to mention getting more
pissed off, making it psychologically harder to "lose face" by changing
their ways).
To be sure, the AOL we're-the-One-True-Portal mindset is antisocial
and cretinous. But they market their service to the no-so-net-aware
masses who won't know why their mail vanishes. And won't know to whom to
complain if they ever figure it out. And if AOL's contact system is like
most other large organisations, email to "postmaster" does not go to a
person per the host requirements but to some lame "try this inadequate
FAQ" autoresponder.
And the linux community doesn't have the size or clout you imagine. (Or
at least, I imagine it doesn't :-) this will just let AOL market Linux and
whatever other non-AOL-friendly systems participate as not interoperative.
Instead, let us act like _real_ technophiles. Provide non-AOL-IM gateways
tunneled over ssh connections to external services. Obviously you need
Linux people inside AOL who have handy access via ssh out of AOL to a
cooperative shell server. And ssh doesn't tunnel UDP, which may matter
(I don't use IM myself).
Cheers,
--
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/
It is better to go into a corner slow and come out fast,
than to go in fast and come out dead. - Stirling Moss
_______________________________________________
Redhat-list mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
