North American Network Operators Group
Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical

Re: Phishing and BGP Blackholing

  • From: Mark Foster
  • Date: Wed Jan 03 15:29:22 2007



On Wed, 3 Jan 2007, Rich Kulawiec wrote:


On Wed, Jan 03, 2007 at 05:44:28PM +1300, Mark Foster wrote:
So why the big deal? 

Because it's very rude -- like top-posting, or full-quoting, or sending
email marked up with HTML.  Because it's an unprovoked threat.  Because
it's an attempt to unilaterally shove an unenforceable contract down
the throats of everyone reading it.  Because it's a tip-off that the
sender does not value the time or resources of recipients.  Because it's
insulting.  Because (borrowing from first link below) it's simply too
stupid for words.


I'm as much of a netiquette-fiend as almost anyone i've ever met, but I do feel that there is a tendency to spend far too much time complaining about perceived rudeness and not enough time with focus on the point behind the message.

No matter how hard you try, top-posting is here to stay. MS Outlook has seen to that. So instead of taking the extreme approach (top posting = bad) I favour a compromise approach (inconsistent posting = bad; multiple responses to multiple individual points from a single email in a top post = bad) - which I like to think is more driven by commonsense than the need to exert ones old-school-ness on the rest of the populace. I can't be the only one...

I don't like disclaimers either. Theres a reason I use a privately managed mail system for contributing ot mailing lists, and not my corporate address (which, yes, gets a multiline legal disclaimer added to every post that leaves...)

But there are worse offenses. HTML emails - every author has a choice there, so that ones unforgivable IMHO. Top-Posting and Legalese Addendums to messages are both things that an end-user in a COE corporate environment has little control over.

Mark.