Samsung

Tue Aug 12 19:18:44 UTC 1997

Sir:
Spamming as normally practiced involves the theft of services
through the use of one or more third party's mail servers to send
the spam on behalf of the spammer. Should Graphnet, an
FCC-licensed carrier, in reviewing its message logs from months
of spamming which we have finally ended through technical means,
find that your clients have directly or through the contracted
services of a third-party bulk e-mail service used our systems
without permission we will most assuredly seek heavy damages as
permitted under laws of Interstate Commerce and also to ask the
FCC to sanction Samsung and its subsidiaries.

As any first-year law student knows, the First Amendment does not
cover illegal acts. One cannot yell 'fire' in a crowded theater
nor can one incite to riot. Use of one's own mail system to
individually deliver unsolicited commercial messages to e-mail
boxes is arguable; hijacking systems that don't belong to one, is
theft of services. Impersonating the system you are stealing
services from, over Interstate telephone lines (which as all know
is what the Internet runs over) is wire fraud.

Every criminal is entitled to counsel. That is the basis of the
American system of Jurisprudence. Threatening the operators of
the Internet is not a smart move, it just raises the profile of
your client and ensures its bad name. You have, with your letter,
lumped Samsung in with the sleaziest of pornographers. They
should discharge you for incompetence.

Dana Hudes
Manager, Internet Engineering
Graphnet
p.s. Samsung is officially on my black-list as of this moment. As
you can imagine, Graphnet buys lots and lots of electronic gear.
No more Samsung for us.