On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 16:06:04 -0500, Nathaniel Borenstein wrote: >With respect, I think this argument is going nowhere because >some of us want to discuss it in terms of property rights, and others >of us want to discuss it in terms of human rights. I believe that >communication should be viewed as a human right, and that property >rights can and should be limited where necessary to ensure those rights. I propose we recenter this discussion on our mission, which is enhancing communication. With that in mind we can ask ourselves whether --on the evidence--hypothetically protective measures like blacklisting are useful or not for enhancing communication (not just for one person but for the entire community of users). Property rights and human rights issues are not irrelevant but they are not central to this discussion. At the moment the Internet is lawless. We are discussing among ourselves what measures the community can take until law comes, and enforcement comes. Issues like abuses by (hypothetical) monopolies are peripheral. I don't have all the answers (though I have formulated one which I think is a good one, see URL below) but I believe "will it enhance communication" is the only way to approach the problem in the current state of lawlessness. Jeffrey Race <http://www.camblab.com/misc/univ_std.txt>