Email has returned to the building.

[reddragdiva]

fun[AT]thingy.apana.org.au is fit and working again, and remains the preferred email address for general use.

250 new messages, about half of which are spam. So being on the CAUBE-AU committee does not necessarily give one the mad l33t p0w3rs one might hope for.

Although it does have its high points. Here is the tale from late February of what I did on my Perth holiday, adapted from the original Usenet post.

Margarets Forest Pty Ltd is the name of the Perth company running a spamhaus under an astounding variety of names. They're also whackamoles from Hell. So Troy Rollo decided to serve a civil statement of claim on them for Aus$500 plus serving expenses, as the first step in a thorough legal LARTing (which is slowly progressing, as these things do).

SCENE: Thursday 21st February 2002, 4:55pm; Level 7, 231 Adelaide Terrace, Perth.

When you come out of the lift on level 7, you're right at the receptionist's desk for all the suites on the floor.

Smiling receptionist: "Hello!"
"Hi!" (friendly smile) "Is Sally Kelly in?"
"Yes, just a minute ... Who shall I say is here?"
"I'm David ... It's personal." (concerned expression)
"Okay." (ring ring) "Sally? David's here to see you. ... She'll be right out."
Sally walks out. "Hello ... er, do I know you?"
"I'm David Gerard." (I hand her the Statement of Claim.) "I'm serving you this legal process."
(upset) "What is this?"
"A statement of claim against Margarets Forest Pty Ltd. I suggest you call your lawyer. Have a nice day!"

Sally walks off, nice document in hand. I depart, with a biiig smile on my face and doing an occasional jump in the air as I walk down the street.

That was fun. Pity I won't be in Perth any time soon to do any more. But everyone I've told about it went "Really!", and I drank off this for at least the next month. It also impresses the chyx. So there should be a suitable supply of spammer servers to pay them more happy visits as needed.

If you are an Australian voter, go to http://www.caube.org.au/ and join. Joining is free; the benefit of it is that we can say to politicians "We have x signed-up members, and x of those are in YOUR electorate" when we're doing lobbying.

We are also considering selling the opportunity of serving processes on spammers. The LART-A-Spammer Package Tour! How to make a bundle on the Interweb Sooperhighway, indeed.

Also see The 17th century king who's fighting e-mail pornography, from the Sydney Morning Herald.

And every Australian reading this must go and join CAUBE-AU now. Dammit.