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Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of culture, technology, politics, and law. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.
********* From: dakin@nationalpost.com X-Web-site: http://www.nationalpost.com Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 15:46:10 -0400 To: declan@well.com At 3:25 PM -0400 on 5/21/99, Declan McCullagh wrote: >This message being circulated among some conservative groups is a hoax. Interestingly, a carbon copy of this hoax ran through the Canadian Internet community last month. In our case, Canada Post Corp. was to impose postage on e-mail. Tony Schnell, in our version, was a Canadian Member of Parliament and not a congressman; the bill here was also 602P (our federal numbering system looks like this Bill C-54; An act on ecommerce). Also, Richard Stepp was the lawyer in question but he was based in Toronto as was his fictional law firm Berger, Stepp, and Gorman. In the Canadian e-mail version, Berger, Stepp and Gorman's address was on Bay Street in Toronto (the Canadian equivalent of Wall Street in New York). Unfortunately, there is a real lawyer named Berger on Bay Street in Toronto. The office of Max Berger of Bay Street - as the receptionist wearily noted when we called - was besieged with calls of support. We and most other major Canadian news outlets reported on the hoax and Canada Post even issued a press release about it: http://www.canadapost.ca/CPC2/corpc/newsrel/rumour.html Canada Post also claimed to have tracked down the origin of the message and forced the author and his ISP to post apologies in the newsgroups where the message first appeared. David Akin / Technology Reporter National Post / dakin@nationalpost.com VOX: 416.383.2372 / FAX: 416.383.2443 300-1450 Don Mills Road Don Mills / Ontario / CANADA / M3B 3R5 ********** >Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 12:43:14 -0700 >From: Lizard <lizard@dnai.com> >To: declan@well.com, politech@vorlon.mit.edu >Subject: Re: FC: HOAX: US Postal Service seeking 5-cents email tax >X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i > >About a month ago, this was the CANADIAN postal service. > >I wonder how hard it would be to start a chain letter convincing >people they had to send me money, or they'd die? > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe: send a message to majordomo@vorlon.mit.edu with this text: subscribe politech More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------