In the coming days I'll be changing my email address.  No, I'm not going to
post it here.  But at the end of this post I'll give some contact information.


I've had this email address since early 1995, so for me this is sort of the
end of an era.  I've participated in this list for all but a few months of
the time I've had this email address.

This email address change isn't voluntary.  It is my understanding that
LaserNet has decided to completely exit from the ISP business and
concentrate on their site design and site hosting business.  I've been one
of a very small number of "legacy" ISP users whom they have supported for
years after moving away from the ISP business, and I'm very thankful that
they kept me on for these last few years.  I could say that they have
treated me like the "old HP run by Bill and Dave" treated its customers,
which makes parting ways with LaserNet all the more sad.

I know how low the margins are in the ISP business, and I'm sure they have
been taking a loss on the handful of us "legacy" ISP users over the last
couple years, and with just the few of us users remaining, I'm amazed that
they have been able to provide dial-up access this long.

But beyond access contracts and the costs they incur, I'm sure there are
other factors that, while not the deciding factor, were factors, with SPAM
being the most significant.

LaserNet has been very understanding ("Saints" comes to mind) of the grief
I've suffered (and they've suffered) over the past couple of months due to
SPAM, but it affects them too.

I'm supposed to have a 5 megabyte mailbox.  A long time ago they increased
that limit for me (at no additional charge), as it seems that the down side
of subscribing to the HP3000-L is the deluge of SPAM that comes with
posting to the list.

Then this fall the SPAM situation rose to ridiculous proportions.  Some
days I'd receive over 100 megabytes of SPAM, mostly viruses.  I'm sure this
email volume and the bandwidth it requires makes for an even worse loss
situation for LaserNet on ISP accounts like mine.

Today the viruses have trickled down to a few megabytes a day, but the
plain old SPAM is now even worse.  This morning I had over 430 pieces of
new SPAM in my "in" box -- SPAM that had been received over the previous 21
hours.  I can remove most of the SPAM with filters, but it still is darn
annoying.

Which brings me to a conclusion and course of action with which I'm not
pleased, but which, regretfully, I have recognized is necessary.

The conclusion?
That either the connection sending posts TO the newsgroup must be cut, or
email addresses of those who post to the listserve must be stripped,
replaced with "address not available", or replaced a generic address like
"[log in to unmask]" when posts are fed to the newsgroup.  Comments anyone?


Anyway, in the coming days I'll be un-subscribing from the list and
re-subscribing with a new email address.  And I'll be lurking more and
posting less, at least while I get an idea of just how much SPAM an email
address that sends nothing receives.

This new email address will ONLY be used for the HP3000-L, so hopefully
I'll be able to filter out the SPAM (something similar to "sender not the
listserv then in the trash it goes").

I will have another email address which can be used for personal
communications.  For those who would prefer to correspond off-list (or
privately respond to a posting on the HP3000-L), please send me an email
here at this "[log in to unmask]" email address sometime in the coming week
with the subject line "SEND ME YOUR NEW EMAIL ADDRESS".  When the new
"private" email address has been set up, I'll send its address to you.

73's,

John
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