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The E-mail Tax Hoax Meets The Candidates

Posted by timothy on Sun Oct 08, 2000 09:37 PM
from the life-imitates-art dept.
It's funny. Laugh.
senort01 writes: "Who couldn't find this humorous? 602P, (the post office will charge for e-mail being sent to make up for lost revenue), a classic Internet hoax, was asked about in the New York Senate debate. Needless to say, both parties aren't going to support it! Thank god!" And for those who prefer their news both more direct and more fun, ContinuousPark writes: "Declan McCullagh's Politechbot mailing list is reporting that the lame e-mail hoax made it into the Clinton-Lazio debate." the_quark helpfully points out not only the famous Bill 602P itself but the USPS's stock page denying its existence.
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] News: Senator Warns of Email Tax This Fall 552 comments
cnet-declan writes "State and local governments in Washington this week began an all-out lobbying push for the power to tax the Internet, according to our article at News.com. A new Senate bill would usher in Internet sales taxes, and the Federation of Tax Administrators (representing state tax collectors) advised senators at a hearing on Wednesday not to renew a temporary moratorium limiting broadband taxes that expires in November. One irked Republican senator warned that unless the moratorium is renewed, we could start seeing email taxes by the end of the year. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey blames it on the Democrats taking over, as do Yahoo and eBay lobbyists. Is this a non-hoax version of bill 602P?"
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The E-mail Tax Hoax Meets The Candidates 50 Comments More /

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  • This CNN [cnn.com] article doesn't give many details, but apparently the question was submitted online for the debate. Whoever was in charge of screening/selecting those questions is probably a little nervous about going to work tomorrow morning...
  • I'll vote for someone who knows ISA from PCI.

    And we all will end up in a country that eats mostly pizza and drinks only Mountain Dew :)

    --
  • There is an interesting story in the moderation pool at Kuro5hin about this subject (it may not be in moderation pool later): http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2000/ 10/6/105910/251;tool=post&mode=moderate
  • Although risking a -1 redundant for this, here is the specific hoax page [ciac.org] from CIAC
  • not to mention the so-called "y2k bug"
  • I don't see too many big problems with that =)
  • Maybe maybe not, but you have to admit, it's pretty damn funny :o)

  • ...is that this hoax is believable. Precedants such as the Communications Decency Act and other obviously unconstitutional laws get passed, so why wouldn't this be proposed?

    I mean, look at the congressional response to the OK City bombing. They passed "domestic terrorism legislation". Well Hello!!! The last time I checked, it was already illegal to set off a bomb and kill over 100 people. What do we need these laws for?

    I swear, if by some quirk of fate I ever end up in congress, I will *never* vote for such a stupid, idiotic, redundant POS. If anybody asks me why, I'll just smile and say that there was heavy pressure from the pro domestic terrorism lobbying groups.

    Ok... actually, now that I come to think of it... it was probably a rider on some other bill which was important. That's the cruddy thing about just about all bills. They are all like... Mozilla. Can't just have a browser bill, gotta attach an LDAP rider, a news clause, and some additional mail legislation.

    So, I couldn't vote against the bill; but I'd make a scene on C-SPAN.

  • Then what I want to know is... (Score:4)

    by 64.28.67.48 (217783) on Sunday October 08 2000, @06:15PM (#721770)
    Who the HELL have I been paying my 5 cents to?!?!!

    -------------
  • Shouldn't that be, "there's a kilosucker born every millesecond"? this is /. after all...
  • How about RFC #1438 [ietf.org] describing IETF SOBs? Or RFC #2325 [ietf.org]? Or even better, RFC #2100 [ietf.org] which details the naming of hosts.

    And an old but, but a classic, RFC #748 [ietf.org] which details several "new" Telnet options to facilitate random data/service losses.

    I should probably point out that all of those were submitted on April 1st and are actual RFCs that are archived on the Internet Engineering Task Force [ietf.org]'s webpage. I've got a longer list, should anyone care, but I've got to pick and choose...

    The only point to this is that some real RFC's turn out to be hoaxes, in a way! Hope people find those funny. If not, then you should try and implement TCP/IP as described in RFC #1217 [ietf.org]. Either that or try RFC #2549 [ietf.org] - it was discovered that Linux could not implement it because penguins can't fly.

  • they probably would, if there were such a thing as hell.
  • Well, something to think about the next time the subject of online voting comes up.

  • Yeah, when you get to think of it, it's much less of a fraud than it would be for you to describe yourself as "humorous".

    --

  • At LinuxWorld (TM, etc) in Frankfurt one of the sendmail techie wizzards made a spam kill proposal which, thinking about it, isn' t really dumb.

    Every e-mail is taxed with 10 cents ($1 for messages > 50k), which the receiver can or cannot collect.

    Now, if friends or business associates send me mail, I sure won't collect. But I sure as hell collect on every piece of fscking junk sent into my general direction.

    Today it's essentially free (or very cheap) to send 3'000'000 of those Hot pr0n, just click here messages. Now if half the recepients collect 10 cents the spammer is suddenly out of $150'000, which hurts.

    Also those marketing geniuses which figure that their 3 Meg PowerPoint presentation is of interest to half the company would certainly think twice before pestering us again.

    Of course the micro payment infrastructure is not here yet, further refinements have to be applied, etc...

    But thinking about it, it's not that bad an idea to finally get rid of SPAM.

  • The difference is that bills in Congress aren't numbered that way. A legitimate bill in the house would be numbered HR-something and a legitimate bill in the Senate would be numbered S-something.

    If someone started talking to me about IETF RCS1532, or PCS1532 I would assume they are not an expert and got the name wrong (possably including the numbers).

    I don't see why congressmen think the public is any smarter. Especally when they keep passing laws the remove our need to think for ourselves.

  • Hey, does anyone else remember that classic oversvation made by David Frost on some British TV show in the 1960s:

    "In the US they have two political parties. They have the Republicans, who are the equivalent of our Conservative Party and the Democrats, who are the equivalent of our Conservative Party."
  • I'd like to ask you how you stand on federal bill 602P," moderator Marcia Kramer [cbsnewyork.com], a correspondent for WCBS-TV, told the two rivals.
    I really can't blame the two senate candidates. Im sure not every politician in the US have memorized all pending Bill#s. This twit from "WC BS -TV" (emphasis mine) should be laughed right out of her job. Instead of hiring talking-head-bimbos and their Ken-Doll counterparts, why cant COMPETENT journalists be hired? Attractive isnt she? The sheeple respond well to pretty-journalists.

    [ogg-caveman-speak] Pretty Pictures...good - Big Words and Serious talk...bad[/ogg-caveman-speak].

    Im not saying you are incapable of intelligence if you are an attractive women, im saying that the likely hood (statistically) is less. Better odds that you are A) attractive or B) intelligent (same goes for men..*)I am beginning to think that the concept that 'all men are created equal' is going to be the downfall of the US. Fact is all men are NOT created equal. If decisions (at all levels) are going to continue to be made to play to the middle 60% of the population (sheeple) who arent capable of making minor decisions in their own lives were doomed. The sheeple continue to overwhelm the decisions made for the good of all (including themselves)... funny thing is most sheeple arent capable of understanding the argument let alone capable of rendering an informed, well-argued decision. I suggest the imposition of a test, like a drivers test, administered before any person is allowed to vote or participate in anything of consiquence be it nonprofit, governmental elections, town-council, BoyScout administration council - whatever.

    *Spare me the accusations of sexism.

  • Well Lazio has got to be pretty dumb.

    He has spent five years in congress yet doesn't recognise a non-existent congress man, even, more basic, Sentate bills are numbered S-nnnn, congress bills HR-nnnn. No piece of valid legislation would ever be numbered nnnn-SP.

  • The real point here is I could RESEARCH what the RFC's are and come up with an answer. The most disconcerting thing about this was that the moderator of the debate did not research this question at all!! Journalistic integrity is built on researching your topic.

    This example just higlights how far good objective journalism in this country has fallen.

    Before too many of you rant about /.'s occasional screw-ups with the facts sometimes, there's two things to remember.

    1) These guys aren't professional journalists running a senatorial debate.

    and

    2) They generally fess up to thier mistakes and apologize for them. This is also rarely seen in modern journalism.

  • I got hit by another Canadian email virus

    The newfie virus

    This virus works on the honour system. Please delete everything on your hard disk then forward this message to everyone on your mailing list.

    After I deleted everthing on my hard disk I couldn't send out the required email

  • I just want to ask all the people who think the politicians are stupid for not knowing that 602P is not a real bill to please inform me off the top of their heads what the titles of the following RFCs are: 1999, 2012, 3002, and 6521. If you can't tell what they are or even better can't figure out which ones are fake and which are real then what business do you have expecting politicians to know about all the bills being proposed to congress, especially since most bills are handled by specialized committees and rarely are heard by all of congress unless they have massive support.

    Second Law of Blissful Ignorance
  • PT Barnum was an optimist.
  • Needless to say, both parties aren't going to support it!

    The real enemy here is the "two-party system." First of all, in the US, political parties don't really even exist. Second, there are many, many more than merely two of them, and most are much friendlier to the interests of sanity than the Demoblicans and Republicrats. Stop buying into the idea that there are only two parties, or that party affiliation even matters. Bottom line: the two largest political parties are identical and have only one mission: to maintain and increase their own power. You can't count on either of their loyalty, either to your business or the interests of general justice and rationality. The instant some big special interest drops a million for some idiotic proposal, they'll both pull an about-face in the interests of money and power.

    Value your freedom? Vote against the two major parties.

  • Hillary proved to be the smart one by her
    response while Lazio choose to look like a
    moron with his. Lazio automatically assumed that
    this was a real bill in congress and started
    bashing on the governement while Hilary was
    puzzled by the bizarre bill that she'd never
    heard of.

    Don't worry, there are plenty of politicians
    who are well aware of that phony bill, or at
    least their secretaries are.

    There was an article I read in the Grand Rapids
    newspaper (Michigan) where they explained that
    that phony bill got some phone lines jammed.
    There were more angry calls about this bill
    than people bitching at the President during
    the hypocrite republican's vendetta against
    the president for his blowjobs.

  • If you check out WCBS' web article about the debate [cbsnewyork.com], you'll notice not a single reference to the 602P hoax. On their message boards, however, a couple of people are screaming for the head of the moderator, "Chief Investigative/Political Reporter for NEWS 2" Marcia Kramer.

    My spider-sense tells me the Don Imus show (on sister station WFAN-AM) is going to have a field day tomorrow. I guess WCBS doesn't feel their own screwups are worth correcting.

  • I've seen some otherwise intelligent, educated people get caught by this particular hoax

    Agreed... I've had that particular email sent to me by some bright friends who weren't so bright when it came to computers...

  • Clinton's statement implies that she could be in favor of government intervention in the internet, so long as she thinks it is "justified."

    I'm a NY resident and vehemently against Her Royal Highness for many reasons. I watched the debate this morning, though I admit I was half out of it due to being sick, and I remember her talking about the moritorium on internet taxation as part of her response to this question... To paraphrase, she said she wasn't in favor of taxation right now - she would like to continue the with moratorium so that access can be provided to as many people as possible and re-evaluate the situation later. Like I said, I'm admittedly biased against her, but to me, this smacks of "let it become really popular and then once most people depend on it, we can tax a broader base to generate money for new (bloated|wasteful) program X." It's not like the government doesn't already tax necessary utilities to generate revenue for certain programs.

  • From a post on K5 [kuro5hin.org] by Zarniwoop:

    George Bush Loves You [georgebushlovesyou.com] and Al Gore Loves You [algorelovesyou.com].

    Isn't that nice?

  • Yes, 602P is a fake - but that doesn't stop our good samaritans on Capitol Hill from fighting against it just the same. Our stalwart guardians of justice, as reported in the Washington Post [washingtonpost.com] back in May, have introduced a bill to prohibit the FCC from even possibly imposing Internet access charges, even though the FCC has said repeatedly that would never happen in the first place. According to sponsor Fred Upton (R-MI), though, his bill, the Internet Access Charge Prohibition Act [loc.gov], "soothes the fears" of those thousands of people who have written him and other representatives because, frankly, they got bamboozled by the hoax. Upton's bill (HR1291) is still pending committee review before the House.

    So don't be too hard on Clinton and Lazio - at least they only talked about the fake; others are actually wasting real legislative time on it. Sigh... and you wonder why it takes so long to get anything useful done on Capitol Hill.

  • Man, I hate this rumor. I interned for a Congressman this summer, we sent out probably 50-100 letters a week to people who were concerned about this bill. They've sent out over 9,000 letters over the past THREE years on bill 602P and Congressman Schnell.

    Whoever started that rumor, has probably cost the taxpayers millions already. Unfortunately, congressmen (at least the good ones) are obligated to respond to all letters/e-mails received with valid snail mail addresses. They do not respond to simple e-mails, because there is no way of verifying actual constituency.

  • The parent post to this one, by Anonymous Coward:

    Re:Get a Life [slashdot.org]

    Is one of the most intelligent things I have ever read on Slashdot.

    The only thing I'd add to it is that I think the reason why we have so much freedom today is that greater technology automatically me greater ability for bloody-minded busybodies to interfere in the lives of complete strangers.

    Unfortunately, without some new technology that actually enhances freedom (cheap, reliable spaceflight?) to counter our current control-every-aspect-of-an-individual's life technology, I don't think we can go back to the good old days...

    I really prefer the Age of Reason myself, especially to the coming Age of Eternal Darkness... (brought to you by a partnership between Sony and the American Family Association, tm, all rights reserved.)

  • Obligatory link to CIAC... (Score:5)

    by Speare (84249) on Sunday October 08 2000, @04:42PM (#721811) Homepage

    Here's the standard US Dept of Energy's Computer Incident Advisory Capacity (CIAC) website for tracking common Internet hoaxes.

    Most of the classics are in there, and they update this on a mostly useful schedule. I include this in the reply whenever one of my less-clued-in remote relatives asks "Is this legit?"

  • Could not the US Postal Service, patent the idea of "Delivering Mail", in any form? Mmmm gives me an idea, i let you all know what it is when i 0wn j00z :)

    This was an attempt to be funny, did it work?


    How every version of MICROS~1 Windows(TM) comes to exist.

  • New third-level domain for it... (Score:5)

    by Speare (84249) on Sunday October 08 2000, @04:44PM (#721816) Homepage

    Looks like they reorganized last week. The new, more memorable address:

    http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/ [ciac.org]

  • "I am absolutely opposed to this," Lazio said. "This is an example of the government's greedy hand in trying to take money from taxpayers that it has no right to."

    Don't you find it amazing that politicans can twist any little question into a big issue.
    Its also a good indication of the little candidates know about technology when they can't even see that the "tax" would be in every way impossible to enforce...

  • ... one of them had responded "you dumbass that's a hoax"
  • Thanks for that link. I hadn't yet heard if the moderator thought it was real or was just testing the candidates.

    In any case, you're right. The person and/or people who blundered by letting that question through might want to spruce up their resumés tomorrow.

  • It's not the name of the bill that bothers me, but more the description. It probably caught them off guard, but I would have expected intelligent political leaders to spot the difference between a hoax and something that defies common sense.

    On the other hand, who cares? It's just funny. Blame the guy who wrote the question for not verifying his/her facts.

  • I heard some caller to a radio show this morning claim that this rumor came about as a result of a Canadian bill 602P that was real. Someone repackaged it as though it were happening in the U.S. This is the first that I've ever heard this part of the legend, so I thought I'd pass it along. The whole idea of taxing emails is so absurd that I have difficulty believing that any legislative body would actually entertain it, but this is Canada after all :-)

  • A buddy of mine... (Score:3)

    by AntiPasto (168263) on Sunday October 08 2000, @04:53PM (#721844) Journal
    and I'm sure yours... thought it'd be a nice idea to run a one page ad in the NY Times just saying "Last chance to send $1 to: [address]"... anyone got some other crazy ideas your friends throw at you?

    ----

  • Don't be too hard on them (Score:4)

    by vertical-limit (207715) on Sunday October 08 2000, @04:57PM (#721846)
    I know that this is an infamous hoax, but it's unfair to trash the candidates for not knowing about it -- remember, most Slashdot readers tend to specialize in technology, but for politicians, that's just one of dozens of areas they have to worry about. There's also foreign policy, health care, crime, education, the environment, and a lot of other fields, each with their own history and rumors. We can't expect them to know about every piece of legislation that does -- or in this case, does not -- exist.

    I think we should be more glad about the fact that both candidates were enthusiastially against this bill. Even the idea of an e-mail tax is ridiculous; it's good to sea that both Clinton and Lazio oppose it not just in politics but in principle.

    It's all a matter of trust. Trusting no politicians is not an option and will hurt you economically if others do take the risk -- nor is trusting every fool with a gavel. The truth is in the middle. I'm grateful to be living in a country where I think I can (mostly) trust the government to provide me this kind of services. So, whether you trust Clinton and Lazio or not is not very relevant. The major advancement here is the clear and present danger that e-mail taxes present.

  • Shamless for About.com's UrbanLegends site: http://urb anl egends.about.com/science/urbanlegends/library/blho ax.htm [about.com]

    They have complete writeups on both versions of it... US Version [about.com], Canadian Version [about.com]. If you bother to take a look, notice how thses two e-mails are almost EXACTLY the same, save for the differneces in Canadian/American government references. At least these jokers aren't discriminating over political boundaries... I'm just surprised that the Canadian version doesn't have a French translation to go along with it...

  • Re:Obligatory link to CIAC... (Score:3)

    by aozilla (133143) on Sunday October 08 2000, @05:00PM (#721851) Homepage
    Of course, we know that Good Times really is a virus, which propagates itself around the internet. Instead of capitalizing on a bug in the OS, it capitalizes on a bug in the user, which causes the user to think the message is legitimate, and pass it on. See also, "The GPL Virus".
  • Coulda been worse - at least their reaction, when put on the spot with something they didn't know about and hadn't paid attention to years of hoax warnings, was "no, we shouldn't be taxing the net" as opposed to "yes, my staff has been evaluating the right way to tax the net and we'll be sure to check out that proposal as well."
  • On the other hand, it is easier to seek forgiveness than permission. At least the politicians know how unpopular this would be and are less likely to get away with sneaking it in (not that they won't try sooner or later anyway)

    Rich

  • I just want to ask all the people who think the politicians are stupid for not knowing that 602P
    is not a real bill to please inform me off the top of their heads what the titles of the following
    RFCs are: 1999, 2012, 3002, and 6521

    The difference is that bills in Congress aren't numbered that way. A legitimate bill in the house would be numbered HR-something and a legitimate bill in the Senate would be numbered S-something.

    I find it absolutely incredible that a sitting congressman doesn't even know the numbering scheme used for bills. Just how stupid do you have to be not to know that? I'm a Canadian and I know that.
  • I remember a branch of UN suggested e-mail tax for helping underdeveloped countries build their IT infrastructure. Collect tax from welthier countries, then invest it in poor countries

    Since when is Switzerland a poor country?
    /.

  • One thing the news story does not mention is if the debate moderator thought it was a real bill or simply mentioned it as a test for the candidates. If it's the former, the moderator should be fired for not fact-checking before asking questions. If it's the latter, she should be commended for creating such a hilarious moment.
  • I don't know if you can judge everyone by their knowledge of common internet hoaxes. Politicians, by necessity, are generalists; they have to know a little bit about everything, and I've seen some otherwise intelligent, educated people get caught by this particular hoax.
    --

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