The E-mail Tax Hoax Meets The Candidates

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.

Then what I want to know is...

Who the HELL have I been paying my 5 cents to?!?!!

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To all those who are calling them suckers.

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

WCBS not yet acknowledging their screwup

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 hate 602P and Congressman Schnell!

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.

Obligatory link to CIAC...

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

• http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html [llnl.gov]

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?"

New third-level domain for it...

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

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

A buddy of mine...

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?

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Don't be too hard on them

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.

Re:Obligatory link to CIAC...

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".