Hi plant-edders,
I wondered about that message too. If you still have it, you'll see
the organization is HMC.edu, Harvey Mudd College. I asked the summer
students and no one knew of any pranks involving posting messages to
newsgroups (it was also posted to arab-gen), but I did learn what "alas
babylon" refers to... Apparently there is a book by that name, in which two
brothers communcate by email and one works at a government agency
(pentagon?). They agree that if the one learns of plans for a nuclear war
he will warn his brother by sending the "alas, babylon" message.
In spite of the questionable taste I didn't pursue the matter. I
felt that as in any case of "spamming" the offending person was best
ignored. If the problem recurs I'll get the dean of students and academic
computing staff to track down the responsible party.....
Mary Williams
Dept. of Biology
Harvey Mudd College
Claremont, CA 91711
