Well, if the  kook does actually turn out  not to be full of  hot air and
starts talking  to lawyers  seriously about a  suit, the  conversation is
likely to go as follows:
 
Lawyer: I think  we want to sue the university,  because they have deeper
        pockets.
 
Kook:   NO WAY! I want to sue that *beep*  personally! Sue her till she's
        got no *beep* roof to sleep under!!!
 
Lawyer: All  right Mr. Kook.  I should warn  you however that  I estimate
        that  my fees  and  related  expenses for  this  lawsuit will  be
        between $50,000 and $100,000. Are you prepared to expend this sum
        out of your private funds?
 
Kook:   Uh...
 
Lawyer: Well, in that case Mr. Kook, I propose that we follow my original
        suggestion and press charges against the university.
 
But, of  course, lawyers not being  stupid, I doubt that  the lawyer will
agree to  sue in the first  place. This would  be at best a  long lawsuit
since there is no  clear-cut case. He would need to ask  for 7 figures to
make it worth his  while. I'm no expert but can one  really ask that much
for that kind of stuff? There was no tangible damage after all.
 
I think this  nonsense will go on until  a Kook does the same  thing to a
corporate-run list. Corporations are not  nice and have more lawyers than
university. If  I were the CEO  of a company  with half a dozen  on staff
lawyers and Mr. Kook threatened to sue  on bogus grounds just so we would
allow him  to post  some rubbish to  one of our  product lists,  and went
around doing all the things Anita  mentioned, I would simply put a lawyer
on his back for the sake of establishing a precedent for the common good.
Lawyers and judges  may not understand the network,  but they understand,
say, libel. Somehow  they understand that this electronic  stuff you type
is read by  people. Ok, so in the  worst case it might not  be libel, but
slander is good enough. I wish  the EFF understood that freedom of speech
works both ways (ie includes the freedom to prevent idiots from polluting
your private discussion  group) and did just that. They  have a big legal
fund after all and lawyers who understand the Internet very well.
 
  Eric