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I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one.

>> Who will decide what is spam and what is not? Will
>> mailings to people who have subscribed to a news
>> letter qualify? How about your personal Christmas
>> card list?

Its a consensus thing. SOMEONE is bound to object to almost anything. That one person complains to your ISP. They decide he's a kook and ignore him. Something bothers "6000 - 10000" individuals enough so they complain to your ISP. Maybe they decide there IS a problem. Something bothers the owner of one computer enough that he declines to pass mail thru HIS computer to your ISP. Your ISP decides he is a kook and ignores him. Something bothers 100s or 1000s of individual owners of computers enough that they decline to send mail on to MN Online. MN Online takes notice, and may decide there is a problem. Look at it from the other side. Vivian Rose can't get an email through to it's destination. She finds that Paul Vixie's computer isn't letting it get through. She complains to the owners of computers which connect to Paul Vixie's computer. They may decide Vixie is a kook, and route messages around his computer. They may decide he has a point, and join the RBL. The way the Internet is cross connected, it takes a LOT of computers blocking mail to a destination to prevent it from getting thru by some route. (Remember, the Internet was designed to remain operating during an atomic war.)

So I guess what you are saying here is that if a couple people want to lynch that nigger who is said to have raped that white girl, they are just kooks. But, if 6000-10000 people think so, a consensus, then it is OK. And, that it doesn't make any difference whether the nigger actually did it or not. Gosh, then I am going to have to be that one person that "objects to almost anything."

There are a couple of other things wrong with this argument besides the vigilante justice thing. The 6000-10000 emails received by Mn OnLine support came from their own customers! You bet they felt that "there is a problem." The trouble came in trying to prevent it.

Then there is Vivian Rose. You seem to feel that it is OK to block Vivian's email. She is fourteen years old and can not route email whichever way she chooses, nor could her ISP when her father tried to get them to do so.

As for the "atomic war" myth, it is just that. The original Internet (I have operating on it since 1969) was designed to help academics at universities communicate with one another. The "atomic war" story came from defense department hype when DARPANET joined ARPANET. Obviously, if a few vigilantes can block email from Arkansas to Minnesota for a week, it's bullshit, wouldn't you say?

If you've >>subscribed<< to a newsletter, it's not spam, now is it?

Probably not _my_ Christmas card list. I'm not in the habit of sending cards to thousands or millions of people. I'm not in the habit of continuing to send cards to people who ask/tell me to stop. I'm not in the habit of stealing cpu time on an innocent 3rd parties computer to send my mail. But if 6000 or 10000 people started complaining to Skypoint about getting unwanted Christmas cards it _would_ be spam.

I see. Then the definition of spam is the number of people that don't like it? Well, it is estimated that there are about 60,000,000 people on the Net right now. I would think it would be rather easy to get 6-10K of them, about one hundredth of one percent, to object to ANYTHING (turning your argument on its head).

>> How many emails sent at one time does it take to qualify?
>> 100? 1000? Who draws the lines?

There are mailing lists that routinely send out tens of thousands of messages. They aren't spam because the people who get the messages want the messages ... they subscribed to the list. If they get tired of the messages they can unsubscribe.

Not necessarily. Why can't I advertise my news letter by sending a single sample to lots of people? This scheme would block this effort from the get-go, not after one message. My point was to ask which spam is acceptable, which not?

100 would probably qualify as spam if it bugged all 100 people enough to complain. The numbers are usually much larger. Take a look at http://www.citilink.com/~renhoek. Notice that 5000 is too small for him to bother with. 50,000 is a 'small' mailing.

Relay-spammers only send a few thousand per starting point. This is what was happening to Mn OnLine. If you start blocking 50,000, then they will reduce the number to 5,000...or 500 and stagger them throughout the day. Measure-countermeasure, like the wars on drugs or pornography. We all know how successful THOSE are.

Your ISP draws the lines. They look at the number of people who complain, disregard a few as kooks, and give you the boot if enough different people complain. On the Net it seems to be more than the 10 people you say can make someone believe anything, but the effect is the same.

Somehow, the image of ISPs all over the world entering a war about what will and won't be retransmitted strikes me as counterproductive and destructive of the Net.

>> Will email containing certain words be blocked, like
>> "fuck" or "cocksucker?" If so, how about the sentence
>> "The words 'fuck' and 'cocksucker' are prohibited!"?
>> Or, how about THIS VERY ARTICLE, sent to all the
>> readers of Pissed Off! as an email?

Anti spammers aren't complaining about the content of the mail but rather its method of delivery (multiple recipients who don't want it -- who don't have any previous business or personal relationship) I assume the recipients of Pissed Off! have subscribed, so it isn't spam.

They SAY they aren't complaining about content. But, who is to say that if 6000-1000 concerned individuals come to the "consensus" that they don't like the words "fuck" and "cocksucker" passing through their remailer point, they should be able to block or reroute it? So far, there are no restrictions on who can own remailer nodes, but there are rules on how remailers should act. Blocking email is not one of the rules (yet).

>> If what is being attempted is not censorship, as
>> the shitheads at MAPS are asserting, what is it?
>> They say, "We are all, in the MAPS project and in
>> every anti-spam coalition extreme advocates of
>> free speech. However, we believe that speech is more
>> free if the recipients hear what they choose to
>> hear rather than what spammers want them to hear."
>> Now there's an interesting new definition of "free
>> speech." You can only say WHAT THEY WANT TO HEAR.

If I don't have your permission... Can I stand on your roof and give my speech?

Trespass. Irrelevant.

Can I paint my ad on the side of your car?

Vandalism. Irrelevant.

Can I run my column in your magazine?

Free enterprise. I decide who publishes in my magazine.

Since it's a shorter route, can I walk in your front door and out your back door?

More trespass.

Can I send my spam thru your computer?

No, I am not a remailer. I have not agreed, to get on the Internet, to pass on anything that arrives at my computer's door. But, remailers HAVE made such agreements and some of them are now violating that agreement.

You can only say OVER THEIR COMPUTER what they say you can. Remember, the RBL doesn't prevent messages from going from point A to point B ... it only prevents them from passing thru a RBL OWNED computer.

And, in the process, inadvertently fucks with the business of people who not only are innocent of any "crime," but do not even know one has been committed! Does the word "vigilantism" ring a bell yet?

>> If the purpose of this effort is to stop spam, why
>> is a fourteen year old girl blocked from getting
>> her movie reviews posted and her editor kept from
>> doing his job? Why is Minnesota OnLine (and,
>> presumedly many others) already a frequent victim
>> of surreptitious spam relays, Black Holed?

Why do you hit a mule on the head with a 2 by 4? To get its attention.

That's just plain DUMB! Comparing young girls trying to get their movie reviews to their publishers to mules (who won't move) is REALLY, REALLY DUMB.

>> Where does the money trail lead? Who profits?

You're going to be very surprised by this one. Have you sent mail to Vixie? (paul@vix.com)

No I haven't. Why should I?

Other comments:

The porn filter at Vivian's local rec center is an unrelated matter. A similar example to yours. Sky & Telescope magazine's web pages are blocked by many of these Net Nannyish programs ... too much talk of "naked"-eye observations.

Only if you are a strong believer that censorship called "consensus" makes it something else. My Pappy taught me that calling a horseshit perfume doesn't make it smell good. If porn filters are such a dismal failure...and I think even you will agree that they are...why do you think spam filters won't be, however you define spam?

>> At least the governement and legislators
>> are not involved in this effort (yet!)

RBL is an attempt to solve the spam problem by technical means, WITHOUT involving the government. There are proposed new laws kicking around Washington to outlaw or regulate spam. Watch out.

Well, sometimes "citizen" action can be more onerous than government action. It's why government is elected in democracies rather than put in place by mob action. Also, this is why we have courts rather than street justice. Sometimes, the courts do not work, but street action ALMOST NEVER DOES!

>> Who will win from this battle? FOLLOW THE MONEY!!!

You will be surprised

Maybe I will, but so far nothing you have said changes my original suspicion that somebody involved in this scam is profiting from it. Software is being sold that pretends to solve the spam problem. I will believe it when I stop getting spam.

>> Who will lose? Each and every one of us. ISPs who end
>> up on the list are doubly cursed. Forced by a form of
>> extortion to purchase blocking software, which I
>> suspect will be of limited value,

Forced to properly configure the software they already have.

No there's an oxymoronic statement fit for a Microsoft support technician! "Dear sir, if your version of Windows were properly configured, it would NEVER crash!"

>> It is possible to "be removed" from the Black Hole
>> List, but what about those mail relay stations
>> that have already "subscribed."

The "R" in RBL stands for Realtime. When a site is removed from the list it takes maybe an hour for that information to percolate around the subscribed sites. (Sites can be added to the list at the same speed.)

Hey, you don't happen to be an investor in RBL somehow, do you? You sure sound like one. By the way, it took Mn OnLine five days to solve just this one instance! Not "real time" where I come from.

You seem to have missed all my points rather thoroughly. I hope that what I have said reminded you that free speech refers not to what you want to hear, but to what I want to say. It is not that I particularly like spam. I really dislike it when it interferes with my personal affairs. But I would prefer 10,000 spammers over a single vigilante. Spamming is cheap for the purveyors, but it is not free. I deal with it by trashing it quickly without a moment's backward glance. Sooner or later, if enough of us do this, the return from spamming will not justify its cost.

Fortunately, this same argument will destroy the RLB scheme in exactly the same manner. If enough concerned people like me complain loudly enough about the asshole remailer vigilantes who are violating MY TRUST in the system, the cost of playing this game will get too high and the perpetrators will cease and desist. I confidently predict this.

See you tomorrow...

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