I'm not on [EMAIL PROTECTED], and the last time I [accidentally, I just
hit reply-to-all] crossposted there I received a note (probably from the
list owner) telling me I had to subscribe there to post there.
On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
) In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
) Daniel Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
) >On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
) >) Of course, if we are talking about the monkeys.com domain (total of 1 user)
) >) nobody gives a damn. However if AOL decided to do this, or Hotmail, then
) >) I think that you would find a lot of list admins getting with the program.
) >I think that's disgusting. That's almost sorta kinda like "if you want to
) >sell one computer with Windows, you have to sell them all with Windows,"
) >except in this case it's not so "bad."
) There's a big difference.
It's still bullying. The *only* time such actions are substantiated are
when they are backed by an RFC, or some other form of religious text. If
that is your ultimate goal, then forget about the bullying crap.
) In one case, the goal is just to make Bill Gates richer than he already is.
)
) In the case of what I proposed however, the goal is to rid the Internet of
) bulk E-mail spam while leaving all of the *legitimate* mailing lists still
) standing.
No matter how valiant, how noble, how just, or how pure your goal of
cleaning up the environment is, blowing up factories that are major
contributors to pollution is *not* an okay solution.
I think the same thinking applies. As I said when I made my initial post
early this morning, 7 minutes after I had awakened after having 4 hours of
sleep, I have not been following this thread. All I saw was "force" and I
knew I had to rant.
) >) Are mailing list administrators like minor dieties or something?
) >Taken in context, absolutely!
) >I run over 60 mailing lists on narnia, and I'll be damned before I let
) >some half-twit (either at monkeys.com or aol.com) tell me I have to have
) >my mailing lists added to some list before their users will be able to
) >participate.
) Hummm... Fiesty, aren't we?
When someone sets aside the time and resources to implement a mailing list
for the good of others, they can rightfully expect to be let alone to do
their thing. Forcing them to register with your data base, or data bases
scattered across the net, or whatever, in order to use their mailing list
would be similar to forcing every shell server to require them to register
every authorized IRC bot run on their server in order to curtail abuse
generated from unauthorized bots. <shrug> I doubt very many shell server
admins would want to bother, and would instead just disallow bots (which
is sadly a growing trend already).
Hello, my name is Emanuel Goldstein of the Ellingson Mineral Corporation's
technology department. I'm writing you today to inform you that a user at
our site, Mr. Duke Ellingson, has attempted to subscribe to your
unregistered [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list. Because we
cannot be bothered to take the time out of our incredibly busy schedules
to properly handle incoming unsolicited commercial email, we have opted to
filter out *all* bulk email and only let in bulk mail coming from sites
listed in the Ellingson Mineral Officially Verified and Registered Mailing
List data base. Please go to
http://gibson.ellingson-mineral.com/EMOVRML/signup.cgi?newlist to register
your mailing list with our data base so that your mailing list traffic
will be accepted by our mail routers.
) >The correct answer to "I can't subscribe to your mailing list because my
) >ISP has some blocking thing setup" is "get a decent ISP."
) That's swell, except for it doesn't do anything to cutrail the bulk E-mail
) spam problem.
And your solution does?
What happened to the realtime black-list? What happened to anti-relaying
.rc scripts for sendmail? What happened to any and every other anti-UCE
project that's ever been undertaken? Are they all failures, and hence your
new socialist system will be the Final Solution to the UCE problem?
) Are you pro-spam?
I've never really tried spam before, but I've heard nothing but horror
stories about its taste. Maybe I should try some one time and see what all
the fuss is about...
) OK, OK. It's a retorical question, but you get my drift. Bulk E-mail
) spam has changed the nature of the net forever and there is no going back.
<ahem> That sounds pretty alarmist to me...
) *Somebody* is going to have to make some small sacrafices in order for
) us to get rid of this crap, and it may (unfortunately) end up being the
) owners and operators of legitimate mailing lists.
And why not the spammers themselves? Contacting their upstream providers,
or their upstream providers' upstream providers, or their upstream
providers' upstream providers' upstream providers, or their Aunt Dorris'
cat Nellie, is in my exceedingly humble opinion the best way to deal with
the UCE problem. Too many people just say "grrr, more mass mail... click"
and delete it. Then there are those who look at the message headers, do a
little bit of investigative work, and contact the appropriate persons.
Then there are people who collect all of their UCE into a big list,
compile it, make copies in triplicate, then use it to feed coordinates
into their thermonuclear missiles.
[snip: mailing lists are bulk, UCE is bulk, UCE isn't unambigious so
mailing lists might as well be unambigious]
) as being legitimate... preferebly in an unforgable way (such as what I
) described).
)
) You may not like it but that may be the future.
Yes, and the US government might see fit to regulate email as well in
order to put a handle on this growing, horrible, drastic problem. You may
not like it but that may be the future. Aggggg, that would be *horrible*,
so what are we going to do about it?
What am I doing with you right now?
) You may not like it, but this may perhaps be the _only_ complete solution
) to the E-mail spam problem.
Highly doubtful. It might be the *best* of the complete solutions to the
UCE problem, or it might be the most easily implemented (which I very
highly doubt) of the complete solutions to the UCE problems, but there are
always, of course, those nuclear bombs in my backyard... they just need
some coordinates...
) I mean geeezzzz... It isn't as if I was telling you that you were going to
) have to pay money in order to continue to run your legitimate lists! That
) _ain't_ what I was proposing.
That's at least a plus.
) >I find that emailing the full message and full headers to
) >abuse@THEIRDIRECTUPSTREAMPROVIDER usually works absolutely wonderfully.
) >Even AGIS responds to my messages [sometimes].
) That's swell, except that there are many others who don't respond in any
) meaningful way. Compuserve is one.
I've never had the pleasure of conversing with anyone at CompuServe with
regards to UCE.
) UUnet is another.
<smile> You must have pissed them off or something. I have yet to receive
an unsatisfactory reply from UUnet.
) AT&T is another.
The one time I had a problem with an AT&T spammer the problem was dealt
with satisfactorily.
) Shall I go on? (I have a rather long list.)
Please, only if you can actually substantiate their being named on your
rather long list.
--
Daniel Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. -- Confucius
