Re: ORBS sucked into a black hole!
On Wed, 13 Jun 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >There is another dark side to ORBS which seems to be missed here: Most >people's primary complaint about spammers is that they (the spammer) is >making use of network services at someone elses expense, without >permission of the spamee. ORBS is guilty of the EXACT same "crime" - but, >the ORBS is Politically Correct, so nobody seems to mind... Not really. My problem with spam is not so much the use of my network services sans permission as the use of my eyeballs and attention sans permission. I could give a flying leap about how busy my router is (well, within its capacity anyhow) as long as I can read my email without being pestered by advertisements. Bear
Re: ORBS sucked into a black hole!
Typically, you misunderstand a vigorous defense of someone's right to
publish certain information with endorsement of the information published.
Also typically, in a Choatian sense, you erroneously conflate speech with
action.
The rest is blather and not worth responding to.
-Declan
At 07:37 AM 6/13/01 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>
> > > > ORBS/MAPS/etc. "participate" by connecting to and reviewing sites,
> > > > much like I go out to and watch movies to review.
> > >
> > > Not always. If you refused to have your site "reviewed", then they would
> > > literally make one up.
> >
> > Huh? If theyr'e checking to see if you're running an open relay or
> > harboring spammers, both can be verified ("reviewed") without too much
> > effort.
>
>No. Assuming that ORBS servers were blocked at the edge (as is the case
>here), they have absolutely no way to test for open relays (not that it
>would do any good here, as we don't have any). If ORBS probes are
>blocked, ORBS will literally _invent_ the review of "open relay", and
>apply it to the "movie" (domain) they never had access to "see".
>
>There is another dark side to ORBS which seems to be missed here: Most
>people's primary complaint about spammers is that they (the spammer) is
>making use of network services at someone elses expense, without
>permission of the spamee. ORBS is guilty of the EXACT same "crime" - but,
>the ORBS is Politically Correct, so nobody seems to mind...
>
>Hypocrisy in action, eh?
>
> > > Good riddance to bad trash. Now that ORBS is dead, when are you going to
> > > follow their fine example Declan?
> >
> > Amusing. Last time I got a veiled death threat was when I wrote about
> > UFOs.
>
>You flatter yourself *way* too much Declan - I know of nobody who would
>waste a cartridge on your useless ass.
>
> > -Declan
> >
>
>--
>Yours,
>J.A. Terranson
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they
>should give serious consideration towards setting a better example:
>Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of
>unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in
>the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and
>elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire
>populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate...
>This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States
>as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
>
>The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers,
>associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of
>those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the
>first place...
>
Re: ORBS sucked into a black hole!
On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> > > ORBS/MAPS/etc. "participate" by connecting to and reviewing sites,
> > > much like I go out to and watch movies to review.
> >
> > Not always. If you refused to have your site "reviewed", then they would
> > literally make one up.
>
> Huh? If theyr'e checking to see if you're running an open relay or
> harboring spammers, both can be verified ("reviewed") without too much
> effort.
No. Assuming that ORBS servers were blocked at the edge (as is the case
here), they have absolutely no way to test for open relays (not that it
would do any good here, as we don't have any). If ORBS probes are
blocked, ORBS will literally _invent_ the review of "open relay", and
apply it to the "movie" (domain) they never had access to "see".
There is another dark side to ORBS which seems to be missed here: Most
people's primary complaint about spammers is that they (the spammer) is
making use of network services at someone elses expense, without
permission of the spamee. ORBS is guilty of the EXACT same "crime" - but,
the ORBS is Politically Correct, so nobody seems to mind...
Hypocrisy in action, eh?
> > Good riddance to bad trash. Now that ORBS is dead, when are you going to
> > follow their fine example Declan?
>
> Amusing. Last time I got a veiled death threat was when I wrote about
> UFOs.
You flatter yourself *way* too much Declan - I know of nobody who would
waste a cartridge on your useless ass.
> -Declan
>
--
Yours,
J.A. Terranson
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they
should give serious consideration towards setting a better example:
Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of
unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in
the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and
elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire
populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate...
This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States
as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers,
associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of
those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the
first place...
Re: ORBS sucked into a black hole!
Prime Sinister Jim Choate whines: > I *AM* my own ISP you dunderhead. I don't like some asshole with zero > investment or liability through my acts telling me how to configure my > mail server or how often to mow my front yard. Declan the dunderhead fella wrote: #If you're listed on their naughtysiteslist, then route your mail #through some other system that isn't. # #Or complain to the naughtysiteslist reviewer. # #Or launch a boycott of the reviewer. # #But don't try to say the reviewer somehow does not have the right to #tell other people what he thinks about you. Ah, yes, the Prime Universe, where Jim will force his "free speech" on the resources of others. After all, the Internet means all must accept all SMTP. That's what you're saying, right Jim?
Re: ORBS sucked into a black hole!
At 09:17 AM 06/12/2001 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>On Tue, Jun 12, 2001 at 07:10:34AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> >
> > > ORBS/MAPS/etc. "participate" by connecting to and reviewing sites,
> > > much like I go out to and watch movies to review.
> >
> > Not always. If you refused to have your site "reviewed", then they would
> > literally make one up.
>
>Huh? If they're checking to see if you're running an open relay or
>harboring spammers, both can be verified ("reviewed") without too much effort.
ORBS's relay hunter software was often extremely aggressive,
pounding heavily on systems trying to see if it could send test spam.
Some ISPs and systems disliked that kind of rudeness and blocked them,
and that was enough to get you blacklisted.
At one point, MAPS was blocking ORBS, so MAPS users all blocked ORBS
(Mommy, mommy, he's on MY side of the room! Make him stop!)
so you didn't even have to be trying to block them to get blacklisted.
Also, harboring spammers can be much harder to verify -
some places let them operate out in the open,
while some expected their spammers to be stealthier,
and it's hard to tell a stealthy tolerated customer
from a stealthy not-caught-yet policy-violating customer,
especially from an ISP who's mostly in the colocation business
so the spammer may be a customer of a customer or
a customer of a customer of a customer.
Plus colocation or hosting customers may leave open relays
out of ignorance, or by mistake,
or because they don't have a good technical alternative,
and their ISPs may get crap from ORBS.
And that doesn't even count ISPs who have strong and enforced
anti-spamming policies but have occasional sales people who
are clueless about spam and willing to write contracts allowing violations -
my employer got embarassed by that a year or so
and the VP had to yell at everybody to make sure it doesn't happen again :-)
MAPS wasn't always the most flexibly-responding system,
but at least you could negotiate with them.
Also, spamming is active misbehaviour, while open relays aren't -
they're just something that's too easily abused, and closing them
reduces the tools available to spammers.
It's too bad - it was much easier for me to send email from my laptop
when I could use the same mail relay regardless of whether I was
connected to the LAN at work or dialed into my ISP,
because "att.com" would forward my mail either way.
(Then when that got closed, "research.att.com" would...)
Now I have to switch mail servers depending on where I am.
Re: ORBS sucked into a black hole!
The analogy's not perfect, but analogies never are. If you don't like what "spam critics" are doing, move to a different ISP. -Declan On Tue, Jun 12, 2001 at 07:07:16AM -0500, Jim Choate wrote: > On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Sampo Syreeni wrote: > > > Yes, if you participate in an open forum like the Internet, you can expect > > people to form an opinion about you. Or about your contribution to the > > infrastructure, as the case may be. Do you expect movie critics to stop > > going to new movies unless invited? > > Movie critics don't go around blocking me and my friends from seeing other > movies besides the ones they want. > > > -- > > > "...where annual election ends, tyranny begins;" > >Thomas Jefferson & Samuel Adams > >The Armadillo Group ,::;::-. James Choate >Austin, Tx /:'/ ``::>/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] >www.ssz.com.', `/( e\ 512-451-7087 >-~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- >
Re: ORBS sucked into a black hole!
On Tue, Jun 12, 2001 at 07:10:34AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:
>
> > ORBS/MAPS/etc. "participate" by connecting to and reviewing sites,
> > much like I go out to and watch movies to review.
>
> Not always. If you refused to have your site "reviewed", then they would
> literally make one up.
Huh? If theyr'e checking to see if you're running an open relay or
harboring spammers, both can be verified ("reviewed") without too much
effort.
> > As usual, Choate fails to grasp the point. I am not saying anyone
> > has a duty to "help them."
>
> Yes, you are stating that implicitly.
No, I'm explicitly stating that you don't.
> And to allow them to MAKE UP what they say is pure libel.
Libel laws are tricky things -- as a tool of the rich, they are often used
to stifle speech. But if they're libeling you, try to sue them. But it
seems to me this isn't the main complaint being circulated against them
around here.
> Good riddance to bad trash. Now that ORBS is dead, when are you going to
> follow their fine example Declan?
Amusing. Last time I got a veiled death threat was when I wrote about
UFOs.
-Declan
Re: ORBS sucked into a black hole!
On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Jim Choate wrote: >What ORBS and their ilk do is collect scans of IP's across the Internet, >some do it directly, some do it through independent 3rd parties, and >direct complaints. Yes, if you participate in an open forum like the Internet, you can expect people to form an opinion about you. Or about your contribution to the infrastructure, as the case may be. Do you expect movie critics to stop going to new movies unless invited? >The only way ORBS will remove you from the database is if you allow(!) >them to re-scan your MTA and verify to their satisfaction you are not in >any way running an Open Relay. Yep, building trust is hard work. Do you expect movie critics to retract their comments unless they see that the movie (or the theater) has actually changed for the better? >They then make this database (usually for some sort of fee) available to >other groups who then actively filter submissions to their sites. This would indeed be the definition of criticism. Do you expect movie critics to only write positive reviews, or to write for free, or the theaters to disregard comments made by critics they trust and possibly waste their money showing a crappy movie? >In other words if I have a friend who I want to exchange private mail >with, ORBS's uses their trumped excuse for justification to inject their >belief system into that. Who's injecting what? If you and your friend are your own ISP's, ORBS never interferes with your business. If you're not, you're trying to impose your beliefs over how SMTP should be done on the relay operator. The ISP chose to use ORBS, not the other way around. It seems ORBS is deemed useful and trustworthy, a commendable achievement for a critic. Now the question is, why doesn't the ISP trust you over ORBS? Perhaps you haven't earned the trust? >Truly heinous. Au contraire - finally something that works, and quite without any legislative intervention. Are you saying critics are a heinous invention? I always thought they were a real blessing for cultural progress. So did someone else, apparently, judging by the fact that critics are paid for their effort. >Since when did I have any sort of obligation to help them in their >particular crusade? You don't. It's just that you're placing yourself in a minority without any good reason. Configuring your relay as you want *is* your right, but exercising it means you have to be ready to deal with the consequences. Do you expect movie theaters and distributors to intentionally help spread garbage? To deal with studios that produce it? >There is no technical or legal standard to back their actions. There is no >'authority' for them to decide who may configure their software how (and >the fact that they tell a private citizen is particularly irksome, more >angels among men I guess). But they do have every right to be dissatisfied with you, and broadcast their views to anyone who is willing to listen. If people decide, based on ORBS data, that your behavior is not ok and that ORBS is likely to correctly represent your actions, they have absolutely no obligation to deal with you. It's true that your clients will suffer, but you are the one that brought it on them, placing them in a minority without asking them. It's all parts of a whole, really. Are you saying movie critics have to follow your standards when they appraise a work? Do you expect the critic to praise the movie as a whole when the soundtrack totally sucks? (While I once argued that shunning isn't always ok and should sometimes be viewed as comparable to initiation of force, that argument *certainly* does not extend to today's version of cyberspace. Neither life nor liberty is at stake when someone refuses to relay some email.) >Just another fascist bastard. > >Freedom for me, but not for thee... So you're saying you should have the freedom to operate a relay that could well be used to transmit spam, yet other people have no right to protect themselves? What you're seeing with ORBS is a nice idea by an enterprising individual, and lots of enlightened self-interest on behalf of a bunch of ISPs. Clear signs of successful market self-organization. You on the other hand are trying to stamp that out so that your views may prevail, making you the fascist by a wide margin. Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], gsm: +358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front
Re: ORBS sucked into a black hole! (And digging out...)
ORBS *was* a reputation server - as with any real instance of such, the reputations it publishes are the opinions of the publisher, and the rest of the users of the higher-level reputation system have to decide how much creedence to give those opinions. In this case, a sufficiently large number of people rate ORBS the way Mac, Choate, and measl do, i.e. varying degrees of dislike, that they're now toast (and good riddance to them.) On Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 11:19:29PM -0500, Mac Norton wrote: > Whoa. commie privacy leftie punks? what was ORBS? > And we don't have to talk about holding guns to > heads. We're talking about holding a boycott > to heads. Sounds pretty commie leftie to me. > Talk about sheeple, jeez. Boycotting a boycott organizer, plus boycotting a boycott organizer who's boycotting another boycott organizer. While Declan's comment about Choate was a bit offtopic, you could draw analogies between ORBS and the McCarthyite Red Baiters. "I have a list here of 200 Spammunists, and if you don't trust my list, YOU must be a Spammunist Dupe and we'll put you on the list too!" Unlike Vixie's MAPS, which was mostly well-behaved and reasonable, ORBS was a loose cannon blasting around at random, and to continue the Anti-Commie analogy, they _did_ go busting into places hunting suspected Spammies, and harassing anybody who objected like FBI agents harassing anybody who insisted on seeing a warrant. A real reputation system needs to deal with extremes like this, including small, loud agitators, big quiet ones Disneyfying the culture or Moral Majoritarians, ranting Detweilers with axes to grind (who gave us invaluable practice before the spam floods hit) and all sorts of other problems. ORBS was a good learning experience. So is the trouble that people like John Gilmore (and to a lesser extent, me) are having with spam-blocker technology (mainly closed relays) blocking legitimate email. The 802.11 wireless LAN technology and the risks of drive-by spammers balanced with the desire for open access give us some more opportunities to find a good balance of openness vs. ease of abuse. Anybody want to build a hashcash-enabled SMTP relay for wireless? Or for that matter, a hashcash-enabled SMTP proxy for general use?
Re: ORBS sucked into a black hole!
On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Mac Norton wrote: > I think it's a typo. I think Declan meant > reputation punishing tool. > > If he didn't, he should have. Good riddance > to bad rubbish--though, as I suppose would Declan > or even Choate, I'd defend the bastard's right to > be a bastard, so long as he's willing to pay up > when he causes real damage But's they won't. I've tried to open a discussion with them on several occassions and their attitude is 'do it our way'. The only(!) way I'd support their activity is if they had a 'opt out' to their database. I have no desire to participate in their 'project' in any way. Yet I don't have that choice. So, no, I don't support his activity when it involved me against my wishes. There is something particularly slimey about that. -- "...where annual election ends, tyranny begins;" Thomas Jefferson & Samuel Adams The Armadillo Group ,::;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'/ ``::>/|/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ssz.com.', `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
Re: ORBS sucked into a black hole!
On Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 11:19:29PM -0500, Mac Norton wrote: > Whoa. commie privacy leftie punks? what was ORBS? > And we don't have to talk about holding guns to > heads. We're talking about holding a boycott > to heads. Sounds pretty commie leftie to me. > Talk about sheeple, jeez. Here's some background on ORBS etc. -Declan www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/19572.html www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/06/08/orbs/index.html www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/19460.html www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/19417.html www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,35776,00.html
Re: ORBS sucked into a black hole!
I see I was unclear. I never said ORBS is an *accurate* reputation-publishing tool. I have never said it was entirely focused on spammers. I have never said I uncritically accept it or use it on the machines for which I am responsible.* But it is, nevertheless, beyond question that ORBS and its progeny allow their operators to broadcast their views about what they think about some certain network addresses or domains. If they go too far and are too zealous, the market will move toward a better solution. Like I said, very cypherpunkly. -Declan * In fact, I wrote earlier this year: Slashdot ran a thought-provoking piece not so long ago about how anti-spam measures (that I have long endorsed) like the RBL and its progeny are moving from blackholing spammers to blackholing sites with software that *could be used* to spam. While that's a private activity, it's treading the same path that Rep. Bob Goodlatteis with his plan to criminalize software that could be used to send bulk messages. At least the RBL is limited by market pressures: If it goes too far, ISPs will stop using it. But while free markets are the best way we've found yet to order society, they're hardly perfect, and RBL could overreact and restrict some folks who are undeserving in the interim. On Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 09:28:56PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On Mon, 11 Jun 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote: > > > ORBS is a reputation-publishing tool. > > Total Bullshit. > > None of my domains have *ever* had a single spamming incident, yet we were > on their list. I guess our reputation was that we were *potential* > spammers? > > Fuck ORBS. > > > -Declan > > -- > Yours, > J.A. Terranson > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > If Governments really want us to behave like civilized human beings, they > should give serious consideration towards setting a better example: > Ruling by force, rather than consensus; the unrestrained application of > unjust laws (which the victim-populations were never allowed input on in > the first place); the State policy of justice only for the rich and > elected; the intentional abuse and occassionally destruction of entire > populations merely to distract an already apathetic and numb electorate... > This type of demogoguery must surely wipe out the fascist United States > as surely as it wiped out the fascist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. > > The views expressed here are mine, and NOT those of my employers, > associates, or others. Besides, if it *were* the opinion of all of > those people, I doubt there would be a problem to bitch about in the > first place... >
Re: ORBS sucked into a black hole!
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > #One popular theory mooted on the Net is that Brown closed down > #the site rather than comply with a New Zealand court order > #demanding that he remove two specific ISPs from the blacklist. I know I sound naive asking this, but has something like this ever happened in the US? The way I read this, the NZ court ordered a private publisher of an enumeration of IP addresses to modify his publication despite the fact that the IP addresses in question met the criteria for inclusion on the list. (ORBS claimed to be a list of open relays, but it was well known that it included any network that blocked ORBS probes, which apparently included the two companies in question.) In addition, even if it did include networks that didn't fit the stated criteria for inclusion on the list, it seems to me that the circumstances under which a particular entry is added to the list are completely immaterial---for any particular entry on the list, its inclusion only indicates that the ORBS administrators are not adequately assured that spam will not originate from the IP address in quesiton. Doesn't seem like that could possibly be considered libel. One might be able to make the case that being listed in ORBS was damaging in that outgoing email from a listed system would be blocked by lots of people, but that doesn't seem compelling---people are _choosing_ to block traffic from your server based on the fact that they trust the recommendations of ORBS and, according to ORBS, it cannot be ascertained that spam will not originate from the system. Like I said, I'm probably just naive. -- Riad Wahby [EMAIL PROTECTED] MIT VI-2/A 2002 5105
