From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sat Sep 6 17:25:22 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id QAA07163 for list-managers-outgoing; Sat, 6 Sep 1997 16:49:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) id NAA03057 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Sat, 6 Sep 1997 13:29:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from hslrswi.hasler.ascom.ch (hslrswi.hasler.ascom.ch [139.79.129.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id HAA20012 for ; Wed, 3 Sep 1997 07:17:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ens.ascom.ch (chieftain.ens.ascom.ch [139.79.60.1]) by hslrswi.hasler.ascom.ch (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA24107 for ; Wed, 3 Sep 1997 16:23:16 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from spbx399.ens.ascom.ch by ens.ascom.ch (4.1/SMI-4.1-DNI-7.0.1) id AA05605; Wed, 3 Sep 97 16:25:33 +0200 Received: from spbx09.ens.ascom.ch by spbx399.ens.ascom.ch (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA20094; Wed, 3 Sep 1997 15:23:09 +0100 Received: by spbx09.ens.ascom.ch (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id PAA20526; Wed, 3 Sep 1997 15:23:08 +0100 Date: Wed, 3 Sep 1997 15:23:08 +0100 From: lewis@ens.ascom.ch (Mark Lewis - Ascom PSD Cardiff UK) Message-Id: <199709031423.PAA20526@spbx09.ens.ascom.ch> To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Searching through mail archives and fighting spam... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Md5: J4KXg/roGd2yuj9LpD8HjQ== Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi On the subject of fighting spam I have just installed an email filter (written in Perl) that manages to catch a large amount of the spam that is sent to me. I'm not sure if it would work with majordomo (perhaps some of the workers could advise). The filter came from http://www.nags.org/ and is very easy to install. Cheers Mark ------------------------------------------------------------------ | Mark Lewis | Phone: +44-1222-774501 | | Ascom Telecommunications Ltd | Fax: +44-1222-774500 | | Cypress Drive | Email: lewis@ens.ascom.ch | | Cardiff, CF3 0EG, UK | http://www.ascom.ch/ | ------------------------------------------------------------------ From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 7 11:49:02 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id LAA26481 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 11:47:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from out1.ibm.net (out1.ibm.net [165.87.194.252]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id LAA26385 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 11:46:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from slip166-72-107-156.ct.us.ibm.net (slip166-72-107-156.ct.us.ibm.net [166.72.107.156]) by out1.ibm.net (8.8.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id SAA68140; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 18:52:17 GMT From: Mick.Brown@super.zippo.com (Mick Brown) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Cc: "Aliza R. Panitz" , buglady@ability.net Subject: from Aliza Panitz (fwd) Listbombing form letter Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 18:53:29 GMT Organization: me Reply-To: "Aliza R. Panitz" Message-ID: <3413f5a6.1460895@smtp1.ibm.net> X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.5/16.451 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Aliza has been "list bombed" since she is an antispam advocate. This came from a closed secure list so I have a high degree of certainty that it is her without digging out PGP and installing it. Please check if she has been subscribed to your lists on or after 27 August. Received: (aliza@localhost) by yakko.ability.net (8.7.6/8.6.12) id MAA20831; Sun, 07 Sep 1997 12:15:49 -0400 (EDT) From: "Aliza R. Panitz" Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 12:15:49 -0400 (EDT) To: a.couple.of@mailing.lists Message-id: <199709071615.MAA20831@yakko.ability.net> Subject: Listbombing form letter This is the form letter that I'm sending to list owners. Feel free to get out your red pens and suggest improvements. I would appreciate it if someone on the listmanagers list would forward this there; let me know if you can do this, so that it only gets sent once. (With the Reply-To: set to me, please.) My PGP key is available from the MIT keyserver and from my homepage. - Aliza Bcc: Spam-L, Zspam, Trakker, Elbows mailing lists A few other people -- you should know who you are -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On August 28th, 1997, I was mailbombed with several hundred mailing list subscriptions forged in my name. As far as I can tell, your list was one of those. Please remove me from your list. If you were running modern list software with subscription confirmation capabilities this form of attack on me and on your list would not have succeeded. Please consider upgrading your list processing software, since the automated mailbombing scripts that are widely distributed all come with large lists of mailing list addresses -- if I was subscribed to your list by a mailbomber, chances are that many other people will be in the future. As partial protection against this instance of mailbombing, I disabled mail to this account for over a week. Many mailing lists will auto-unsubscribe accounts whose mail bounces repeatedly. Since I am still getting mail from your list, you apparently do not have this feature. You may want to look into adding this feature to your list processor. Unfortunately, most Internet mail software was designed around the model of a cooperative network. With spammers, mailbombers, and forgers widespread and automated, this model no longer works, and everyone's mail systems need to be retrofitted under fire to a higher security model. It is a substantial hassle to all of us, especially people who contribute to the net by running mailing lists and providing other communal resources. In particular, over the past year I have been repeatedly targetted for harassment (by listbombing, by spams forged in my name, and even by threats to the U.S. Congress and President forged in my name) because of my anti-spam position. It appears that I am a target because I have been a co-author of the anti-spam Web site at http://spam.abuse.net/ and because I am a member of CAUCE (The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email at http://www.cauce.org/) - Aliza R. Panitz buglady@ability.net -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBNBHF8Jb8iHbdMoM9AQHGJQP/Yc+2awJAbJuzOiQeqIS6+mm7kEX+59xz dN4QkFZ9tW19yvVwOVhjOT0a578ZB+dMnfkBcsS36mfHAXbqgfaydM+ZSqfLBGq0 7vcYK7fJwdp7d30Sr0mU3o8LMmyefKzEHnB8d6gQiIB5RjQik7OUJ3mMbZpnNBAH xNnXmjHYxd0= =zvqn -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Aliza R. Panitz http://www.ability.net/~buglady/ buglady@ability.net AccessAbility Internet Services: http://www.ability.net/ (Value-added Web site hosting; Internet Credit Card processing; and more!) //Complete the following: private3@mci.savetrees.com Spammy is to // ethical business practice as Jeffrey Dahmer is to ... // a) contradancing b) window shopping c) bungee jumping d) fine dining. // Spammy and his friends usually reside on AGIS.net // Learn to Clobber SPAM - visit http://spam.abuse.net From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 7 16:18:54 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id QAA23392 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 16:04:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cyberq.quality.org (cyberq.quality.org [199.181.80.151]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id QAA23383 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 16:04:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (help@localhost) by cyberq.quality.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id TAA02104; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 19:10:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 19:10:56 -0400 (EDT) From: "Bill Casti, CQA (System Administrator)" To: "Aliza R. Panitz" cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, buglady@ability.net Subject: Re: from Aliza Panitz (fwd) Listbombing form letter In-Reply-To: <3413f5a6.1460895@smtp1.ibm.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Nope, not on any of my lists. I employ an authenticator which sends a message to the address purportedly subscribing and requiring them to send back an authentication code within 24 hours before the subscription is processed. This stops the subscription forgeries--unless, of course, one of you other multiple personalities entered the subscription request and all of your personalities have access to your same account. Regards. Bill ============================================================================= Bill Casti, CQA Email: help@quality.org - Domain Owner, QUALITY.ORG Pager: +1 800 604 6149 - List Moderator, "TQM in Manufacturing and Service Industries" - Chairman, Electronic Media Committee & Database Chair ASQ Section 0511 (Northern VA) Section Email: ASQ0511@asq0511.org - 1997-98 Chair-elect, Executive Board, ASQ Section 0511 - Senior Administrator, Internet & Firewall Systems, FEMA - North Point Director, Reston Citizens' Association Board, 1997-98 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEW! Browse and Buy from our new Online Quality Bookstore! http://www.quality.org ============================================================================= On Sun, 7 Sep 1997, Mick Brown wrote: > Aliza has been "list bombed" since she is an antispam advocate. This came from a closed secure > list so I have a high degree of certainty that it is her without digging out PGP and installing > it. Please check if she has been subscribed to your lists on or after 27 August. > > Received: (aliza@localhost) by yakko.ability.net (8.7.6/8.6.12) id MAA20831; Sun, 07 Sep 1997 > 12:15:49 -0400 (EDT) > From: "Aliza R. Panitz" > Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 12:15:49 -0400 (EDT) > To: a.couple.of@mailing.lists > Message-id: <199709071615.MAA20831@yakko.ability.net> > Subject: Listbombing form letter > > This is the form letter that I'm sending to list owners. Feel free to > get out your red pens and suggest improvements. > > I would appreciate it if someone on the listmanagers list would forward > this there; let me know if you can do this, so that it only gets sent once. > (With the Reply-To: set to me, please.) > > My PGP key is available from the MIT keyserver and from my homepage. > > - Aliza > > > Bcc: Spam-L, Zspam, Trakker, Elbows mailing lists > A few other people -- you should know who you are > > From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 7 20:03:14 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id UAA26136 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 20:00:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sky.net (solar.sky.net [198.70.175.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id UAA26084 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 20:00:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Sky (ip68.kc.sky.net [206.230.165.68]) by sky.net (8.8.6/8.8.5) with SMTP id WAA19117 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 22:06:36 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19970907220833.00710768@solar.sky.net> X-Sender: price@solar.sky.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.3 (32) Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 22:08:33 -0500 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Paul Allen Rice Subject: Re: from Aliza Panitz (fwd) Listbombing form letter In-Reply-To: References: <3413f5a6.1460895@smtp1.ibm.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 07:10 PM 9/7/97 -0400, the following was submitted for consideration by Bill Casti, CQA (System Administrator): > >Nope, not on any of my lists. I employ an authenticator which sends a >message to the address purportedly subscribing and requiring them to send >back an authentication code within 24 hours before the subscription is >processed. This stops the subscription forgeries--unless, of course, one >of you other multiple personalities entered the subscription request and >all of your personalities have access to your same account. > >Regards. >Bill > She's not one any of my lists either... But I must point out that there is a way to circumvent the confirmation process... IF whomever was devious enough to list bomb her in the first place is devious enough to carry it through.... All one needs to do is set up one of those emailer accounts with NetAddress or similar free account and mass sub that address, which is temporarily forwarded to your own account. Once all the lists are confirmed, then change the forwarding address to your victims address and you are done. The downside is that you have to reply to all these confirmation messages, but with Eudora and filtering, its relatively easy to do. And big deal that we have a confirmation process in place that prevents someone from being subbed to an unwanted list. If you were list bombed like this person was, you would still have hundreds of confirmation requests to wade through to dig your way out. The problem is not solved by the confirmation process. The ultimate problem is that we do not have a way to confirm in the initial contact message whether the subscription request is valid or not. There needs to be a more secure method up front of subscribing to mailling lists and other services. We, as list owners, should not stop here, but push for advancements in online email security and fraud detection. Now, does anyone have any ideas? Paul ------------------------------------------------------------ (o)(o) Paul Rice > Listowner: CircleJoke and Underground Mailling Lists \/ mailto:PaulRice@Broadcast.net ------------------------------------------------------------ "We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true." --Robert Wilensky, University of California From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 7 21:03:16 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id UAA02279 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 20:58:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id UAA02186 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 20:58:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tibbs@localhost) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) id XAA07768; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 23:04:47 -0500 (CDT) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: from Aliza Panitz (fwd) Listbombing form letter References: <3413f5a6.1460895@smtp1.ibm.net> <3.0.3.32.19970907220833.00710768@solar.sky.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.100) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Jason L Tibbitts III Date: 07 Sep 1997 23:04:47 -0500 In-Reply-To: Paul Allen Rice's message of Sun, 07 Sep 1997 22:08:33 -0500 Message-ID: Lines: 28 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.4.46/Emacs 19.34 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >>>>> "PAR" == Paul Allen Rice writes: PAR> All one needs to do is set up one of those emailer accounts with PAR> NetAddress or similar free account and mass sub that address, which is PAR> temporarily forwarded to your own account. Heck, all you need is any UNIX account; you just put the list of people to bomb in the .forward file. PAR> The problem is not solved by the confirmation process. The ultimate PAR> problem is that we do not have a way to confirm in the initial contact PAR> message whether the subscription request is valid or not. There needs PAR> to be a more secure method up front of subscribing to mailling lists PAR> and other services. I don't believe that there's anything you can do that doesn't make things worse for legitimate users. I can start forwarding messages now, from lists I've been on for ages. (And I have had this happen on my lists.) The only partial solutions I can think of are things like waiting periods or forced resubscriptions (after a week or so you must send back a token to remain subscribed). These tend to make it harder on real subscribers. I suppose you could just make the price of admission higher by making potential subscribers scour some introductory document for obscure instructions, but that seems to me to be counterproductive. After all, we want subscribers. If we didn't, we wouldn't be running lists. - J< From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 7 21:33:34 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id VAA06059 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 21:20:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from flamingo.bahamas.net.bs ([206.138.16.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id VAA05945 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 21:19:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from LOCALNAME (dial64.bahamas.net.bs [206.138.17.64]) by flamingo.bahamas.net.bs (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id AAA06659; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 00:31:38 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 00:31:38 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199709080431.AAA06659@flamingo.bahamas.net.bs> X-Sender: iadams@mail.bahamas.net.bs X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Paul Allen Rice , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Irwin Subject: Re: from Aliza Panitz (fwd) Listbombing form letter Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 10:08 PM 9/7/97 -0500, Paul Allen Rice wrote: >>Nope, not on any of my lists. >>Bill No, she is not on my list .... thanks for the info. By the way, Paul IS right. There is a way to circumvent the confirmation process !! There are some very smart "hackers" out there. Irwin. --------------- Digital Satellite t.v. NO equipment to buy !! Cancel if not satisfied. Professional Development Programs. 24 hours/day .. Less than $10.00/month. Send mailing address for colour brochure. < spectra@cashflow.com > From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 7 22:03:15 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id VAA09238 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 21:38:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from webdreams.com (www.webdreams.com [199.125.85.28]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with SMTP id VAA09201 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 21:37:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost by webdreams.com (5.65v3.2/1.1.10.5/29Aug96-0251AM) id AA26761; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 00:45:02 -0400 Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 00:45:02 -0400 (EDT) From: Brock Rozen Reply-To: Help Desk To: List Managers Subject: Subscription security, tokens, etc (in response to Jason T.) Message-Id: X-Backup: Disable X-Url: http://www.webdreams.com/~brozen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk A complicated idea that would be fairly seamless to the subscriber could consist of a certificate idea based on Netscape implementation of server certificates. If each list had it's own certificate that was received by the subscriber upon subscription. The mailing list software could "ping" each user once a month (or whatever), any capable browser would automatically respond based on the certificate's installed. If the list certificate wasn't installed, the reader would ask the user if they want to install it or be removed from the list. If you wanted to unsubscribe you would remove a certificate from your listing. Just an idea -- and I know it'd be a huge hassle. It wouldn't even solve bounces of unknown users either....so go figure. All that to just make sure the people who are on the list actually want to be on the list. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Brock Rozen | brozen@webdreams.com | http://www.webdreams.com/~brozen | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-list-managers-outgoing Mon Sep 8 04:48:02 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id EAA07169 for list-managers-outgoing; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 04:43:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from kparker.nai.net (kparker.nai.net [208.133.166.213]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id EAA07145 for ; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 04:42:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (admin@localhost) by kparker.nai.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id HAA28528 for ; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 07:51:57 -0400 Date: Mon, 8 Sep 1997 07:51:57 -0400 (EDT) From: Ken Parker To: List Managers Subject: Re: from Aliza Panitz (fwd) Listbombing form letter In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19970907220833.00710768@solar.sky.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sun, 7 Sep 1997, Paul Allen Rice wrote: > The problem is not solved by the confirmation process. The ultimate > problem is that we do not have a way to confirm in the initial contact > message whether the subscription request is valid or not. There needs to > be a more secure method up front of subscribing to mailling lists and other > services. We, as list owners, should not stop here, but push for > advancements in online email security and fraud detection. > > Now, does anyone have any ideas? Some of the messages I've seen people post to list-managers show the sub-scribe[1] request to multitudes of lists at once. Would it be possible for Majordomo, listproc, listserv, etc, to catch when more than one address shows up in the "To:" field (or more than a threshold) and bounce the request to the list admin? Also, if any list software AT ALL supports "sub-scribe all", or "sub-scribe *" (which I've also seen posted), it should be shot! Till later, Ken Parker [1] Dash added to prevent administrivia trap. From owner-list-managers-outgoing Mon Sep 8 23:35:57 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id XAA22334 for list-managers-outgoing; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 23:25:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cyberq.quality.org (cyberq.quality.org [199.181.80.151]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id XAA22255 for ; Mon, 8 Sep 1997 23:24:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (help@localhost) by cyberq.quality.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id BAA04385; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 01:48:18 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 9 Sep 1997 01:48:18 -0400 (EDT) From: "Bill Casti, CQA (System Administrator)" To: Paul Allen Rice cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: from Aliza Panitz (fwd) Listbombing form letter In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19970907220833.00710768@solar.sky.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Sure, no matter how thorough one is, there will always be a way to circumvent it. I'm not trying to invent the perfect system, just one that works pretty well, most of the time. Bill On Sun, 7 Sep 1997, Paul Allen Rice wrote: > On 07:10 PM 9/7/97 -0400, the following was submitted for consideration by > Bill Casti, CQA (System Administrator): > > > > >Nope, not on any of my lists. I employ an authenticator which sends a > >message to the address purportedly subscribing and requiring them to send > >back an authentication code within 24 hours before the subscription is > >processed. This stops the subscription forgeries--unless, of course, one > >of you other multiple personalities entered the subscription request and > >all of your personalities have access to your same account. > > > >Regards. > >Bill > > > > She's not one any of my lists either... > > But I must point out that there is a way to circumvent the confirmation > process... IF whomever was devious enough to list bomb her in the first > place is devious enough to carry it through.... > > All one needs to do is set up one of those emailer accounts with NetAddress > or similar free account and mass sub that address, which is temporarily > forwarded to your own account. Once all the lists are confirmed, then > change the forwarding address to your victims address and you are done. > > The downside is that you have to reply to all these confirmation messages, > but with Eudora and filtering, its relatively easy to do. > > And big deal that we have a confirmation process in place that prevents > someone from being subbed to an unwanted list. If you were list bombed > like this person was, you would still have hundreds of confirmation > requests to wade through to dig your way out. > > The problem is not solved by the confirmation process. The ultimate > problem is that we do not have a way to confirm in the initial contact > message whether the subscription request is valid or not. There needs to > be a more secure method up front of subscribing to mailling lists and other > services. We, as list owners, should not stop here, but push for > advancements in online email security and fraud detection. > > Now, does anyone have any ideas? > > > > Paul > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > (o)(o) Paul Rice > > Listowner: CircleJoke and Underground Mailling Lists > \/ mailto:PaulRice@Broadcast.net > ------------------------------------------------------------ > "We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards > could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks > to the Internet, we know this is not true." > --Robert Wilensky, University of California > > > > From owner-list-managers-outgoing Tue Sep 9 18:34:38 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA22961 for list-managers-outgoing; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 18:31:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) id RAA14681 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 17:48:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id UAA00247 for ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 20:46:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [207.167.80.70] (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA33082 ; Sun, 7 Sep 1997 20:52:51 -0700 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19970907220833.00710768@solar.sky.net> References: <3413f5a6.1460895@smtp1.ibm.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 20:52:26 -0700 To: Paul Allen Rice , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: mailbomb issues... Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 8:08 PM -0700 9/7/97, Paul Allen Rice wrote: >All one needs to do is set up one of those emailer accounts with NetAddress >or similar free account and mass sub that address, which is temporarily >forwarded to your own account. Once all the lists are confirmed, then >change the forwarding address to your victims address and you are done. Anyoner know of a case of this actually happening? Another reason not to trust sites that don't do end-user validation on these accounts very much. I mean, in theory, there should be SOME accountability so that the real owner of an account can be tracked down. I know some sites like Juno don't, but they should. The plus side is that it'd be fairly easy to track down and stomp something like this because the headers will make the situation quite obvious. No, it doesn't stop it, but at least there's a straightforward avenue to attack it (one, go to the admins at that site, and two, filter anything forwarded through that address, the way I filter stuff sent to me from chuqui@netcom.com, since that account has been dead so long all I get is spam and notes on how well netcom's run, even though multiple requests haven't killed the forwarding. grin....) >And big deal that we have a confirmation process in place that prevents >someone from being subbed to an unwanted list. If you were list bombed >like this person was, you would still have hundreds of confirmation >requests to wade through to dig your way out. Um, true. But do you have any suggestions on fixing this? This is no different than the mailbombers who use the info@ addresses and other autobots to mailbomb someone, and frankly, I don't know that there's any real solution, much less an easy one. Given that the situation is insoluble, unless you just plain old shut things down and stop communicating, I think the trick is to minimize collateral damage. Yes, waking up to 100 or 200 authorization requests is pretty painful -- but ti's better than 200 lists in full chatter mode, no? If you have any suggestions on how to fix this problem short of having users call me on the phone to request subscriptions and requiring them to fax me copies of their drivers license, I'm all for it. But I don't think the problem is soluble in a practical way, so I'll settle for keeping my part of the damage to a minimum. If I'm going to have a mail list, I have to have some way of requesting access. Anything I do can be spoofed by a motivated bomber short of (and perhaps even including) pgp-verified e-mail addresses, especialyl if it's that first round of authentification that is considered the problem. Hell, for that matter, let's fix all of those problems, somehow, magically. if I'm a mailbomber, I simply switch to sending stuff out in a way that sends back error messages. Or do I turn off error messages, too? So I've killed my info@, so nobody can figure out what services I run, I can't return an authorization to verify they want the list, and I can't send them an error message if they get it wrong, because all of these can be abused by a mailbomber... In other words, if we worry about anything that can be abused, we just pack up and go home. So unless someone has ideas, I'll minimize the damage. One authorization request is better than 50 messages from a busy list, and I'm building new mailbots for info@ and the like that won't return infinite amounts of mail, but will throttle if they sense some kind of possible attack. Perfect? No, but if I can't stop spammers, I don't have to make it easy. And that's good enough for now, given the technologies we work with... Because I'm not ready to pack it in and go home, which would be a real victory for the spammers. >There needs to >be a more secure method up front of subscribing to mailling lists and other >services. We, as list owners, should not stop here, but push for >advancements in online email security and fraud detection. > >Now, does anyone have any ideas? Hey, I'm open to suggestions. But I think the real answer is a way of validating addresses, not trying to endlessly close holes in software that has to make assumptions on the address validity that might not be true -- because the latter won't work. We can't close the holes, only make them smaller. Until you can look at an address and guarantee it came from where it says it did, all we're doing is minimizing collateral damage, not solving the problem. So if you really want to fix this, focus on ways of building addresses that won't successfully be forged, and convincing the net to adopt them. Good luck.... (grin) chuq -- Chuq Von Rospach (chuq@apple.com) Apple IS&T Mail List Gnome Plaidworks Consulting (chuqui@plaidworks.com) ( +-+ The home for Hockey on the net) From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu Sep 11 16:16:07 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id PAA07986 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:38:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from public.lists.apple.com (public.lists.apple.com [17.254.0.151]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id PAA07924 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:37:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [17.219.12.99] (A17-219-12-99.apple.com [17.219.12.99]) by public.lists.apple.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA21384 ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:43:14 -0700 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <9709100837.aa28230@pcusa01.ecunet.org> References: from "Chuq Von Rospach" at Sep 7, 97 08:52:26 pm Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:31:00 -0700 To: "Merrill Cook" , chuqui@plaidworks.com (Chuq Von Rospach) From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: mailbomb issues... Cc: PaulRice@Broadcast.Net, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 5:37 AM -0700 9/10/97, Merrill Cook wrote: >Is there a way to make them work? Or to use PGP-signed requests in >such a way that we can be sure they came from the email address >they claim as their own? A request can be PGP-signed, and verified against a public key stored on one of the key servers set up for that. > How can we be sure that some third party >didn't obtain the certificate or sign the request? That'd require taking someone's private key AND the activator password. If they have that, then being signed up to mail lists is the least of your problems.... -- Chuq Von Rospach (chuq@apple.com) Apple IS&T Mail List Gnome Plaidworks Consulting (chuqui@plaidworks.com) ( +-+ The home for Hockey on the net) From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu Sep 11 16:20:14 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id PAA06081 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:29:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) id PAA05988 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:28:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from yeah.indstate.edu (yeah.indstate.edu [139.102.195.33]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id WAA13107 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 22:39:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (root@localhost) by yeah.indstate.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id AAA21024 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 00:46:28 -0500 Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 00:46:28 -0500 (CDT) From: "J. Neil Doane" To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Majordomo Automation? In-Reply-To: <199709110513.WAA10077@honor.greatcircle.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hello all. Just wondering if ther is any way to achieve some measure of automation in the creation of majordomo lists? Are there any scripts out there for such a thing? Neil Doane Ps. I'm not a subscriber to this list, so if you reply could you please 'cc' me on it. :) From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu Sep 11 16:28:58 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id PAA05074 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:25:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) id PAA04915 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:25:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pcusa80.pcusa.org (pcusa80.pcusa.org [206.115.64.80]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with SMTP id FAA28271 for ; Wed, 10 Sep 1997 05:33:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pcusa01.ecunet.org by pcusa80.pcusa.org id aa22862; 10 Sep 97 8:37 EDT Subject: Re: mailbomb issues... To: chuqui@plaidworks.com (Chuq Von Rospach) Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 08:37:24 -0400 (EDT) From: "Merrill Cook" Cc: PaulRice@Broadcast.Net, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: from "Chuq Von Rospach" at Sep 7, 97 08:52:26 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <9709100837.aa28230@pcusa01.ecunet.org> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I think that's why some people are touting RSA or Verisign-type "certificates". Is there a way to make them work? Or to use PGP-signed requests in such a way that we can be sure they came from the email address they claim as their own? How can we be sure that some third party didn't obtain the certificate or sign the request? I hate to give Verisign more business, but if it can guarantee that one of its certificates can only be used by the rightful owner of a particular email address, maybe that is worth paying for. The PGP solution of getting trusted third parties to sign public keys might work, but maintaining a large enough key ring for general public lists sounds like a daunting task. >From Chuq Von Rospach: > > Hey, I'm open to suggestions. But I think the real answer is a way of > validating addresses, not trying to endlessly close holes in software -- Regards, Merrill Cook Louisville KY mcook@pcusa.org http://www.pcusa.org/ -+- From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu Sep 11 17:05:09 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id QAA23245 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 16:56:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (mycroft.greatcircle.com [198.102.244.35]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id QAA23221 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 16:56:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.8.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-970426) id QAA26218; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 16:58:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tibbs@localhost) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) id TAA14459; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 19:03:17 -0500 (CDT) To: "J. Neil Doane" Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Majordomo Automation? References: Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.100) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Jason L Tibbitts III Date: 11 Sep 1997 19:03:17 -0500 In-Reply-To: "J. Neil Doane"'s message of Thu, 11 Sep 1997 00:46:28 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: Lines: 10 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.4.46/Emacs 19.34 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >>>>> "JND" == J Neil Doane writes: JND> Hello all. Just wondering if ther is any way to achieve some measure JND> of automation in the creation of majordomo lists? There are plenty; you might want to look through the majordomo-users list archive at . Majordomo-users is a much better place to check for Majordomo information. - J< From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu Sep 11 19:08:23 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA11106 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 18:29:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) id PAA02239 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:13:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from onramp.armchair.mb.ca (onramp.armchair.mb.ca [198.163.115.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id VAA03493 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 21:36:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from flying_fish1 (flying_fish2.armchair.mb.ca [198.163.115.26]) by onramp.armchair.mb.ca (8.8.7/8.6.9) with SMTP id XAA28519 for ; Tue, 9 Sep 1997 23:47:55 -0500 Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19970909235145.00eb6b24@armchair.mb.ca> X-Sender: dave@armchair.mb.ca X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) Date: Tue, 09 Sep 1997 23:51:45 -0500 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Dave Voorhis Subject: Re: mailbomb issues... In-Reply-To: References: <3.0.3.32.19970907220833.00710768@solar.sky.net> <3413f5a6.1460895@smtp1.ibm.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 08:52 PM 07/09/97 -0700, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: >At 8:08 PM -0700 9/7/97, Paul Allen Rice wrote: > >>All one needs to do is set up one of those emailer accounts with NetAddress >>or similar free account and mass sub that address, which is temporarily >>forwarded to your own account. Once all the lists are confirmed, then >>change the forwarding address to your victims address and you are done. > >Anyoner know of a case of this actually happening? I have had NetAddress accounts s*bscribe to my lists for just this purpose, and it has happened several times. Dave Voorhis mailto:dave@armchair.mb.ca http://www.armchair.mb.ca/~dave From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu Sep 11 21:05:50 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id UAA11992 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 20:49:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id UAA11876 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 20:48:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [207.167.80.70] (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA21558 ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 20:55:50 -0700 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970909235145.00eb6b24@armchair.mb.ca> References: <3.0.3.32.19970907220833.00710768@solar.sky.net> <3413f5a6.1460895@smtp1.ibm.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 20:53:51 -0700 To: Dave Voorhis , list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: mailbomb issues... Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 9:51 PM -0700 9/9/97, Dave Voorhis wrote: >>Anyoner know of a case of this actually happening? > >I have had NetAddress accounts s*bscribe to my lists for just this purpose, >and it has happened several times. Well, thanks. Something else to watch for, I guess. So far, either I've been lucky or nobody's told me, and given how people like to yell when someone gets spammed... chuq -- Chuq Von Rospach (chuq@apple.com) Apple IS&T Mail List Gnome Plaidworks Consulting (chuqui@plaidworks.com) ( +-+ The home for Hockey on the net) From owner-list-managers-outgoing Thu Sep 11 21:19:15 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id UAA12311 for list-managers-outgoing; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 20:50:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id UAA12240 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 20:49:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [207.167.80.70] (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA25378 ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 20:55:29 -0700 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <9709112022.aa08168@pcusa01.ecunet.org> References: from "Chuq Von Rospach" at Sep 11, 97 03:31:00 pm Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 20:45:27 -0700 To: "Merrill Cook" , chuqui@plaidworks.com (Chuq Von Rospach) From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: mailbomb issues... Cc: chuqui@plaidworks.com, PaulRice@Broadcast.Net, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 5:22 PM -0700 9/11/97, Merrill Cook wrote: >Naw. Suppose I make myself a new private key, and say I'm Chuq Von >Rospach, and assign my own pass phrase to it. Then I register the >public key in some key repository, after making sure there wasn't >another there with that name. Shortly after you do that, someone who knows me will warn me, and... >but I guess the question is, how quickly will that break >down, without a central repository of validation (like Verisign) >or much wider acceptance of PGP? Well, even without the central authorization, it'll break down a lot slower than the current system, if only because there are better checks and balances and a higher level of sophistication necessary successfully pull off a forgery. Beyond that, I think you're about to see the acceptance of PGP take off. With the IETF working towards the PGP/MIME authentification standard, and the S/MIME version somewhat out of favor (or depending on who you talk to, dead or doing just fine), there will within the next year be a standard for encryption of mail messages using PGP, and probably also RSA once the S/MIME gets back on track. But PGP is almost a given. ONce the standard is in place, adoption will move forward pretty quickly. That PGP has now legally migrated off continent will also help, because the Europeans don't have to skulk any more to keep Americans from getting in trouble with the government... And your forgery setup is somewhat contrived. It assumes, for instance, that I (and/or my list software) will blindly accept this. If it's signed by a trusted source, it probably will, but just because you find a crony to sign it doesn't mean I'll believe the crony, either. More likely, if I get a questionable request, I'll go looking for the public key on the site of the e-mail address. If the key isn't in a repository that's known/trusted, like the one pgpkeys.mit.edu runs, I'll go back to the source. So just creating a spoofed key does you nothing, because it'll be tagged with the e-mail address, and I"ll go to that site/address to get the public key. So you need physical access to the account to spoof, too, and if you have that, we once again hit the "spammed onto lists is the least of their problems" issue. If you try to toss in a key for my address on a major key repository, it isn't likely to go long without being caught, and it requires someone in *my* chain of trusted validators to break down and validate it incorrectly. Doesn't matter how many of your guys validate it, unless one of them is also my guy, so again, I'm in control of my own quality-of-key-control, not you. And for an unknown key without a trusted validation, I just go to the source and/or fall back on mailback validation, so without a validated key, you haven't accomplished anything. Can you still coerce it? Sure. But the bar has been raised a lot, lot higher, the chance of catching it is a lot better, your chance of exposure is higher, and while it's not a 100% solution, I'll take a 95% solution, especially if what we have now is a 30% solution... No sense waiting for perfection, if pretty-damn-good is available. >How many of the 40 million (?) >potential members of your list worldwide will be able to get their >public key signed by someone you trust, or by someone less than >three or four steps from someone you trust? Probably more than you think, for this reason: one of the people I expect to become a "signer of keys" will be the site admin/postmaster/etc, and once I validate a *site*, I can then by default validate anyone on that site, as long as that site's key is valid and attached. So I don't need to validate every bloody user on AOL or Earthlink or netcom or whatever. I just need to validate the netcom connection, and then use their validation as acceptable for users ON THEIR SITE. And only on their site. And it's to their advantage to do this, and do it securely, because otherwise they risk creating problems for their users -- wanna have to explain to people why lists won't let them subscribe because they refuse to accept keys from that site? It runs close to the UDP uunet ran into on usenet over the netnews spam stuff, only worse -- if list managers revoke fred.net's key because of shoddy or corrupt validations, then that effectively locks fred.net off of any part of the net needing validation, and the users who get locked out will leave or force things to get fixed. So for huge parts of the net, the answer is actually pretty easy, once the standard is adopted, the software starts supporting it and sites start acting as key validator/librarian for their users. It's not overnight, but it's sure doable, and it should be quite secure. Much better than anything we're currently doing, that's for sure. >My guess is we'll be tempted to accept something that uses a >signed public key, even if we don't know any of the signers. It's up to each admin, of course, but shoddy practices give shoddy results. YOU might be tempted to accept it, and you can with my blessings and best wishes. But don't generalize... (grin). >Is there any list software >(or protocol) for handling signed requests? Any mail Nope. But as I noted above, those standards are just now being worked on. We're talking about Majordomo 3.0 (or 3.5) here, not 1.94.8. But then, if you don't start thinking about stuff, it never gets implemented... It all starts somewhere. Six months ago, encryption was just a future. Now, it's an emerging technology. In another year, it'll be fairly common, heading towards endemic. Now is the time to get a feel for what it can do, so a year from now we can know HOW to do what we want and start standardizing the interfaces and interactions, and hopefully get the server and client sides more or less moving together in unison... > Any list software that will use LDAP, for that matter? Not that I know of, but LDAP's still emerging, and it's unclear if it's going to win, or be the end-all technology. We'll see how well its adopted and how well it works, and if it makes sense, it'll get plugged in... -- Chuq Von Rospach (chuq@apple.com) Apple IS&T Mail List Gnome Plaidworks Consulting (chuqui@plaidworks.com) ( +-+ The home for Hockey on the net) From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri Sep 12 17:07:22 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id QAA29190 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 16:52:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: (mcb@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) id QAA29182 for list-managers@greatcircle.com; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 16:52:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (mycroft.greatcircle.com [198.102.244.35]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id RAA28344 for ; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 17:25:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pcusa80.pcusa.org by mycroft.GreatCircle.COM (8.8.5/SMI-4.1/Brent-970426) id RAA26381; Thu, 11 Sep 1997 17:26:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pcusa01.ecunet.org by pcusa80.pcusa.org id aa04320; 11 Sep 97 20:22 EDT Subject: Re: mailbomb issues... To: chuqui@plaidworks.com (Chuq Von Rospach) Date: Thu, 11 Sep 1997 20:22:48 -0400 (EDT) From: "Merrill Cook" Cc: chuqui@plaidworks.com, PaulRice@Broadcast.Net, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: from "Chuq Von Rospach" at Sep 11, 97 03:31:00 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <9709112022.aa08168@pcusa01.ecunet.org> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >From Chuq Von Rospach: > > > How can we be sure that some third party > >didn't obtain the certificate or sign the request? > > That'd require taking someone's private key AND the activator password. > If they have that, then being signed up to mail lists is the least of > your problems.... Naw. Suppose I make myself a new private key, and say I'm Chuq Von Rospach, and assign my own pass phrase to it. Then I register the public key in some key repository, after making sure there wasn't another there with that name. I could even find a couple of gullible people to sign it, most likely. Will list software let me subscribe your mail address on the basis of a public key in a public key server, with a couple of signatures on it? Sure, you could require that the signed subscribe request refer to a public key that is signed by other people that the automated list software's routines can trust, e.g. people already on your list, or people whose keys are signed by other people you already trust -- but I guess the question is, how quickly will that break down, without a central repository of validation (like Verisign) or much wider acceptance of PGP? How many of the 40 million (?) potential members of your list worldwide will be able to get their public key signed by someone you trust, or by someone less than three or four steps from someone you trust? Can your list manager manage a public key ring big enough to validate even a small portion of the potential general subscriber potential? My guess is we'll be tempted to accept something that uses a signed public key, even if we don't know any of the signers. Supposing all the people you would want on your list have certificates or signed public keys that you trust -- that you all belong to a big organization, and someone else has taken care of signing things or issuing certificates. Is there any list software (or protocol) for handling signed requests? Any mail software that will use the certificates or keys to submit requests? (We have a hard enough time getting people to send a subscribe request properly, without telling them they have to manually sign it too. ) Any list software that will use LDAP, for that matter? -- Regards, Merrill Cook Louisville KY mcook@pcusa.org http://www.pcusa.org/ -+- From owner-list-managers-outgoing Fri Sep 12 17:36:29 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA03134 for list-managers-outgoing; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 17:24:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id RAA03060 for ; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 17:24:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from tibbs@localhost) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) id TAA10161; Fri, 12 Sep 1997 19:31:55 -0500 (CDT) To: "Merrill Cook" Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: mailbomb issues... References: <9709112022.aa08168@pcusa01.ecunet.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.100) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Jason L Tibbitts III Date: 12 Sep 1997 19:31:54 -0500 In-Reply-To: "Merrill Cook"'s message of Thu, 11 Sep 1997 20:22:48 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: Lines: 13 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.4.46/Emacs 19.34 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >>>>> "MC" == Merrill Cook writes: MC> Any list software that will use LDAP, for that matter? If someone tells me just how LDAP is supposed to be used and what benefits it will have, and if that LDAP module for Perl matures a bit, I'll see what I can do. I'm still not sure how trusting some directory server somewhere makes things more secure. Isn't trusting a directory server the same thing as trusting a key server? - J< From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 10:39:29 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id KAA28853 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 10:29:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fobos.ulpgc.es (fobos.ulpgc.es [193.145.132.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id KAA28830 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 10:28:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cicei.ulpgc.es (cicei.ulpgc.es [193.145.132.20]) by fobos.ulpgc.es (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA16956 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:40:27 +0100 Received: from CICEI/SpoolDir by cicei.ulpgc.es (Mercury 1.31); 14 Sep 97 18:35:39 GMT Received: from SpoolDir by CICEI (Mercury 1.31); 14 Sep 97 18:35:33 GMT From: "Aldo-Pier Solari" Organization: Univ. de Las Palmas de G.C. To: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:35:26 GMT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please X-mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.31 Message-ID: <2DDA582F8D@cicei.ulpgc.es> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi all. I would like to query Senior list owners on the following issues (please, reply to the list or, privately, as you see fit). Due to a highly conflictive situation (which I'd define as the 'technician's dictatorship' and a few ethical issues as well) I have dismissed my old service provider (the Swedish University Network, SUNET). While I informed my former systems operator that I would migrate FISH-ECOLOGY (Scandinavia's/SUNET's largest list and the largest worldwide in it's field), my rights to access the server were recalled (I was 'served out') so I could not migrate the list, porpperly, to the new provider (the MIT). Furthermore, I requested (eleven times) the list be discontinued once it became operational at the MIT but my former systems operator (now, supported by his boss) refused to do so. Now, I have suggested the following: - *I* own the (intrinsic) intellectual rights to FISH-ECOLOGY which became, due to my work, Internet's largest medium on fish research; - FISH-ECOLOGY existed due to *my* work during several years and *I* have the right to choose whatever ISP I wish on whatever grounds I may see fit; - *I* own the right to the name (which *I* created); - SUNET has to, entirely, *delete* the lists of scientists subscribed to FISH-ECOLOGY as it is now operational at another machine under other rules; SUNET can start their own lists on whatever issue they wish but *neither* using the name nor the distribution list of my medium (which has other ISP, now); However, at SUNET, the boss suggests the following: - It is SUNET who own's the rights to all services they give [while their LISTSERV service has *never* been officially acknowledged/supported] and, hence, they refuse to close down the list at the older server, dupping the medium and creating havoc among subscribers when they receive the 1 message/week sent to the older site by someone who missed the information on the migration; This later has implied that academic activities thru LISTSERV at SUNET depend entirely on the arbitray behaviour of the technician: An autocracy which, definitely, leads to strange/undesired/unscholar situations such as this one. Some background information: I started FISH-ECOLOGY at the Canadian Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans (August 1994) and moved it to SUNET (Sept. 1994) due to technical problems. At that time, when I attempted to migrate FISH-ECOLOGY to SUNET, the canadian sysop refused to allow the migration and created similar problems as now SUNET is doing. While that conflict was going on, SUNET's view (by way of my former sysop at SUNET) was as follows: - A list exists due to the list owner's work; - The owner has the right to migrate or do whatever s/he wishes with the list. However, as SUNET is now dismissed (due to repetitive insults, threats and academic hostility among other more complex aspects which I'll not go into detail here), they take the same position as the former sysop at the aforementioned canadian institution. My requests to SUNET (which have been dismissed) were as follows: - Discontinue FISH-ECOLOGY, FISH-JUNIOR, FFRESEARCH-CONTENTS and FFREPORTS-NEWS: All of these were my works, my initiatives and the support from the Senior scientist community and FAO came about due to *my* initiative and work; - Delete all subscriptions to the services above; - SUNET's free to start new similar services if they get the needed personnel & know-how, contacts, etc. but DO NOT USE the serivice names I created because they now have other service providers. SUNET has refused to do so. I would like to know your opinions. If there is any comission where I may inform about this , please, let me know. I see this as a kind of *piracy* but such unethical behaviour is praxis at SUNET, an institution with a clear academic-hostile policy. You may reply to me at: SOLARIS@CICEI.ULPGC.ES Thank you, Aldo-Pier Solari/list owner FISH-ECOLOGY at MITVMA.MIT.EDU ******************************************************************* FISH-ECOLOGY: New addresses from Sept. 1997 and on. Please, print. ******************************************************************* Server (to un/subscribe): LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU The conference: FISH-ECOLOGY@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Requests: FISH-ECOLOGY-REQUEST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU ******************************************************************* ---- Aldo-PierSolari , Fish.Res.Gr./ULP Home-page: http://www.ulpgc.es/usuarios/solaris/index.html PGPKey ID: 0xFDD1FD36 -- IWillNotFailThoseWithWhomIServe ---- From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 13:06:43 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id MAA19284 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 12:42:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id MAA19235 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 12:42:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [207.167.80.70] (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id MAA29974 ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 12:49:32 -0700 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <2DDA582F8D@cicei.ulpgc.es> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 12:49:20 -0700 To: "Aldo-Pier Solari" , LIST-MANAGERS@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 11:35 AM -0700 9/14/97, Aldo-Pier Solari wrote: >Now, I have suggested the following: Some good arguments. >However, at SUNET, the boss suggests the following: Also some good arguments. >This later has implied that academic activities thru LISTSERV at >SUNET depend entirely on the arbitray behaviour of the technician: >An autocracy which, definitely, leads to strange/undesired/unscholar >situations such as this one. Well, I hate to ask you this but... What was your formal agreement with the site on who owns what? What is their formal policy? Is there any? Probably not, right? Generally not. So... it all comes down to a couple of issues: o Possession is 90% of the law, so to speak, and they have possesssion. o If you don't like this, it comes down to how much you're willing to fight, and wehther you can either out-stubborn them or out-legal them. Is this something you're willing to throw money and lawyers at? You may be right. But unless you had a formal agreement laying out the issue, and you're willing to spend the time and money to prove it, being right will give you a warm feeling in your heart, and not much more.... And even if you had a formal agreement, it's only as useful as your willingness to force them to abide by it. And frankly, down that road there's probably no real winners. Better to work to build up the new stuff and learn from the issue. Figure out how to avoid getting in this situation again. Find some of your old subscribers and have them shill your new list -- a few well-placed "They kicked him out and grabbed his list, but he's over on this other list now, and I'm following!" will get the word out to your old list, andt he ones that care will move. They can keep the list, they can't force the subscribers to stay. You probably shouldn't go on encourage mass exodus, but they can't force other normal users not to do so. And if they try, that's to your benefit. And good luck. This stuff ain't fun. -- Chuq Von Rospach (chuq@apple.com) Apple IS&T Mail List Gnome Plaidworks Consulting (chuqui@plaidworks.com) ( +-+ The home for Hockey on the net) From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 13:51:59 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id NAA29130 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 13:45:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from server.postmodern.com (kristeva.postmodern.com [198.102.244.54]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id NAA29058 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 13:45:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from 198.102.244.52 (foucault.postmodern.com [198.102.244.52]) by server.postmodern.com (8.8.5/mcb-960422) with ESMTP id NAA08386; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 13:53:23 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <341C4ED3.E0781F2A@postmodern.com> Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 13:53:44 -0700 From: "Michael C. Berch" Reply-To: mcb@postmodern.com Organization: Postmodern Consulting, California USA X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01a (Macintosh; I; PPC) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: LIST-MANAGERS@GreatCircle.COM CC: Aldo-Pier Solari Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <2DDA582F8D@cicei.ulpgc.es> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The intellectual property rights in a mailing list or newsgroup distribution are murky at best, but it's not really so much a legal issue as a practical/technical one. The traditional solution to this problem has been to set up a new, competing list at a new site, and then wage an aggressive campaign to get the subscribers to move over. Assuming the old host has no proprietary rights in the name, you can continue to use it. Set up the new list, and send a mailing to the old list stating that it has moved, and how to subscribe. You may also be able to obtain a copy of the list from the list processor itself. I disagree with Chuq about not encouraging mass defection -- if you don't, there will be a longer period of chaos during which there are two competing lists. Your mission is to make sure that everybody knows about the new list, which might include sending an auto-reply to all postings to the old list, advising that the list has been moved, etc. If you are barred from posting to the old list, get someone on the list to do it for you. A periodic posting advising of the new location might be useful as well. Also, do a search engine search for all mentions of the list on the Web and other resources, including newsgroups and the list archiving and list-of-lists services like reference.com or tile.com. Send an update to all these sites stating that the list has moved; no need to mention the controversy -- after all you are the official list owner, no? In short, the old site might have "possession" of the list, but by good marketing, you can make that an empty vessel, and after a while even the most intransigent and hidebound institution will probably throw in the towel. A parallel strategy might be to escalate your complaint to the University/network's governing board. Public universities, especially in Europe, and their research arms, tend to have many layers of bureaucracy, ombudsmen, research committees, faculty bodies etc. Hit 'em all with some paperwork -- you don't need a lawyer. Good luck-- -- Michael C. Berch mcb@postmodern.com / mcb@greatcircle.com From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 14:08:21 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id OAA02084 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 14:01:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from elvis.vnet.net (elvis.vnet.net [166.82.1.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id OAA02047 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 14:00:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from katie.vnet.net (murr@katie.vnet.net [166.82.1.7]) by elvis.vnet.net (8.8.5/8.8.4) with ESMTP id RAA13725 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 17:08:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id RAA21912 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 17:08:48 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: katie.vnet.net: murr owned process doing -bs Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 17:08:47 -0400 (EDT) From: murr rhame To: LIST-MANAGERS@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please In-Reply-To: <2DDA582F8D@cicei.ulpgc.es> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk The situation you describe is very odd. If I were a listowner who wanted to move my mailing list to another server, I would probably just move the list without even consulting the old service provider. The list belongs to the listowner. If the listowner decides to move, it's none of the service provider's business. If you paying for the server, you may have to continue to pay the old service provider for the duration of the contract period. I use listproc and I'm not familiar with details of other mailing list software. With listproc, it's fairly strait forward for a listowner to get a copy of the subscribers list, install the subscriber list on another server and then delete the subscriber list on the old listproc. It would be fairly simple to make several announcements to the list directing the subscribers to the new server address. After posting notices for a week or so, start the new server and kill the subscriber list on the old server. I provide listproc services for about three dozen lists which are run by about two dozen listowners. If one of my listowners decided to move his list to another service provider, that is the listowner's business. I can't imagine trying to hijack a mailing list from a listowner. The listowner designs, builds, manages, and promotes the mailing list. Typically, the server only provides is some CPU time, disk space and Internet bandwidth. A mailing list doesn't belong to the service provider. I'm not sure what you can do about the old service provider continuing to operate your list and using your list name. If you pursue the matter in court, it will probably cost a lot of money and take a lot of time. Without a contract, the outcome in court is uncertain. For the moment, I would announce the new list address, install the established subscriber list on the new server and continue operations on the new server. Without the support of both the subscribers and a good listowner, the old list will eventually wither and die. - murr - From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 15:06:46 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id PAA10732 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 15:04:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fobos.ulpgc.es (fobos.ulpgc.es [193.145.132.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id PAA10682 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 15:04:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cicei.ulpgc.es (cicei.ulpgc.es [193.145.132.20]) by fobos.ulpgc.es (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id XAA18495 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 23:16:14 +0100 Received: from CICEI/SpoolDir by cicei.ulpgc.es (Mercury 1.31); 14 Sep 97 23:11:24 GMT Received: from SpoolDir by CICEI (Mercury 1.31); 14 Sep 97 23:11:18 GMT From: "Aldo-Pier Solari" Organization: Univ. de Las Palmas de G.C. To: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 23:11:18 GMT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please X-mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.31 Message-ID: <3272B643E6@cicei.ulpgc.es> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi all and many thanks for the feed back I'm receiving. It is highly valuable. Some more information which may be valuable to evaluate the situation could be (perhaps I was not sufficiently clear in my first message) the following: * I started FISH-ECOLOGY (FE) at the Canadian DFO; * I moved from the DFO to SUNET due to technical (machine) reasons; * As the sysop at the DFO refused to migrate the list, SUNET's view was: 'The owner may do with the list whatever s/he may see fit'; 'The list exists due to the owner's work; * SUNET is a public money run institution; * I did not pay anything for the service at SUNET (I'm a Swedish academic doing a phd for a Swedish U. in an exchange with a Spanish U., that's why I could run FE in SUNET's machines for over 3 yr.s); * SUNET has never recognized officially it's LISTSERV service; (i.e. list hosting does not exist at SUNET) [due to this, SUNET cannot claim any rights over FE in case they'd like to overrun copyright conventions]; * I had the up-to-date review of FE; * FE is up&running at the MIT, now; * The list at the old site remains operative but it is dead: SUNET has refused to close down the FE site: They seem to attempt to show that I was kicked away - not that I dismissed SUNET due to academic hostility and other ethical issues (not technical reasons); Questions: - Isnt there an intrinsic copyright to a medium's name (and distribution list) which belongs to the owner ? - On what grounds is an 'owner' defined as such ? - What does 'list owner' mean ? Is it defined by the law ? - Is there any Internet comission where I may put forward this issue ? I do not fear loosing the medium. It is now up&running and the fish research community knows me well. However, I would like to force SUNET to skip using the FISH-ECOLOGY name and to kill the members list which was left at the old server, as well. Lots of time and efforts go to build up a succesfull forum and such 'coup-de-etats' by the technicians should be hardly condemned. This is an important issue to all list owners, I believe. Finally, if anyone has the review of the LSTOWN-L@SEARN.SUNET.SE list, please, send me a copy. I've been served out from that server, the list has gone moderated and there's no way to review it. All of this was due to the problem described in both of my mails: The aim is to cut me off from contacting LISTSERV list managers because that list is run by my former sysop, the one who is doing all of this mess. It is not the first time sysops make trouble on arbitrary grounds. They know better than anyone that this 'vapor-ware' (and things that happen in cyberspace) are difficult to prove. That's why very strange situations may arise: A technician's dictatorship, beyond any academic or even institutional control when ethics go bad to worse. Thank you, APS/list owner FISH-ECOLOGY ******************************************************************* FISH-ECOLOGY: New addresses from Sept. 1997 and on. Please, print. ******************************************************************* Server (to un/subscribe): LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU The conference: FISH-ECOLOGY@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Requests: FISH-ECOLOGY-REQUEST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU ******************************************************************* ---- Aldo-PierSolari , Fish.Res.Gr./ULP Home-page: http://www.ulpgc.es/usuarios/solaris/index.html PGPKey ID: 0xFDD1FD36 -- IWillNotFailThoseWithWhomIServe ---- From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 15:22:20 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id PAA11439 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 15:08:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id PAA11425 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 15:08:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [207.167.80.70] (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA27632 ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 15:16:05 -0700 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <341C4ED3.E0781F2A@postmodern.com> References: <2DDA582F8D@cicei.ulpgc.es> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 15:08:15 -0700 To: mcb@postmodern.com, LIST-MANAGERS@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please Cc: Aldo-Pier Solari Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 1:53 PM -0700 9/14/97, Michael C. Berch wrote: >I disagree with Chuq about not >encouraging mass defection -- if you don't, there will be a longer period of >chaos during which there are two competing lists. Not as much as you might think. I would encourage it, but I'd have someone else do it. Since the administration at the old site has already decided to be twerps about this and take a confrontative stance, I don't want to do anything to encourage them to get even nastier. That's why I'd ask some friends I trust to do it and not do it directly. it's not because I'm against it, it's because I'd rather avoid them getting even more stupid in my direction. >Also, do a search engine search for all mentions of the list on the Web and >other resources, including newsgroups and the list archiving and list-of-lists >services like reference.com or tile.com. Send an update to all these sites >stating that the list has moved; no need to mention the controversy -- after >all you are the official list owner, no? Nice point! -- Chuq Von Rospach (chuq@apple.com) Apple IS&T Mail List Gnome Plaidworks Consulting (chuqui@plaidworks.com) ( +-+ The home for Hockey on the net) From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 15:36:33 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id PAA11844 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 15:11:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE (segate.sunet.se [192.36.125.6]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id PAA11815 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 15:11:21 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199709142211.PAA11815@honor.greatcircle.com> Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <6.74948423@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 0:19:12 +0100 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEARN.SUNET.SE (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 4474; Mon, 15 Sep 97 00:18:27 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin ERIC@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2c/1.8c) with RFC822 id 4910; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 00:18:27 +0200 Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 22:14:17 +0200 From: Eric Thomas Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please To: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:35:26 GMT from list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:35:26 GMT Aldo-Pier Solari said: Aldo, we at SUNET are really tired of this stupid little slandering fest that you are indulging in. I have no option but to correct all your factual disinformation until you stop doing this or my management decides to bring this in a courtroom. >While I informed my former systems operator that I would migrate >FISH-ECOLOGY (Scandinavia's/SUNET's largest list and the largest >worldwide in it's field), my rights to access the server were recalled >(I was 'served out') so I could not migrate the list, porpperly, to the >new provider (the MIT). Furthermore, I requested (eleven times) the list >be discontinued once it became operational at the MIT Actually, you requested ten times that the list be discontinued in spite of the fact that you did NOT have a new host for it (not counting the hosts that you claimed to have but who, once contacted, said that they had absolutely no plans to take over your list and wondered who had told you otherwise). We refused because we would not be doing our jobs if we allowed a valuable Internet resource which saves money for the Swedish government (which is SUNET's purpose in life) to be shut down just because one particular scientist would rather burn it than let "them" have it. SUNET works for the Swedish scientific *community*, not for the private personal vendettas of any individual scientist. We do not delete useful lists without a new host, period. You then made an 11th request after having found a new host that was actually confirmed to be a willing host. This is your first "valid" request. My boss's answer, I believe, was that SUNET does not take orders from you and would do as SUNET felt was appropriate. You threatened a lawsuit again and my boss told you to go ahead and sue us. There may have been more messages that I did not see, did not read carefully enough, etc. *My* answer to this 11th request was that I would recommend migrating the SUNET list to MIT. You are thus fully aware of the fact that SUNET intends, pending formal approval, to migrate the list to your new host, based on certain procedural considerations which are not relevant and none of your business. This decision, however, is made purely in the users' interests and does not have the beginning of anything to do with your demands, legal threats, etc. Which is what my boss was telling you: SUNET couldn't care less what Aldo Solari wants or does not want. SUNET does not work for Aldo Solari, but for the scientific community. For the umpteenth time, after the grave accusations and threats that you have made, SUNET has reached the decision to essentially cut all bridges with you. SUNET is no longer willing to let you use SUNET servers and, having reached a final decision at the highest level of management concerning your case and numerous demands, SUNET is no longer interested in listening to the orders that you keep sending and sending and sending, because nobody at SUNET is going to disobey orders just because Aldo Solari sent a 53rd demand. It is just as my boss told you, SUNET will do what SUNET sees fit to do based on SUNET's own rules and policies. > - FISH-ECOLOGY existed due to *my* work during several years and *I* > have the right to choose whatever ISP I wish on whatever grounds I > may see fit; Except that SUNET has never been your (or anyone's) "ISP", and you have never been SUNET's customer. This little distinction is the key to the whole issue and probably the reason why the people who have responded so far were so puzzled by the situation. Over the years, SUNET contributed several hundred thousand dollars' worth of computer equipment (that's the FRACTION of our mainframe used up by FISH-ECOLOGY), bandwidth, manpower and related services to your list, at no charge to you. You have not been a customer and SUNET has not been a provider, it was a partnership. You have provided hundreds or perhaps even thousands of hours of work at the $7/hour that I imagine you make as a grad student in Mallorca. The fact is, SUNET's contribution was enormous compared to yours, and here you are talking as if you had been sending your money to SUNET for all these years and had just decided to select another firm to provide the services. And let's not start a discussion about what it would cost *today* to run the list. What matters is what it actually cost SUNET to run the list over the course of its existence, based on the equipment that SUNET chose to use for its mailing list service, including a mainframe that was purchased in 1989 when there was no other option and upgraded in 1992 when there was no credible alternative. The fact of the matter is that the Swedish government has spent a little fortune making FISH-ECOLOGY a reality. Then one day Aldo Solari got upset and wished to delete the list in spite of not having a new host for it. Not only that, but he started to make legal threats. He said it was illegal for SUNET not to delete the list, and threatened to sue the government. Well, when a government spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on something and someone suddenly claims that the government is acting illegally and there is some law that says they must shut down the service immediately or a costly lawsuit will ensue, chances are that the government will react based almost exclusively on the merit of the legal claim. > - *I* own the right to the name (which *I* created); Yes, yes, we know, you own the FISH-ECOLOGY trademark and we are using it illegally. We got a good laugh out of that one. Try looking up "trade" in your dictionary :-) And I won't even go into the likelihood of getting "fish-ecology" registered as a trademark for the provision of services related to fish ecology. > - SUNET has to, entirely, *delete* the lists of scientists > subscribed to FISH-ECOLOGY as it is now operational at another > machine under other rules; Look, trying to make an ethical issue out of what is simply a legal response to a series of legal threats is not going to do anyone any good. Lawyers do not care about discussions held on "the list-managers list", whatever that might be, unless slander is involved. If you think you have a legal leg to stand on, hire a lawyer and sue the government. If not, accept SUNET's decision. If you don't like the turn this has taken, try not making legal threats to the government the next time. >This later has implied that academic activities thru LISTSERV at SUNET >depend entirely on the arbitray behaviour of the technician: I wonder how many more times I will have to repeat that this went to the highest level of management, who are definitely not "technicians". >However, as SUNET is now dismissed (due to repetitive insults, threats >and academic hostility among other more complex aspects which I'll not >go into detail here), You know, that's a good one. After writing to SUNET management to formally accuse a SUNET employee of (I don't know the exact English terms) misuse of government funds and resources for private gain, and abuse of governmental authority for private gain (all things which, per your own letter, are "very serious accusations" - and indeed they are), recommending the termination of that person and his replacement with a committee of professors, all that, needless to say, without the beginning of any proof, I think you need some nerve to talk about "threats" and "hostility" :-) You seem to have a problem understanding that there are various shades of gray in life, not just black and white. "Look, I already said no once, I'm telling you no once again, next time it will be 'get lost!'" is hostility, but it is no big deal and perfectly legal. Writing to people's management with false accusations that carry jail sentences is also hostility, but it is a lot more serious and illegal. Likewise, telling a government employee who refuses to disobey orders from his management in spite of repeated demands that he has "asked for it" and you are coming over to where he lives to "fix things up" is a serious and illegal threat. Eric From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 17:17:17 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id QAA26105 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 16:53:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE (segate.sunet.se [192.36.125.6]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id QAA26068 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 16:53:07 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199709142353.QAA26068@honor.greatcircle.com> Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <1.AC238296@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 2:00:58 +0100 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEARN.SUNET.SE (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 4720; Mon, 15 Sep 97 02:00:14 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin ERIC@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2c/1.8c) with RFC822 id 5432; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 02:00:14 +0200 Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 00:20:47 +0200 From: Eric Thomas Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please To: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 14 Sep 1997 23:11:18 GMT from list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Sun, 14 Sep 1997 23:11:18 GMT Aldo-Pier Solari said: > (I'm a Swedish academic doing a phd for a Swedish U. in an > exchange with a Spanish U., that's why I could run FE in > SUNET's machines for over 3 yr.s); To clarify, you were allowed to run the list because it was useful. Being affiliated with a Swedish university does not give one any kind of automatic right to run free lists at SUNET, it merely makes it more likely that the request will be accepted. Some of our lists are actually run by unaffiliated list owners. > * SUNET has never recognized officially it's LISTSERV service; > (i.e. list hosting does not exist at SUNET) [due to this, > SUNET cannot claim any rights over FE in case they'd like to > overrun copyright conventions]; I don't see how internal SUNET budgeting issues could possibly be relevant to copyright law, but you seem to know a lot more than I do about law ;-) > - Isnt there an intrinsic copyright to a medium's name You cannot copyright a name. > - On what grounds is an 'owner' defined as such ? Technically, an owner is a person to whom the organization running the list server is delegating certain technical privileges (right to add and delete users, right to change list parameters, etc). These privileges are usually a subset of the privileges delegated to the employee(s) in charge of running the server (right to create new lists, etc). This part of the equation is factual and can be established to a high degree of technical detail. Then there is the "intangible" role of the list owner as the person who drives the discussion forward, etc. This is a gray area. > - What does 'list owner' mean ? Is it defined by the law ? Not unless a formal agreement was made between the two parties. It is much too gray an area to be able to say much beyond the factual considerations listed above. >However, I would like to force SUNET to skip using the FISH-ECOLOGY name >and to kill the members list You can't, so you're wasting your time, especially as this is what SUNET is planning to do anyway. >Lots of time and efforts go to build up a succesfull forum Ah, what's a few hundred thousand dollars between friends? :-) >Finally, if anyone has the review of the LSTOWN-L@SEARN.SUNET.SE >list, please, send me a copy. I've been served out from that >server, the list has gone moderated and there's no way to review it. >All of this was due to the problem described in both of my mails: >The aim is to cut me off from contacting LISTSERV list managers >because that list is run by my former sysop, the one who is doing >all of this mess. I hate to interject some facts, but the list went to REVIEW for new subscribers months ago when we discovered that AOL was using it as a sample for its "how to subscribe" instructions, and dozens of clueless users were whining that they thought this was a list about basketball. I did not approve your message because it was slanderous and approving it would have created all sorts of problems: 1. Explicit approval of the use of government resources to slander the government. 2. Implicit approval of the statements made, as their publication has been reviewed and approved by a government employee. This could (in the sense that I don't know if it does or doesn't) turn into a serious problem if we should decide to take the issue to court. 3. We had decided to serve you off from all our servers, so actually, the proper course of action was to serve off your new address. It is interesting to note that, while you are telling the world that you own FISH-ECOLOGY and cannot believe that SUNET does not recognize your right to retain full control over all aspects of the list, at the same time you are asking for assistance in preventing a third party from retaining control of a mailing list that you do not have the beginning of any involvement with. Your logic escapes me. Over the years, you have kicked hundreds of people out of FISH-ECOLOGY, and when they appealed you just told them "Can't you accept that you have been DISMISSED from the list, this is permanent, it is MY list", etc. And at least half of them were kicked out on grounds that were THAT close to personal disagreements. Easily half of the mail I had to process for the SUNET mailing list service were complaints from people who had been unfairly kicked out of your list, and in some cases I had no option but to override you and put them back. But now that YOU got kicked out, it is suddenly different and accepting it is not an option. Say, why don't you just ask MIT to start a SUNET-BASHING list? I would be willing to announce the list on LSTOWN-L so that interested parties may join. Anyway, the bottom line is that this discussion is not going to change the law in Sweden. If you want to change laws, you need to follow the normal democratic process and contact someone who can put in a bill, etc. No, this cannot be done by e-mail. Either way, by the time you are done, and assuming things go according to plan, the list will have been transferred to MIT and SUNET will have formally transferred all the associated rights to MIT, in writing, including the right to have to deal with you. MIT will legally own the list and US laws will apply. MIT runs the list on a much more expensive mainframe than the one SUNET used and the costs are going to be even higher than at SUNET. On top of that, US law is more money-centric than Swedish law, so you will "own" the list even less, which I think is a good thing, because there are 1791 other scientists contributing to it (the overwhelming majority of which have more knowledge and seniority than you do) and you are standing here taking all the credit and claiming this is all YOUR work and YOUR decision, like the opinion of the 1791 others is irrelevant. Did you pause to think how much time they will have to waste now that the WWW interface is gone? Nope, you just announced that the list had to move, period. You were by far the most impatient list owner where the WWW interface was concerned. You said it was extremely important to your list, would save so many people so much time, WHY wasn't SUNET willing to activate it before the hardware upgrade, etc. Now 1791 people will have to do without it because Aldo Solari picked up a personal fight with the guy who runs the service at SUNET, which everyone was perfectly happy with. One of the reasons I recommended migrating to MIT is that there are TWO co-owners on that list, and you will no longer be the king of the hill. I think this will lead to a big improvement for the 1791 scientists who couldn't care less about whether Aldo Solari thinks Eric Thomas is the Antechrist and who are just trying to get their work done. Eric From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 17:37:34 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA29840 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 17:28:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fobos.ulpgc.es (fobos.ulpgc.es [193.145.132.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id RAA29807 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 17:27:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cicei.ulpgc.es (cicei.ulpgc.es [193.145.132.20]) by fobos.ulpgc.es (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id BAA19143 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 01:39:30 +0100 Received: from CICEI/SpoolDir by cicei.ulpgc.es (Mercury 1.31); 15 Sep 97 01:34:39 GMT Received: from SpoolDir by CICEI (Mercury 1.31); 15 Sep 97 01:34:22 GMT From: "Aldo-Pier Solari" Organization: Univ. de Las Palmas de G.C. To: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 01:34:15 GMT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please X-mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.31 Message-ID: <34D5182C16@cicei.ulpgc.es> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk ] From: Eric Thomas : ] factual disinformation until you stop doing this or my management decides ] to bring this in a courtroom. A good term: 'disinformation'. Make good use of it :-). If anywhere, people in this forum are used to process lots of information and I'm sure they'll analyze quite well how you (and I) use terminology. Thing is *you*, on arbitrary grounds, are harassing a list owner (who's dismissed your service on ethical grounds - not technical) and *violating* copyright conventions, as well. And courtroom ?: You could end up in jail if you go to a court room :-) Let's no go into details, your SUNET-LSoft manouvers are not a matter for this list. ] Actually, you requested ten times that the list be discontinued in spite ] of the fact that you did NOT have a new host for it (not counting the ] hosts that you claimed to have but who, once contacted, said that they ] had absolutely no plans to take over your list and wondered who had told ] you otherwise). Not true. Check out MITVMA.MIT.EDU: FISH-ECOLOGY is operative at the new host and it has been so since a week ago. 9 out of the 11 times I requested FISH-ECOLOGY being closed down at SUNET were after - I had the new host; and - it was denied all of the 11 times: (a) SUNET cannot have any rigths on neither the name 'FISH-ECOLOGY' nor on the distribution list because (a') SUNET has not any official list hosting, it has refused, several times, to acknowledge such a service; and (a'') *I* created and maintained the medium at the DFO, moved it to SUNET and, now, to the MIT. You've got to stop harassing list owners on arbitrary grounds as well as stoping this clear violation of the intrinsic copyright you've defended elsewhere (when it came close to your interests). ]We refused because we would not be doing our jobs if we allowed a ]valuable Internet resource which saves money for the Swedish ]government FISH-ECOLOGY is a good conference, no doubt. But you *do not have any rights whatsoever to controll it. It is *not* your medium and you have to kill both name and list of distribution with a QUIET DEL command: Stop harassing my membership and creating this havoc. ](which is SUNET's purpose in life) to be shut down just because one ]particular scientist would rather burn it than let "them" have it. Well, a god phrase from the VietNam War but it doent apply to this situation: Firstly, I am not just 'a paricular scientist': I have created and maintained and made FISH-ECOLOGY what is is and, secondly, I AM FREE to choose the ISP I may see fit on whatever grounds I may have. You *do not* have any rights to take over anything: What you are attempting to do is robbery, a clear *violation* of copy right conventions. And you do this because you end up believing you can control everything, like many other sysops :-). ]SUNET works for the Swedish scientific *community*, not for the ]private personal vendettas of any individual scientist. We do not ]delete useful lists without a new host, period. 'Vendetta', another key word :-). Not a vendetta, Mr. Thomas: You have just been dismissed as a sysop. That's all. Take gracefully as you once said to the canadian sysop when I moved FISH-ECOLOGY from the DFO to SUNET. Thing's you try to keep control over such things because without them you're a manpower surplus :-). ] You threatened a ] lawsuit again and my boss told you to go ahead and sue us. Yes, I did. And I visited the Swedish Consul in Spain concerning this issue. I have all intellectual rights conventions behind. ] *My* answer to this 11th request was that I would recommend migrating the ] SUNET list to MIT. Well, what a position shift :-) Amazing ... just amazing the power of public fora such as LIST-MANAGERS :-). ]You are thus fully aware of the fact that SUNET intends, pending ]formal approval, to migrate the list to your new host, based on ]certain procedural considerations which are not relevant and none of ]your business. This decision, however, is made purely in the users' ]interests and does not have the beginning of anything to do with ]your demands, legal threats, etc. Well, good for you. You just gave Swedish academia AND the whole of the country a hit under the belt before the eyes of the marine scientific community. Would you like to watch 500 mails concerning this ? :-) ]SUNET does not work for Aldo Solari, but for the scientific ]community. Yes, that's why they treat academics (and their 'valuable' work) as a kind of non-existent garbage :-). You do a goebbelian use of words :-) ] SUNET has reached the decision to essentially cut all bridges with ] you. Excuse me, *I* have decided to cut all bridges with SUNET as long as *you* remain there. *You* were dismissed. Do not attempt to show to the world *I* was the dismissed: That was your aim to not discontinue the old site. But you had to: The old site is stone dead :-). Technically, you're very good but ethically you've proven what you are worth :-). ] Over the years, SUNET contributed ... The famous last 100 Propaganda words :-) ] The fact is, SUNET's contribution was enormous compared to yours, Another amazing argument :-). Hey, I never thought FISH-ECOLOGY would be so important :-) ] The fact of the matter is that the Swedish government has spent a little ] fortune making FISH-ECOLOGY a reality. Amazing, I never thought SUNET cared so much about FISH-ECOLOGY :-). For a week ago, it led: 'you are a non-existent phd student in a non-existent place with a non-existent list called fish-ecology' :-). ]Then one day Aldo Solari got upset and wished to delete the list in ]spite of not having a new host for it. Not true. Just check out MITVMA.MIT.EDU :-) ] and threatened to sue the government. Haha, not the government but you. Come down from the horse. Nobody's going to take you seriously of you argue that way :-). Unless you believe you are 'the government' :-) or that you are somewhere above the law & copyright conventions. ] Yes, yes, we know, you own the FISH-ECOLOGY trademark [...] Not a trade mark. Lists are media and they have intrinsic copyrights such as any email or whatever. All in all (to end up with this): Kill both name, site and distribution list: Do not confuse my subscribers and take it gracefully. I'm sure other list owner will learn out of this. I have another academic site hosting my services. Finally: I'll publicly acknowledge your good technical capacity. However, being a professional, nowdays, takes more than writing down commands :-). Cheers, Aldo-P. Solari/list owner FISH-ECOLOGY ******************************************************************* FISH-ECOLOGY: New addresses from Sept. 1997 and on. Please, print. ******************************************************************* Server (to un/subscribe): LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU The conference: FISH-ECOLOGY@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Requests: FISH-ECOLOGY-REQUEST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU ******************************************************************* ---- Aldo-PierSolari , Fish.Res.Gr./ULP Home-page: http://www.ulpgc.es/usuarios/solaris/index.html PGPKey ID: 0xFDD1FD36 -- IWillNotFailThoseWithWhomIServe ---- From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 18:06:41 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id RAA02377 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 17:58:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sky.net (solar.sky.net [198.70.175.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id RAA02351 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 17:58:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Sky (ip20.kc.sky.net [206.230.165.20]) by sky.net (8.8.6/8.8.5) with SMTP id UAA16648 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 20:06:18 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19970914200321.007202b4@solar.sky.net> X-Sender: price@solar.sky.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.3 (32) Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 20:03:21 -0500 To: LIST-MANAGERS@GreatCircle.COM From: Paul Allen Rice Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please In-Reply-To: <34D5182C16@cicei.ulpgc.es> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Now that both sides have made comments can we move on? This is obviously no longer a discussion for the list. Paul ------------------------------------------------------------ (o)(o) Paul Rice > Listowner: CircleJoke and Underground Mailling Lists \/ mailto:PaulRice@Broadcast.net ------------------------------------------------------------ "We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the Complete Works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true." --Robert Wilensky, University of California ------------------------------------------------------------ Support the anti-Spam amendment, go to http://www.cauce.org From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 18:21:48 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA03582 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:08:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from server.postmodern.com (kristeva.postmodern.com [198.102.244.54]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id SAA03567 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:07:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from 198.102.244.52 (foucault.postmodern.com [198.102.244.52]) by server.postmodern.com (8.8.5/mcb-960422) with ESMTP id SAA08962; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:15:45 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <341C8C52.BE24AC36@postmodern.com> Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:16:06 -0700 From: "Michael C. Berch" Reply-To: mcb@postmodern.com Organization: Postmodern Consulting, California USA X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.01a (Macintosh; I; PPC) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: LIST-MANAGERS@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <199709142353.QAA26068@honor.greatcircle.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk There's just one part of this that caused me to spit my afternoon coffee all over the keyboard -- when someone (referring to SUNET) mentioned "hundreds of thousands of dollars" and (referring to MIT) "a more expensive mainframe to host the list". Um... a list with 1791 members, even if quite active, would hardly cause even a low-end Pentium to breathe hard. Am I missing something? I do know that LISTSERV is probably the world's most expensive list processing software :-), but aren't we off by a couple orders of magnitude here? (By the way, I was manager of the facility which hosted the grant-funded BIONET mailing lists and newsgroups from 1989-1993, and have a pretty good idea of how much the internal cost of this sort of thing runs, and unless there's something particularly odd about FISH-ECOLOGY, I have no idea where those hundreds of thousands are supposed to have gone.) -- Michael C. Berch mcb@postmodern.com / mcb@greatcircle.com From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 18:28:57 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA04569 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:17:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE (segate.sunet.se [192.36.125.6]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id SAA04507 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:17:15 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199709150117.SAA04507@honor.greatcircle.com> Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <11.6B77E028@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 3:25:03 +0100 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE by SEARN.SUNET.SE (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with BSMTP id 4973; Mon, 15 Sep 97 03:24:20 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin ERIC@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2c/1.8c) with RFC822 id 5948; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 03:24:20 +0200 Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 02:51:39 +0200 From: Eric Thomas Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please To: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 15 Sep 1997 01:34:15 GMT from list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, 15 Sep 1997 01:34:15 GMT Aldo-Pier Solari said: Aldo, I have no desire to have a *discussion* about this, but there are a few more *facts* I need to correct: >Not true. Check out MITVMA.MIT.EDU: FISH-ECOLOGY is operative at the new >host Yes. >and it has been so since a week ago. No, the first test message was from 'Thu, 11 Sep 1997 15:14:26 EDT', ie 3 days ago. Either way it does not matter, because you did not tell us where the new host was until yesterday, and we do not read people's minds. During the first 10 requests, we either knew or believed that you had no host. >You've got to stop harassing list owners on arbitrary grounds as >well as stoping this clear violation of the intrinsic copyright >you've defended elsewhere (when it came close to your interests). As I know that names cannot be copyrighted, I highly doubt that I ever defended this theory elsewhere. Even if I had, I can assure you that the boss of the boss of my boss's boss did not. >Thing's you try to keep control over such things because without them >you're a manpower surplus :-). Right, without FISH-ECOLOGY I will be waiting in unemployment lines and starving :-) >] *My* answer to this 11th request was that I would recommend migrating >the >] SUNET list to MIT. > >Well, what a position shift :-) Amazing ... just amazing the power >of public fora such as LIST-MANAGERS :-). I told you about this decision in a message dated 'Sat, 13 Sep 1997 17:27:11 +0200'. That was long before you made use of "the power of LIST-MANAGERS". >] and threatened to sue the government. > >Haha, not the government but you. Come down from the horse. >Nobody's going to take you seriously of you argue that way :-). >Unless you believe you are 'the government' :-) or that you are >somewhere above the law & copyright conventions. Aldo, you have never threatened to sue me personally, nor would you have any grounds since the decisions you object to were made by my management, but please, I don't want to be holding you. Just hire a lawyer and do it. Since I will soon be waiting in unemployment lines, I will never be able to afford a good lawyer and I am sure to lose! Eric From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 18:53:41 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA05131 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:24:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from kira.ici.net (kira.ici.net [207.180.0.37]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id SAA05113 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:24:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from klingon.ici.net (lbm@klingon [207.180.0.40]) by kira.ici.net (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA24883 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 21:31:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (lbm@localhost) by klingon.ici.net (8.8.5/8.8.4) with SMTP id VAA20991 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 21:31:54 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: klingon.ici.net: lbm owned process doing -bs Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 21:31:53 -0400 (EDT) From: "Linda B. Merims" X-Sender: lbm@klingon To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com Subject: FISH-ECOLOGY Controversy In-Reply-To: <199709150037.RAA00901@honor.greatcircle.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Eric, after reading the discussion on this matter from both your and Aldo's point of view, it is my considered opinion as a list owner that you are a perfect shit. Not to mention a thief. Linda B. Merims lbm@ici.net Massachusetts, USA From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 18:56:37 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA06769 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:43:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from relay1.shore.net (relay1.shore.net [192.233.85.129]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id SAA06731 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:42:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from jane.smoe.org (jeffw@smoe.org [204.167.97.154]) by relay1.shore.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id VAA26552; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 21:50:29 -0400 (EDT) Received: by jane.smoe.org (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4-daemon-mode-relay2) id VAA26258; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 21:51:42 -0400 Message-ID: <19970914215141.24120@smoe.org> Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 21:51:41 -0400 From: Jeff Wasilko To: Eric Thomas Cc: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please References: <199709150117.SAA04507@honor.greatcircle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.76 In-Reply-To: <199709150117.SAA04507@honor.greatcircle.com>; from "Eric Thomas" on Mon, Sep 15, 1997 at 02:51:39AM +0200 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, Sep 15, 1997 at 02:51:39AM +0200, Eric Thomas wrote: > On Mon, 15 Sep 1997 01:34:15 GMT Aldo-Pier Solari > said: > > Aldo, I have no desire to have a *discussion* about this, but there are a > few more *facts* I need to correct: Would you please be kind enough to take this to private mail? There's no reason to expose all of list-managers to your disagreement. Jeff From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 18:56:44 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA05910 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:31:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from blackhole.dimensional.com (blackhole.dimensional.com [208.206.176.10]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id SAA05873 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:31:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from flatland.dimensional.com (tedsmith@flatland.dimensional.com [208.206.176.24]) by blackhole.dimensional.com (8.8.7/8.8.nospam) with SMTP id TAA20450; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 19:39:31 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 19:39:31 -0600 (MDT) From: Theodore M Smith To: Eric Thomas cc: LIST-MANAGERS@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please In-Reply-To: <199709142353.QAA26068@honor.greatcircle.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Eric Thomas wrote: > I > did not approve your message because it was slanderous and approving it > would have created all sorts of problems: > > 1. Explicit approval of the use of government resources to slander the > government. Hmmmmm. Now that statement _is_ a bit interesting. I for one certainly hope that in all the many places government resources support listservs or other places for exchange of information, that doesn't give government employees the idea of censoring statements they deem "slanderous." Particularly because in one way or another a great deal of the internet could be deemed to be "government resources." Ted Smith Denver, Colorado USA From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 18:56:51 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id SAA05913 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:32:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fobos.ulpgc.es (fobos.ulpgc.es [193.145.132.5]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id SAA05861 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:31:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from cicei.ulpgc.es (cicei.ulpgc.es [193.145.132.20]) by fobos.ulpgc.es (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id CAA19388 for ; Mon, 15 Sep 1997 02:43:25 +0100 Received: from CICEI/SpoolDir by cicei.ulpgc.es (Mercury 1.31); 15 Sep 97 02:38:34 GMT Received: from SpoolDir by CICEI (Mercury 1.31); 15 Sep 97 02:38:11 GMT From: "Aldo-Pier Solari" Organization: Univ. de Las Palmas de G.C. To: LIST-MANAGERS@GREATCIRCLE.COM Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 02:38:07 GMT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please X-mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.31 Message-ID: <35E565389B@cicei.ulpgc.es> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk ] From: Eric Thomas : Well, this will be my last message in reply to Mr. Thomas. As you see, he has high toughts of list owner's work & efforts :-) Mr. Thomas shifts his own definitions on what a list owner is depending on his interests :-). OK, that's expected when someone is between the sword and the wall. ] You cannot copyright a name. No, that's why you have copyrighted the name LISTSERV :-) ] Technically, an owner is a person to whom the organization running the ] list server is delegating certain technical privileges Yes, Mr. Thomas: A list owner is someone you let add&del but the medium which s/he created is yours because you print it in your electronic offset: You are saying 'my dad own's all of the magazines he prints at his office' :-) and he lets the magazine staff add&del lines :-). Looking at your Catalist copyright notice I do not find the same philosphy. Be coeherent, please :-). ] Then there is the "intangible" role of the list owner as the person who ] drives the discussion forward, etc. This is a gray area. Yes, and in this 'gray area' you decide what is right&worng, dont you ? :-) ] You can't, so you're wasting your time, especially as this is what SUNET ] is planning to do anyway. Better so to everyone. You thought you could override a list owner as you, normally, override hardware :-). ] Ah, what's a few hundred thousand dollars between friends? :-) Hey, I never thought FISH-ECOLOGY would be so much worth. In your earlier message you said this list used just a tiny part of the resources. Now, you attempt to sell the idea that the list costed 'hundreds of thousand dollars'. Do you believe people will buy this ? :-) ] It is interesting to note that, while you are telling the world that you ] own FISH-ECOLOGY and cannot believe that SUNET does not recognize your ] right to retain full control over all aspects of the list, at the same ] time you are asking for assistance in preventing a third party from ] retaining control of a mailing list that you do not have the beginning of ] any involvement with. No, I just asked for the review of the LSTOWN-L list :-). I have not attempted to gain any control over your list. Now, if you believe that talking privately to listserv owners means 'gaining control' over your list, that's another thing :-) ] Over the years, you have kicked hundreds of people out of ] FISH-ECOLOGY ... hehe. Now the list was badly managed ? :-). Why is it the largest in the world ? :-). I just kicked around 10 users (7 commercial spammers, 3 academic) in exactly 3 years. All those kicked persons attempted to have my list closed down and my academic life wasted and, yes, naturally, all of them expressed they were unfairly kicked :-). The list became successful due to my policy (which came about thru a compilation of list owners opinions both at this forum and at LSTOWN-L when I was viciously attacked by those persons when I hardly knew how to send an email :-). If there are logs from 1994 to this forum, part of the material may be found there. Even Mr. Thoma's thought about list owning and copy right, something radically different from what he's saying now :-). I submitted my policy to MITVMA, the new co-owner (FISH-ECOLOGY member for years) AND the responsible at their data center: No one had a single point of view on the policy. It was accepted :-). ]But now that YOU got kicked out, it is suddenly different and ]accepting it is not an option. That's what you attempt to show because you cannot accept a list owner did dismiss your technical know-how on ethical grounds. You see, people are not idiots like you use to day. I moved my list somewhere else, *you* were kicked :-). Now, you opinions is shifted because the older site is stone dead :-). ] just ask MIT to start a SUNET-BASHING list? FISH-ECOLOGY is for fish research, not to bash you there :-). You are not so important in the marine research community :-) but you've got something fishy, for sure :-). However, as I have a policy of transparency with my subscribers, I'll keep them informed on whether someone (you ?) will harass them attempting to create havoc among them (that's why you did not close down the site while you knew it was operative at another site). Tomorrow, you'll be getting thousands of unsub commands, at the older site, dont worry :-). ] Either way, by the time you are done, and assuming things go according to ] plan, the list will have been transferred to MIT and SUNET ... hehe, as far as I know, the list has been at the MIT for a few days, already. You dont decide nothing on my medium: Learn it and take it gracefully. You have to learn that list owners cannt be overridden like you do with your boxes :-). ] formally transferred all the associated rights to MIT hehe, you do not have any rights over FISH-ECOLOGY. ] including the right to have to deal with you. Yes, you can do whatever you like. But, I assume, there, you decide nothing either :-). ]Did you pause to think how much time they will have to waste now ]that the WWW interface is gone? SUNET refused to let me move the logs :-). Anyway, you had already lost 2 years of logs (+ software repository + duzins of ebooks, papers, etc.) in a crash ... we can always start again. The know-how is there. FE doesnt need you :-). ] Now 1791 people will have to do without it because Aldo Solari picked up ] a personal fight with the guy who runs the service at SUNET No personal fight. You attempted to destroy my medium and lost the game. The RATIONALE of all this, as I see it, is that a list is a medium and the owner has copyright conventions and membership behind. You're not the 'anti-christ' but just a programmer with little human knowledge and keyboard ethics :-) Cheers, APS/list owner FISH-ECOLOGY ******************************************************************* FISH-ECOLOGY: New addresses from Sept. 1997 and on. Please, print. ******************************************************************* Server (to un/subscribe): LISTSERV@MITVMA.MIT.EDU The conference: FISH-ECOLOGY@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Requests: FISH-ECOLOGY-REQUEST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU ******************************************************************* ---- Aldo-PierSolari , Fish.Res.Gr./ULP Home-page: http://www.ulpgc.es/usuarios/solaris/index.html PGPKey ID: 0xFDD1FD36 -- IWillNotFailThoseWithWhomIServe ---- From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 19:23:58 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id TAA08207 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 19:03:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [207.167.80.66]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id TAA08190 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 19:02:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [207.167.80.70] (zamboni.plaidworks.com [207.167.80.70]) by plaidworks.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id TAA22596 ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 19:10:01 -0700 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19970914200321.007202b4@solar.sky.net> References: <34D5182C16@cicei.ulpgc.es> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 18:55:24 -0700 To: Paul Allen Rice , LIST-MANAGERS@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: Req./Assistance fr. Senior list owners, please Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 6:03 PM -0700 9/14/97, Paul Allen Rice wrote: >Now that both sides have made comments can we move on? This is obviously >no longer a discussion for the list. But it is a great example of why I tell people to settle out these details at the beginning... (grin) chuq -- Chuq Von Rospach (chuq@apple.com) Apple IS&T Mail List Gnome Plaidworks Consulting (chuqui@plaidworks.com) ( +-+ The home for Hockey on the net) From owner-list-managers-outgoing Sun Sep 14 19:51:47 1997 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-970308-1) id TAA08778 for list-managers-outgoing; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 19:11:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE (segate.sunet.se [192.36.125.6]) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-970824-1) with ESMTP id TAA08743 for ; Sun, 14 Sep 1997 19:11:08 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id