From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 13:22:41 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA22831; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 12:01:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix, from userid 1013) id ED2AD17E89; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 12:01:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from teapot.egroups.net (teapot.egroups.net [63.204.207.250]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 3106417E89 for ; Mon, 26 Jun 2000 22:54:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 8288 invoked from network); 27 Jun 2000 05:59:29 -0000 Received: (QMFILT: 1.0); 27 Jun 2000 06:59:29 -0000 Received: from c675142-a.smateo1.sfba.home.com (HELO egroups.net) (24.14.148.152) by teapot.egroups.net with SMTP; 27 Jun 2000 05:59:29 -0000 Message-ID: <3958444E.B035AF8@egroups.net> Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 23:06:06 -0700 From: Mark Fletcher Organization: eGroups, Inc. X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: egroups References: <200006270455.VAA24033@honor.greatcircle.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Alan S. Harrell wrote: > > I could list several minor issues, but in my way of thinking the only > major negatives concern the actual business of eGroups. eGroups is not > in the business of hosting mailing lists. They are in the business of > selling ads and selling targeted information to information brokers. > The mailing lists' service are merely the means to their profits. > Just a quick correction. We take privacy concerns extremely seriously and never disclose individual subscriber information to third parties. Any information is in aggregate, like "target this ad to all groups in this particular category." I'm not sure what you mean by selling targeted information to information brokers, but that does not sound like something we do. If anyone has any questions about eGroups privacy policy or anything else about eGroups, please feel free to contact me directly. Thanks, Mark -- Mark Fletcher CTO eGroups, Inc. From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 13:50:30 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA22900; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 12:03:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix, from userid 1013) id 742F117EB4; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 12:03:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.tidalwave.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E90E017E89 for ; Tue, 27 Jun 2000 13:19:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id QAA22070 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Tue, 27 Jun 2000 16:25:18 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 16:25:11 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: I love it when examples present themselves (Re: The joys of opt-out) Message-ID: <20000627162511.A22035@gsp.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Here's an example of opt-out spamming that arrived just moments ago: ----- Forwarded message from The Voodoo Donkey ----- > From: The Voodoo Donkey > Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 11:42:30 -0700 > Subject: Welcome to -Voodoo Donkey Fresh > To: rsk@gsp.org > > > The Voodoo Donkey, the owner of the mailing list '-Voodoo Donkey Fresh', > has added you to this list at Topica. [snip...] Note the opt-out nature of this spam: > If you do NOT want to be added to this list, simply reply > to this message, and you will be immediately removed. Too late. I've already been spammed. (And while I was composing *this* message, a message from the mailing list itself arrived. So far, that makes two spams and counting.) And note Topica's excuses for supporting this spam: > Topica cares about your privacy, and we take great measures > to fight "spam." If you feel that someone is abusing the > Topica system or is using your email address without your consent, > please let us know by reporting it to abuse@get.topica.com. Of course, they could avoid much of the issue simply by requiring 100% opt-in with confirmation. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 13:53:18 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA22960; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 12:04:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix, from userid 1013) id A338917E89; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 12:04:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bp.ucs.usl.edu (bp.ucs.usl.edu [130.70.40.36]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 69B2417E89 for ; Wed, 28 Jun 2000 08:33:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from louisiana.edu (sur047.usl.edu [130.70.1.47]) by bp.ucs.usl.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1/ucs-server_1.4) with ESMTP id KAA00737; Wed, 28 Jun 2000 10:38:11 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <395A1C2E.AEBE37DB@louisiana.edu> Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 10:39:26 -0500 From: Istvan Berkeley Organization: Philosophy, The University of Louisiana at Lafayette X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: ASHandRR@mastnet.net Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: more on blocking/filtering MIME References: <200006260800.BAA08376@honor.greatcircle.com> <39593599.16194.11829D1@localhost> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi there, I came across a compelling reason to stick to text only mail over the weekend. I was up in Canada and could only access my e-mail via a bare telnet link. This put me back into the world of elm, vi, etc. As a consequence, I could only easily read text only mail. The one bit of HTML mail which did arrive was readable, but only just. A second reason for favouring text only mail is that there are still a few non-MIME compliant mail systems out there, amazingly enough. There is one at John's Hopkins U. for example. I am a great believer in backward compatibility. For this reason, I remain a strong advocate of text only mail. That is my two cents. All the best, Istvan PHILOSOP Moderator -- Istvan S. N. Berkeley, Ph.D. Philosophy & Cognitive Science E-mail: istvan@usl.edu The University of Louisiana at Lafayette [Formerly, The University of Southwestern Louisiana] P.O. Box 43770 Tel: +1 318 482-6807 Lafayette, LA 70504-3770 Fax: +1 318 482-6195 USA http://www.ucs.usl.edu/~isb9112 From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 15:30:40 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA25078; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 15:10:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from newboy.plaidworks.com (a203.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id CE45217E89 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 15:09:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by newboy.plaidworks.com (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e63MFAo26906 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 15:15:10 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 15:15:36 -0700 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: spam. Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I figured folks on this list would appreciate this. We were spammed today. Laurie wandered out onto the porch this morning to find a flyer on the front porch, for a "power management" seminar. They leafletted the entire neighborhood.... Hard copy spam, and not even the normal stuff you see from the gardening services and pizza joints... What caught me was how typical the subject matter was to the kind of on-line spam we yell at all the time... -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 17:15:45 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id QAA26029; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 16:54:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.rev.net (mail.rev.net [206.67.68.8]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 69ADE17E89 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 16:54:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fantasy (USER136.GVA.NET [216.80.135.140]) by mail.rev.net (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id e6400YQ30310 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:00:34 -0400 Message-Id: <200007040000.e6400YQ30310@mail.rev.net> From: "Bernie Cosell" Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:00:31 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: more on blocking/filtering MIME In-reply-to: <395A1C2E.AEBE37DB@louisiana.edu> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 28 Jun 2000, at 10:39, Istvan Berkeley wrote: > I came across a compelling reason to stick to text only mail over the > weekend. I was up in Canada and could only access my e-mail via a bare > telnet link. This put me back into the world of elm, vi, etc. As a > consequence, I could only easily read text only mail. The one bit of > HTML mail which did arrive was readable, but only just. IMO, this is no more compelling than arguing that because you found yourself stranded with only a model-33 TTY that WE SHOULD ALL GO BACK TO MONOCASE TEXT AND STOP WITH THE FANCY STUFF... Now, there *is* reason, often good reason, for *some* forums to require/prefer "plain text" because it is pretty much universal [the hackers keeping their mod-33's still working notwithstanding..:o)], but the point was (at least _my_ point was) that for _most_ folk, just-plain- ascii is really passe and ugly. Almost everyone *FOR*EVERYTHING*ELSE*, from their correspondence to the articles they read and write to the presentations they make, well to *EVERYTHING*, use real, standard typographic conventions and techniques... It is just hard to argue that email is _so_special_ that it, and only it, among the ways available for folks to communicate in this day and age should still be paying homage to the 70s and VT-100s and all that... > A second reason for favouring text only mail is that there are still a > few non-MIME compliant mail systems out there, amazingly enough. There > is one at John's Hopkins U. for example. I am a great believer in > backward compatibility. GREAT... SHOULDN"T UPSET THOSE FOLK WITH UPPERCASE-ONLY TERMINALS THEN, EITHER, RIGHT? Truth is that at some point you have to decide that the standards have been in placed long enough that _everyone_ should expect them to be honored and supported and those that can't/won't should just be left behind... MIME isn't some new-kid-on-the-block mail standard... it is pretty settled and has been for some time. I, too, am a fan of backwards compatibility, but I was glad to see NCP die and be replaced by TCP... and yes, some hosts left the ARPAnet never to return [because no one wanted to bother (or could) reimplementing the drivers in the bowels of the OS]... at some point you have to declare that something is "official" and non-compliant folks are on their own... IMO, "MIME", per se,passed *THAT* juncture long ago... /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 17:30:43 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA26184; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 17:04:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.rev.net (mail.rev.net [206.67.68.8]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D364D17E89 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 17:04:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fantasy (USER136.GVA.NET [216.80.135.140]) by mail.rev.net (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id e640A4Q30568 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:10:04 -0400 Message-Id: <200007040010.e640A4Q30568@mail.rev.net> From: "Bernie Cosell" Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:10:02 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: spam. In-reply-to: X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 3 Jul 2000, at 15:15, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > I figured folks on this list would appreciate this. > > We were spammed today. Laurie wandered out onto the porch this > morning to find a flyer on the front porch, for a "power management" > seminar. They leafletted the entire neighborhood.... > ...What caught me was how typical > the subject matter was to the kind of on-line spam we yell at all the > time... Indeed, although an important difference to keep in mind is that that kind of spam dealt with in seconds with a keystroke or two [or even automatically in most cases], whereas the hardcopy stuff we've learned to just live with has to be handled, sorted, and carted to the dump [no recycling for that sort of stuff in this area] and actually wastes *real*time*... /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 18:15:38 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA26620; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 17:55:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mds1.mastnet.net (mds1.mastnet.net [206.65.193.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 351F017E89 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 17:55:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from 0d8xk (ppp-197.lake-jackson.mastnet.net [206.66.213.197]) by mds1.mastnet.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id TAA07180 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 19:55:18 -0500 From: "Alan S. Harrell" To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:01:05 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: egroups Reply-To: ASHandRR@mastnet.net Message-ID: <3960F101.14448.727638@localhost> In-reply-to: <3958444E.B035AF8@egroups.net> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 26 Jun 2000, 23:06, Mark Fletcher resp moi: > > I could list several minor issues, but in my way of thinking the only > > major negatives concern the actual business of eGroups. eGroups is > > not in the business of hosting mailing lists. They are in the > > business of selling ads and selling targeted information to > > information brokers. The mailing lists' service are merely the means > > to their profits. > > > Just a quick correction. We take privacy concerns extremely seriously > and never disclose individual subscriber information to third parties. That is not a correction. That is merely a statement to be believed or not to be believed. I take a precautionary approach on each and every so called "Privacy Statement" I see. eGroups, themselves, are not singled out in my distrust of "Privacy Statements." I don't really believe *any* of them. No Privacy statement is secure so long as there is a possibility of a disgruntled employee. It only takes one disgruntled employee to compromise privacy security measures. It has been written time and time again, that the greatest threat to a network's security is within it's own infrastructure. Insiders. Are *all* your employees happy, Mark? Don't be too sure. No Privacy statement is secure so long as there are talented hackers bent on mischief. There is no system in the Internet totally secure from present or future attempts to invade their computers and take information. It's been done before and will be done again. "Security" always follows adversity -- never the other way around. No Privacy statement is secure when companies fail. No matter what the Privacy statement stated; no matter what the policy the company held during better times -- the creditors will win out and can demand profiles and even credit card info be sold to the highest bidder in order to recoup some of the loses. See the following article: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-2176430.html No Privacy statement is secure when companies are sold or merged into another company. Anything like that happening to eGroups here lately? We cannot ensure that Yahoo will embrace your Privacy Statements. Can I see hands in the audience -- how many former Netscape registrees felt really secure with their registration info getting into the hands of AOL when AOL took over that company? I dare say none. No Privacy statement can be believe when the bias of the stater is clearly beholding to the people who pay them the money that sustains their business. Were I paying you the same thousands of dollars each year that your sponsors pay you, then perhaps I would have more faith in your assurances of privacy preservation, but as it stands, the subscribers to eGroups mailing list pay you no money and you are not owing to them at all. Loyalty is a good thing, but most often in business, it is bought. > Any information is in aggregate, like "target this ad to all groups in > this particular category." I'm not sure what you mean by selling > targeted information to information brokers, but that does not sound > like something we do. If that is true, then you should now end the practice of securing personal profiles of the members (subscribers) of the eGroups lists. If your sponsors are not wanting profile information for the purpose of releasing targeted ads, then you have no need for collection of personal data from eGroups members, do you? Unless you sell or trade the information, yourself. As long as you collect personal information from eGroups' list subscribers, it will be believed that you have some purpose with this information. Logically, the purpose would be to make money with the information. My trust in eGroups would rise immeasurably if eGroups did not have to know my name and address and my personal habits every time I tried to subscribe to a mailing list with a different e-mail address. I am not alone in my beliefs. I call all your attentions to the following document recently put out by The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and Junkbusters: "Pretty Poor Privacy: An Assessment of P3P and Internet Privacy" June 2000 http://www.epic.org/reports/prettypoorprivacy.html Mark, it isn't just me -- the public in mass just does_not_believe the Privacy statements of Internet firms. The public will not believe yours, either. I also invite everyone to send for an autoresponder I have of a newsletter article on Internet Privacy. The author states his case rather well, I think, and really mirrors my own thinking on the subject. To receive "Preserving your Privacy in the Internet," send a blank message to: privacy@ashlists.org Privacy statements themselves, are notoriously ambiguous. Yours is no exception, Mark. Here is one passage from your Privacy Policy: "As a general rule, eGroups will not disclose any of your personally identifiable information except when we have your permission or under special circumstances, such as when we believe in good faith that the law requires it." Now what did you just say there? (1) General rule: eGroups will not disclose any of our personally identifiable information (2) Exception: If we give eGroups permission. (3) Another Exception: Under {undisclosed} special circumstances (4) And yet another Exception: When eGroups thinks the law allows them to do this, even though the law may not necessary be requiring eGroups to do this. You can read that statement to be: "We can do anything we want with your information." That is exactly what it says, once you break it down. So really, Mark, who are you kidding? Your Privacy Statement is a contradictory, convoluted cocktail meant to intoxicate your users into believing their personal profiles are safe in your hands. > If anyone has any questions about eGroups privacy policy or anything > else about eGroups, please feel free to contact me directly. That is very cowardly invitation, Mark. In private e-mail, lies can be told unchallenged. They would only get the company line from you in private mail. We have all already seen that. Only in a public forum that engages in open discussions, can the truth be found. Have the guts to invite those whom subscribe to this list to post their questions and render their opinions about the eGroups Privacy Policy in a public forum. Alan ASHandRR@MASTNET.net From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 19:30:34 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id TAA27312; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 19:00:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mds1.mastnet.net (mds1.mastnet.net [206.65.193.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1EDF717E89 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 19:00:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from 0d8xk (ppp-197.lake-jackson.mastnet.net [206.66.213.197]) by mds1.mastnet.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA11317 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 21:00:46 -0500 From: "Alan S. Harrell" To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 21:06:33 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: spam. Reply-To: ASHandRR@mastnet.net Message-ID: <39610059.628.AE67F3@localhost> In-reply-to: X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 3 Jul 2000, 15:15, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > I figured folks on this list would appreciate this. > > We were spammed today. Laurie wandered out onto the porch this > morning to find a flyer on the front porch, for a "power management" > seminar. They leafletted the entire neighborhood.... Porch, huh? It chaps me to no end when they leave their litter pinched under our vehicle windshield wipers. That's when I feel really violated. Surely your city has litter laws for littering laying leaflets on local limits without a lawful letter license? > Hard copy spam, and not even the normal stuff you see from the > gardening services and pizza joints... What caught me was how typical > the subject matter was to the kind of on-line spam we yell at all the > time... You should give the "power managers" a call and ask them to bring out to you a pepperoni pizza and while the boy was there delivering the pizza, could he mow and trim your yard, too? :-) Don't take "no" for an answer! Alan ASHandRR@MASTNET.net From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 19:45:34 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id TAA27452; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 19:20:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from green.excel.net (excel.net [156.46.156.2]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9C73117E89 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 19:20:06 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [216.145.193.217] (mke0925.excel.net [216.145.193.217]) by green.excel.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA22870 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 21:25:54 -0500 (CDT) Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <200007040010.e640A4Q30568@mail.rev.net> References: <200007040010.e640A4Q30568@mail.rev.net> Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 21:26:20 -0500 To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Mike Yuhas Subject: Re: spam. Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 8:10 PM -0400 7/3/00, Bernie Cosell wrote: >On 3 Jul 2000, at 15:15, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > >> I figured folks on this list would appreciate this. >> >> We were spammed today. Laurie wandered out onto the porch this >> morning to find a flyer on the front porch, for a "power management" >> seminar. They leafletted the entire neighborhood.... >> ...What caught me was how typical >> the subject matter was to the kind of on-line spam we yell at all the >> time... > >Indeed, although an important difference to keep in mind is that that >kind of spam dealt with in seconds with a keystroke or two [or even >automatically in most cases], whereas the hardcopy stuff we've learned to >just live with has to be handled, sorted, and carted to the dump [no >recycling for that sort of stuff in this area] and actually wastes >*real*time*... Heh heh -- I got to the bottom of Bernie's message distinctifying the two types of spam before I realized he was speaking of how the *recipient* needs to deal with incoming spam. For me, the noteworthy difference is that a human -- or a team of humans -- designed the leaflet, duplicated and folded them, then individually placed 'em on all the porches in Chuq's neighborhood. That involved some real effort, as opposed to some geek haphazardly composing a "message" and flooding it on the internet with a few keystrokes (and a million verified email addresses for $29.95). Cheers, Mike Yuhas listmom, folkdj-l http://folkradio.org From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 20:00:35 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id TAA27600; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 19:38:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp2.vnet.net (smtp2.vnet.net [166.82.1.32]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id AD31317E89 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 19:37:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from katie.vnet.net (katie.vnet.net [166.82.1.7]) by smtp2.vnet.net (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e642hdJ06952; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 22:43:39 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.1) with ESMTP id WAA11381; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 22:43:39 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 22:43:39 -0400 (EDT) From: murr rhame To: Bernie Cosell Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: spam. In-Reply-To: <200007040010.e640A4Q30568@mail.rev.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, 3 Jul 2000, Bernie Cosell wrote: > On 3 Jul 2000, at 15:15, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > > > I figured folks on this list would appreciate this. > > > > We were spammed today. Laurie wandered out onto the porch this > > morning to find a flyer on the front porch, for a "power management" > > seminar. They leafletted the entire neighborhood.... > > ...What caught me was how typical > > the subject matter was to the kind of on-line spam we yell at all the > > time... > > Indeed, although an important difference to keep in mind is > that that kind of spam dealt with in seconds with a keystroke > or two [or even automatically in most cases], whereas the > hardcopy stuff we've learned to just live with has to be > handled, sorted, and carted to the dump [no recycling for > that sort of stuff in this area] and actually wastes > *real*time*... Hardcopy spam is self limiting. If I want to spam you with a hardcopy ad, it'll cost about fifty-cents to deliver the first page and a nickel a piece for addition pages. If I want to send you a half dozen copies of a ten page email spam, I can do it at your expense with the aid of an open relay in Sweden or Korea. There is no comparison. Most Internet spammers steal services. Most hardcopy spam costs enough to keep it to a minimum. - murr - From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 21:09:42 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id UAA28234; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:42:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from newboy.plaidworks.com (a203.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 18CC017E89 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:42:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by newboy.plaidworks.com (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e643m3o27372; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:48:03 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <39610059.628.AE67F3@localhost> References: <39610059.628.AE67F3@localhost> Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:43:59 -0700 To: ASHandRR@mastnet.net, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: spam. Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 9:06 PM -0500 7/3/00, Alan S. Harrell wrote: >Surely your city has litter laws for littering laying leaflets on local >limits without a lawful letter license? Unfortunately, no, and worse, the courts have made it perfectly clear that these people have a constitutional right to be in public places and make their position known. The shopping centers aren't allowed to kick them off, even though it's private property. -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 21:24:57 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id UAA28235; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:42:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from newboy.plaidworks.com (a203.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 31DB017EB4 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:42:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by newboy.plaidworks.com (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e643lvo27369; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:48:03 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <3960F101.14448.727638@localhost> References: <3960F101.14448.727638@localhost> Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:38:11 -0700 To: ASHandRR@mastnet.net, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: egroups Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 8:01 PM -0500 7/3/00, Alan S. Harrell wrote: > >No Privacy statement is secure so long as there is a possibility of a >disgruntled employee. And the sun could go nova tomorrow, so why worry? No offense, but this is a last resort argument with a basis only in absolute paranoia. If you took this extreme position about everything in life, you'd be paralyzed (or more likely, dead, because the only safe state is death...) -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 21:39:10 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA28561; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 21:14:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mds1.mastnet.net (mds1.mastnet.net [206.65.193.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6F82A17E89 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 21:14:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from 0d8xk (ppp-197.lake-jackson.mastnet.net [206.66.213.197]) by mds1.mastnet.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id XAA19526 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 23:14:19 -0500 From: "Alan S. Harrell" To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 23:20:06 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: egroups Reply-To: ASHandRR@mastnet.net Message-ID: <39611FA6.29679.128B494@localhost> In-reply-to: References: <3960F101.14448.727638@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 3 Jul 2000, 20:38, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > And the sun could go nova tomorrow, so why worry? Yes, the sun could very well go nova tomorrow. So then, you would advocate a "What me worry?" attitude? I take it then you don't use virus scanners or firewalls and you pass out your passwords with reckless abandon, right? :-) I like to bet that the sun will hold off a few more days. This increases my concerns to preserve what little aspect of my privacy I have left in these short, few days we have left before the sun go boom. > No offense, but this is a last resort argument with a basis only in > absolute paranoia. If you took this extreme position about everything in > life, you'd be paralyzed (or more likely, dead, because the only safe > state is death...) This is not a worry on my part. It is a realistic approach to privacy concerns. And quite simply when I see a lie I like to point it out. Were it up to me, I would simply tell all dot com firms offering free services that they need not have a privacy statement at all. Let the visitor beware. I think the WWW would be a far safer environment if we all had realistic appraisals of such things as cookies, privacy statements, port probes, etc. and not be misled into misrepresentation. Caveat emptor is not paranoia, but rather sound common sense. Early in my Internet experiences I recognized how ludicrous were the privacy statements. You learn quick that a healthy distrust of privacy statements will cut down on the spam, telemarketing calls and junk mail to which we are inundated every day. Even on our porches... Alan ASHandRR@MASTNET.net From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 3 23:09:04 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA29437; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 22:42:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from newboy.plaidworks.com (a203.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 513B617E89 for ; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 22:42:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by newboy.plaidworks.com (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e645lmo27538; Mon, 3 Jul 2000 22:47:48 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <39611FA6.29679.128B494@localhost> References: <3960F101.14448.727638@localhost> <39611FA6.29679.128B494@localhost> Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2000 22:39:58 -0700 To: ASHandRR@mastnet.net, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: egroups Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > > And the sun could go nova tomorrow, so why worry? > >Yes, the sun could very well go nova tomorrow. So then, you would >advocate a "What me worry?" attitude? I take it then you don't use >virus scanners or firewalls and you pass out your passwords with >reckless abandon, right? :-) Nope. I protect myself against reasonable risks. But if someone says "I don't do that", and I have no reason to believe they lie, I don't put in protections assuming they do it anyway. >I like to bet that the sun will hold off a few more days. And I like to bet that if someone says "I won't do this" they actually won't do this. To assume that everyone around me is lying and protect myself from it is one step from paranoia. If you like being paranoid, be my guest. I think that kind of worry is overkill, but then, we all have to have hobbies. -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 4 02:23:34 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id BAA01950; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 01:27:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tcp.com (tcp.com [216.15.66.33]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id C2CF317E89 for ; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 01:27:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (jlick@localhost) by tcp.com (8.9.0/8.6.10) with ESMTP id BAA04177; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 01:32:55 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 16:32:54 +0800 (CST) From: James Lick To: Istvan Berkeley Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: more on blocking/filtering MIME In-Reply-To: <395A1C2E.AEBE37DB@louisiana.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 28 Jun 2000, Istvan Berkeley wrote: > I came across a compelling reason to stick to text only mail over the > weekend. I was up in Canada and could only access my e-mail via a bare > telnet link. This put me back into the world of elm, vi, etc. As a > consequence, I could only easily read text only mail. The one bit of > HTML mail which did arrive was readable, but only just. I too often read mail over a text-only telnet connection. However, this doesn't preclude me from reading HTML mail or browsing the web. pine 4.x reads HTML mails quite nicely, and lynx browses most web sites with few problems. Both work on just about any decent text-only terminal. ---- James Lick ---- jlick@drivel.com ---- http://drivel.com/ ---- From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 4 05:52:50 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id FAA06086; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 05:30:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mds1.mastnet.net (mds1.mastnet.net [206.65.193.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id C1AFB17E89 for ; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 05:30:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from 0d8xk (ppp-162.lake-jackson.mastnet.net [206.66.213.162]) by mds1.mastnet.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id HAA01515 for ; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 07:30:18 -0500 From: "Alan S. Harrell" To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 07:36:07 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: egroups Reply-To: ASHandRR@mastnet.net Message-ID: <396193E7.14331.655E7D@localhost> In-reply-to: References: <39611FA6.29679.128B494@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 3 Jul 2000, 22:39, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: [Virus protection et al] > Nope. I protect myself against reasonable risks. But if someone says "I > don't do that", and I have no reason to believe they lie, I don't put in > protections assuming they do it anyway. Rationale, reason and experience has led me to my postulations on Internet Privacy. The truly paranoid stay away from the Internet. And had you read the literature I recommended in my first rebuttal post, you would see that I am not alone in that thinking. Your Government, in fact, now thinks that way: ~~ Privacy Online: Fair Information Practices in the Electronic Marketplace: A Federal Trade Commission Report to Congress (May 2000) http://www.ftc.gov/os/2000/05/index.htm#22 ~~ If one guy comes up to you and says "the sky is falling," it would be reasonable to doubt that. But if a thousand people come up to you and say "the sky is falling," I think one should look for cover rather than accusing the thousand of being paranoid. If I am the first person you ever heard warning you of the fallicy of blindly trusting all Privacy Statements, then I could understand your having a healthy disbelief of that which I speak. I would then only ask that you keep your eyes open to the news. You should see very soon plenty of articles that are written by privacy doubters, such as myself. Surely you didn't think Sun Microsystems CEO and Chairman Scott McNealy was paranoid when he uttered his now famous soundbyte: "You already have zero privacy. Get over it." Now there is a corporate type that tells it like it is. I like that. I wish the CTO of eGroups that posted to our group would do likewise. Just tell us the truth: "eGroups gives you zero privacy. Get over it." I could respect that since it mirrors my own beliefs, except that rather than "getting over it," I am going to instead "work around it." That entails my message, Chuq. Rather than denying yourself all that is good in the Internet, one should learn to distrust the privacy statements and then learn to work around your privacy concerns, just as we learn to work around our virus concerns. > And I like to bet that if someone says "I won't do this" they > actually won't do this. To assume that everyone around me is lying and > protect myself from it is one step from paranoia. Now, Chuq, I cannot believe you are that naive. This is not your best friend telling you something. This is a corporate stranger telling you this story. You have to take his bias into consideration. You should ask yourself are you safer with blind faith or would a little healthy doubt serve you better? People get run over when they cross the street with blind faith. They are safer crossing the street by the light. My message here is not to avoid crossing the street, but rather to see the light and cross the street with caution. > If you like being paranoid, be my guest. I think that kind of worry is > overkill, but then, we all have to have hobbies. My call here has not been "be afraid," but rather "be aware." That is not paranoia, but just good common sense. Let me invite you and everyone to simply read the eGroups Privacy Statement from "cover to cover." You will see the ambiguities; the two-faced language; the contradictions. It simply is not a document that gives you trust: http://www.egroups.com/info/privacy.html Alan ASHandRR@MASTNET.net From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 4 16:43:58 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id QAA11438; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 16:27:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from windlord.stanford.edu (windlord.Stanford.EDU [171.64.12.23]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 625DB17E89 for ; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 16:27:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 21686 invoked by uid 50); 4 Jul 2000 23:33:03 -0000 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: spam. References: <39610059.628.AE67F3@localhost> In-Reply-To: Chuq Von Rospach's message of "Mon, 3 Jul 2000 20:43:59 -0700" From: Russ Allbery Organization: The Eyrie Date: 04 Jul 2000 16:33:03 -0700 Message-ID: Lines: 12 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0802 (Gnus v5.8.2) XEmacs/21.1 (Biscayne) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Chuq Von Rospach writes: > Unfortunately, no, and worse, the courts have made it perfectly clear > that these people have a constitutional right to be in public places and > make their position known. The shopping centers aren't allowed to kick > them off, even though it's private property. California is absolutely idiotic in that regard. Most other states have more sense. -- Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 4 19:28:22 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id TAA12821; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 19:12:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp2.vnet.net (smtp2.vnet.net [166.82.1.32]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5D4E617E89 for ; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 19:12:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from katie.vnet.net (katie.vnet.net [166.82.1.7]) by smtp2.vnet.net (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e652Ipb16164; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 22:18:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.1) with ESMTP id WAA08993; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 22:18:51 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 22:18:51 -0400 (EDT) From: murr rhame To: Russ Allbery Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: spam. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 4 Jul 2000, Russ Allbery wrote: > California is absolutely idiotic in that regard [pamphleting > rights]. Most other states have more sense. A couple of cities where I've lived had laws against placing flyers on car windshields. It's called littering. The feds get upset if anyone except the postman delivers stuff to an official snail mail box. Then there are also federal limits on pamphleting at abortion clinics and such. You can't blockade a building while handing out pamphlets. - murr - From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 4 19:43:31 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id TAA12890; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 19:20:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from windlord.stanford.edu (windlord.Stanford.EDU [171.64.12.23]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 4DBA717E89 for ; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 19:20:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 22096 invoked by uid 50); 5 Jul 2000 02:26:31 -0000 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: spam. References: In-Reply-To: murr rhame's message of "Tue, 4 Jul 2000 22:18:51 -0400 (EDT)" From: Russ Allbery Organization: The Eyrie Date: 04 Jul 2000 19:26:31 -0700 Message-ID: Lines: 35 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0802 (Gnus v5.8.2) XEmacs/21.1 (Biscayne) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk murr rhame writes: > On 4 Jul 2000, Russ Allbery wrote: >> California is absolutely idiotic in that regard [pamphleting rights]. >> Most other states have more sense. > A couple of cities where I've lived had laws against placing flyers on > car windshields. It's called littering. The feds get upset if anyone > except the postman delivers stuff to an official snail mail box. Then > there are also federal limits on pamphleting at abortion clinics and > such. You can't blockade a building while handing out pamphlets. I was actually talking about private property rights and the fact that supermarkets and the like can't kick panhandlers off their property and instead put up little signs saying that the law doesn't allow them to do so. It means that there are people frequently loitering about in some locations, making some stores significantly more dangerous to, say, women alone when shopping after dark. I think it's complete nonsense. People who aren't shopping at the store have no business being on the store's property, and the store should be able to call the police and have them escorted off the premises. I'm not sure on the law about pamphleting around here; I agree that it is and should be considered by the law to be littering. (This is all horribly off-topic... I guess the only real relevance is that while private property rights I think is still the most cogent argument against spamming, it is -- all too unfortunately -- not particularly uncommon for governments to decide that private property owners have to provide various services to people they don't want to provide for no good reasons whatsoever. Lets hope they don't do the same thing with spam.) -- Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 4 20:54:10 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id UAA13448; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 20:30:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from newboy.plaidworks.com (a203.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id ED2A117E89 for ; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 20:30:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by newboy.plaidworks.com (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e653aBo29677; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 20:36:11 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 20:35:18 -0700 To: Russ Allbery , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: spam. Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 7:26 PM -0700 7/4/00, Russ Allbery wrote: >I was actually talking about private property rights and the fact that >supermarkets and the like can't kick panhandlers off their property > >I think it's complete nonsense. One of the joys of free speech is that it protects the stuff you don't like as well as the stuff you do. In fact, if it only had to protect the stuff people liked, we wouldn't need it in the first place. So every time something like this pisses you off, rejoice, because next time, it might by you being protected from someone who doensn't like what you have to say. A little inconvenience is a tiny price to pay for what we get out of it. -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 4 21:13:23 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id UAA13587; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 20:55:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from windlord.stanford.edu (windlord.Stanford.EDU [171.64.12.23]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 50D2017E89 for ; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 20:55:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 22295 invoked by uid 50); 5 Jul 2000 04:01:27 -0000 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: spam. References: In-Reply-To: Chuq Von Rospach's message of "Tue, 4 Jul 2000 20:35:18 -0700" From: Russ Allbery Organization: The Eyrie Date: 04 Jul 2000 21:01:27 -0700 Message-ID: Lines: 31 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0802 (Gnus v5.8.2) XEmacs/21.1 (Biscayne) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Chuq Von Rospach writes: > One of the joys of free speech is that it protects the stuff you don't > like as well as the stuff you do. In fact, if it only had to protect the > stuff people liked, we wouldn't need it in the first place. So every > time something like this pisses you off, rejoice, because next time, it > might by you being protected from someone who doensn't like what you > have to say. I don't agree that freedom of speech implies the right to stand in front of the entrance of a store, on that store's private property, and harass everyone who comes by. Similarly, I don't agree that freedom of speech implies the right to relay spam off of someone else's mail servers. I consider both of these to be basically the same sort of situation. > A little inconvenience is a tiny price to pay for what we get out of it. And precisely the same thing is said by a lot of people about e-mail spam. They're wrong. And, on this particular point (and this is the last I'll say on the topic, since it really is off-topic), if you think that this is a minor inconvenience, I respectfully submit that you haven't talked to people who, because of the people who hang around in parking lots and the like after dark, no longer feel safe going shopping for groceries after then sun has gone down. It's a *serious* and *significant* inconvenience for them to rearrange their schedules, particularly if they work Silicon Valley hours, to deal with that problem. And it's not-unwarranted worry. -- Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 4 23:52:04 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id XAA14835; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 23:27:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from newboy.plaidworks.com (a203.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id A53F217E89 for ; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 23:27:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by newboy.plaidworks.com (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e656Wqo29964 for ; Tue, 4 Jul 2000 23:32:52 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2000 23:33:21 -0700 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: a minor giggle... Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk fiogured this was a lot more amusing than arguing over free speech, and even marginally on topic... Was going through the bounce mail on my lists tonight, and suddenly started seeing mail being bounced because of ORBs, which caused me to go and see what was going on. It wasn't me... Instead, much to my (minor) amusement, one of my subscribers is on a site doing ORBs checking -- and the site's MX relay machines have been stuck into ORBs and the internal mail server is bouncing the mail. Which merely serves as a reminder that if you police with this stuff, you should make sure your sites are clean. But I also wonder why they're doing ORBs checking on the internal machines and not the firewall relay machines. But they're not getting much mail right now, because they're rejecting themselves... -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 5 07:12:10 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id HAA21644; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 07:04:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp2.vnet.net (smtp2.vnet.net [166.82.1.32]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id DA10C17E89 for ; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 07:04:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from katie.vnet.net (katie.vnet.net [166.82.1.7]) by smtp2.vnet.net (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e65EA9A13711; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 10:10:09 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (murr@localhost) by katie.vnet.net (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA25955; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 10:10:08 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 10:10:08 -0400 (EDT) From: murr rhame To: Chuq Von Rospach Cc: Russ Allbery , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: spam. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, 4 Jul 2000, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > At 7:26 PM -0700 7/4/00, Russ Allbery wrote: > > >I was actually talking about private property rights and the > >fact that >supermarkets and the like can't kick panhandlers > >off their property > > One of the joys of free speech is that it protects the stuff > you don't like as well as the stuff you do. In fact, if it > only had to protect the stuff people liked, we wouldn't need > it in the first place. So every time something like this > pisses you off, rejoice, because next time, it might by you > being protected from someone who doensn't like what you have > to say. > > A little inconvenience is a tiny price to pay for what we get > out of it. Yup. Freedom of speech is very important. Hard to justify kicking pampleters out of an otherwise public space as long as they are civil. Same applies to someone dropping a leaflet on my front porch. Assuming I would allow my neighbor to knock on my door to ask for a cup of sugar, I stranger should be able to take advantage of the same level of liberty on my property. On the other hand, I have zero tolerance for Internet spammers that use theft or deception to deliver their goods. - murr - From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 5 09:12:25 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA22944; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 09:06:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mailstore-1.mail.knowledge.com (frida.server.knowledge.com [195.40.167.210]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6306117E89 for ; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 09:06:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [212.2.19.4] (helo=lhrfnoc4dt) by mailstore-1.mail.knowledge.com with asmtp (Exim 3.12 #1) id 139rmd-0005HI-00; Wed, 05 Jul 2000 17:12:19 +0100 Message-ID: <04fe01bfe69b$b287d930$81010a0a@flagtelecom.com> From: "Peter Galbavy" To: "murr rhame" , "Chuq Von Rospach" Cc: "Russ Allbery" , References: Subject: Re: spam. Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 16:11:32 -0000 Organization: Knowledge Matters Ltd. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2919.6600 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > Yup. Freedom of speech is very important. Hard to justify > kicking pampleters out of an otherwise public space as long as > they are civil. Same applies to someone dropping a leaflet on my > front porch. Assuming I would allow my neighbor to knock on my > door to ask for a cup of sugar, I stranger should be able to take > advantage of the same level of liberty on my property. On the > other hand, I have zero tolerance for Internet spammers that use > theft or deception to deliver their goods. Sorry - missed the earlier part of this thread. Please remember that freedom of speech is something limited to certain countries. This does not include the UK, where I live. Spammers, never-the-less, are stealing resources from you and should be treated as such. The same as cold callers on the phone when you are at home - they steal time and privacy. Peter From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 5 09:28:30 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA22952; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 09:07:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from janus.hosting4u.net (janus.hosting4u.net [209.15.2.37]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with SMTP id C5B4917E89 for ; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 09:07:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 22673 invoked from network); 5 Jul 2000 16:13:17 -0000 Received: from gemini.hosting4u.net (HELO macnauchtan.com) (209.15.2.47) by mail-gate.hosting4u.net with SMTP; 5 Jul 2000 16:13:17 -0000 Received: from [192.168.1.11] ([166.44.184.250]) by macnauchtan.com ; Wed, 05 Jul 2000 11:13:14 -0500 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: dmcnutt@mail.macnauchtan.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 10:14:11 -0600 To: list-managers-digest@GreatCircle.COM From: "Douglas P. McNutt" Subject: RE: The joys of opt-out Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I received this piece of junque and I wonder why. Is there any chance that my lurker status on the MajorDomo list is the source for the spam? I have not even started operating the list I am proposing. I assure you I have not opted in, but I might well have failed to opt out. I don't dare to poke any of their anchors. *** begin copy with headers *** Return-Path: Received: from postmater4.com ([216.37.208.98]) by macnauchtan.com ; Wed, 05 Jul 2000 03:41:45 -0500 Received: from localhost (root@localhost) by postmater4.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id EAA16550; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 04:44:46 -0400 Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 04:44:46 -0400 From: confirm2@mx01.postmasteroptin.net Received: by postmater4.com (bulk_mailer v1.5); Tue, 4 Jul 2000 20:23:01 +0000 To: confirm2@mx01.postmasteroptin.net Subject: Thank you for joining! Message-ID: X-Rcpt-To: X-DPOP: DPOP Version 2.4a X-UIDL: 962806957.007 Status: U You received this copy as a subscriber to our opt-in email list. If you no longer wish to receive solicitations simply unsubscribe by clicking here: http://208.62.22.26/remove/remove2.html Unsubscribe ............................................................................. Thank you for Joining the Postmaster Network. You will receive offers on the products and services that interest you most. Look out for the following special offers in the months to come: ** FREE Full Version Software ** FREE 50 Minutes Long Distance ** FEEE Internet Connectivity ** FREE Persomnal / Business Web Pages ...and many more ************************************************************************ Special Thanks To This Months Sponsor: FREE 50 Minutes Long Distance free50minutes@aol.com *Crystal clear calling! *Use the minutes whenever and wherever you like. *No Obligation to buy anything! *It's Really Absolutely FREE! Click here: http://208.62.22.26/free/ Aol Members: Click Here -- -> From the U S of A, the only socialist country that refuses to admit it. <- From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 5 10:27:40 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA23717; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 10:17:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from public.lists.apple.com (public.lists.apple.com [17.254.0.151]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id C073917E89 for ; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 10:17:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [17.216.27.193] (A17-216-27-193.apple.com [17.216.27.193]) by public.lists.apple.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA44204 ; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 10:27:28 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 10:22:24 -0700 To: "Douglas P. McNutt" , list-managers-digest@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: RE: The joys of opt-out Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 10:14 AM -0600 7/5/00, Douglas P. McNutt wrote: >I received this piece of junque and I wonder why. Is there any >chance that my lurker status on the MajorDomo list is the source for >the spam? I got it, too. it's spam, no matter what they say of opts and whatever. All that is camoflauge. -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 5 11:13:31 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA24074; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 10:57:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ivan.iecc.com (ivan.iecc.com [208.31.42.33]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 61E9E17E89 for ; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 10:57:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 19812 invoked by uid 100); 5 Jul 2000 14:03:39 -0400 Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 14:03:39 -0400 (EDT) From: John R Levine To: "Douglas P. McNutt" Cc: list-managers-digest@GreatCircle.COM Subject: RE: The joys of opt-out In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > I received this piece of junque and I wonder why. They're famous spammers. It's almost certainly a coincidence that you run a mailing list. Regards, John Levine, postmaster@abuse.net, http://www.abuse.net, Trumansburg NY abuse.net postmaster > *** begin copy with headers *** > > Return-Path: > Received: from postmater4.com ([216.37.208.98]) by macnauchtan.com ; Wed, 05 Jul 2000 03:41:45 -0500 > Received: from localhost (root@localhost) > by postmater4.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id EAA16550; > Wed, 5 Jul 2000 04:44:46 -0400 > Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 04:44:46 -0400 > From: confirm2@mx01.postmasteroptin.net > Received: by postmater4.com (bulk_mailer v1.5); Tue, 4 Jul 2000 20:23:01 +0000 > To: confirm2@mx01.postmasteroptin.net > Subject: Thank you for joining! > Message-ID: > X-Rcpt-To: > X-DPOP: DPOP Version 2.4a > X-UIDL: 962806957.007 > Status: U > > You received this copy as a subscriber to our opt-in email list. > If you no longer wish to receive solicitations simply unsubscribe by > clicking here: http://208.62.22.26/remove/remove2.html > Unsubscribe > ............................................................................. > > Thank you for Joining the Postmaster Network. You will receive offers > on the products and services that interest you most. > From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 5 12:27:36 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA25025; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 12:22:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from roscoe.burstmedia.com (gateway.machine.net [207.159.105.131]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2880F17E89 for ; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 12:22:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: by BURSTMAIL with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.10) id <3CVA90GM>; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 15:29:41 -0400 Message-ID: From: Bob McCown To: list-managers-digest@GreatCircle.COM Subject: RE: The joys of opt-out Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 15:29:39 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.10) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I recieved the same thing this morning.....Hmm -=Bob -----Original Message----- From: Douglas P. McNutt [mailto:dmcnutt@macnauchtan.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 12:14 PM To: list-managers-digest@GreatCircle.COM Subject: RE: The joys of opt-out I received this piece of junque and I wonder why. Is there any chance that my lurker status on the MajorDomo list is the source for the spam? I have not even started operating the list I am proposing. I assure you I have not opted in, but I might well have failed to opt out. I don't dare to poke any of their anchors. *** begin copy with headers *** Return-Path: Received: from postmater4.com ([216.37.208.98]) by macnauchtan.com ; Wed, 05 Jul 2000 03:41:45 -0500 Received: from localhost (root@localhost) by postmater4.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id EAA16550; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 04:44:46 -0400 Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 04:44:46 -0400 From: confirm2@mx01.postmasteroptin.net Received: by postmater4.com (bulk_mailer v1.5); Tue, 4 Jul 2000 20:23:01 +0000 To: confirm2@mx01.postmasteroptin.net Subject: Thank you for joining! Message-ID: X-Rcpt-To: X-DPOP: DPOP Version 2.4a X-UIDL: 962806957.007 Status: U You received this copy as a subscriber to our opt-in email list. If you no longer wish to receive solicitations simply unsubscribe by clicking here: http://208.62.22.26/remove/remove2.html Unsubscribe ............................................................................ From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 5 14:12:27 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA26215; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 14:05:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from castro.queernet.org (castro.queernet.org [209.157.101.253]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id A218817E89 for ; Wed, 5 Jul 2000 14:05:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (rogerk@localhost) by castro.queernet.org (8.10.0.Beta6/8.10.0.Beta6) with ESMTP id e65LAxw25320 Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 14:10:59 -0700 (PDT) From: "Roger B.A. Klorese" To: Rich Kulawiec Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: I love it when examples present themselves (Re: The joys of opt-out) In-Reply-To: <20000627162511.A22035@gsp.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, 27 Jun 2000, Rich Kulawiec wrote: > Of course, they could avoid much of the issue simply by requiring > 100% opt-in with confirmation. Does that mean that it should be impossible to transfer a list from other servers, for instance? Or that is should be impossible for an administrator to add a name -- kicking off a confirmation cycle -- but that names can only be initially supplied by mail or from the web, presumably be the requestor but possibly by a forger? If I'm allowed to add you but that addition kicks off a confirmation cycle, what's the difference if that confirmation message is spelled "reply to remove yourself" or "reply to add yourself"? Would it be any different if it said "reply to add yourself" after 100 lines of list-oriented content? -- ROGER B.A. KLORESE rogerk@QueerNet.ORG urgent: rogerk-page@QueerNet.ORG PO Box 14309 San Francisco, CA 94114 +1 415 ALL-ARFF "There is only one real blasphemy -- the refusal of joy!" -- Paul Rudnick From list-managers-owner Thu Jul 6 22:16:18 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA16687; Thu, 6 Jul 2000 22:02:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ripco.com (pop2a.ripco.com [209.100.227.25]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id EDBC417E89 for ; Thu, 6 Jul 2000 22:02:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ripco.com (root@golden.ripco.com [209.100.227.10]) by ripco.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id AAA15748 for ; Fri, 7 Jul 2000 00:10:33 -0500 (CDT) Received: by ripco.com (Smail #1) id m13AQOA-000IRHC; Fri, 7 Jul 2000 00:09:22 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: From: dattier@ripco.com (David W. Tamkin) Subject: Re: I love it when examples present themselves Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2000 00:09:22 -0500 (CDT) Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM In-Reply-To: from "Roger B.A. Klorese" at Jul 05, 2000 02:10:59 PM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk When Rich Kulawiec wrote: > Of course, they could avoid much of the issue simply by requiring > 100% opt-in with confirmation. Roger Klorese (so much for my usual practice of using an initial to dis- tinguish one quotee from another when I include the text of more than one other person) responded, | Does that mean that it should be impossible to transfer a list from other | servers, for instance? I am not inside Rich's head, but in my own view, it would not be a tragedy if every member had to confirm wanting to stay on the list when it moved to a a big public listhost (even if the old server was another big public listhost). My reasoning is that in such cases the big public listhost's procedures and policies affect the list and its operations to such a degree that this is a significant change, and a subscriber's confirmation for being on the list as it was does not imply consent to being on what the list is going to become. If the same ultimate authority will be over the same list with the same poli- cies and procedures on a different host, that's another story. Then I think that simply moving the subscription roster is justified. I'm soon closing my last list (and getting out of the listmaternity game for good if I have any sense); for the past two years, it has run on the private site of a member. Twice during this time she has changed upstream providers, necessitating a change in OS and in IP address but not in domain name, not in my policies, and not in my software. So I just moved the list; except for a couple days of downtime it was all transparent to the members. Even before that, when it moved from its original host to hers, the only thing that changed was the domain name, and yes, I moved the subscriber roster without requiring confirmations: the key thing was that it was still a list of the same topic run the same way. But if she had not come through when I had to get the list off its original host and I had had to move it to a public list- host, then yes, it would have been correct to require every member to recon- firm and bade farewell to those who declined to respond as well as to those who proactively refused, and if I had just moved the rolls instead, then at this point I would regret having done so even if there had been no com- plaints. (I hope there are some people on list-managers who can understand the idea of getting away with a wrong action and nonetheless coming to regret having done it despite its having had no ill consequences.) On the other hand, my list had a sublist (which has already closed; its pur- pose has expired), and at one point I made such a drastic change to the sub- list's policies that I gave its members thirty days' notice, telling them that they had until the effective date of the new policies to send me their consent to the changes; those who declined to reply and those who objected would remain on the main list but would be removed from the sublist. None objected, about 2/3 consented, but the rest did not reply and were removed (they remained on the main list). | Or that it should be impossible for an administrator to add a name -- | kicking off a confirmation cycle -- but that names can only be initially | supplied by mail or from the web, presumably be the requestor but possibly | by a forger? As long as that confirmation cycle sends only a terse confirmation request to the address, and that nothing more is sent there unless a positive reply comes back, then the unwanted email load of that one confirmation request is far less than that of an open-ended subscription. Besides a confirmation request or an unconfirmed (and possibly unwanted) subscription, the only other alternative I can think of is to ignore all subscription requests and just never add anybody. | If I'm allowed to add you but that addition kicks off a confirmation | cycle, what's the difference if that confirmation message is spelled | "reply to remove yourself" or "reply to add yourself"? The difference is all the mail from the list that you'll get if you don't answer, or if your reply cannot be processed by the bot, or if the mail transports lose your reply. The difference is that between opt-out and opt-in, because "take action to remove yourself" and "take action to add yourself" are equivalent to those, respectively. | Would it be any different if it said "reply to add yourself" after 100 | lines of list-oriented content? Yes. That would be worse than saying "reply to add yourself" at the top of a message whose remaining content was just a terse list description, but not so bad as one saying "reply to remove yourself." From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 10 10:32:16 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA25385; Mon, 10 Jul 2000 10:19:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell7.ba.best.com (shell7.ba.best.com [206.184.139.138]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id DA38317E8A for ; Mon, 10 Jul 2000 10:19:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cnorman@localhost) by shell7.ba.best.com (8.9.3/8.9.2/best.sh) id KAA19698; Mon, 10 Jul 2000 10:26:19 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 10:26:19 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200007101726.KAA19698@shell7.ba.best.com> From: Cyndi Norman To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Cc: cnorman@best.com Subject: AOL changing subject headers? Reply-To: cnorman@best.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I've been noticing a problem lately with messages from AOL. It only happens with messages an AOL user replies to. When there is a word enclosed by angle brackets, AOL is adding a period inbetween the open angle bracket and the first character within the brackets. The annoying example is when someone from AOL replies to a message on my mailing list. I have it set up so that all subjects start with AOL turns this into <.Immune> This wouldn't be so bad except that the server software doesn't recognize <.Immune> so it goes ahead and adds another Here is an example of an actual subject header where this has happened: Subject: Re: <.Immune> Question about testing for mercury But now it's going beyond annoying into disruptive. I require authentication of new subscriptions and the server software uses angle brackets in the subject header that must be returned for the subscription to go through. This means I'm getting a bunch of AOLers complaining that they can't subscribe. For a reason I can't figure out, the error message they get back is: "The message you are authenticated has already been processed or has timed out" But this software is specific to best.com so who knows why or how. The potential subscriber gets a subject like this: Subject: List Auth Request ID= REJECT In order to subscribe they reply and change REJECT to ACCEPT. So they should end up with a subject similar to this: Subject: Re: List Auth Request ID= ACCEPT AOL changes the outgoing subject to: Subject: Re: List Auth Request ID=<.x39696ef9.279.jP4ESsKC> REJECT The AOL user then changes REJECT to ACCEPT but leaves in the dot and the authentication fails. Hotmail also mangles angle brackets. In replies it will change <> to []. This also causes authentication to fail. I have to have special instructions for Hotmail users (ones that many other list owners at best.com have links to). Can anyone else confirm this bug at AOL and is there any way that AOL will be willing to fix it? Thank you, Cyndi -- _______________________________________________________________________________ "There's nothing wrong with me. Maybe there's Cyndi Norman something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG) cyndi@consultclarity.com http://www.tikvah.com/ _________________ Owner of the Immune Website & Lists http://www.immuneweb.org/ From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 10 18:20:07 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id SAA00380; Mon, 10 Jul 2000 18:02:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.xnet.com (quake.xnet.com [198.147.221.67]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B639717E8A for ; Mon, 10 Jul 2000 18:02:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [205.243.156.212] (adamb.xnet.com [205.243.156.212]) by mail.xnet.com (8.9.3+Sun/XNet-3.0R) with SMTP id UAA20359 for ; Mon, 10 Jul 2000 20:09:27 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <200007110109.UAA20359@mail.xnet.com> Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 20:09:27 -0500 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: Adam Bailey To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 7/10/00 12:26 PM, Cyndi Norman wrote... >When there is a word enclosed by angle brackets, AOL is adding a period >inbetween the open angle bracket and the first character within the >brackets. The problem started a couple weeks ago. I was waiting to report it to see if it would go away. >The annoying example is when someone from AOL replies to a message on my >mailing list. I have it set up so that all subjects start with >AOL turns this into <.Immune> >This wouldn't be so bad except that the server software doesn't recognize ><.Immune> so it goes ahead and adds another I would recommend using [ ] brackets instead, as are commonly used by other mailing list managers. In the meantime, I will report the problem to AOL. -- Adam Bailey | Chicago, Illinois adamb@lull.org | Finger/Web for PGP adamkb@aol.com | http://www.lull.org/adam/ From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 07:20:15 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id HAA09831; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 07:10:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from grassyhill.org (grassyhill.org [208.231.0.71]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8233817E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 07:10:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tomw70 (adsl-151-202-20-126.bellatlantic.net [151.202.20.126]) by grassyhill.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id OAA34078 for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 14:17:33 GMT (envelope-from tneff@panix.com) From: "Tom Neff" To: Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:18:20 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6700 In-Reply-To: <200007110800.BAA03879@honor.greatcircle.com> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk It may very well have to do with something AOL is doing in HTML filtering. Given the prevalence of < > based markup languages (HTML, XML etc) these days, I would consider it most unwise to put angle brackets around my list name. Adam is right, use square brackets instead. > From: Cyndi Norman > I've been noticing a problem lately with messages from AOL. It only > happens with messages an AOL user replies to. > > When there is a word enclosed by angle brackets, AOL is adding a period > inbetween the open angle bracket and the first character within the > brackets. From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 08:49:05 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id IAA10612; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 08:41:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.rev.net (mail.rev.net [206.67.68.8]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E3EAE17E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 08:41:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fantasy (USER12.GVA.NET [216.80.135.16]) by mail.rev.net (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id e6BFmlL12987 for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 11:48:47 -0400 Message-Id: <200007111548.e6BFmlL12987@mail.rev.net> From: "Bernie Cosell" Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 11:48:47 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Charging for spamming X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I know this isn't a 'spam' list, but it does get discussed here and there do seem to be partisans from most of the camps. It is very hard to prevent a user of an ISP from spamming --- you can keep the user from *continuing* to spam, but the damage is often already done, the account a 'throw away' and the spammer moves on.. I was kicking around a thought: what if... the ToS for an ISP included a reference to the AUP and basically said that there would be an $X surcharge to a user's account in the event of violations of the AUP, plus, say, $100/hr of billable time for any work it took on the part of the support personnel to deal with the problem. Would this be legal? Would it work [at the least to get spammers to go 'elsewhere'.. I realize that it is a bit like the [futile] attempt to control coyotes down here: you can't build fences good enough to keep a hungry coyote away from your livestock.... so what you aim for is to have a better fence than your neighbors..:o), but at least that'd be better than doing *NOTHING* [other than closing the barn door after the spam-horses are already out]. /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 10:18:41 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA11523; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:12:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.rev.net (mail.rev.net [206.67.68.8]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 336E217E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:12:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fantasy (USER12.GVA.NET [216.80.135.16]) by mail.rev.net (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id e6BHJPI18355 for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 13:19:25 -0400 Message-Id: <200007111719.e6BHJPI18355@mail.rev.net> From: "Bernie Cosell" Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 13:19:21 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: Charging for spamming In-reply-to: <396B5214.4C66A49E@neatnettricks.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 11 Jul 2000, at 10:57, Jack Teems wrote: > Of course the ISP could charge, Bernie. The question is - could the amount > be collected? Seems this would be even more difficult across international > borders. Sure --- many ISPs [including the one I consult for] only take accounts via credit card... So you just bill the credit card and then sort it out when/if they contest the charge. /Bernie\ > > I was kicking around a thought: what if... the ToS for an ISP included a > > reference to the AUP and basically said that there would be an $X > > surcharge to a user's account in the event of violations of the AUP, > > plus, say, $100/hr of billable time for any work it took on the part of > > the support personnel to deal with the problem. ... -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 10:33:45 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA11534; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:14:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mds1.mastnet.net (mds1.mastnet.net [206.65.193.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDC0517E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:13:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from 0d8xk (ppp-185.lake-jackson.mastnet.net [206.66.213.185]) by mds1.mastnet.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id MAA06499 for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 12:15:03 -0500 From: "Alan S. Harrell" To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 12:21:19 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Reply-To: ASHandRR@mastnet.net Message-ID: <396B113F.32626.1E6A58@localhost> In-reply-to: References: <200007110800.BAA03879@honor.greatcircle.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 11 Jul 2000, 10:18, Tom Neff wrote: > It may very well have to do with something AOL is doing in HTML > filtering. Given the prevalence of < > based markup languages (HTML, XML > etc) these days, I would consider it most unwise to put angle brackets > around my list name. Adam is right, use square brackets instead. I have a hunch this is easier said than done as concerns the list management software she is using. This involves more than a simple subject prefix, since her verification procedures were involved. Do what you will, but as for myself, I am no puppet to AOL. They don't pull my strings. I can't see myself changing list administrative operations because something was amiss with AOL. My advice is to write AOL and explain the problem and ask them to correct it on their end. If they refuse, then the decision rests to either live with it, or ban all AOL subscriptions. I don't like the latter, but I have known many a listowner who have reluctantly taken that step. Alan ASHandRR@MASTNET.net From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 10:48:27 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA11622; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:22:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell7.ba.best.com (shell7.ba.best.com [206.184.139.138]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D365A17E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:22:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cnorman@localhost) by shell7.ba.best.com (8.9.3/8.9.2/best.sh) id KAA11678; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:29:35 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:29:35 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200007111729.KAA11678@shell7.ba.best.com> From: Cyndi Norman Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, cnorman@best.com In-reply-to: Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Reply-To: cnorman@best.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk From: "Tom Neff" Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 10:18:20 -0400 It may very well have to do with something AOL is doing in HTML filtering. Given the prevalence of < > based markup languages (HTML, XML etc) these days, I would consider it most unwise to put angle brackets around my list name. Adam is right, use square brackets instead. Both of you said this, yes. But if you recall my post you'll see that this is the lessor of two problems. Well first of all I refuse to change something that's worked well for me for years just because AOL can't handle it. For the same reason, I won't use HTML to surround a perfectly good (and plain) URL just because the AOL mailer appearently doesn't do what every other mailer does (point and click or cut and paste). But anyway... The real problem is the authentication message for my mailing list software. If I want to run my lists at best.com (and I do) then I have to use their software and it uses angle brackets in the subject header. Adding a period causes authentication to fail and then all these AOLers run to me to subscribe them by hand. Even if I had any control over that software (the person at Best who wrote it no longer works there and best has never alloted staff hours to mailing lists) I consider it AOL's problem, not Best's. Has anyone written AOL to complain? what would be the address to complain? What is AOL's official response? I know there are AOL staff people on this list; can anyone comment? Cyndi -- _______________________________________________________________________________ "There's nothing wrong with me. Maybe there's Cyndi Norman something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG) cyndi@consultclarity.com http://www.tikvah.com/ _________________ Owner of the Immune Website & Lists http://www.immuneweb.org/ From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 14:18:26 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA13708; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 14:13:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.xnet.com (quake.xnet.com [198.147.221.67]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 293B617E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 14:13:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [205.243.156.212] (adamb.xnet.com [205.243.156.212]) by mail.xnet.com (8.9.3+Sun/XNet-3.0R) with SMTP id QAA13795 for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 16:20:51 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <200007112120.QAA13795@mail.xnet.com> Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 16:20:53 -0500 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: Adam Bailey Cc: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 7/11/00 12:29 PM, Cyndi Norman wrote... >Has anyone written AOL to complain? what would be the address to complain? >What is AOL's official response? I know there are AOL staff people on this >list; can anyone comment? I have written to the people in the know, and confirmed that it is an HTML issue. They do not know if and when it will be fixed, as it was implemented intentionally. You are welcome to write to postmaster@aol.com and explain why this is a problem, but yours seems to be pretty rare. Other than the aesthetics issue, your authentication problem is the first time I've seen where this could actually cause a problem. What mailing list manager are you using that handles authentications as such? Can it be modified? Unless this impacts a lot of people, it may not be changed. The problem AOL is trying to combat appears much more significant. -- Adam Bailey | Chicago, Illinois adamb@lull.org | Finger/Web for PGP adamkb@aol.com | http://www.lull.org/adam/ From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 14:33:28 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA13739; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 14:17:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.xnet.com (quake.xnet.com [198.147.221.67]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7553617E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 14:17:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [205.243.156.212] (adamb.xnet.com [205.243.156.212]) by mail.xnet.com (8.9.3+Sun/XNet-3.0R) with SMTP id QAA15205 for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 16:24:44 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <200007112124.QAA15205@mail.xnet.com> Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 16:24:46 -0500 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: Adam Bailey To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 7/11/00 12:21 PM, Alan S. Harrell wrote... >Do what you will, but as for myself, I am no puppet to AOL. They don't >pull my strings. I can't see myself changing list administrative >operations because something was amiss with AOL. AOL is the single largest access provider in the world. There are more AOL members than several of its nearest competitors combined. I join in complaining when AOL does something that I don't approve of, but I also realize that sometimes you have to work around it -- especially if you are providing a service that you want to be successful. You are welcome to argue "AOL sucks" all day, and I won't waste my time debating it. But some list owners simply don't have a choice but to deal with what may comprise between 5-15% (or more) of their subscribership. That's why I believe solutions are more useful than complaints, beyond the therapeutic value of such. -- Adam Bailey | Chicago, Illinois adamb@lull.org | Finger/Web for PGP adamkb@aol.com | http://www.lull.org/adam/ From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 15:18:26 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA14217; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 15:14:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from public.lists.apple.com (public.lists.apple.com [17.254.0.151]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0E56617E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 15:14:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by public.lists.apple.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id PAA37320 ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 15:25:18 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <200007112124.QAA15205@mail.xnet.com> References: <200007112124.QAA15205@mail.xnet.com> Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 15:18:29 -0700 To: Adam Bailey , From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 4:24 PM -0500 7/11/00, Adam Bailey wrote: >On 7/11/00 12:21 PM, Alan S. Harrell wrote... > >>Do what you will, but as for myself, I am no puppet to AOL. They don't >>pull my strings. I can't see myself changing list administrative > >operations because something was amiss with AOL. >You are welcome to argue "AOL sucks" all day, and I won't waste my time >debating it. Yup. They are a 500 pound gorilla, but then again, have they violated any RFC here? It doesn't seem so. Just because they're big doesn't mean they're by definition wrong here. -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 16:03:26 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA14463; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 15:50:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.rev.net (mail.rev.net [206.67.68.8]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3125117E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 15:49:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fantasy (USER7.GVA.NET [216.80.135.11]) by mail.rev.net (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id e6BMv7I05942 for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 18:57:08 -0400 Message-Id: <200007112257.e6BMv7I05942@mail.rev.net> From: "Bernie Cosell" Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers To: Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 18:57:06 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? In-reply-to: <200007112120.QAA13795@mail.xnet.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 11 Jul 2000, at 16:20, Adam Bailey wrote: > I have written to the people in the know, and confirmed that it is an > HTML issue. They do not know if and when it will be fixed, as it was > implemented intentionally. [...] > Unless this impacts a lot of people, it may not be changed. The problem > AOL is trying to combat appears much more significant. I'm missing something --- what 'problem' are they trying to combat? What's the terrible problem with having a proper URL in a Subject line? /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 17:18:29 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA15075; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 17:05:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mds1.mastnet.net (mds1.mastnet.net [206.65.193.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id EAB3E17E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 17:05:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from 0d8xk (ppp-168.lake-jackson.mastnet.net [206.66.213.168]) by mds1.mastnet.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id TAA07183 for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 19:06:08 -0500 From: "Alan S. Harrell" To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 19:12:27 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Reply-To: ASHandRR@mastnet.net Message-ID: <396B719B.15086.3CD03A@localhost> In-reply-to: <200007112124.QAA15205@mail.xnet.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 11 Jul 2000, 16:24, Adam Bailey wrote: > AOL is the single largest access provider in the world. There are more > AOL members than several of its nearest competitors combined. But not larger than all the rest combined. And I submit "large" is not an excuse for all ills caused by the "large" entity. > I join in complaining when AOL does something that I don't approve > of, but I also realize that sometimes you have to work around it -- > especially if you are providing a service that you want to be > successful. Yes. Work around it, but don't be lead or controlled by it. As administrators and listowners, you have to go by what you think is right, even if it disagrees with AOL policy. > You are welcome to argue "AOL sucks" all day, I argued no such thing. My argument was that AOL should look for better solutions that would not be so detrimental to Internet interests. > and I won't waste my time debating it. Please don't. It was never brought up. Everything I wrote could very well be applied to any provider. > But some list owners simply don't have a choice but to deal > with what may comprise between 5-15% (or more) of their subscribership. I can relate to that. At one time I owned a mailing list made up primarily of Juno subscribers. We had several services we offered the Juno users, but in managing the list itself, I did very little compromising to my subscribers. As far as list administration went, they all got equal treatment. That was a majordomo and I pretty much did things as per my usual practice. > That's why I believe solutions are more useful than complaints, beyond > the therapeutic value of such. I believe the solution will follow the complaints. The squeaky wheel always gets the grease, first. Alan ASHandRR@MASTNET.net From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 18:03:52 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA15521; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 17:57:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.xnet.com (quake.xnet.com [198.147.221.67]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1D0D817E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 17:57:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [205.243.156.212] (adamb.xnet.com [205.243.156.212]) by mail.xnet.com (8.9.3+Sun/XNet-3.0R) with SMTP id UAA16323 for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 20:04:20 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <200007120104.UAA16323@mail.xnet.com> Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 20:04:23 -0500 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: Adam Bailey To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 7/11/00 5:57 PM, Bernie Cosell wrote... >On 11 Jul 2000, at 16:20, Adam Bailey wrote: > >> I have written to the people in the know, and confirmed that it is an >> HTML issue. They do not know if and when it will be fixed, as it was >> implemented intentionally. > > [...] > >> Unless this impacts a lot of people, it may not be changed. The problem >> AOL is trying to combat appears much more significant. > >I'm missing something --- what 'problem' are they trying to combat? >What's the terrible problem with having a proper URL in a Subject line? AOL's mail system is heavily HTMLized, but without using variant content-types. Thus, putting into a mail message has the potential of being interpreted as an HTML tag. So AOL added the leading dot, to make sure that wouldn't happen. -- Adam Bailey | Chicago, Illinois adamb@lull.org | Finger/Web for PGP adamkb@aol.com | http://www.lull.org/adam/ From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 23:03:50 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id WAA17926; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 22:52:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from newboy.plaidworks.com (a203.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B8D3117E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 22:51:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by newboy.plaidworks.com (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e6C5wYo05311 for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 22:58:35 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 22:59:09 -0700 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: list rules draft... Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk since I'm (finally) almost ready to move my lists from my majordomo server to my new linux/mailman server, I'm rewriting my rule pages (again...). I dunno about all of you, but I get really sick and tired of pages of "don't do that" rules (and I know end users REALLY hate it), but I also hate dealing with the trolls who insist that if it's not written down, it's okay. So I'm trying something different, just to see if there's a reasonable medium. I'm curious what you all think -- the pages are at: If you're curious about the site, just start at the root of the server and wander. Because of deadlines, the new server isn't remotely "finished" (what is?), I'm starting out with a list directory piece (a yahoo clone) and the mailman server, and a few html pages linking them. To be added is a real web-archive based on Mhonarc (since the one part of mailman just doesn't cut it), HtDig for the search engine, and digest archives behind some kind of anti-harvesting system I'm still gnawing on. FWIW, after playing around with MIME stuff, I installed Nick's demime in front of the lists, not because I don't want MIME, but because at this point, I don't want ACTIVE CONTENT, and until I can write a tool that cleanly limits what gets sent across a list to provably safe content, I've chosen to stick to plain text. That's On the List to do as well, but it's going to take some thought to do right, and I'd rather err on the side of safety than add features that put users at risk, and irght now, unfiltered MIME is a risky beast. Curious what you think -- there seems to be *no* good way to write list rules without pissing some group or another off, but hopefully, this is less antagonistic than stuff I wrote a couple of versions ago... it's definitely *shorter*, which is a bonus in itself... -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 23:33:26 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id XAA18172; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 23:22:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ma-1.rootsweb.com (ma-1.rootsweb.com [209.192.148.153]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id A1BF417E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 23:22:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from twp@localhost) by ma-1.rootsweb.com (8.10.0.Beta10/8.10.0.Beta10) id e6C6Svn53794; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 02:28:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 02:28:57 -0400 From: Tim Pierce To: Chuq Von Rospach Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: a minor giggle... Message-ID: <20000712022857.W32625@ma-1.rootsweb.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.7us In-Reply-To: Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, Jul 04, 2000 at 11:33:21PM -0700, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > > It wasn't me... Instead, much to my (minor) amusement, one of my > subscribers is on a site doing ORBs checking -- and the site's MX > relay machines have been stuck into ORBs and the internal mail server > is bouncing the mail. I noticed this sometime in the last couple of weeks. > Which merely serves as a reminder that if you police with this stuff, > you should make sure your sites are clean. But I also wonder why > they're doing ORBs checking on the internal machines and not the > firewall relay machines. In our case, it was a BellFrotz machine that used a FooBell server as its primary MX. FooBell uses ORBS and rejects all mail from BellFrotz. Since the two sites are administered under completely different policies, it's not entirely surprising that they'd screw the pooch in that particular way. But still amusing. -- Regards, Tim Pierce RootsWeb.com lead system admonsterator and Chief Hacking Officer From list-managers-owner Tue Jul 11 23:48:41 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id XAA18284; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 23:36:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ma-1.rootsweb.com (ma-1.rootsweb.com [209.192.148.153]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 43FD717E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 23:36:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from twp@localhost) by ma-1.rootsweb.com (8.10.0.Beta10/8.10.0.Beta10) id e6C6hsl53909; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 02:43:54 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 02:43:54 -0400 From: Tim Pierce To: Bernie Cosell Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: spam. Message-ID: <20000712024354.X32625@ma-1.rootsweb.com> References: <200007040010.e640A4Q30568@mail.rev.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.7us In-Reply-To: <200007040010.e640A4Q30568@mail.rev.net> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, Jul 03, 2000 at 08:10:02PM -0400, Bernie Cosell wrote: > On 3 Jul 2000, at 15:15, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > > > We were spammed today. Laurie wandered out onto the porch this > > morning to find a flyer on the front porch, for a "power management" > > seminar. They leafletted the entire neighborhood.... > > Indeed, although an important difference to keep in mind is that that > kind of spam dealt with in seconds with a keystroke or two [or even > automatically in most cases], whereas the hardcopy stuff we've learned to > just live with has to be handled, sorted, and carted to the dump [no > recycling for that sort of stuff in this area] and actually wastes > *real*time*... For what it's worth, electronic spam does in fact consume real time for me, far more than the trivial couple of minutes a month that sorting the junk mail does. The "save-a-tree, send-a-spam" shtick is a Sanford Wallace myth. It's not cheap, it's not easy, and it's not trivial. The stories I've heard from other sysadmins indicate that I am not alone. Pumping a high volume of spam (thousands of messages a minute) through a single server is nearly always going to cause someone grief. [I know that the dead horse is now only a distant memory of those who once beat it, but sometimes I just can't help myself.] -- Regards, Tim Pierce RootsWeb.com lead system admonsterator and Chief Hacking Officer From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 00:04:53 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id AAA18538; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 00:00:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ma-1.rootsweb.com (ma-1.rootsweb.com [209.192.148.153]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5EBE717E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 00:00:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from twp@localhost) by ma-1.rootsweb.com (8.10.0.Beta10/8.10.0.Beta10) id e6C77Jb54101; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 03:07:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 03:07:19 -0400 From: Tim Pierce To: "Alan S. Harrell" Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: egroups Message-ID: <20000712030719.Y32625@ma-1.rootsweb.com> References: <3958444E.B035AF8@egroups.net> <3960F101.14448.727638@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.95.7us In-Reply-To: <3960F101.14448.727638@localhost> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Mon, Jul 03, 2000 at 08:01:05PM -0500, Alan S. Harrell wrote: > > No Privacy statement is secure so long as there is a possibility of a > disgruntled employee. It only takes one disgruntled employee to > compromise privacy security measures. This is essentially true of any organization, from banks to credit card issuers to insurance carriers to libraries. While I do believe that you are not trying to single out eGroups as being worse than any other "dot com" in this regard, I do get the sense that you are implicitly singling out technology industries as less respectful than more traditional and boring industries. I don't think I agree that we can assume that Mastercard, say, is immune to the siren song of identity trading. They are certainly going to be in a better position to do it quietly, for what that's worth. > No Privacy statement is secure when companies are sold or merged into > another company. When one company buys another, it inherits their legal obligations and responsibilities. If a privacy statement means anything at all, if it has any legal weight whatever, then the larger company is legally obliged to honor the other's privacy policies. The only way that this could not be true is if the privacy statement is legally meaningless -- in which case you never had any assurance that eGroups would abide by its own privacy policy to begin with. -- Regards, Tim Pierce RootsWeb.com lead system admonsterator and Chief Hacking Officer From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 04:07:51 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id DAA23781; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 03:51:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mds1.mastnet.net (mds1.mastnet.net [206.65.193.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9AFAC17E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 03:51:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: from 0d8xk (ppp-187.lake-jackson.mastnet.net [206.66.213.187]) by mds1.mastnet.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id FAA09201 for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 05:52:44 -0500 From: "Alan S. Harrell" To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 05:59:05 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: egroups Reply-To: ASHandRR@mastnet.net Message-ID: <396C0929.32734.2ED7F2@localhost> In-reply-to: <20000712030719.Y32625@ma-1.rootsweb.com> References: <3960F101.14448.727638@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 12 Jul 2000, 3:07, Tim Pierce wrote: > This is essentially true of any organization, from banks to credit > card issuers to insurance carriers to libraries. While I do believe > that you are not trying to single out eGroups as being worse than any > other "dot com" in this regard, I do get the sense that you are > implicitly singling out technology industries as less respectful than > more traditional and boring industries. [...] On the contrary. We are discussing this issue within the scope and context of the "List-Managers" mailing list. I see no purpose in bringing in all Industries into the debate. Points are directed at Internet and in particular, mailing list hosting services. However, since you chose to bring it up, I will simply express my opinion that pure e-commerce companies are less reputable than long established corporations just by virtue of their age. It is like comparing a misbehaving child to a mature adult. The child is more likely to see what he can get away with. If you went into a department store and there was a 12 year old behind the counter, would you hand him your credit card? Even if he said to you, "You can trust me, mister?" > When one company buys another, it inherits their legal obligations > and responsibilities. If a privacy statement means anything at > all, if it has any legal weight whatever, then the larger company > is legally obliged to honor the other's privacy policies. But there is the point. It has no legal weight to the user because the document is written in the host's favor. There are no protections in a privacy statement to the user of the service. It is totally written to protect the interests of the host. > The only way that this could not be true is if the privacy statement > is legally meaningless -- in which case you never had any assurance > that eGroups would abide by its own privacy policy to begin with. Nearly every privacy statement and TOS has a clause that states that the document is subject to change with or without notice and the new terms shall be in force and there is nothing you can do to object to the change, short of leaving the service. So, Yahoo will have the right to change the eGroups privacy and TOS documents to suit their interests and you can bet your money they will. As for myself, it will matter not, for I will distrust either the same. Alan ASHandRR@MASTNET.net From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 04:37:50 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id EAA24102; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 04:28:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.rev.net (mail.rev.net [206.67.68.8]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B432217E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 04:28:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fantasy (USER14.GVA.NET [216.80.135.18]) by mail.rev.net (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id e6CBa2B27693 for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 07:36:03 -0400 Message-Id: <200007121136.e6CBa2B27693@mail.rev.net> From: "Bernie Cosell" Organization: Fantasy Farm Fibers To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 07:36:00 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: spam. In-reply-to: <20000712024354.X32625@ma-1.rootsweb.com> References: <200007040010.e640A4Q30568@mail.rev.net> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 12 Jul 2000, at 2:43, Tim Pierce wrote: > On Mon, Jul 03, 2000 at 08:10:02PM -0400, Bernie Cosell wrote: > > On 3 Jul 2000, at 15:15, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > > > > > We were spammed today. Laurie wandered out onto the porch this > > > morning to find a flyer on the front porch, for a "power management" > > > seminar. They leafletted the entire neighborhood.... > > > > Indeed, although an important difference to keep in mind is that that > > kind of spam dealt with in seconds with a keystroke or two [or even > > automatically in most cases], whereas the hardcopy stuff we've learned to > > just live with has to be handled, sorted, and carted to the dump [no > > recycling for that sort of stuff in this area] and actually wastes > > *real*time*... > > For what it's worth, electronic spam does in fact consume real time > for me, far more than the trivial couple of minutes a month that > sorting the junk mail does.... > > The stories I've heard from other sysadmins indicate that I am not > alone. ... You're mixing apples and oranges. I was talking from the _user's_ point of view, you're talking from the sysadmin's. I think your opinion of "junk USmail" would probably have a similar shift if you were in charge of the mailroom at a large condo complex and had to sort, handle and deliver hundreds of thousands of "GET INSURANCE FREE" and such blurbs. /Bernie\ -- Bernie Cosell Fantasy Farm Fibers mailto:bernie@fantasyfarm.com Pearisburg, VA --> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 05:21:02 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id FAA24429; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 05:03:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ntcorp.dn.net (ntcorp.dn.net [207.226.172.79]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0ABED17E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 05:02:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (fidelman@localhost) by ntcorp.dn.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id IAA23970 for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 08:06:30 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 08:06:29 -0400 (EDT) From: Miles Fidelman X-Sender: fidelman@ntcorp.dn.net To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: legal liability of list managers - what's the latest word? Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Hi Folks, Does anybody know the latest word on the legal liability of list managers? Last time I looked, there was little statutory law, and a little case law, that was going in the direction of: - relative immunity for ISPs and hands-off list managers (common-carrier like regime), vs. - slander, libel, and copyright liability for active moderators (like newspapers, based on the Prodigy case) Does anybody have a more recent view of the world, based on some of the more recent legislation and legal cases? Does anybody have a good reference or list reference? Also... any sense of where things are going regarding liability for things like advice given on a moderated list? Thanks much, Miles ************************************************************************** The Center for Civic Networking PO Box 600618 Miles R. Fidelman, President & Newtonville, MA 02460-0006 Director, Municipal Telecommunications Strategies Program 617-558-3698 fax: 617-630-8946 mfidelman@civicnet.org http://civic.net/ccn.html Information Infrastructure: Public Spaces for the 21st Century Let's Start With: Internet Wall-Plugs Everywhere Say It Often, Say It Loud: "I Want My Internet!" ************************************************************************** From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 08:18:58 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id IAA25931; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 08:05:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from larryboy.graphics.cornell.edu (larryboy.graphics.cornell.edu [128.84.247.48]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id A996D17E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 08:05:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from larryboy.graphics.cornell.edu (mkc@localhost) by larryboy.graphics.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA83404; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:12:52 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from mkc@larryboy.graphics.cornell.edu) Message-Id: <200007121512.LAA83404@larryboy.graphics.cornell.edu> To: Chuq Von Rospach Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? In-Reply-To: Message from Chuq Von Rospach of "Tue, 11 Jul 2000 15:18:29 PDT." Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:12:52 -0400 From: Mitch Collinsworth Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >Just because they're big doesn't mean they're by definition wrong here. Just because they're big doesn't mean they have the right to unilaterally define new internet standards. -Mitch From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 08:48:31 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id IAA26124; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 08:33:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: from newboy.plaidworks.com (a203.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 55EBC17E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 08:33:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by newboy.plaidworks.com (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e6CFeMo08215; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 08:40:22 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <200007121512.LAA83404@larryboy.graphics.cornell.edu> References: <200007121512.LAA83404@larryboy.graphics.cornell.edu> Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 08:39:59 -0700 To: Mitch Collinsworth , Chuq Von Rospach From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 11:12 AM -0400 7/12/00, Mitch Collinsworth wrote: > >Just because they're big doesn't mean they're by definition wrong here. > >Just because they're big doesn't mean they have the right to >unilaterally define new internet standards. Are they defining new standards here? If *I* did this, would anyone be screaming at me? Probably not. Are people screaming because this is wrong, or because, since AOL did it, it gives them an excuse to yell at AOL? It really seems the latter -- it's not that this is bad, it's that this is AOL, and therefore, it's a chance to complain. -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 09:48:38 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id JAA26749; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 09:41:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sws5.ctd.ornl.gov (sws5.ctd.ornl.gov [160.91.68.105]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 75D4D17E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 09:41:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 673031 invoked by uid 3995); 12 Jul 2000 16:49:13 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <14700.41353.411837.965455@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 12:49:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Dave Sill To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? In-Reply-To: References: <200007112124.QAA15205@mail.xnet.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.75 under 21.1 "20 Minutes to Nikko" XEmacs Lucid (patch 2) Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab, Oak Ridge, Tenn., USA X-Face: "p~Q]mg{;e*}YR|)&Q/&Q\*~5UWfZX34;5M wrote: >Yup. [AOL] are a 500 pound gorilla, but then again, have they violated >any RFC here? It doesn't seem so. I'm not an RFC lawyer, but a quick look 821/822 doesn't turn up anything that prohibits MTA's from arbitrarily munging messages. (!) And, of course, that only covers MTA<->MTA transactions. Once the MTA passes the message off to the MDA (delivery agent), all bets are off. >Just because they're big doesn't mean they're by definition wrong here. And just because they aren't violating an RFC (if, in fact, they aren't) doesn't mean they're right, either. In my opinion, any mail system that changes the contents of a message beyond adding the RFC-821 Received header fields is "wrong". Of course, any mail system that changes even one bit of the message body will break most (all?) digital signature systems. Sure, there are "harmless" header munges like canonifying domain names that won't break anything, but those are definitely the exception. -Dave From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 10:48:53 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA27189; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 10:26:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mds1.mastnet.net (mds1.mastnet.net [206.65.193.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8E7BE17E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 10:26:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from 0d8xk (ppp-181.lake-jackson.mastnet.net [206.66.213.181]) by mds1.mastnet.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id MAA03710 for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 12:27:33 -0500 From: "Alan S. Harrell" To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 12:33:54 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: legal liability of list managers - what's the latest word? Reply-To: ASHandRR@mastnet.net Message-ID: <396C65B2.18785.12DD253@localhost> In-reply-to: X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 12 Jul 2000, 8:06, Miles Fidelman wrote: [...] > Also... any sense of where things are going regarding liability for > things like advice given on a moderated list? IMHO... Years ago I read that our liability to our subscribers was dependent on what our subscribers paid for the service. From that I have since concluded that on a free list to which neither the subscribers pay you money nor for which you, the owner, make any money, the owner's liability for actions which yourself or other subscribers cause, or even that which their provider's cause, should be nil. If you charge your subscribers a fee or possibly if you accept and distribute ads from which you derive revenue for yourself, then it might be a good idea to include a disclaimer in both your welcome letter and in your distributions. Let me ask this question to all of ya'll. Do you know of any instance where a subscriber suffered debilitating mental anguish or monetary lose due to the actions of a listowner, that possibly could be the basis of a suit based on current laws, separate and apart from the aspect of an e-mail mailing list? I ask that because I doubt very seriously there are current laws that address the "e-mail list" as an entity. More likely, any cause for a suit would be brought up on current laws, such as libel. You're greatest fear today as listowners is not the law, but lawyers. Lawyers will often attempt to SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) their employer's critics. If this be in a mailing list to which you have responsibility, you might be the target of a SLAPP, though the actual case would have no merit. The object is to quiet or rid the critic by forcing them into costly legal defences. Most of us could not afford a lawyer to fight a SLAPP suit and we would end up acquiescing to their demands. Alan ASHandRR@MASTNET.net From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 10:50:00 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA27378; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 10:46:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell7.ba.best.com (shell7.ba.best.com [206.184.139.138]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3804017E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 10:46:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cnorman@localhost) by shell7.ba.best.com (8.9.3/8.9.2/best.sh) id KAA06403; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 10:54:01 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 10:54:01 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200007121754.KAA06403@shell7.ba.best.com> From: Cyndi Norman To: chuqui@plaidworks.com Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, cnorman@best.com In-reply-to: (message from Chuq Von Rospach on Wed, 12 Jul 2000 08:39:59 -0700) Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Reply-To: cnorman@best.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 08:39:59 -0700 From: Chuq Von Rospach If *I* did this, would anyone be screaming at me? Probably not. Are people screaming because this is wrong, or because, since AOL did it, it gives them an excuse to yell at AOL? It really seems the latter -- it's not that this is bad, it's that this is AOL, and therefore, it's a chance to complain. I'm sorry Chuq but that's just not even close. Did you see my original post? I'm complaining because the net effect is extra work for me, and annoying to boot. The fact that it's AOL is irrelevant to me. Any large provider would do (or a small provider if they made up more than a handful of my subscribers). This isn't a personality issue and your casting it that way is just going to lead to yet another flame war on this list. I'd say "pointless flame war" except they're all pointless. I was about to unsubscribe even though I've been here for years. I find about 1% of posts to this list useful and it used to be more like 50%. This is an issue about subject headers, not whether or not we like AOL in general. Hotmail changes angle brackets to square brackets and I have to have special subscription directions for hotmail users. It doesn't seem to affect the subjects in list replies though, only in replies to authentication posts (I have no idea why). I did mention the hotmail problem in my first post, but I discovered it years ago and dealt with it then. The AOL problem is brand new. And, no, I have no choice about how the list software is configured for authentication. I can change the subject prefix but this one has worked well for me for years so why should I change it just because AOL gets a whim about angle brackets being evil in subject headers? Maybe next week they'll decide square brackets are bad too. Even if I did change it, I'd still have the authentication problem and that means users asking for my help to subscribe. I'm still hoping to hear from the AOL staff members who I know belong to this list (or at least some did in the past). Cyndi -- _______________________________________________________________________________ "There's nothing wrong with me. Maybe there's Cyndi Norman something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG) cyndi@consultclarity.com http://www.tikvah.com/ _________________ Owner of the Immune Website & Lists http://www.immuneweb.org/ From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 11:04:42 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA27298; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 10:39:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from grassyhill.org (grassyhill.org [208.231.0.71]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3CE5317E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 10:38:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from NY11014250B ([160.43.2.2]) by grassyhill.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id RAA96547 for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:45:48 GMT (envelope-from tneff@panix.com) From: "Tom Neff" To: Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:45:26 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <200007120800.BAA19266@honor.greatcircle.com> Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6700 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Cyndi Norman wrote: >> Well first of all I refuse to change something that's worked well for me for years just because AOL can't handle it. For the same reason, I won't use HTML to surround a perfectly good (and plain) URL just because the AOL mailer appearently doesn't do what every other mailer does (point and click or cut and paste). << I agree with you on the second point, but as the the first (don't change anything just because it fails on AOL), my own philosophy is that my members come FIRST and everything else (including software fashions and ISP loyalty) comes second. If a software incompatibility (of my own doing or somebody else's) interferes with a major segment of users, I will act to change or avoid it -- not simply say "well SquizList 9.71 does it right so those users can all go get a better provider." >> The real problem is the authentication message for my mailing list software. If I want to run my lists at best.com (and I do) then I have to use their software and it uses angle brackets in the subject header. Adding a period causes authentication to fail and then all these AOLers run to me to subscribe them by hand. << Yes, this appears to be a BestServ software problem. Specifically, when you join a list using the web based interface (and/or email, maybe) you get a message of the form To: yourmail@xxx.com Subject: List Auth Request ID= REJECT and when you Reply, BestServ wants to see _exactly_ that string in the Subject, or no dice. That's a silly thing to do - they should have used a regexp scannable ID string and look for it in subject or body ignoring delimiters. I am sure that BestServ could be fixed (at least to ignore a leading . in the ID) with a one line change, but a meta-problem is that Verio just bought Best, so it may be difficult to get anybody to release a modified version of the software. Another tactic you could try is to provide your own Web based interface where AOL users receiving a confirm could cut and paste it into your own textbox and hit Submit to complete the registration. Your CGI could strip the ID appropriately and forge a confirming mail. >> Even if I had any control over that software (the person at Best who wrote it no longer works there and best has never alloted staff hours to mailing lists) I consider it AOL's problem, not Best's. << I disagree, because MLM authors have a duty to avoid relying on dangerous syntaxes like BestServ's pointy-delimited ID string. It's much harder for AOL to try and be "super-smart" to protect its members from malicious HTML while not ruffling a hair on BestServ's head, than it is for BestServ to get a clue and generate a more vanilla confirm ID (and be more generous about parsing for it afterwards). From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 11:48:34 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA27940; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:27:09 -0700 (PDT) Received: from public.lists.apple.com (public.lists.apple.com [17.254.0.151]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 788E917E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:27:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [17.216.27.193] (A17-216-27-193.apple.com [17.216.27.193]) by public.lists.apple.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id LAA21392 ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:38:36 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <200007121754.KAA06403@shell7.ba.best.com> References: <200007121754.KAA06403@shell7.ba.best.com> Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:29:29 -0700 To: cnorman@best.com, chuqui@plaidworks.com From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, cnorman@best.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 10:54 AM -0700 7/12/00, Cyndi Norman wrote: >I'm sorry Chuq but that's just not even close. Did you see my original >post? I'm complaining because the net effect is extra work for me, and >annoying to boot. The fact that it's AOL is irrelevant to me. understood, but some of the other comments were simply more fo the "if it's AOL, it's bad". Unfortunately, though, from what I can tell, AOL hasn't broken any RFCs, and it comes down to "they do it one way, the program does it another, and they aren't compatible", and it sure is bad when that happens and you're in the middle -- but it doesn't necessarily mean *either* side is wrong. Compatibility issues in email are a fact of life, for better and worse. it's unfortunate, but I'm just not sure there's a villian here. Just unfortunate circumstances. -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 12:03:29 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA28048; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:40:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from public.lists.apple.com (public.lists.apple.com [17.254.0.151]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8EB7B17E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:40:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [17.216.27.193] (A17-216-27-193.apple.com [17.216.27.193]) by public.lists.apple.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id LAA44760 ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:52:11 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <14700.41353.411837.965455@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> References: <200007112124.QAA15205@mail.xnet.com> <14700.41353.411837.965455@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:45:05 -0700 To: Dave Sill , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 12:49 PM -0400 7/12/00, Dave Sill wrote: >I'm not an RFC lawyer, but a quick look 821/822 doesn't turn up >anything that prohibits MTA's from arbitrarily munging messages. (!) >And, of course, that only covers MTA<->MTA transactions. Once the MTA >passes the message off to the MDA (delivery agent), all bets are off. Since I just added de-mime to my new server, you sure won't see me saying they should leave the message alone. Stripping all mime but the plaintext is a much bigger "thing" than tweaking like they do, and if you think about it, everyone who runs a server that adds subject line id's is doing that, too. > >Just because they're big doesn't mean they're by definition wrong here. > >And just because they aren't violating an RFC (if, in fact, they >aren't) doesn't mean they're right, either. True. I'm not saying they're right. I think this is simply one of those cases where two independent groups have done things that simply don't interoperate properly. There's no "right" or "wrong", and it sure isn't fun being in the middle. but it's a fact of life in the e-mail world that these things happen. -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 12:18:32 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA28452; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 12:13:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ntcorp.dn.net (ntcorp.dn.net [207.226.172.79]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7DD0E17E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 12:13:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (fidelman@localhost) by ntcorp.dn.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA01111; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:16:49 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:16:48 -0400 (EDT) From: Miles Fidelman X-Sender: fidelman@ntcorp.dn.net To: "Alan S. Harrell" Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: legal liability of list managers - what's the latest word? In-Reply-To: <396C65B2.18785.12DD253@localhost> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, Alan S. Harrell wrote: > On 12 Jul 2000, 8:06, Miles Fidelman wrote: > > Also... any sense of where things are going regarding liability for > > things like advice given on a moderated list? > > Years ago I read that our liability to our subscribers was dependent on > what our subscribers paid for the service. From that I have since Please note: I was not asking about liability to subscribers. I was asking about liability in general. I'm a lot more interested in a list owner's liability if a subscriber: - posts copyrighted materials to the list - posts libelous or slanderous materials Can the list-owner get sued? (obvious answer: anybody can get sued) Would such a suit have merit in court? (judging from the Prodigy case, the answer is "at least under certain circumstances") The question is - what are the parameters under current statutory and case law? ************************************************************************** The Center for Civic Networking PO Box 600618 Miles R. Fidelman, President & Newtonville, MA 02460-0006 Director, Municipal Telecommunications Strategies Program 617-558-3698 fax: 617-630-8946 mfidelman@civicnet.org http://civic.net/ccn.html Information Infrastructure: Public Spaces for the 21st Century Let's Start With: Internet Wall-Plugs Everywhere Say It Often, Say It Loud: "I Want My Internet!" ************************************************************************** From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 12:33:28 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA28327; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 12:00:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sws5.ctd.ornl.gov (sws5.ctd.ornl.gov [160.91.68.105]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with SMTP id D888517E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 12:00:47 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 675743 invoked by uid 3995); 12 Jul 2000 19:08:10 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <14700.49690.238557.725040@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:08:10 -0400 (EDT) From: Dave Sill To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? In-Reply-To: References: <200007112124.QAA15205@mail.xnet.com> <14700.41353.411837.965455@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> X-Mailer: VM 6.75 under 21.1 "20 Minutes to Nikko" XEmacs Lucid (patch 2) Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab, Oak Ridge, Tenn., USA X-Face: "p~Q]mg{;e*}YR|)&Q/&Q\*~5UWfZX34;5M wrote: >Since I just added de-mime to my new server, you sure won't see me >saying they should leave the message alone. Stripping all mime but >the plaintext is a much bigger "thing" than tweaking like they do, >and if you think about it, everyone who runs a server that adds >subject line id's is doing that, too. Mailing lists are a special case. The message is delivered twice (first to the list address, then to the recipients), and potentially munged between the deliveries. So it can be argued that the first message and the second message need not be identical. Certainly RFC821/822 don't prevent the actions of list managers. Point-to-point e-mail should be sacred though. What I send you should be delivered to you intact. If you choose to demime it or filter out naughty words, that's up to you. AOL's millions of users have no control over the message munging they're doing--other than by switching ISP's, which is a very high price to expect users to pay. >True. I'm not saying they're right. I think this is simply one of >those cases where two independent groups have done things that simply >don't interoperate properly. There's no "right" or "wrong", and it >sure isn't fun being in the middle. but it's a fact of life in the >e-mail world that these things happen. I disagree. It's wrong for AOL to unnecessarily break BestServ's authentication mechanism, along with whatever else their heavy-handed munging breaks. If their software implements dangerous HTML-like extensions, they should either fix their software or restrict their munging to such HTML-like constructs that actually pose a threat. It's irelevant that this is AOL, except that by being the 800 lb gorilla, they'll probably get away with it. -Dave From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 12:48:27 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id LAA28123; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:47:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sws5.ctd.ornl.gov (sws5.ctd.ornl.gov [160.91.68.105]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 88D8417E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:47:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 675268 invoked by uid 3995); 12 Jul 2000 18:55:08 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <14700.48908.759351.552657@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 14:55:08 -0400 (EDT) From: Dave Sill To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? In-Reply-To: References: <200007120800.BAA19266@honor.greatcircle.com> X-Mailer: VM 6.75 under 21.1 "20 Minutes to Nikko" XEmacs Lucid (patch 2) Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab, Oak Ridge, Tenn., USA X-Face: "p~Q]mg{;e*}YR|)&Q/&Q\*~5UWfZX34;5M wrote: >Yes, this appears to be a BestServ software problem. Let's rehash. BestServ is using an authentication mechanism that is RFC legal and has worked for years. Recently, AOL has started munging messages in a way that breaks BestServ's authentication. Therefore, the problem "appears to be a BestServ software problem"? Hello? I can't *believe* anyone would honestly argue that BestServ is in the wrong here, but at the very least, it's a "BestServ and AOL incompatibility problem". >Specifically, when you >join a list using the web based interface (and/or email, maybe) you get a >message of the form > > To: yourmail@xxx.com > Subject: List Auth Request ID= REJECT > >and when you Reply, BestServ wants to see _exactly_ that string in the >Subject, or no dice. That's a silly thing to do No, that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. They have every right to expect their messages to be delivered intact. How would you feel if Microsoft "fixed" the Outlook virus problem by munging MIME headers and turning binary attachments into unreadable text? Would that be a Microsoft problem, or would every other MIME-compatible system on the planet suddenly have broken? >- they should have used a >regexp scannable ID string and look for it in subject or body ignoring >delimiters. Kindly propose a "regexp scannable ID string" that's guaranteed not to mungable by AOL now or any time in the future, given that AOL feels free to munge anything necessary to "protect their users". >I am sure that BestServ could be fixed (at least to ignore a leading . in >the ID) with a one line change, ... Sure, but that's missing the point: AOL broke it, AOL should fix it. >I disagree, because MLM authors have a duty to avoid relying on dangerous >syntaxes like BestServ's pointy-delimited ID string. It's much harder for >AOL to try and be "super-smart" to protect its members from malicious HTML >while not ruffling a hair on BestServ's head, than it is for BestServ to get >a clue and generate a more vanilla confirm ID (and be more generous about >parsing for it afterwards). AOL's problem is its own dangerous HTML e-mail extensions that require Subject munging in order to protect their users. *That's* what should be fixed. Or at least they should only munge potentially dangerous HTML-like constructs. Sheesh. -Dave From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 13:03:31 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id MAA28733; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 12:48:50 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell7.ba.best.com (shell7.ba.best.com [206.184.139.138]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1E4C317E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 12:48:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cnorman@localhost) by shell7.ba.best.com (8.9.3/8.9.2/best.sh) id MAA21086; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 12:56:08 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 12:56:08 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200007121956.MAA21086@shell7.ba.best.com> From: Cyndi Norman To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Cc: cnorman@best.com In-reply-to: (message from Miles Fidelman on Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:16:48 -0400 (EDT)) Subject: Re: legal liability of list managers - what's the latest word? Reply-To: cnorman@best.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:16:48 -0400 (EDT) From: Miles Fidelman I'm a lot more interested in a list owner's liability if a subscriber: - posts copyrighted materials to the list - posts libelous or slanderous materials Would such a suit have merit in court? (judging from the Prodigy case, the answer is "at least under certain circumstances") There have been cases where mailing lists and/or newsgroups have been shut down because the listowner "allowed" subscribers to post copyrighted material to the list. I remember reading about it a couple years ago. I'm sorry I don't have citations for you. I believe it was posted here so if there are archives maybe a search would help. It was also carried by internet news sources so searching the news databases may bring it up. I have never heard of a listowner getting sued for damages for "allowing" copyrighted materials or libelous/slanderous materials. Of course this doesn't mean it didn't happen, just that I haven't seen it. Then there was that case a couple months ago about a not-for-profit website posting copyrighted news articles and this was deemed in violation of copyright law. This isn't quite the same thing since the owners of the site are the violators, but it's a case you should have. Cyndi -- _______________________________________________________________________________ "There's nothing wrong with me. Maybe there's Cyndi Norman something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG) cyndi@consultclarity.com http://www.tikvah.com/ _________________ Owner of the Immune Website & Lists http://www.immuneweb.org/ From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 13:48:27 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA29233; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:44:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from public.lists.apple.com (public.lists.apple.com [17.254.0.151]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 933F917E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:44:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [17.216.27.193] (A17-216-27-193.apple.com [17.216.27.193]) by public.lists.apple.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id NAA29320 ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:55:44 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <14700.49690.238557.725040@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> References: <200007112124.QAA15205@mail.xnet.com> <14700.41353.411837.965455@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> <14700.49690.238557.725040@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:40:44 -0700 To: Dave Sill , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 3:08 PM -0400 7/12/00, Dave Sill wrote: >I disagree. It's wrong for AOL to unnecessarily break BestServ's >authentication mechanism, but they made the change for a reason, not because they were bored. So to answer this would require understanding the problem they were solving, and decide whether the change is a net positive or a net negative. -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 14:03:27 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA29274; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:47:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from public.lists.apple.com (public.lists.apple.com [17.254.0.151]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1745317E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:47:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [17.216.27.193] (A17-216-27-193.apple.com [17.216.27.193]) by public.lists.apple.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id NAA52594 ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:58:45 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <14700.48908.759351.552657@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> References: <200007120800.BAA19266@honor.greatcircle.com> <14700.48908.759351.552657@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:53:50 -0700 To: Dave Sill , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 2:55 PM -0400 7/12/00, Dave Sill wrote: >"Tom Neff" wrote: > >>Yes, this appears to be a BestServ software problem. > >Let's rehash. BestServ is using an authentication mechanism that is >RFC legal and has worked for years. Recently, AOL has started munging >messages in a way that breaks BestServ's authentication. Therefore, >the problem "appears to be a BestServ software problem"? They did it to solve a different problem -- and they did it in a way that's STILL RFC legal. So is the problem that AOL changed it? Or is it that BestServ isn't sufficiently flexible to deal with reasonable changes? Assuming the change is reasonable. As someone who runs lists for a living, and someone who has written a number of them (and hacked on others), in all honesty, if you write a mail server that requires non-munging and is inflexible in reading returned mail that might be tweaked in some way, the mail server is at fault. This is, FWIW, a flaw in majordomo, too, since it's horribly intolerant of even trivial munging, including line-wrapping of the AUTH line in mailback validations. Is it Eudora's fault that it wordwraps to 75 characters and breaks majordomo's auth lines? Or is it majordomo's fault for not for not recognizing that this stuff happens and needs to be considered? Same problem: return mail is munged. Differnt reasons, but same problem. IMHO, in both cases, the list server software is making assumptions that aren't save to assume. the BestServ server has a BETTER case than Majordomo, but basically, it comes down to "is AOL's change a bug, or is this simply a bug in the BestServ software that wasn't tickled before now?". the more I look at this, the more I see it as the latter. >I can't *believe* anyone would honestly argue that BestServ is in the >wrong here, but at the very least, it's a "BestServ and AOL >incompatibility problem". I can, I will, and just did. Because with e-mail, assuming stuff isn't going to be changed is always going to end up failing at some point, if only because you can't trust end users to follow directions properly all the time and/or not make typoes along the way. One wonders how well BestServ handles international character sets and the like, too, since those are likely to munch stuff up, or encode it as well... > > >and when you Reply, BestServ wants to see _exactly_ that string in the >>Subject, or no dice. That's a silly thing to do > >No, that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do. They have every right >to expect their messages to be delivered intact. I think it's a lot more reasonable in the Subject line than in the body, but even subject line munging is an accepted practice, because MLMs do it on a regular basis. >How would you feel if Microsoft "fixed" the Outlook virus problem by >munging MIME headers and turning binary attachments into unreadable >text? It sure is an improvement over executing the viruses like they do now... (chortle) > >- they should have used a >>regexp scannable ID string and look for it in subject or body ignoring >>delimiters. > >Kindly propose a "regexp scannable ID string" that's guaranteed not to >mungable by AOL now or any time in the future, given that AOL feels >free to munge anything necessary to "protect their users". Actually, a better option is to use a delimiter scheme that isn't likely to be misinterpreted by someone else looking for delimiters. Using angle brackes for ANYTHING these days is problematic, unless it's tied down unambiguously by an RFC. And with angle brackets, so many things are doing stuff to HTML these days that it's a matter of time before someone gets confused and messes you up. The delimiters are badly chosen here >Sure, but that's missing the point: AOL broke it, AOL should fix it. AOL made a change to deal with soem other problem, which had this side effect. It's completely unclear that AOL "ought" to fix this, because we don't know the impact of the fix and why they made it. You have a choice of breaking one of two things. Choose one. Breaking neither isn't an option. What do you do? take the break of lesser impact. Sometimes, you CAN'T solve everything for everyone, after all. Life is like that. >Sheesh. agreed, sort of. -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 15:03:28 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA00255; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:01:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ikkoku.maison-otaku.net (ikkoku.maison-otaku.net [216.122.4.125]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8BE3717E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:01:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from michigan (herne.dragoncat.net [216.122.4.136]) by ikkoku.maison-otaku.net (Postfix) with SMTP id 6D151AF82C; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:27:56 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <012601bfec4e$a7fea170$a291facc@kirkland.seattlelab.com> From: "Rachel Blackman" To: "Dave Sill" , References: <200007112124.QAA15205@mail.xnet.com><14700.41353.411837.965455@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> <14700.49690.238557.725040@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:15:14 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk (I know I'm going to regret posting this, but the whole argument is just getting silly.) > Point-to-point e-mail should be sacred though. What I send you should > be delivered to you intact. If you choose to demime it or filter out > naughty words, that's up to you. AOL's millions of users have no > control over the message munging they're doing--other than by > switching ISP's, which is a very high price to expect users to pay. It has never been sacred, though. What if I send a mail with 'From ' at the beginning of a line? Many servers and clients escape this in different ways... some put a > before it... others put a . before it... still others force any message containing 'From' as the beginning of a line as quoted-printable. Does this mean that each of those clients is creating a unilateral standard and breaking other things? Oh, gosh, let's go string up the Forte team, they force messages containing 'From ' at the beginning of a line into quoted-printable! Oh, no, wait, that's okay, let's go string up Mark Crispin and the PINE developers for using '>'! No, wait, let's... My point, mild sarcasm aside, is that whether or not AOL is in the right, they're /hardly/ the first to munge messages to protect users from parsing errors/problems. One thing that almost anyone who has written software to parse or generate e-mail learns quickly is that you have to be willing to accomodate many varying standards. Problems arise in e-mail parsing and generation /frequently/. If there's no standard, then you have to find your own way to solve the problem - hence the dozen or so different methods of escaping 'From ' in e-mail bodies, for example. On this topic in particular, there has been a push anyway to have angle-brackets banned from message subject lines because of the growing number of web-based e-mail providers. Right or wrong, other e-mail providers will start doing similar things. I believe Hotmail already eats all angle-brackets in subject lines, which seems to be equally 'evil' in this context. No, it's not 'right' to break BestServ that way. But on the other hand, I've encountered problems where large providers do something weird that breaks software I write... I find it better to add support for that service in some way so that my users on that service don't get slighted. Sure, I'll talk to the service provider about the problem... but sometimes they'll come back with a legitimate reason. And in the meantime, I have a fix in place so that people can get on with life. The Internet is a lot bigger pond than it used to be, and as a result, the types of data you can /legitimately/ expect to see are exponentially increasing. Examples are more and more clients and services send in HTML format by default; this breaks some older list software that cannot handle multipart/alternative, or which cannot parse HTML. Or for European subscribers who send their mail in extended charactersets... With so many legitimate standards out there, some of them do conflict. And people do define their own extensions... it is a fact of life. When things conflict, people will find ways to work around it... and workarounds sometimes break other standards. It's a fact of life in today's world. So... my recommendation would be that we put aside the 'is AOL wrong' argument and try to help Cyndi find a /solution/ to the problem. My personal recommendation would be to stick a simple little filter in front of the list approval/subscription address, and if you find <. in the message subject, eat that period. If it will stop this argument and let the list get back to something useful, I'll even write the procmail receipe or the script or whatever is needed to do that for Cyndi so we can all get back on with life. :) --Rach From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 16:18:27 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id QAA00918; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 16:17:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from benge.graphics.cornell.edu (benge.graphics.cornell.edu [128.84.247.43]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2390417E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 16:17:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: from benge.graphics.cornell.edu (mkc@localhost) by benge.graphics.cornell.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA75510; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 19:24:21 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from mkc@benge.graphics.cornell.edu) Message-Id: <200007122324.TAA75510@benge.graphics.cornell.edu> To: "Rachel Blackman" Cc: "Dave Sill" , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? In-Reply-To: Message from "Rachel Blackman" of "Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:15:14 PDT." <012601bfec4e$a7fea170$a291facc@kirkland.seattlelab.com> Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 19:24:21 -0400 From: Mitch Collinsworth Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >My >personal recommendation would be to stick a simple little filter in front >of the list approval/subscription address, and if you find <. in the >message subject, eat that period. If it will stop this argument and let >the list get back to something useful, I'll even write the procmail receipe >or the script or whatever is needed to do that for Cyndi so we can all get >back on with life. :) Cyndi's problems statement said she doesn't manage the list server at best and can't implement any programmatic changes we might dream up, even if she wants to. -Mitch From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 16:33:29 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id QAA00991; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 16:28:53 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gw.tssi.com (gw.tssi.com [198.147.197.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id CEB6117E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 16:28:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: from celery.tssi.com (nolan@celery.tssi.com [198.147.197.6]) by gw.tssi.com (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e6CNa8N20428 for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 18:36:08 -0500 Received: (from celery.tssi.com) by celery.tssi.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id SAA05047 for list-managers@GreatCircle.com; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 18:36:06 -0500 From: Mike Nolan Message-Id: <200007122336.SAA05047@celery.tssi.com> Subject: Re: legal liability of list managers To: list-managers@GreatCircle.com (List Managers) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 18:36:06 -0500 (CDT) Reply-To: nolan@tssi.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Mike Godwin's excellent book, _Cyber RIghts_, goes into some of the liability questions, but is not oriented specifically towards list managers. Regarding copyright, my own attorney has advised me to have consistent and appropriate disciplinary policies in place for any copyright violations, along with a stern warning against copyright and trademark violations. As a result, I have announced sanctions include suspension of posting privileges for a few days for a first offense, with stronger sanctions for repeat offenders. I've not had to sanction anyone more than once. Mike is also of the opinion that libel is defensible on the Internet by the offering of an equal opportunity to refute any charges. The one time I've had someone threaten me in this regard, I offered him such an opportunity and he both declined to pursue it and did not take any legal action. Mike's legal theory, as best I understood it, is that the reason libel laws exist is due to unequal opportunity to the offended party to correct the record. The Internet, he argues, is an equal opportunity forum, and as such libel charges might be hard to press. I don't know whether that theory has been sufficiently tested yet, and of course anyone running a list who qualifies as a 'deep pocket defendant' could get sued by someone looking for a monetary award. -- Mike Nolan From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 17:17:12 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA01332; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:02:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell7.ba.best.com (shell7.ba.best.com [206.184.139.138]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2611E17E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:02:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cnorman@localhost) by shell7.ba.best.com (8.9.3/8.9.2/best.sh) id RAA24082; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:09:27 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:09:27 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200007130009.RAA24082@shell7.ba.best.com> From: Cyndi Norman To: sparks@noderunner.net Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM, cnorman@best.com In-reply-to: <012601bfec4e$a7fea170$a291facc@kirkland.seattlelab.com> (sparks@noderunner.net) Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Reply-To: cnorman@best.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk From: "Rachel Blackman" Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 15:15:14 -0700 So... my recommendation would be that we put aside the 'is AOL wrong' argument and try to help Cyndi find a /solution/ to the problem. My personal recommendation would be to stick a simple little filter in front of the list approval/subscription address, and if you find <. in the message subject, eat that period. If it will stop this argument and let the list get back to something useful, I'll even write the procmail receipe or the script or whatever is needed to do that for Cyndi so we can all get back on with life. :) Thanks but if it were just a matter of procmail, I could probably even do it myself (okay, I'd accept your help in a heartbeat, who am I kidding). The problem is I have no access to the mailing list software or the mailing list server. The person who wrote the software no longer works for best/verio. Best basically doesn't exist anymore and verio is even less receptive to actually budgeting money for a staff person to deal with mailing list issues (all the staff who have done it have done it as a favor; only very basic stuff like creating new lists is a real staff duty). I'm not allowed to run my own mailing list software and I am not allowed to get around that limitation by using procmail. Since I don't want my list to end up at egroups or topica, I accept the restrictions. Maybe I can change that if I ever manage to get my web server up (anyone near Oakland know how to set up a Mac server?) but for now I'm stuck. My intention was never to have a "is AOL right or wrong?" discussion. And believe me no one has to point out the limitations of BestServ to me. I just wanted to know, is the problem universal (i.e., not just me), does AOL know about it, what is AOL's reason for doing this, and is there any way AOL will change it? I've got most of these answers and some good guesses for the others. Thanks, Cyndi -- _______________________________________________________________________________ "There's nothing wrong with me. Maybe there's Cyndi Norman something wrong with the universe." (ST:TNG) cyndi@consultclarity.com http://www.tikvah.com/ _________________ Owner of the Immune Website & Lists http://www.immuneweb.org/ From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 17:47:13 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA01674; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:47:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.xnet.com (quake.xnet.com [198.147.221.67]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7A2C717E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:46:55 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [205.243.156.212] (adamb.xnet.com [205.243.156.212]) by mail.xnet.com (8.9.3+Sun/XNet-3.0R) with SMTP id TAA20263 for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 19:54:20 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <200007130054.TAA20263@mail.xnet.com> Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 19:54:19 -0500 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: Adam Bailey Cc: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 7/12/00 12:54 PM, Cyndi Norman wrote... >I'm still hoping to hear from the AOL staff members who I know belong to >this list (or at least some did in the past). I realize I don't work for AOL and don't speak for AOL, but I've given you the information you sought and forwarded your message to the people with the power to do something. -- Adam Bailey | Chicago, Illinois adamb@lull.org | Finger/Web for PGP adamkb@aol.com | http://www.lull.org/adam/ From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 18:02:12 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA01493; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:23:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from public.lists.apple.com (public.lists.apple.com [17.254.0.151]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 619F517E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:23:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by public.lists.apple.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id RAA49942 ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:34:11 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <200007122336.SAA05047@celery.tssi.com> References: <200007122336.SAA05047@celery.tssi.com> Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:29:30 -0700 To: nolan@tssi.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List Managers) From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: legal liability of list managers Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 6:36 PM -0500 7/12/00, Mike Nolan wrote: >Regarding copyright, my own attorney has advised me to have consistent and >appropriate disciplinary policies in place for any copyright violations, >along with a stern warning against copyright and trademark violations. this is what I do (and have always done). My new list rules explicitly say that if you do this, you're responsible for it, also. which may not help on legal liability, but makes it clear what *my* intent is. On the other hand, I don't consider simply saying "it's your fault" is a sufficient policy, because unless you police it, you're implicitly approving it. IMHO, as a layman, I think if you have an anti-copyright policy in place, the liability for an instance of violation lays on the poster, but if someone can show a pattern of violation or a tolerance of a chronic violator, then admin will be found liable, too. >As a result, I have announced sanctions include suspension of posting >privileges for a few days for a first offense, with stronger sanctions >for repeat offenders. I've not had to sanction anyone more than once. Most offenders simply aren't thinking. Policy or no, they just push the button. I rarely have repeat offenders, because once I'm done educating them, they *do* think, and sometimes have to rub their bum from the strap... (virtual strap, of course). >Mike is also of the opinion that libel is defensible on the Internet >by the offering of an equal opportunity to refute any charges. The one time >I've had someone threaten me in this regard, I offered him such an opportunity >and he both declined to pursue it and did not take any legal action. I like that, sort of. I wouldn't want to be the schmuck paying the bills to set the precedent, though. In the couple of cases where I've had problems, I've basically offered them the opportunity to post their side, or have me post it for them. They haven't taken me up on the offer. I also in one case told them that I'd simply have to go to their employer and try to get them fired before they could sue me, since they were silly enough to threaten from a corporate account, and that made them back off the bluster and start talking, and we were able to work the issue out as moderately mature adults (this person is (or since he's since been fired) was a public figure, a legitimate topic of discussion for the list, and not well liked (or, frankly, all that good at what he did), and got tired of the criticism. Some of which was admittedly overboard, but mostly deserved. It would have been an interesting case to watch, but not be part of... -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 20:17:17 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id UAA02971; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 20:09:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from grassyhill.org (grassyhill.org [208.231.0.71]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E071217E8B for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 20:09:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tomw70 (dsl_120w70 [151.202.20.126]) by grassyhill.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id DAA22193 for ; Thu, 13 Jul 2000 03:16:23 GMT (envelope-from tneff@panix.com) From: "Tom Neff" To: Subject: Re: fixing the BestServ problem Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 23:17:16 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6700 In-reply-to: <200007130017.RAA01450@honor.greatcircle.com> Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >Mitch Collinsworth wrote: > Cyndi's problems statement said she doesn't manage the list server at > best and can't implement any programmatic changes we might dream up, > even if she wants to. No, but she could implement the Web/CGI workaround I suggested, where confirm message recipients cut&paste the message into a text box and the CGI script parses out the real ID and finishes the confirm via email. Or she could move the list to a service that (a) doesn't make the mistake of using < > in its Subject lines, (b) has an active working programmer still maintaining its software, or (c) both of these. Given that AOL (a big member segment) is stranded on BestServ lists, I'd consider this option if it were my list. From list-managers-owner Wed Jul 12 21:47:32 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA03665; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 21:39:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from newboy.plaidworks.com (a203.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4DD7117E8B for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 21:39:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by newboy.plaidworks.com (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e6D4kGo11567 for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 21:46:16 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 21:36:28 -0700 To: list-managers@greatcircle.com From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: fyi -- ebay and problem members.. Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Somewhat related to lists (which of us hasn't had that occasional troll that won't take "no" for an answer and runs through all the free-email sites making you crazy?, eBay is trying to set a legal precedent that it can, in fact, kick someone off their site and make them stay off... -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 14 15:38:02 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA03040; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:10:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix, from userid 1013) id BE0A717E8B; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:10:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.uni-essen.de (mail.uni-essen.de [132.252.184.8]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5F48F17E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 09:16:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from uni-bonn.de (ascend3-10.extern.uni-essen.de [132.252.241.10]) by mail.uni-essen.de (8.9.3/8.9.3/4) with ESMTP id SAA102918 for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 18:24:14 +0200 Message-ID: <396C903F.8C4B54C@uni-bonn.de> Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:35:27 +0200 From: Michael Brach X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [de] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: de MIME-Version: 1.0 To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: List-Managers-Digest V9 #113 References: <200007120800.BAA19266@honor.greatcircle.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk - Excuses, for you may find this a little offtopic. If so,please reply personally, not to the list - Managing a few lists for professional associations, I sometines have to sort email addresses. It is very useful - to do this alphabetically from the end of the address - or even better, to divide the address at each dot '.' or at '@', and. Are there tools to do this? Thanks in advance, Michael From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 14 15:52:21 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA03063; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:10:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix, from userid 1013) id 98DF917E8B; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:10:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.tidalwave.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id F19BC17E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 11:07:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id OAA21982 for List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 14:15:56 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 14:15:49 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Message-ID: <20000712141549.A21965@gsp.org> References: <200007121512.LAA83404@larryboy.graphics.cornell.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i In-Reply-To: ; from chuqui@plaidworks.com on Wed, Jul 12, 2000 at 08:39:59AM -0700 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, Jul 12, 2000 at 08:39:59AM -0700, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > If *I* did this, would anyone be screaming at me? Probably not. Yes, in fact, *I* would, though I certainly can't purport to speak for anyone else. I'm screaming at this because it is WRONG *and* because it is only the latest in a long series of such idiotic moves from AOL. See RFC 822, section 3.1.2 "Structure of Header Fields" and 3.1.3, "Unstructured Field Bodies". ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 14 16:07:32 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA03084; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:11:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix, from userid 1013) id 055E017E8B; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:10:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tymix.Tymnet.COM (tymix.tymnet.com [131.146.2.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 4B10117EAF for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:28:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: by tymix.Tymnet.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA09999; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:36:02 PDT Received: from tardis by Tymnet.COM (in.smtpd); 12 Jul 100 13:36:02 PDT Received: (from jms@localhost) by tardis.tymnet.com (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) id NAA14917 for List-Managers@greatcircle.com; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:35:56 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:35:56 -0700 From: Joe Smith To: List-Managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Message-Id: <20000712133556.C15019@tardis.Tymnet.COM> References: <200007120800.BAA19266@honor.greatcircle.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i In-Reply-To: ; from tneff@panix.com on Wed, Jul 12, 2000 at 01:45:26PM -0400 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Wed, Jul 12, 2000 at 01:45:26PM -0400, Tom Neff wrote: > I disagree, because MLM authors have a duty to avoid relying on dangerous > syntaxes like BestServ's pointy-delimited ID string. What exactly is dangerous about angle brackets <> in the Subject: line? > It's much harder for > AOL to try and be "super-smart" to protect its members from malicious HTML How can angle brackets in a subject line be "malicious HTML"? HTML, if present, is in the body of the message, not the headers. -Joe -- Joe Smith WorldCom, Global Data Network Ops, Product Technical Support UNIX and Tech Sup: TYMNET Network, Xstream Packet Services (Public X.25) 2560 N 1st St, MS-5046/746, San Jose, CA 95131 Voice: 408-533-6220 = vnet 854-6220 Fax: 408-533-6702 = vnet 854-6702 From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 14 16:22:30 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA03199; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:17:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix, from userid 1013) id AAD7E17E8A; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:16:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.xnet.com (quake.xnet.com [198.147.221.67]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 15C8417E8D for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:46:57 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [205.243.156.212] (adamb.xnet.com [205.243.156.212]) by mail.xnet.com (8.9.3+Sun/XNet-3.0R) with SMTP id TAA20268 for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 19:54:21 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <200007130054.TAA20268@mail.xnet.com> Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 19:54:21 -0500 x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, January 22, 1998 From: Adam Bailey To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 7/12/00 12:45 PM, Tom Neff wrote... >>The real problem is the authentication message for my mailing list >>software. If I want to run my lists at best.com (and I do) then I have to >>use their software and it uses angle brackets in the subject header. >>Adding a period causes authentication to fail and then all these AOLers run >>to me to subscribe them by hand. > >Yes, this appears to be a BestServ software problem. Specifically, when you >join a list using the web based interface (and/or email, maybe) you get a >message of the form > > To: yourmail@xxx.com > Subject: List Auth Request ID= REJECT > >and when you Reply, BestServ wants to see _exactly_ that string in the >Subject, or no dice. Whatever happened to being liberal in what you accept and conservative in what you send? Subject lines get mangled by bad software, screwed-up mail gateways, and errant users all the time. The important thing is the cookie. So long as it's in-tact, BestServ shouldn't care what else is in the subject line. -- Adam Bailey | Chicago, Illinois adamb@lull.org | Finger/Web for PGP adamkb@aol.com | http://www.lull.org/adam/ From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 14 16:38:01 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA03050; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:10:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix, from userid 1013) id D064D17E8B; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:10:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ntascsg5.intranet.hdr (exchhost.hdrinc.com [206.61.158.100]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B061117E8A for ; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 10:59:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: by ntascsg5.intranet.hdr with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) id <34SGM90R>; Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:06:43 -0500 Message-ID: <81237BCF173ED311951000A0C9E4FEE40150AF79@ntascsg28.intranet.hdr> From: "Tegels, Kent" To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: RE: AOL changing subject headers? Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 13:06:42 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk >>In my opinion, any mail system that changes the contents of a message >>beyond adding the RFC-821 Received header fields is "wrong". I can't agree with this. Take Lyris for example: it allows you to specify a header and a footer appended to each message on a per-list basis. By putting simple "this is how to unsubscribe" messages in the footer, we seem to cut down a lot of chatter. kt -----Original Message----- From: Dave Sill [mailto:de5-list-managers@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov] Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2000 11:49 AM To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Chuq Von Rospach wrote: >Yup. [AOL] are a 500 pound gorilla, but then again, have they violated >any RFC here? It doesn't seem so. I'm not an RFC lawyer, but a quick look 821/822 doesn't turn up anything that prohibits MTA's from arbitrarily munging messages. (!) And, of course, that only covers MTA<->MTA transactions. Once the MTA passes the message off to the MDA (delivery agent), all bets are off. >Just because they're big doesn't mean they're by definition wrong here. And just because they aren't violating an RFC (if, in fact, they aren't) doesn't mean they're right, either. In my opinion, any mail system that changes the contents of a message beyond adding the RFC-821 Received header fields is "wrong". Of course, any mail system that changes even one bit of the message body will break most (all?) digital signature systems. Sure, there are "harmless" header munges like canonifying domain names that won't break anything, but those are definitely the exception. -Dave From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 14 16:52:21 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA02876; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:04:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix, from userid 1013) id 2222817E8A; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:04:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.tidalwave.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3DE0517E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 11:31:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id OAA13850 for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 14:39:57 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 14:39:49 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Charging for spamming Message-ID: <20000711143949.A13773@gsp.org> References: <200007111548.e6BFmlL12987@mail.rev.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i In-Reply-To: <200007111548.e6BFmlL12987@mail.rev.net>; from bernie@fantasyfarm.com on Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 11:48:47AM -0400 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 11:48:47AM -0400, Bernie Cosell wrote: > I was kicking around a thought: what if... the ToS for an ISP included a > reference to the AUP and basically said that there would be an $X > surcharge to a user's account in the event of violations of the AUP, > plus, say, $100/hr of billable time for any work it took on the part of > the support personnel to deal with the problem. Would this be legal? Absolutely. Not only that, it's a common practice with a lot of ISPs who are serious about stopping spammers not only by technological and legal means, but also by making it expensive. I'd suggest having your attorney go over the agreement to make sure that it's contractually binding, and that it specifies where and how disputes over this charge will be settled. I'd also suggest that it not only include a cleanup cost (as you've suggested) but a per-address charge, i.e. $10 per address spammed. If more ISPs would do this and strictly enforce it, we'd do a lot more damage to the scumbags who spam, and their accessories/customers. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 14 17:07:22 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id QAA04118; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 16:48:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from server.postmodern.com (server.postmodern.com [216.240.39.3]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 274E117E8A for ; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 16:48:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from mcb@localhost) by server.postmodern.com (8.8.5/mcb-980201) id QAA03572; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 16:55:47 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200007142355.QAA03572@server.postmodern.com> From: mcb@postmodern.com (Michael C. Berch) Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 16:55:47 +0000 In-Reply-To: <200007130054.TAA20268@mail.xnet.com> X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Adam Bailey writes: > Whatever happened to being liberal in what you accept and conservative in > what you send? Subject lines get mangled by bad software, screwed-up mail > gateways, and errant users all the time. The important thing is the > cookie. So long as it's in-tact, BestServ shouldn't care what else is in > the subject line. I think that there is a conceptual fallacy here that both Adam and Chuq have fallen into, which is that once you allow that MTAs may gratuitously munge the contents of messages in non-reversable ways, you can *never* assure that any given token, cookie, etc., will ever be intact after it passes through the MTA. And, unfortunately, cookies and similar tokens need (by their nature) to be matched literally, as do digital signatures and the like. Munging them breaks them, unless you munge them in standard, reversible ways. Suppose that an MTA decided that "x396" (part of the cookie "" was a reserved word, and therefore needed to be quoted, like "\x\3\9\6", or more realistically, by turning it into quoted-printable? (Actually, the latter, while annoying, is probably OK for a message body since quoted-printable or base64 are standards and can be reversed, while AOL's "<." is neither. (You can't just transform "<." into "<", since "<." might be part of a token.) If AOL wants to propose a transfer-encoding that transforms "<" into "<." for its business purposes, let it do so, and publish it as a standard and get it into MIME-compliant mail implementations, which will then know what to do with it to preserve content. Otherwise, it is just as broken as any software that decides to gratuitously alter content. -- Michael C. Berch mcb@postmodern.com From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 14 17:22:24 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA04281; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 17:03:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from newboy.plaidworks.com (a203.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id AF82017E8A for ; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 17:03:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by newboy.plaidworks.com (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e6F09lo24885; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 17:09:47 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <20000712141549.A21965@gsp.org> References: <200007121512.LAA83404@larryboy.graphics.cornell.edu> <20000712141549.A21965@gsp.org> Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 17:07:56 -0700 To: Rich Kulawiec , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 2:15 PM -0400 7/12/00, Rich Kulawiec wrote: >On Wed, Jul 12, 2000 at 08:39:59AM -0700, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: >> If *I* did this, would anyone be screaming at me? Probably not. > >Yes, in fact, *I* would, well, that's new... (giggle) -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 14 17:24:13 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA02925; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:05:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix, from userid 1013) id 2731B17E8A; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:05:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tymix.Tymnet.COM (tymix.tymnet.com [131.146.2.1]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with SMTP id 5593617E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 18:01:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: by tymix.Tymnet.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA01485; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 18:08:29 PDT Received: from tardis by Tymnet.COM (in.smtpd); 11 Jul 100 18:08:28 PDT Received: (from jms@localhost) by tardis.tymnet.com (8.8.8+Sun/8.8.8) id SAA09584; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 18:08:23 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 18:08:23 -0700 From: Joe Smith To: Adam Bailey Cc: List-Managers@greatcircle.com Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Message-Id: <20000711180823.A15019@tardis.Tymnet.COM> References: <200007112120.QAA13795@mail.xnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i In-Reply-To: <200007112120.QAA13795@mail.xnet.com>; from adamb@lull.org on Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 04:20:53PM -0500 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 04:20:53PM -0500, Adam Bailey wrote: > On 7/11/00 12:29 PM, Cyndi Norman wrote... > problem, but yours seems to be pretty rare. Other than the aesthetics > issue, your authentication problem is the first time I've seen where this > could actually cause a problem. What mailing list manager are you using > that handles authentications as such? Can it be modified? No, it cannot be modified. > Unless this impacts a lot of people, it may not be changed. The problem > AOL is trying to combat appears much more significant. Huh? The problem that Cindi is talking about has to do with AOL mangling the Subject line. Angle brackets inside of subject lines are not HTML. Only angle-bracketed text inside the body of a message can potentially be HTML. I do not have a problem with AOL doing 's/ 2560 N 1st St, MS-5046/746, San Jose, CA 95131 Voice: 408-533-6220 = vnet 854-6220 Fax: 408-533-6702 = vnet 854-6702 From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 14 17:49:28 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id PAA02884; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:04:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix, from userid 1013) id 3CC1A17E8A; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 15:04:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gsp.org (rsk.tidalwave.com [208.211.3.21]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8E2AC17E8A for ; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 13:06:38 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from rsk@localhost) by gsp.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id QAA14752 for List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM; Tue, 11 Jul 2000 16:15:19 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 16:15:13 -0400 From: Rich Kulawiec To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Message-ID: <20000711161513.A14709@gsp.org> References: <200007111729.KAA11678@shell7.ba.best.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i In-Reply-To: <200007111729.KAA11678@shell7.ba.best.com>; from cnorman@best.com on Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 10:29:35AM -0700 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 10:29:35AM -0700, Cyndi Norman wrote: > [...] I consider it AOL's problem, not Best's. I concur. And while I can't pinpoint it at the moment (partially a lack of access and partially a lack of time) I'm pretty sure that munging the 'Subject' line violates the relevant RFC(s). (I'll check that as soon as I get a chance.) IMHO, it's just another example of incompetent and irresponsible behavior from AOL. From the time that "The September that never ended" started, AOL has repeatedly failed to comply not only with Internet standards, but with long-standing Internet practice, and to even attempt to address the concerns of the Internet community vis-a-vis its actions. Yes, every now and then a reasonably clueful and responsible AOL person is seen here, or on Spam-L, or in other forums; and sometimes those people certainly seem to be making every effort to Do The Right Thing. But for the most part, what we get is spin control from AOL's official spokesdroids *after* the latest AOL "enhancement" begins to break things which have operated just fine for many years. This is hardly what I would expect from an organization which has repeatedly claimed to be "the" premier online service. I would expect such an entity to be scrupulously careful about the impact of its service on the entire Internet, and to openly discuss planned changes in the public forums prior to their implementation. Further, I would expect such an entity to provide technological leadership and assist in setting the direction for the growth and improvement of the 'net as a whole, in cooperation with other organizations and individuals. I'm not holding my breath. ---Rsk Rich Kulawiec rsk@gsp.org From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 14 17:51:52 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id RAA04275; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 17:02:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from newboy.plaidworks.com (a203.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.203]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9068117E8A for ; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 17:02:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by newboy.plaidworks.com (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e6F09lo24888; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 17:09:48 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: chuqui@newboy.plaidworks.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <396C903F.8C4B54C@uni-bonn.de> References: <200007120800.BAA19266@honor.greatcircle.com> <396C903F.8C4B54C@uni-bonn.de> Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 17:10:22 -0700 To: Michael Brach , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: List-Managers-Digest V9 #113 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 5:35 PM +0200 7/12/00, Michael Brach wrote: > - to do this alphabetically from the end of the address > - or even better, to divide the address at each dot '.' or at '@', and. >Are there tools to do this? This is pretty simple to do in perl simple stuff each line into a hash where if $addr is the address, then hash{reverse{$addr}) = $addr, and then print it out by sorting the hash. -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Fri Jul 14 19:06:09 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id SAA05186; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 18:32:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from anchor-post-33.mail.demon.net (anchor-post-33.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.91]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id A16CC17E8A for ; Fri, 14 Jul 2000 18:32:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from siberia.demon.co.uk ([158.152.123.170]) by anchor-post-33.mail.demon.net with esmtp (Exim 2.12 #1) id 13DGwK-0006FV-0X for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM; Sat, 15 Jul 2000 02:40:24 +0100 Message-ID: <200007150200.claire.50072277@siberia.demon.co.uk> From: claire@siberia.demon.co.uk (Claire McNab) To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM (List Managers) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 00:00:27 +0100 (BST) Subject: Re: legal liability of list managers In-reply-to: References: <200007122336.SAA05047@celery.tssi.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.54) via PM-Demon V4.04 Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On 12 Jul 00 at 17:29, Chuq Von Rospach wrote: > >Regarding copyright, my own attorney has advised me to have > >consistent and appropriate disciplinary policies in place for any > >copyright violations, along with a stern warning against copyright > >and trademark violations. > > this is what I do (and have always done). My new list rules > explicitly say that if you do this, you're responsible for it, also. > which may not help on legal liability, but makes it clear what *my* > intent is. On the other hand, I don't consider simply saying "it's > your fault" is a sufficient policy, because unless you police it, > you're implicitly approving it. I have a fairly simple catch-all clause for my publicly-archived list, though I don't use it on my closed, private list. The public list (which requires full postal address etc anyway) also requires as a condition of membership that all zubzcribers first write and confirm their acceptance of each of 7 conditions of membership, including: 4/ Your acceptance that messages posted to the [xxxlist] will be publicly archived on the world-wide web. 5/ An assurance that you will indemnify [xxx organisation] against any consequences arising from your use of the [xxxlist], and that you will not use the [xxxlist] to defame anyone or to promote illegal activities. PPl are required to indicate their acceptance of each individual point, just to be sure there is no misunderstanding. It may not be watertight, but it concentrates ppls minds very usefully. However, I guess it would be pretty useless if you didn't also get ppls full contact details too. Best wishes, Claire -- Claire McNab -- Claire@siberia.demon.co.uk From list-managers-owner Sat Jul 15 21:50:09 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id VAA21460; Sat, 15 Jul 2000 21:40:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mx1.eskimo.com (mx1.eskimo.com [204.122.16.48]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id B3C7517E8A for ; Sat, 15 Jul 2000 21:40:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: from eskimo.com (berg@eskimo.com [204.122.16.13]) by mx1.eskimo.com (8.9.1a/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA27860 for ; Sat, 15 Jul 2000 21:48:05 -0700 From: Berg Received: (from berg@localhost) by eskimo.com (8.9.1a/8.9.1) id VAA03564 for List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM; Sat, 15 Jul 2000 21:48:05 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 21:48:05 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200007160448.VAA03564@eskimo.com> To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: AOL changing subject headers? Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk rsk@gsp.org wrote: > This is hardly what I would expect from an organization which has > repeatedly claimed to be "the" premier online service. Perhaps they mean it more along the lines of them being the biggest and best, and the rest of us should follow their lead? (I haven't had all that many dealings with AOL's tech people, but by and large, that's the impression I got from their attitudes the few times I have). From list-managers-owner Sun Jul 16 08:58:38 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id IAA28798; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 08:44:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from grassyhill.org (grassyhill.org [208.231.0.71]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3987017E8B for ; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 08:43:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from TOM (slip-32-100-104-51.ct.us.prserv.net [32.100.104.51]) by grassyhill.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id LAA70886 for ; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 11:51:52 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from tneff@panix.com) From: "Tom Neff" To: Subject: Re: HTML in Subject lines Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 11:52:04 -0400 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6700 In-Reply-To: <200007150800.BAA08173@honor.greatcircle.com> Importance: Normal Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk Joe Smith wrote: > On Wed, Jul 12, 2000 at 01:45:26PM -0400, Tom Neff wrote: > > I disagree, because MLM authors have a duty to avoid relying on > > dangerous syntaxes like BestServ's pointy-delimited ID string. > > What exactly is dangerous about angle brackets <> in the Subject: line? This was already explained, but to recap, some mail clients (notably various versions of AOL) will interpret HTML tags when displaying Subject (and possibly other) email headers. The potential effects range from visual annoyance to actual malicious behavior on the user's PC (see the February CERT advisory). As Adam Bailey points out, the Internet credo (honored in the breach by tiros) is liberal acceptance, conservative emission. In this case that means that what SHOULD happen is (a) email reading software should aggressively escape or "quote" HTML and similar markups found in incoming mail by default, rather than attempting to render them, except where the user has permitted otherwise; (b) email sending software should avoid the use of SGML/HTML "lookalike" markups for their own purposes, and quote/escape any SGML/HTML they do need to send, except in an appropriate MIME envelope. In this case, AOL made a mistake in their email reader, to be sure, and they'll probably get around to fixing it, but it takes a long time to upgrade millions of members and we cannot afford to hold our breaths for the duration. Anyway as List-Managers we are primarily concerned with the SENDING side, and there too, BestServ made a double mistake as I mentioned before: enclosing a parsable token in unquoted angle brackets, and insisting on seeing them sent back untouched along with the confirmation token itself. Unfortunately, BestServ may be deadware and hence unchangeable. If I were a customer I would be moving my lists. The only other workaround I can think of would be to set up an email proxy that front-ended BestServ itself and massaged the Subject headers back into the exact fussy form that the primadonna MLM expects to see. > HTML, if present, is in the body of the message, not the headers. I puzzled over this statement for a minute... I *think* what Joe means is that this is what he thought the rules must say. Actually there is no such rule, since email formatting predates HTML, and HTML's specification is email agnostic. In principle HTML can exist in and CDATA or other readable text field, and in practice when you scour the spools you see it quite a bit outside the safe confines of a message-body MIME envelope. From list-managers-owner Sun Jul 16 10:18:32 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id KAA29520; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 10:03:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from shell7.ba.best.com (shell7.ba.best.com [206.184.139.138]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id E095C17E8A for ; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 10:03:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cnorman@localhost) by shell7.ba.best.com (8.9.3/8.9.2/best.sh) id KAA20998; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 10:11:28 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 10:11:28 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <200007161711.KAA20998@shell7.ba.best.com> From: Cyndi Norman To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Cc: cnorman@best.com Subject: Strange attachment from Outlook Express Reply-To: cnorman@best.com Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I have recieved perhaps half a dozen of these attachments in email, all in the last month or two. To me it looks like a virus because there is javascript...I don't know javascript that well but it looks like it's trying to read your harddrive. I always write people back and tell them to hop over to www.shareware.com and download (and use) some anti-virus software just in case. But I was wondering if anyone had a better explanation and cure for this happening. I believe it only happens when the person is using Outlook Express for the PC. It certainly won't affect my computer (1. I'm on a Mac; 2. I read email through a UNIX shell) but I don't know what it's doing to others. Here are some exerpts for your reading pleasure. They are mangled as best I can without comprimizing readability. I wouldn't want them to execute on anyone's system! I don't have a full copy anywhere...this one came through partially after being attached to a subscription request sent to the server (and yes, the sub processed just fine). Thanks for any insights. The beginning, minus some lines: :!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> :HTML> HEAD> :META content=3D"text/html; charset=3Diso-8859-1" = :http-equiv=3DContent-Type> :META content=3D"MSHTML 5.00.2014.210" name=3DGENERATOR> :BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff> :DIV style=3D"POSITION: absolute; RIGHT: 0px; TOP: -20px; Z-INDEX: 5"> :OBJECT classid=3Dclsid:06290BD5-48AA-11D2-8432-006008C3FBFC=20 :id=3Dscr>subsingle :SCRIPT> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Sun Jul 16 13:19:18 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA01153; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 13:09:45 -0700 (PDT) Received: from beatrice.rutgers.edu (beatrice.rutgers.edu [165.230.209.226]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id F30F617E8A for ; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 13:09:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: from puck2.rutgers.edu (puck2.rutgers.edu [165.230.209.234]) by beatrice.rutgers.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA14233; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 16:32:28 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from easmith@localhost) by puck2.rutgers.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) id QAA02915; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 16:32:27 -0400 (EDT) From: "Allen Smith" Message-Id: <10007161632.ZM2215@puck2.rutgers.edu> Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 16:32:26 -0400 In-Reply-To: Mark Fletcher "Re: egroups" (Jul 3, 7:02pm) References: <200006270455.VAA24033@honor.greatcircle.com> <3958444E.B035AF8@egroups.net> X-Mailer: Z-Mail (3.2.3 08feb96 MediaMail) To: Mark Fletcher , List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: egroups Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk On Jul 3, 7:02pm, Mark Fletcher wrote: > Alan S. Harrell wrote: > > > > I could list several minor issues, but in my way of thinking the only > > major negatives concern the actual business of eGroups. eGroups is not > > in the business of hosting mailing lists. They are in the business of > > selling ads and selling targeted information to information brokers. > > The mailing lists' service are merely the means to their profits. > > > Just a quick correction. We take privacy concerns extremely seriously > and never disclose individual subscriber information to third > parties. How about in response to a subpoena in a nuisance or SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) lawsuit? Thanks, -Allen -- Allen Smith easmith@beatrice.rutgers.edu From list-managers-owner Sun Jul 16 13:33:32 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA01304; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 13:30:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ivan.iecc.com (ivan.iecc.com [208.31.42.33]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with SMTP id EC43917E8A for ; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 13:30:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 8203 invoked by uid 100); 16 Jul 2000 16:38:08 -0400 Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 16:38:07 -0400 (EDT) From: John R Levine To: Miles Fidelman Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: legal liability of list managers - what's the latest word? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk > - slander, libel, and copyright liability for active moderators (like > newspapers, based on the Prodigy case) The Congress specifically reversed the Prodigy case via 47 USC 230 which says: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. I am not aware of any case law that interprets this, though. Note this affects libel and slander, not copyright violations. The DMCA has lots to say about copyrighted material on web sites, but nothing that applies directly to mailing lists. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://iecc.com/johnl, Sewer Commissioner Finger for PGP key, f'print = 3A 5B D0 3F D9 A0 6A A4 2D AC 1E 9E A6 36 A3 47 From list-managers-owner Sun Jul 16 14:03:32 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id NAA01433; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 13:49:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from plaidworks.com (plaidworks.com [209.239.169.200]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0863F17E8A for ; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 13:49:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [209.239.169.197] (a197.plaidworks.com [209.239.169.197]) by plaidworks.com (8.10.1/8.10.1) with ESMTP id e6GKvT127250; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 13:57:29 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <200007161955.e6GJtbS29007@mail.rev.net> References: <200007150800.BAA08173@honor.greatcircle.com> <200007161955.e6GJtbS29007@mail.rev.net> Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 13:50:46 -0700 To: "Bernie Cosell" , From: Chuq Von Rospach Subject: Re: HTML in Subject lines Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk At 3:55 PM -0400 7/16/00, Bernie Cosell wrote: > > >And you're telling me that because some mail clients have implemented >this *IMPROPER* behavior, the behavior is improper in your opinion, Bernie. they've violated no RFCs and what they did is simply arguable. They clearly disagree iwth your opinion, or they wouldn't have done it. -- Chuq Von Rospach - Plaidworks Consulting (mailto:chuqui@plaidworks.com) Apple Mail List Gnome (mailto:chuq@apple.com) And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar and say 'Man, what are you doing here?'" From list-managers-owner Sun Jul 16 14:33:36 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id OAA01689; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 14:17:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mailhub2.liv.ac.uk (mailhub2.liv.ac.uk [138.253.100.95]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D3DC517E8A for ; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 14:17:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from csdinfo2.liv.ac.uk ([138.253.100.91]) by mailhub2.liv.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 2.12 #1) id 13Dvuf-0005bm-00; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 22:25:25 +0100 Received: (from qq11@localhost) by csdinfo2.liv.ac.uk (8.8.7/ajt5) id WAA17265; Sun, 16 Jul 2000 22:25:24 +0100 (BST) Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 22:25:23 +0100 (BST) From: Alan Thew X-Sender: qq11@csdinfo2.liv.ac.uk To: Cyndi Norman Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: Strange attachment from Outlook Express In-Reply-To: <200007161711.KAA20998@shell7.ba.best.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk kak worm (don't have any URLs handy), around for a while, OE is one of the culprits. -- Alan Thew alan.thew@liverpool.ac.uk Computing Services,University of Liverpool Fax: +44 151 794-4442 On Sun, 16 Jul 2000 10:11 , Cyndi Norman said: >I have recieved perhaps half a dozen of these attachments in email, all in >the last month or two. To me it looks like a virus because there is >javascript...I don't know javascript that well but it looks like it's >trying to read your harddrive. > >I always write people back and tell them to hop over to www.shareware.com >and download (and use) some anti-virus software just in case. But I was >wondering if anyone had a better explanation and cure for this happening. > >I believe it only happens when the person is using Outlook Express for the >PC. It certainly won't affect my computer (1. I'm on a Mac; 2. I read >email through a UNIX shell) but I don't know what it's doing to others. > >Here are some exerpts for your reading pleasure. They are mangled as best >I can without comprimizing readability. I wouldn't want them to execute on >anyone's system! I don't have a full copy anywhere...this one came through >partially after being attached to a subscription request sent to the server >(and yes, the sub processed just fine). > >Thanks for any insights. > >The beginning, minus some lines: > >:!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> >:HTML> HEAD> >:META content=3D"text/html; charset=3Diso-8859-1" = >:http-equiv=3DContent-Type> >:META content=3D"MSHTML 5.00.2014.210" name=3DGENERATOR> >:BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff> >:DIV style=3D"POSITION: absolute; RIGHT: 0px; TOP: -20px; Z-INDEX: 5"> >:OBJECT classid=3Dclsid:06290BD5-48AA-11D2-8432-006008C3FBFC=20 >:id=3Dscr>subsingle >:SCRIPT> Too many people, too few sheep <-- From list-managers-owner Mon Jul 24 04:48:11 2000 Received: (majordom@localhost) by honor.greatcircle.com (8.8.5/Honor-Lists-980720-1) id EAA00926; Mon, 24 Jul 2000 04:44:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sws5.ctd.ornl.gov (sws5.ctd.ornl.gov [160.91.68.105]) by honor.greatcircle.com (Postfix) with SMTP id B5C2C17E8A for ; Mon, 24 Jul 2000 04:44:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 164630 invoked by uid 3995); 24 Jul 2000 11:53:58 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <14716.11862.318082.133536@sws5.ctd.ornl.gov> Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 07:53:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Dave Sill To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM Subject: Re: List-Managers-Digest V9 #113 In-Reply-To: <200007222018.e6MKIFP14547@mail.rev.net> References: <396C903F.8C4B54C@uni-bonn.de> <200007222018.e6MKIFP14547@mail.rev.net> X-Mailer: VM 6.75 under 21.1 "20 Minutes to Nikko" XEmacs Lucid (patch 2) Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab, Oak Ridge, Tenn., USA X-Face: "p~Q]mg{;e*}YR|)&Q/&Q\*~5UWfZX34;5M wrote: >No, actually... unless I"m missing something subtle in the sort args, the >list is sorted by *host*, and so all the mail.* hosts are lumped >together, regardless of domain, etc. rather than really sorting 'by >domain' which usually means dot-segment-right-to-left, so all the '.au's >are at the top, the '.edu's toward the middle and the '.za's at the end, >all of the *.hp.com and *.microsoft.com addresses sorted together, etc. > >It isn't all that easy to do. It's easy if you've got "rev", which reverses the order of characters in a line: rev ; Mon, 24 Jul 2000 09:47:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: by aragorn.stryder.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) id ; Mon, 24 Jul 2000 11:57:05 -0500 Message-ID: <51636DCAC862D1119AD700805FA982AD120D@aragorn.stryder.com> From: David Schnardthorst To: "'list-managers@greatcircle.com '" Subject: message_fronter not working Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 11:57:04 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM Precedence: bulk I cannot get the message_fronter to work when using resend in /etc/aliases. I have also tried using message_footer as well. I need this to work to display a couple of lines about the list. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, David J. Schnardthorst Phone: (636) 928-0264 Mobile: (314) 974-0932 Email: daves@eregion.org http://www.eregion.org