June 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

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by Sam Gawad 13 Jun '01

13 Jun '01

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ORBS sucked into a black hole!
by George＠Orwellian.Org 13 Jun '01

13 Jun '01

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/06/08/orbs/print.html # # A spam cop goes AWOL # # The ORBS blacklist, a controversial tool for stopping unsolicited # e-mail, is suddenly inaccessible. # # - - - - - - - - - - - - # # By Damien Cave # # June 8, 2001 | Spam fighters all over the world have lost a # controversial weapon in the battle against unsolicited e-mail. # Since June 1, the Web site for ORBS -- the Open Relay Behavior # Modification System -- has been gutted. Visitors to the site # now find nothing more than a gray blank page and a simple message: # "Due to circumstances beyond our control, the ORBS website is # no longer available." # # ORBS's main service was a blacklist of Internet mail servers # -- computers capable of routing mail across the Net -- that the # ORBS administrator, Alan Brown, had identified as potentially # capable of forwarding spam. Now that blacklist is no longer # available to network administrators, and they want to know why. # One popular theory mooted on the Net is that Brown closed down # the site rather than comply with a New Zealand court order # demanding that he remove two specific ISPs from the blacklist. # But Brown, who lives in New Zealand, is keeping silent. "I am # unable to answer any of your questions," he writes in an e-mail. # "Sorry." # # Even without an explanation, the demise of ORBS is significant, # stirring up, once again, an ongoing worldwide debate over how # best to administer the Internet and mediate the Net's intersection # of humanity and technology. Questions about ORBS's behavior always # centered on the problem of how to handle e-mail abuse. But more # generally, ORBS symbolized the ongoing struggle between the Net's # tendency to encourage individual freedom and the necessity of # combating anarchy. # # Ever since the Net moved beyond its roots as a small, open, # academic community, users have attempted to balance opposing # forces. Most favor the right to speak out, along with the right # to privacy; they rail against censorship, but at the same time # desperately seek the ability to censor unsolicited e-mail by # limiting spammers' access to their networks. # # ORBS supporters say the blacklist was a fully justified form # of preventive medicine. Brown saw his mission as identifying # every mail server on the Net that allowed "open relays" -- in # essence, that permitted the forwarding of mail from one point # on the Net to another without any restriction. Spammers love # open relays; they employ them to hide their identities and funnel # out massive amounts of e-mail for free. But at the same time # the open relays bog down the system for other customers. # # Brown used simple software agents and diagnostic probes to comb # the Internet, looking for mail servers configured for open # relaying. Whenever he found one, Brown would post the Internet # protocol (IP) address on his list -- even if the address had # never been used by a spammer. ISPs, systems administrators and # everyday citizens who configured their computers to block # addresses listed on ORBS could then close off a spammer's favorite # distribution tool even before the spammer knew it existed. # # More controversial, Brown also placed on his list servers that # blocked his probes, whether or not he could ascertain if they # had open relays. ORBS supporters say such a policy was the only # way to keep a flood of open-relay-capable servers from pumping # spam across the Net. The end, they argue, justified the means. # # The immediate impact of the ORBS shutdown could mean more spam, # says Michael LeFevre, a London technology company executive. # "I've received four spams since ORBS went down last week," he # says. "I only received two or three previous to that this year." # # But not everyone is sorry to see the site go. ORBS has plenty # of critics. ORBS wasn't just a useful technology, they say; it # was also a tool used by a specific person, Alan Brown, an # overzealous spam fighter who went too far. ORBS's own ISP pulled # the plug on Brown in 1998 after receiving complaints about the # way that Brown used probes to test servers for open relays. # Although another ISP agreed to host ORBS soon afterward, Brown's # detractors say that he never learned his lesson: He repeatedly # insisted that he had the right to test servers as often as he # wanted. # # "Alan Brown created some nice technology -- nobody faults him # on that point," says Tom Geller, founder of Suespammers.org, # a nonprofit group that lobbies for strict spam legislation. "But # he used it in an irresponsible way, invading others' private # networks and using others' resources against their stated wishes." # He became a living contradiction -- a man who, says Geller, "used # others' network resources to prove that it's wrong to use others' # network resources." # # Before the scourge of spam, the Net was a less contentious place. # Until the early '90s, open relays were not uncommon. In fact, # they were the norm. # # "I remember when you'd get funny looks for running a mail server # that wasn't an open relay," says "Der Mouse," a Canadian # spam-fighting veteran who refused to give his off-line name. # "I remember when there was a machine on the Net that was # advertised as having no password on its administrative log-in. # Want a guest log-in? Log in and create yourself one. I remember # when the Net was a friendly and civilized place." # # "Today it is more of an armed camp, suspicious of everyone," # he continues in an e-mail. "The Net I knew and loved is dead, # killed by uncivilized greedy incompetents who came barging in, # without caring that when you barge into a foreign culture it # behooves you to learn how they do things. This would not have # been a problem, except that they arrived in sufficient numbers # to overload the mechanisms that normally would have either brought # newcomers up to speed on the culture or rejected them; as a result # they killed off the culture we had, the only culture I've ever # seen work based on mutual friendship and helpfulness on a large # scale." # # Spam signified the death of the original Net culture, Der Mouse # and others argue. By the mid-'90s, systems administrators started # fighting it by closing off open relays. Shutting the pipes made # it harder for, say, employees of a company to log on to their # corporate network from home, but by limiting who could use the # network, closed relays also kept spammers out. This, in turn, # saved companies and individuals money, since open relays # essentially let anyone borrow servers and bandwidth without having # to pay for them. # # But some network administrators moved slower than others. So # ORBS appeared, with a mission to move them along. At first, most # people on the Net welcomed the service. Open relays were sometimes # hard to find, and ORBS worked more quickly than other # spam-fighting lists. The Mail Abuse Prevention System's Realtime # Blackhole List, for example, acts like an after-the-fact plug. # Its main list contains domain names that spam has already been # sent from, and MAPS only adds servers to its list after the system # administrator of the offending mail server has been given a chance # to close the hole but hasn't done it. # # ORBS, on the other hand, "tested relays and listed them # immediately," says William James, a computer consultant in # Mississippi. "No negotiation, no notice. It was fast. Someone # running an open relay ran the risk of losing a substantial amount # of traffic without any notice." # # Over time, however, Brown's pace and intensity started alienating # the very people who sympathized with his cause. John Oliver, # a systems administrator in San Diego, remembers butting heads # with Brown in early 1999. ORBS probes invaded his servers and # tested them for 45 minutes, over and over again. The probes # returned and retested a few days or weeks later, "as often and # as frequently as they saw fit," Oliver says. # # Each day that the tests ran, Oliver's server logs lengthened. # He received pages and pages of server activity that directly # resulted from Brown's tests. "It was annoying because since I # wasn't running an open relay, it was wasting my time," he says. # "And, of course, I didn't appreciate the implicit accusation # that I was an irresponsible admin." # # Brown regularly tested servers without any evidence of wrongdoing, # says Der Mouse. "Let me be precise: He repeatedly 'tested' my # home mail server, and if he had any reason to think it had ever # relayed spam, he steadfastly refused to produce it," he says. # "He also repeatedly did so after I explicitly denied him # permission to do so." # # MAPS also had a run-in with ORBS. In 1999, MAPS listed ORBS on # its Realtime Blackhole List, in response to several complaints # about the way that ORBS was supposedly abusing networks. The # group removed ORBS and stopped blocking it from its own servers # three months later, but not before ORBS threw MAPS into its own # black hole. Even Suespammers.org found itself blocked over a # dispute with ORBS. Until the day the list died, spam fighters # who used Brown's list couldn't access the Suespammers site, a # major resource that might have helped them in their war on # unsolicited e-mail. # # "Alan's problem is that he was so convinced that testing was # necessary that he felt that anyone who didn't want him testing # their systems, as often as he wanted to, was somehow just as # bad as an actual open relay," says Peter Seebach, a systems # administrator who subscribes to several spam-fighting mailing # lists. "This is where I drew the line; without any spam coming # through a system, and with the admin's request that he not test # it, he had no business hitting systems over and over again. I # don't see a meaningful distinction between what he did and what # script kiddies do with root scripts" that attempt to break into # a system. # # Is what ORBS did really so bad? In essence, ORBS was nothing # more than a list of servers that Brown checked and decided to # block from connecting with his network -- which is one suggested # recipe for spam fighting. Doesn't Brown have the right to protect # his network by blocking whomever he wants to? Doesn't he have # the right to publish a list of whom he's blocking? # # People who rail against Brown are ignoring the implications of # their argument, says "Afterburner," manager of the e-mail abuse # department for a large ISP. ORBS may have been run "in a # particularly unethical way," he says, but that doesn't mean that # Brown should be silenced. # # Rather, everyone should have "the unfettered right to publish" # a blacklist, regardless of how it is organized, he says. Probes # don't damage a network, and "nobody is required to use your list # if they don't want to," he says. "The situation is somewhat # analogous to the idealized free market: If you put out a list # that's worth using, people will use it. If you put out a list # that is not worth using, people will not use it." # # But ORBS doesn't quite fit Afterburner's paraphrase of the # libertarian ideal. The list was worth using; blocking the servers # ORBS listed cut down on spam. Yet those who used the list as # a tool against unwanted e-mail didn't necessarily have to pay # the costs, which came in the form of ORBS's probes. In other # words, Brown's approach looks a lot like a spammer's: He invaded # others' networks without consent, offering benefits without costs. # # Even worse, critics argue, Brown went one step further, blocking # servers that didn't have open relays, and adding them to a list # that he knew would keep traffic from them. There is, for example, # the Xtra Mail lawsuit in New Zealand, which Brown's critics say # was a direct result of Brown's unethical practices. # # Essentially, Brown added Actrix and Xtra Mail's servers to his # blacklist after they blocked his probes. He reportedly had no # evidence that they used open relays. Actrix and Xtra Mail sued, # and on May 24 they won. The New Zealand High Court ordered Brown # to remove Xtra Mail's servers from the ORBS database. # # Brown then said that he would comply, but he remained unrepentant. # "ORBS policy is that if you threaten ORBS you'll be manually # listed," he said, according to a story in IDG New Zealand. # "Telecom [Actrix and Xtra Mail's parent company] threatened me # with legal action for two years." # # Those who have tangled with Brown aren't surprised at his stance. # And they don't have a problem with his philosophy, or with his # argument that he has a right to form a policy and block whomever # he wants. They argue, however, that the policy has to be carried # out with honesty. # # "The list wasn't what it was purported to be," says Oliver, of # San Diego. "If you employ a list called the Open Relay Behavior # Modification System to protect your server from spam, you expect # that list to block open relays and nothing else. But that isn't # what you got with ORBS. You got open relays blocked as well as # anyone who had attracted the personal enmity of Mr. Brown." # # Ultimately, Oliver says, the Net should be glad to see ORBS go # because it lacked the basic values of the old Internet -- truth, # respect and freedom. "It's extremely dangerous to support the # use of a tool when the cost for its use includes the loss of # a liberty," he says. # # Still, many of Brown's critics argue that ORBS's technology # shouldn't go to waste. The list is already mirrored on at least # one site, and some predict that another administrator -- someone # with a bit more restraint -- will clean it up and maintain it. # If he or she does, perhaps that individual, and other # technologists, will learn from Brown's mistakes, says Geller # at Suespammers.org. # # "Any technical endeavor that ignores social aspects is doomed # to failure," he says. "It's like making soup without liquid."

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RMS on Open Society
by Jim Choate 13 Jun '01

13 Jun '01

http://www.openoffice.org/editorial/ec8June.html James Choate Product Certification - Operating Systems Staff Engineer 512-436-1062 jchoate(a)tivoli.com

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Claim your FREE Cell Phone!
by AT&T 13 Jun '01

13 Jun '01

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Claim your FREE Cell Phone!
by AT&T 13 Jun '01

13 Jun '01

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Claim your FREE Cell Phone!
by AT&T 13 Jun '01

13 Jun '01

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Claim your FREE Cell Phone!
by AT&T 13 Jun '01

13 Jun '01

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Anonymous Email Example 1
by Secret Squirrel 13 Jun '01

13 Jun '01

Toad, Toad, Everywhere A Toad Toad.

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Fixing ORBS, and spam-proofing open relays.
by Trei, Peter 13 Jun '01

13 Jun '01

Instead of bitching about ORBS (which certainly behaves sub-optimally), I'd like to suggest that we discuss how a 'better' spam blocklist could be operated. Who knows - maybe someone could set one up to follow good practices. Under the right circumstances, high-quality information can drive out bad. [For the record, I'm not as exercised about email spam as are many people - it takes me less time each day to trash the electronic junk mail than it does to sort out the paper kind, despite an internet presence stretching back decades, and posting to both mailing lists and Usenet with my real address. My main objection to spam is that I don't want sexually explicit email arriving in my 10 year old daughter's inbox]. I'd like to suggest that if ORBS gave a little more information about *why* a given site was listed, and sites where thus able to implement their own policies over what parts of the list to use, then that would be a far more equitable situation. For example, instead of just saying 'Don't accept mail from X. ...it gave a reason (here is a non-exhaustive list). * X maintains an unlimited open relay. * X blocks our attemps to check it. * Spam has come from X in the last month. * X maintains an open relay, but the the owner has implemented spam throttling measures. ... then the system would be much more acceptable. ------------------- BTW, I expect that it should be possible to spam-proof an open relay, by tinkering very slightly with the protocol implementation. For example: if a server required a 10 second pause between successive RCPT commands, then a message to a single recipient would pass without problems, but a spammer trying to send to many people would be blocked. There are *many* other ways to tinker with the protocol implementations which would let legitimate users send mail without difficulty, using normal agents, but which would make the spammers' life far more difficult. Peter Trei

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BRITISH SPIES: WE'RE PART OF UKUSA
by Bo Elkjaer 13 Jun '01

13 Jun '01

The british parliament have acknowledged membership of the UKUSA agreement. It happened in the annual report 1999-2000 from the Intelligence and Security Comittee. Link: http://www.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm48/4897/4897.htm The danish primeminister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen was handed the report in march, but apparantly decided to try to bury it. The following article was printed in Ekstra Bladet today. Yours Bo Elkjaer, Denmark BRITISH SPIES: WE ARE PART OF UKUSA The British intelligence service has admitted for the first time that they cooperate with the USA on surveillance through the UKUSA agreement. For several months now, Denmark's prime minister has had proof that the surveillance agreement behind Echelon exists. Poul Nyrup Rasmussen has had an official British acknowledgement of the spy agreement behind Echelon in his possession for several months. The British confirmation is in writing, and it confirms the fact that the British and the Americans cooperate closely on intelligence assignments under the UKUSA agreement. The UKUSA cooperation is accused of standing behind the Echelon system, and it is the first time that any of the involved parties officially mention the existence of the controversial agreement whose precise contents are still classified. The Intelligence and Security Committee of the British Parliament mentions the close cooperation in its annual report for 1999-2000. The report was delivered to Great Britain's prime minister Tony Blair in August of last year, but Denmark's prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen has known about the report since March of this year at least. 'The quality of the compiled intelligence clearly indicates the value of this close cooperation under the UKUSA agreement,' says the official British report, which subsequently, and in great detail, reveals how close the cooperation between the British and the Americans actually is. The report mentions as an example that the British took over the assignments of the USA's National Security Agency (NSA) for three days in 2000, when the NSA's computers broke down. For three days, the British were capable of servicing their own 'clients', as well as the USA's, by tapping telefaxes, e-mails and phone conversations. The British report confirms in writing the very same issues about which several Danish parties have been trying to get Denmark's prime minister, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, to ask Great Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair: whether the US and Great Britain are cooperating on surveillance. NOT MY TABLE Through a secretary, prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen refuses to comment. He refers the matter to the Ministry of Defence. Yet in spite of Nyrup's referral, Minister of Defence Jan Trøjborg is also unwilling to comment on the Echelon case that is putting the government under increasing pressure. The chairman of the Socialist Party, Holger K. Nielsen, informs Ekstra Bladet that he will try to force Poul Nyrup Rasmussen to contact Tony Blair regarding an Echelon inquiry, possibly by going around the government to get a majority: "They might as well do it now. The pressure from the parties will continue to increase. It's unreasonable that this information should just be quietly ignored. Is it acceptable that with the information now in its possession the government keeps refusing to inform the public, to organise any kind of investigation or merely to send an inquiry to Great Britain? "No, it is not acceptable. In my opinion, they should contact Great Britain in the form of an inquiry," says Holger K. Nielsen. "This affair concerns the European countries, and I find it very unacceptable that Great Britain is hedging its bets here." "The Echelon Report from the European Parliament particularly emphasises the industrial conflicts between the USA and Europe. In my opinion, Great Britain is playing Trojan Horse in this game, which is unacceptable. Hopefully, the government will realise that they must react." Do you think they will? "They appear quite intractable. But in light of the fact that the European Parliament places such a high priority on the case, they can't keep avoiding the issue." DEMANDS CLARITY Prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen learned about the British report, which confirms the intelligence cooperation, in March in connection with an official question asked in a session of parliament. The question to the prime minister was submitted by member of parliament Keld Albrechtsen after Ekstra Bladet had sent a copy of the annual report of the British intelligence agency to Mr Albrechtsen for a comment. Instead, Mr Albrechtsen chose to formulate a question to the prime minister, who replied one month later, on 26 April 2001. In his reply, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen merely stated that neither the Danish Defence Intelligence Service nor the Police Department's intelligence service are willing to comment on the cooperation agreements of other countries in the intelligence field. Thus two other highly placed ministers must know about the global surveillance, i.e. Minister of Justice Frank Jensen and Minister of Defence Jan Trøjborg. A few days ago, Helge Adam Møller, MP for the Conservative Party, tried to get a majority of parliament to force Nyrup Rasmussen to ask Blair about Echelon. The Liberal Party refused to support the proposal however. Ekstra Bladet asked the Liberal Party's spokesman in the area whether it was acceptable that the government refused to inform the general public about Echelon or to ask the British about the matter. "What is seriously unacceptable is that the government has trouble deciding what to inform the parliament about," says Kristian Jensen. "The Radical Liberal Party in the government says that Denmark should do something about Echelon and the Social Democrats say it doesn't even exist. It is unacceptable to us that the government can't make up its mind on the issue. Therefore, our first demand is that the government should get control over its own legs and agree on what it knows about Echelon and on what it intends to tell the Danish parliament," says Kristian Jensen. "So we're looking for some clear answers from the government as to what it can tell us about Echelon and what the government's position actually is." After Ekstra Bladet's disclosure, Knud Erik Hansen of the Socialist Party will now request a meeting with Poul Nyrup Rasmussen on the matter. -- EOT

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