At 9:55 AM -0500 2/16/01, Trei, Peter wrote:
[Apologies in advance for the multiple posting; this had to get to everyone -pt]
Jim (and other cypherpunk node operators):
The spate of "Mail Delivery Failure" messages we've been seeing for the last few days are due to messages sent to a user "rob@nihilist.com", apparently a very temporary (and now dead) web mail address at www.another.com.
I've exchanged mail with the postmaster (richard@uk.another.com), and he clearly regards this as Someone Elses Problem, and has no intention of ceasing to send the bounce notices.
I strongly advise everyone running a cpunk node to check for, and delete rob@nihilist.com. It's not like he/she/it can't resubscribe if they want to.
Sigh.... Yet Another Attack now exists against the cypherpunks S/N ratio.
This is actually Just an Old Attack. It used to be that either Eric Hughes or Hugh Daniel would periodically delete addresses which caused problems like this. (I'm talking about the period 1992-1996.) After the "CDR Era" began, with the main CDR unfiltered nodes echoing the traffic sent to _any_ of the other nodes, this pretty much stopped. Since then, anytime anyone brings up the issue of how to fix the spam and cluelessness problems, screams, usually from Choate, are heard that this is "censorship." Yes, procmail and Eudora-type filtering offer various ways to not see the bounces, much of the spam, etc. But the list is now at the point where more than half of the unfiltered traffic is spam or bounces or "help me make bombz so i can get yur site shut down" requests. There have long been several "noncensorious" approaches: 1. Only subscribers can post, plus anything that comes from an identifiable remailer. Many mailing lists already work this way, of course. The remailer addresses can be entered manually, with CDR operators exchanging updated lists of known remailers. ZKS and similar privacy systems can presumably be handled in some way. 2. A "magic word" in the text or subject line. Instead of Choate adding "CDR:" to all of the signal + noise that reaches his system, wouldn't it be more interesting if _authors_ added such a word--even CDR, ironically enough!--to their message headers? (The idea of both of the above is that spammers and clueless bombz dewdz would probably not know enough to either subscribe to the list or to insert the magic word.) 3. Wider use of downstream-filtered services, like Ray Arachelian's service. I have sometimes thought about dropping my subscription to one of the CDR nodes and subscribing to Ray's service instead, but I have several reservations. First, whether it will remain in operation. Second, what the lag time is. Third, his is a "this is what I think is interesting" service, so there are obvious problems of his interests not matching mine, or even of my own posts not being seen by me because he has elected not to pass them on. A more interesting downstream filter service would be something operated as an automated site, like another CDR node, except that it automatically filters out nonsubscribers to one of the main lists. (This requires no cooperation with the other CDR nodes, provided the whois function can retrieve their subscribers.) This service should be low-latency, which rules out a human critic deciding which posts are worthy of passing on. And it should The "magic word" approach cannot be used in isolation, as it only works if a very large fraction of the interesting list memmbers are using the magic word. If one of you folks out there does this--sets up this kind of low-latency filtering of nonsubscribers, plus inclusion of anonymous or remailed or ZKS/Mojo-type posts--then I will subscribe to your service. A more ambitious approach might give options for filtering, at a fairly coarse granularity. Not individual posters, but, say, "Don't pass on any traffic from toad.com." But just the "subscribers to any CDR node plus anonymous" filter would be the key step in eliminating the spam and bounces and unwelcome bombz dewdz. (Choate can presumably be counted on to start foaming about how I am proposing censorship and that if I would like such a service I should build one myself. Happily, I won't see his foamings.) Consider this an invitation for someone to try doing this. And if someone is already doing this, you need to advertise more! --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns