Robert A. Costner wrote:
At 07:45 AM 12/2/97 -0600, TruthMonger wrote:
So what's the problem? Has everyone forgotten how to use their delete key? Does nobody have anything better to do with their time and resources than to waste them being offended by people who are trying to offend them?
Well TruthMonger (if that is your real name,) I think you are missing the point. For purposes of the discussion, no one cares about the content of the messages, who or why they are being sent, nor is anyone bothered by anything concerning the message itself. What's being discussed is scarce resources of remailer operators.
I was responding to Bill and Lance's comments in regard to forgery victims being set up as targets of retribution. I think references to "deplorable content" indicate some measure of judgement in regard to defining what is considered 'abuse' of a remailer. However, you are right about the thread basically dealing with the reprecussions to the remailer operators and their resources as an end result of the particular modes of remailer use. At the risk of actually being on-topic in a thread, I should point out that I have always been of the opinion that it is up to the individual remailer operators to judge what level and types of use they are able to provide as a service with their given time and resources.
Most remailers are operated with donated time and resources. Problems with the remailer, especially artificially generated ones, are just simply not desired.
True, but I doubt that the artificially generated attacks on a remailer are possible to fully deter, no matter what convolutions one puts themselves through in order to stop it. I can post the following to USENET: From: JoeBlow@hotmail.com To: All USENET Groups Subject: Robert A. Costner uses his remailer for hate attacks -----Begin Forwarded Message----- Received: from anon.lcs.mit.edu (anon.lcs.mit.edu [18.26.0.254]) Delivered-To: remailer-operators@anon.lcs.mit.edu Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19971202094253.037e0654@mail.atl.bellsouth.net> X-Sender: rcostner@mail.atl.bellsouth.net Date: Tue, 02 Dec 1997 09:42:53 -0500 To: remailer-politics@server1.efga.org From: "Robert A. Costner" <pooh@efga.org> Subject: I Hate People Of All Colors, and I Kill Their Children <blah, blah, blah> -----End Forwarded Message----
Perhaps it is just me, but if my phone rings because of some message on the Cracker remailer, then I don't care for it happening and I get offended. When last month a prosecutor for the Attorney General's office called me about a packet of material he had received on Cracker, I didn't care for the call. It interrupted a phone call I was having with the communications director of his ex-boss who is now running for Governor. Clearly, it cuts into time I have to do other things.
If you are in a position where it is unwise for you to simply tell certain people, "Learn how to use a Delete key, shit for brains!" then this is obviously a personal cost to you for your connection to the Cracker remailer. Everything you do cuts into the time you have to do other things. Personally, I appreciate the time and resources you provide for supporting remailer services. However, when I email politicos and other public figures I often advise them that they can only fuck so many people for so long before the lynch mob is going to show up on their doorstep and I don't want to hear them whining about their fate in life. I sometimes use a remailer, even when I cc: public mailing lists (thus making the source/identity of the post/poster obvious), just because I find that there are many self-important jerkoffs who love to fuck with people for the smallest of reasons, unless it actually requires them to make a real effort to do so. Feel free to provide my email and/or home address to any legal entity who has a problem with anonymous posts from my shallowly disguised identity, but you might want to warn them that unless their penis is long enough to reach to their own asshole, they are not likely to profit from any suggestion I might make to them.
When a police detective calls, not only do I have to explain about remailers and answer his questions, but I have to spend time making him prove he's a policeman before I tell him I can't tell him anything. This can take two or more phone calls and waste even more of my time.
Tell them you'll send them a faq/fax for their edification, and to contact you again only if they are too ignorant to understand the basic concepts. And why do you have to make him prove he's a policeman in order not to tell him anything? When I deal with John Law I tell them that I will be happy to deal with them at my convenience, unless they can provide a reasonable need for expediency. Their alternative is to explain to a judge why they arrested you for considering your own time as valuable as theirs, and giving you cause to refuse to cooperate, in the process.
So why am I getting these phone calls and email messages? What is needed to make them stop? I don't even run a remailer!
You're a public figure. You're getting your fifteen minutes of 'flame'.
-- Robert (Spam Me!) Costner
TruthMonger (Or so I would have you believe...)