Re: [eff-austin] Antispam Bills: Worse Than Spam?
For this to be taken seriously one must be able to -define spam- as if it were a mathematical entity (eg a 'point'). It must be absolutely differentiable from -all- other speech. You can't do that, nobody can. Anti-spam bills are worse than spam because they put transient feelings of anger above the principles of freedom. Freedom is -not- free! On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, Carl Webb wrote:
Antispam Bills: Worse Than Spam?
By Ryan Singel | Also by this reporter Page 1 of 2 next ;
03:55 PM Jul. 30, 2003 PT
While no one has sympathy for the devils that fill inboxes with promises of lower mortgages and larger members, not everyone is supporting the new movement to banish spammers from the Internet.
Some online advocates worry that heavy-handed antispam measures, such as centralized blacklists and charging for delivery, will destroy e-mail. Advertisement
* Story Tools
[Print story] [E-mail story]
Electronic Frontier Foundation's head counsel Cindy Cohn, for instance, argues that antispam crusaders are forgetting the Internet's first principle -- information flows freely from end to end. Cohn fears that the Internet's openness will be collateral damage in the war against unwanted e-mail.
Cohn says her organization's position on spam blocking can be boiled down to a simple proposition: "All nonspam e-mail should be delivered." It's an information age take on the Hippocratic oath, which requires doctors to first do no harm.
"It's not the job of an ISP to block e-mail," added Cohn. "E-mail isn't a toy anymore. If I don't get an e-mailed notice from the federal district court mailing list, it's malpractice."
Even some who sell antispam software to companies say that ISPs shouldn't be blocking mail.
"Blocking e-mails is folly," said Brian Gillette, whose company sells an enterprise-level, antispam appliance called trimMail Inbox. "If I'm an ISP and I stop a $150,000 equipment sale because I decided it was spam, I'm in for a lawsuit."
Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, worries that the ability to speak anonymously on the Internet is being put at risk by federal antispam legislation.
Howard Beale of the Federal Trade Commission told House members at a recent hearing on proposed antispam legislation that "spam threatens to destroy e-mail."
Several of the bills currently under consideration would make it illegal to mask a sender's identity or forge routing information, both of which are tricks used by spammers to avoid the ire of those who receive their e-mails. But it's also a tactic used by dissidents in countries with repressive governments who want to communicate with like-minded individuals.
"Many of these bills criminalize a message header that isn't accurate," said Johnson. "That's not fraud. If you send out messages through an anonymizer, then you could get sent to jail."
Cohn concurs, arguing that the bills criminalize the behavior of people -- such as closeted gay teens or government whistle-blowers -- who have legitimate reasons for speaking anonymously on the Internet.
EFF already has been a victim of overbroad spam filters. Its newsletter, which has more than 30,000 subscribers, has been bounced by aggressive keyword filters. In one case, its message was blocked because it contained the word "rape," used when talking about EFF's advocacy on behalf of an online group, Stop Prisoner Rape.
When the EFF asked around, it found that other noncommercial bulk mailers, such as listservs, were running into problems, too.
For example, AOL blocked e-mails from one of EFF's clients, MoveOn.org, an online, liberal political action group which saw its membership swell to more than 2 million during the antiwar movement.
"MoveOn.org, one of EFF's clients, has problems all the time, but MoveOn.org is now big enough to be on whitelists," said Cohn. "I'm more concerned about the next MoveOn."
Challenge-and-response systems pose particular problems for newsletters and listservs. These systems try to cut down on fraudulent e-mail by not delivering a message until the sender replies to a confirmation e-mail sent by the intended recipient's ISP or e-mail host.
"Declan McCullagh of Politech and Dave Farber of Interesting-People can't do 100 challenge-responses a day," said Cohn. "That, as a solution, doesn't scale."
It would be wrong to call Cohn soft on spam. While in private practice she sued a spammer and won a court injunction and $60,000. And her employer uses antispam technology on its own servers.
The difference, according to Cohn, is that the SpamAssassin software EFF uses doesn't block spam, it simply rates each e-mail. Staffers then set up their e-mail clients to separate messages into different inboxes. This keeps the main e-mail boxes free of spam, but allows individuals to check the spam folder occasionally to see if a legitimate e-mail was incorrectly tagged as junk.
Many in the technology industry think that only better technology can stop the spam deluge.
"The only people who can stop spammers are other technologists," said trimMail's Gillette.
The most promising new approach is better filters that use Bayesian algorithms to tag spam automatically and move it into a spam folder. The algorithms look at the body and header of an e-mail and judge from past experience whether an incoming message is junk. Users then train the algorithm, by moving misclassified e-mail from one e-mail folder to another.
Paul Graham, who many credit for applying Bayesian filtering to the spam problem, is ecstatic at the power of the new filters.
"I don't need blacklists," said Graham. "My own software is better than I am at deciding what is spam and what is not."
Several open-source and commercial products, such as SpamBayes and Spam Bully, already use Bayesian filtering.
The ACLU's Johnson hopes the new technology will head off the worst of the antispam legislation.
"Why do we want to start imposing a different world for the Internet than we have in the real world?" asked Johnson.
"Let the marketplace handle spam," he said. "When Congress wants to show they are doing something about an issue, they often screw it up."
End of story
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More stories written by Ryan Singel
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-- ____________________________________________________________________ We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, "Plan 9 from Outer Space" ravage@ssz.com jchoate@open-forge.org www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org --------------------------------------------------------------------
I guess it is unfortunate that I personally disagree with the article, almost in its entirety. I fully support any technological means to prevent the junk from ever entering my system, using my bandwidth, my productivity and my storage space, while some "decision" or another is being made. Sure, to some it seems arcane to using blocking methods at the server level, but the quantity of the spew alone justifies the practice. I have never considered it a form of "freedom" for an advertiser to pummel me with advertising at my own expense. While I realize not all advertising should be considered as spam, most of it is, in my opinion, and consequently I use a variety of methods to prevent the MTA from even connecting to my mail server. If the widespread use of this technology hurts email advertising, then so much the better. I would prefer email systems be able to return to their intended purpose. My email hosting service provides the free option of unfiltered and filtered (spam blacklisting), and it is no surprise that over 98% of my clients opt for the filtered routing. I will continue to support legislation and other methods to transfer the cost of advertising back to the advertiser. If there are enforceable penalties for fraudulent message headers and routing, so be it. If the legislation forces dissidents and whistleblowers to use postal mail, so much the better. I do not agree that these so-called "freedoms" need to be at my expense. Legitimate email - deliver as intended. non-legitimate email - block the connection at the server. ================================ This address is filtered through open relay databases and is virus scanned by ANTIVIR http://www.dwhite.ws mailto:doug@dwhite.ws ================================ ================================ This address is filtered through the open relay database at http://www.ordb.org and is virus scanned by ANTIVIR http://www.dwhite.ws mailto:doug@dwhite.ws ================================ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Choate" <ravage@einstein.ssz.com> To: cypherpunks@lne.com X-Orig-To: "Carl Webb" <webbcarl@hotmail.com> Cc: <eff-austin@effaustin.org>; <tlc-discuss@lists.cwrl.utexas.edu>; <cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com>; <hell@einstein.ssz.com> Sent: Friday, August 01, 2003 6:31 AM Subject: Re: [eff-austin] Antispam Bills: Worse Than Spam? For this to be taken seriously one must be able to -define spam- as if it were a mathematical entity (eg a 'point'). It must be absolutely differentiable from -all- other speech. You can't do that, nobody can. Anti-spam bills are worse than spam because they put transient feelings of anger above the principles of freedom. Freedom is -not- free! On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, Carl Webb wrote:
Antispam Bills: Worse Than Spam?
By Ryan Singel | Also by this reporter Page 1 of 2 next ;
03:55 PM Jul. 30, 2003 PT
While no one has sympathy for the devils that fill inboxes with promises of lower mortgages and larger members, not everyone is supporting the new movement to banish spammers from the Internet.
Some online advocates worry that heavy-handed antispam measures, such as centralized blacklists and charging for delivery, will destroy e-mail. Advertisement
* Story Tools
[Print story] [E-mail story]
Electronic Frontier Foundation's head counsel Cindy Cohn, for instance, argues that antispam crusaders are forgetting the Internet's first principle -- information flows freely from end to end. Cohn fears that the Internet's openness will be collateral damage in the war against unwanted e-mail.
Cohn says her organization's position on spam blocking can be boiled down to a simple proposition: "All nonspam e-mail should be delivered." It's an information age take on the Hippocratic oath, which requires doctors to first do no harm.
"It's not the job of an ISP to block e-mail," added Cohn. "E-mail isn't a toy anymore. If I don't get an e-mailed notice from the federal district court mailing list, it's malpractice."
Even some who sell antispam software to companies say that ISPs shouldn't be blocking mail.
"Blocking e-mails is folly," said Brian Gillette, whose company sells an enterprise-level, antispam appliance called trimMail Inbox. "If I'm an ISP and I stop a $150,000 equipment sale because I decided it was spam, I'm in for a lawsuit."
Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, worries that the ability to speak anonymously on the Internet is being put at risk by federal antispam legislation.
Howard Beale of the Federal Trade Commission told House members at a recent hearing on proposed antispam legislation that "spam threatens to destroy e-mail."
Several of the bills currently under consideration would make it illegal to mask a sender's identity or forge routing information, both of which are tricks used by spammers to avoid the ire of those who receive their e-mails. But it's also a tactic used by dissidents in countries with repressive governments who want to communicate with like-minded individuals.
"Many of these bills criminalize a message header that isn't accurate," said Johnson. "That's not fraud. If you send out messages through an anonymizer, then you could get sent to jail."
Cohn concurs, arguing that the bills criminalize the behavior of people -- such as closeted gay teens or government whistle-blowers -- who have legitimate reasons for speaking anonymously on the Internet.
EFF already has been a victim of overbroad spam filters. Its newsletter, which has more than 30,000 subscribers, has been bounced by aggressive keyword filters. In one case, its message was blocked because it contained the word "rape," used when talking about EFF's advocacy on behalf of an online group, Stop Prisoner Rape.
When the EFF asked around, it found that other noncommercial bulk mailers, such as listservs, were running into problems, too.
For example, AOL blocked e-mails from one of EFF's clients, MoveOn.org, an online, liberal political action group which saw its membership swell to more than 2 million during the antiwar movement.
"MoveOn.org, one of EFF's clients, has problems all the time, but MoveOn.org is now big enough to be on whitelists," said Cohn. "I'm more concerned about the next MoveOn."
Challenge-and-response systems pose particular problems for newsletters and listservs. These systems try to cut down on fraudulent e-mail by not delivering a message until the sender replies to a confirmation e-mail sent by the intended recipient's ISP or e-mail host.
"Declan McCullagh of Politech and Dave Farber of Interesting-People can't do 100 challenge-responses a day," said Cohn. "That, as a solution, doesn't scale."
It would be wrong to call Cohn soft on spam. While in private practice she sued a spammer and won a court injunction and $60,000. And her employer uses antispam technology on its own servers.
The difference, according to Cohn, is that the SpamAssassin software EFF uses doesn't block spam, it simply rates each e-mail. Staffers then set up their e-mail clients to separate messages into different inboxes. This keeps the main e-mail boxes free of spam, but allows individuals to check the spam folder occasionally to see if a legitimate e-mail was incorrectly tagged as junk.
Many in the technology industry think that only better technology can stop the spam deluge.
"The only people who can stop spammers are other technologists," said trimMail's Gillette.
The most promising new approach is better filters that use Bayesian algorithms to tag spam automatically and move it into a spam folder. The algorithms look at the body and header of an e-mail and judge from past experience whether an incoming message is junk. Users then train the algorithm, by moving misclassified e-mail from one e-mail folder to another.
Paul Graham, who many credit for applying Bayesian filtering to the spam problem, is ecstatic at the power of the new filters.
"I don't need blacklists," said Graham. "My own software is better than I am at deciding what is spam and what is not."
Several open-source and commercial products, such as SpamBayes and Spam Bully, already use Bayesian filtering.
The ACLU's Johnson hopes the new technology will head off the worst of the antispam legislation.
"Why do we want to start imposing a different world for the Internet than we have in the real world?" asked Johnson.
"Let the marketplace handle spam," he said. "When Congress wants to show they are doing something about an issue, they often screw it up."
End of story
Send e-mail icon Have a comment on this article? Send it
More stories written by Ryan Singel
________________________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
-- ____________________________________________________________________ We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, "Plan 9 from Outer Space" ravage@ssz.com jchoate@open-forge.org www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, Doug wrote:
I will continue to support legislation and other methods to transfer the cost of advertising back to the advertiser. If there are enforceable penalties for fraudulent message headers and routing, so be it. If the legislation forces dissidents and whistleblowers to use postal mail, so much the better. I do not agree that these so-called "freedoms" need to be at my expense.
It's fairly possible, if the adversary know what he's doing and takes the time and effort, to disguise the mail's origin pretty well. (Think eg. open HTTPS proxies or a hacked box.) Now, you irked someone. That someone forges a spam mail advertising your business. Prove your innocence!
Legitimate email - deliver as intended. non-legitimate email - block the connection at the server.
Do we need laws for that? Software is easier to upgrade/change than laws, less likely to misfire, and easier to deal with when it misfires. Laws won't help in recognizing legitimate and non-legitimate mail. Artificial intelligence will be more effective than the Congress. (On the other hand, *anything* is usually more effective than the Congress.) The law in question will be TOO easy to use as a weapon.
On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, Doug wrote:
I will continue to support legislation and other methods to transfer the cost of advertising back to the advertiser. If there are enforceable penalties for fraudulent message headers and routing, so be it. If the legislation forces dissidents and whistleblowers to use postal mail, so much the better. I do not agree that these so-called "freedoms" need to be at my expense.
But you have zero problem moving into my tax budget and threating peoples lives over it (you think that's 'free'?)... Whaledreck. Fascism (economic or otherwise) we can do without. -- ____________________________________________________________________ We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell, "Plan 9 from Outer Space" ravage@ssz.com jchoate@open-forge.org www.ssz.com www.open-forge.org --------------------------------------------------------------------
* Thomas Shaddack <shaddack@ns.arachne.cz> [2003-08-01 21:54]:
Legitimate email - deliver as intended. non-legitimate email - block the connection at the server.
Do we need laws for that?
We definately need a law making it illegal for an ISP to block non-spam email. I cannot email a friend who uses AOL, and wants to receive my email, because AOL blocks it. The only law out there to protect me from this is a denial of service law, but it will be difficult for me to argue that AOL is doing a DoS attack on me. I have no choice but to take actions under the DoS laws, but I would much rather have a law that makes blocking legitimate communication a crime.
Software is easier to upgrade/change than laws, less likely to misfire, and easier to deal with when it misfires.
What software are you talking about? If it's the end user software, I don't care, because if I cannot email a friend I can motivate them to fix the problem. But if you're talking about software that an ISP would run, you're missing something. AOL's software is falsely blocking my email, and even though they could fix the problem, they are not motivated because I'm a single user. I've complained several times. They just ignore the complaint. So software is a poor solution if the people implementing the software are not motivated to fix false positives.
Laws won't help in recognizing legitimate and non-legitimate mail. Artificial intelligence will be more effective than the Congress. (On the other hand, *anything* is usually more effective than the Congress.)
Why would you say this? It's not difficult to define spam. You simply list the charactoristics of spam, and then list exclusions to ensure legitimate mail doesn't fit the definition. This has working beautifully for defining telemarketing phone calls. There is not a single math equation in the legal definition for "unsolicited telemarketing call". Even if there are imperfections in the definition, people can at least be aware of the definition and make sure that they aren't in the grey area. If an email is in a grey area, then the sender takes a risk by sending it. But to argue that law should not address a particular issue because of the difficulty of writing a definition is silly. You just write the definition such that the law doesn't target email that it doesn't intend to target, and let go the fact that it may not target everything we would like it to. And to say that software can define spam better than laws written in english is rediculous. AOL blocks my personal email to a friend, and I don't use a single spam phrase. So it goes the other way too.. the way software can define spam can get pretty stupid, I've seen it too many times.
The law in question will be TOO easy to use as a weapon.
What do you mean by this? One could argue that I'm using the TCPA as a weapon against all these telemarketers I drag into court. So what? Most people see what I do as a service to the community.
On Sat, 2 Aug 2003 mindfuq@comcast.net wrote:
Legitimate email - deliver as intended. non-legitimate email - block the connection at the server.
Do we need laws for that?
We definately need a law making it illegal for an ISP to block non-spam email. I cannot email a friend who uses AOL, and wants to receive my email, because AOL blocks it. The only law out there to
That is incorrect. AOL owns their network, and they can respond to your arbitrary communications on their network in any way they see fit. Maybe they will deliver your email to your AOL subscribing friend. Maybe they will block that email. Maybe they will translate the email into French and reverse the word-order and then send it to your friend. Maybe they will print it out and mail it back to you for no reason. All of these responses are perfectly legitimate, and represent a private entity using their property in whatever way they see fit, _provided that_ they abide by any contracts they have entered into with their subscriber (which, in this case, is not you). It amazes me how many people on this list only respect private property when it is convenient for them to do so. (For reference, see the "Tim May argues (correctly) that people can't protest in his house" and, more recently, the "Gilmore thinks airlines can't refuse him travel for any reason they see fit" threads) ----- John Kozubik - john@kozubik.com - http://www.kozubik.com
* John Kozubik <john@kozubik.com> [2003-08-02 19:27]:
That is incorrect. AOL owns their network, and they can respond to your arbitrary communications on their network in any way they see fit.
Unfortunately, you're correct.
Maybe they will deliver your email to your AOL subscribing friend. Maybe they will block that email. Maybe they will translate the email into French and reverse the word-order and then send it to your friend. Maybe they will print it out and mail it back to you for no reason. All of these responses are perfectly legitimate, and represent a private entity using their property in whatever way they see fit,
Yes, this is the problem I'm trying to address. Normally when Alice tries to transmit information to Bob, if Mallory decides to sabotage the communication, this is a denial of service attack, forbidden by criminal law. However, if the communication passes through Mallory's back yard, we can let the attack happen because it's on Mallory's property. At the same time, if I sabotage the city water line that passes through my property, I can be held accountable. And rightly so. Mallory should also be held accountable for blocking communications. This is what needs to change.
It amazes me how many people on this list only respect private property when it is convenient for them to do so. (For reference, see the "Tim May argues (correctly) that people can't protest in his house" and, more recently, the "Gilmore thinks airlines can't refuse him travel for any reason they see fit" threads)
There's a balance of rights, and obviously private property rights aren't going to always get priority. While they're high on my list in *some* cases, they don't top human rights. Some rights are a little more fundamental and important than private property rights. And when someone abuses their property to damage someone else, I have zero respect for their private property rights. So I'm not at all surprized that someone would perceive an inconsistency on this issue, because there are so many more important rights that have a greater bearing on peoples happiness. AOL isn't even a human, so to put the private property rights of AOL above the well-being of any human is a silly mistake. In my particular case, AOL is blocking me from talking to friends and family. I suppose I could argue that the packets I create and send are created with my private property and resources, so those packets are my property, and AOL is vandalizing my property by destroying these packets. You can argue that how you want, but the bottom line is that AOL is using their property to gain power to control who may talk to who. This is clearly an abusive use of property, and I have no tolarance for it. They need to be removed from power, and the consumers who contributed to the purchasing of their property need to be given some rights. So if you're saying that AOL's private property rights are supporting their effort to stop me from talking to my family, then of course I have very little respect for private property rights. I often see people using their private property to cause damage to others, so it's not real top on my list in these cases.
On Sun, 3 Aug 2003 mindfuq@comcast.net wrote:
* John Kozubik <john@kozubik.com> [2003-08-02 19:27]:
That is incorrect. AOL owns their network, and they can respond to your arbitrary communications on their network in any way they see fit.
Unfortunately, you're correct.
What the fuck do you mean unfortunately?
Yes, this is the problem I'm trying to address. Normally when Alice tries to transmit information to Bob, if Mallory decides to sabotage the communication, this is a denial of service attack, forbidden by criminal law.
Why is it forbidden by law? Bob signed a contract with Mallory waiving certain rights in exchange for the service provided by Mallory. Mallory provided full disclosure of it's rights to Bob along with Bob's responsabilities, etc. Bob chose to accept those terms, how is this illegal again? If the service Mallory provides Bob is inadequate, that's between Mallory and Bob, not between Alice and Bob. Alice and Mallory have no contract what-so-ever. It's upto you, Alice, to convince Bob of this fact. If you can't, that's Bob's choice, not yours. And you have no business to interfere between Bob and Mallory.
However, if the communication passes through Mallory's back yard, we can let the attack happen because it's on Mallory's property.
Wrong. Bob agreed to those terms of service, it's not a denial of service, it's part of Bob's agreement with Mallory.
At the same time, if I sabotage the city water line that passes through my property, I can be held accountable. And rightly so.
No. Either you have agreed to live in said house by purchasing it, and have therefore become a citizen of said city, and by such actions agreed to abide by it's laws, or pre-existing laws allowed the city to run such water services through your propery. This too is by contract. Where, Ms. Alice, is your contract with Mallory again?
Mallory should also be held accountable for blocking communications. This is what needs to change.
No, it does not. Please take this to alt.dumb.law.questions.asked.by.clueless.morons. This has nothing to do with cypherpunks.
AOL isn't even a human, so to put the private property rights of AOL above the well-being of any human is a silly mistake.
So, in that case if you need a red stapler, you should be able to break into AOL's offices and steal one????? Since fucking when?
In my particular case, AOL is blocking me from talking to friends and family.
That's the choice of your friends and family, not yours. Take it up with them, not AOL.
I suppose I could argue that the packets I create and send are created with my private property and resources, so those packets are my property,
This is true - utpto the point where you place said packets on the internet. From that point on, while you may retain copyright (even that is questionable), you have explicity caused an automated action that takes said packets and puts them into the machine that is the internet, for it to do what it does. If some of the members of that machine do things differently than you expect, it sucks to be you, but that's your problem, not theirs. You decided to place those packets on that network, not the members of that network. If you put a book you wrote into a shredder, well, who are you going to sue? The shredder company? Or yourself?
and AOL is vandalizing my property by destroying these packets.
No, dumbass, you placed those packets on said network repeatedly after you have discovered that they will be dropped in the bit bucket, that's too bad for you. You've vandalized your own packets.
You can argue that how you want, but the bottom line is that AOL is using their property to gain power to control who may talk to who.
And that is their right, as contractually agreed to by their customers - your friends and family members included. You have no stake in this, nor any relationship with AOL.
This is clearly an abusive use of property, and I have no tolarance for it.
No, you abused your own property knowing full well it would be dropped into the bit bucket right after the 1st time you tried it. And since you've got no contractual agreement with AOL, you have no expected reasonable expectation that AOL would forward your packets to your f&f, especially if AOL deems your packets to be harmful to it's network for whatever reason.
They need to be removed from power, and the consumers who contributed to the purchasing of their property need to be given some rights.
So if you're saying that AOL's private property rights are supporting their effort to stop me from talking to my family, then of course I have very little respect for private property rights. I often see people using their private property to cause damage to others, so it's not real top on my list in these cases.
Your idiocy is showing. ----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--------------------------- + ^ + :25Kliters anthrax, 38K liters botulinum toxin, 500 tons of /|\ \|/ :sarin, mustard and VX gas, mobile bio-weapons labs, nukular /\|/\ <--*-->:weapons.. Reasons for war on Iraq - GWB 2003-01-28 speech. \/|\/ /|\ :Found to date: 0. Cost of war: $800,000,000,000 USD. \|/ + v + : The look on Sadam's face - priceless! --------_sunder_@_sunder_._net_------- http://www.sunder.net ------------
On Sun, 3 Aug 2003 mindfuq@comcast.net wrote:
* John Kozubik <john@kozubik.com> [2003-08-02 19:27]:
That is incorrect. AOL owns their network, and they can respond to your arbitrary communications on their network in any way they see fit.
Unfortunately, you're correct.
Maybe they will deliver your email to your AOL subscribing friend. Maybe they will block that email. Maybe they will translate the email into French and reverse the word-order and then send it to your friend. Maybe they will print it out and mail it back to you for no reason. All of these responses are perfectly legitimate, and represent a private entity using their property in whatever way they see fit,
Yes, this is the problem I'm trying to address. Normally when Alice tries to transmit information to Bob, if Mallory decides to sabotage the communication, this is a denial of service attack, forbidden by criminal law.
However, if the communication passes through Mallory's back yard, we can let the attack happen because it's on Mallory's property. At the same time, if I sabotage the city water line that passes through my property, I can be held accountable. And rightly so. Mallory should also be held accountable for blocking communications. This is what needs to change.
This comparison is invalid. You are correct that your private property is ... well ... your private property, but if you look closely you will find that you have a contract (of some kind, be it an agreement, etc.) with your city - most likely in the form of an easement. So, by interrupting their water line, you would be breaking your contract. Make no mistake, if you hold a contract that AOL entered in with you that stipulates that they must send your email that you place onto their property to your friend, then by all means prosecute them to your fullest ability. Further, if the AUP/TOS ("contract") that your friend, as a subscriber, has with AOL stipulates something similar, then again, go forward with my best wishes. We all know, however, that AOL has no such contract with you, and that their contract with your friend most likely boils down to "we will do as we see fit and you will like it", and further, that even the peering agreements that AOL has with other service providers, common carrier laws, etc. most likely do not come anywhere near to stipulating this. As well they shouldn't. So once again, we are back to: AOL can do whatever they want with the bits you place on their private property.
It amazes me how many people on this list only respect private property when it is convenient for them to do so. (For reference, see the "Tim May argues (correctly) that people can't protest in his house" and, more recently, the "Gilmore thinks airlines can't refuse him travel for any reason they see fit" threads)
There's a balance of rights, and obviously private property rights aren't going to always get priority. While they're high on my list in *some* cases, they don't top human rights. Some rights are a little more fundamental and important than private property rights. And when someone abuses their property to damage someone else, I have zero respect for their private property rights. So I'm not at all surprized that someone would perceive an inconsistency on this issue, because there are so many more important rights that have a greater bearing on peoples happiness.
AOL isn't even a human, so to put the private property rights of AOL above the well-being of any human is a silly mistake.
In my particular case, AOL is blocking me from talking to friends and family. I suppose I could argue that the packets I create and send are created with my private property and resources, so those packets are my property, and AOL is vandalizing my property by destroying these packets. You can argue that how you want, but the bottom line is that AOL is using their property to gain power to control who may talk to who. This is clearly an abusive use of property, and I have no tolarance for it. They need to be removed from power, and the consumers who contributed to the purchasing of their property need to be given some rights.
This will be my last response to this thread. Your comments boil down to: a) You have forgotten that communication existed before the Internet, and further, that Internet communication exists just fine without AOL. The obvious conclusion that using AOL is an act of terminal stupidity is left as an exercise for the reader. b) You invoke the tired, meaningless appeal to the big bad corporation stomping on the little guy. In reality, AOL can do whatever it pleases with your bits when you place them on their property, barring any prior contract to the contrary. Any legislation that stipulates otherwise is misguided. And I think both of those are absurd. ----- John Kozubik - john@kozubik.com - http://www.kozubik.com
* John Kozubik <john@kozubik.com> [2003-08-02 19:27]:
That is incorrect. AOL owns their network, and they can respond to your arbitrary communications on their network in any way they see fit.
Unfortunately, you're correct.
Maybe they will deliver your email to your AOL subscribing friend. Maybe they will block that email. Maybe they will translate the email into French and reverse the word-order and then send it to your friend. Maybe they will print it out and mail it back to you for no reason. All of these responses are perfectly legitimate, and represent a private entity using their property in whatever way they see fit,
Yes, this is the problem I'm trying to address. Normally when Alice tries to transmit information to Bob, if Mallory decides to sabotage the communication, this is a denial of service attack, forbidden by criminal law. However, if the communication passes through Mallory's back yard, we can let the attack happen because it's on Mallory's property. At the same time, if I sabotage the city water line that passes through my property, I can be held accountable. And rightly so. Mallory should also be held accountable for blocking communications. This is what needs to change.
It amazes me how many people on this list only respect private property when it is convenient for them to do so. (For reference, see the "Tim May argues (correctly) that people can't protest in his house" and, more recently, the "Gilmore thinks airlines can't refuse him travel for any reason they see fit" threads)
There's a balance of rights, and obviously private property rights aren't going to always get priority. While they're high on my list in *some* cases, they don't top human rights. Some rights are a little more fundamental and important than private property rights. And when someone abuses their property to damage someone else, I have zero respect for their private property rights. So I'm not at all surprized that someone would perceive an inconsistency on this issue, because there are so many more important rights that have a greater bearing on peoples happiness. AOL isn't even a human, so to put the private property rights of AOL above the well-being of any human is a silly mistake. In my particular case, AOL is blocking me from talking to friends and family. I suppose I could argue that the packets I create and send are created with my private property and resources, so those packets are my property, and AOL is vandalizing my property by destroying these packets. You can argue that how you want, but the bottom line is that AOL is using their property to gain power to control who may talk to who. This is clearly an abusive use of property, and I have no tolarance for it. They need to be removed from power, and the consumers who contributed to the purchasing of their property need to be given some rights. So if you're saying that AOL's private property rights are supporting their effort to stop me from talking to my family, then of course I have very little respect for private property rights. I often see people using their private property to cause damage to others, so it's not real top on my list in these cases.
* John Kozubik <john@kozubik.com> [2003-08-02 19:27]:
That is incorrect. AOL owns their network, and they can respond to your arbitrary communications on their network in any way they see fit.
Unfortunately, you're correct.
Maybe they will deliver your email to your AOL subscribing friend. Maybe they will block that email. Maybe they will translate the email into French and reverse the word-order and then send it to your friend. Maybe they will print it out and mail it back to you for no reason. All of these responses are perfectly legitimate, and represent a private entity using their property in whatever way they see fit,
Yes, this is the problem I'm trying to address. Normally when Alice tries to transmit information to Bob, if Mallory decides to sabotage the communication, this is a denial of service attack, forbidden by criminal law. However, if the communication passes through Mallory's back yard, we can let the attack happen because it's on Mallory's property. At the same time, if I sabotage the city water line that passes through my property, I can be held accountable. And rightly so. Mallory should also be held accountable for blocking communications. This is what needs to change.
It amazes me how many people on this list only respect private property when it is convenient for them to do so. (For reference, see the "Tim May argues (correctly) that people can't protest in his house" and, more recently, the "Gilmore thinks airlines can't refuse him travel for any reason they see fit" threads)
There's a balance of rights, and obviously private property rights aren't going to always get priority. While they're high on my list in *some* cases, they don't top human rights. Some rights are a little more fundamental and important than private property rights. And when someone abuses their property to damage someone else, I have zero respect for their private property rights. So I'm not at all surprized that someone would perceive an inconsistency on this issue, because there are so many more important rights that have a greater bearing on peoples happiness. AOL isn't even a human, so to put the private property rights of AOL above the well-being of any human is a silly mistake. In my particular case, AOL is blocking me from talking to friends and family. I suppose I could argue that the packets I create and send are created with my private property and resources, so those packets are my property, and AOL is vandalizing my property by destroying these packets. You can argue that how you want, but the bottom line is that AOL is using their property to gain power to control who may talk to who. This is clearly an abusive use of property, and I have no tolarance for it. They need to be removed from power, and the consumers who contributed to the purchasing of their property need to be given some rights. So if you're saying that AOL's private property rights are supporting their effort to stop me from talking to my family, then of course I have very little respect for private property rights. I often see people using their private property to cause damage to others, so it's not real top on my list in these cases.
At 4:45 PM -0700 8/2/03, Mr. um, Fuq wrote the following:
We definately need a law
BZZZT! -100 points. Game over. Thank you for playing... Cheers, RAH (Don't worry kid, that one used to hang me up all that time, too. I got over it, so will you, if you hang around long enough...) -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
At 04:45 PM 08/02/2003 -0700, mindfuq@comcast.net wrote:
We definately need a law making it illegal for an ISP to block non-spam email. I cannot email a friend who uses AOL, and wants to receive my email, because AOL blocks it.
Fearghas pointed out the obvious workaround for this, which is that if you don't like AOL's policies on incoming or outgoing email, or your cable modem provider's policies* (which in the US are pretty much guaranteed to be lame), or the cheapest DSL provider around, but you want to keep them because they're cheap or have other features you like, then fine, just use them for Internet packet forwarding, and find yourself an email provider with policies you like. You don't need to find all of them - you only need one. There are about 10,000 ISPs in the US, last time I looked, plus hundreds to thousands of hosting and colo providers who will sell you at least a virtual host, plus myriads of customers of hosting providers who have the resources to run an email business, plus hundreds of thousands of unemployed former dot-commers who'd probably be interested in starting a business if they can't find themselves an employer, and at least 50% of them have the capital required to start a small email provider business, and at least 10% of them have enough capital to start a medium business, big enough to get going if they can find customers. That means that if just 0.01% of those people or businesses agree with you about how the email business really should be run, then there are probably a dozen or so that claim to be just what you want, and at least half a dozen that are actually competent. If just 1% of them agree with you, then there are thousands of them. Go use Google and go find them, or post a message in the appropriate newsgroups asking for them. If you *can't* fund a dozen providers like that, much less a thousand, then obviously the collective wisdom Internet community doesn't agree with your ideas well enough to justify making a law against how the other 99% or 99.99% of email providers run their businesses. Furthermore, if you think you're RIGHT, not just about how you want _some_ ISP to run a service so you can get what you want for your email, but COSMICALLY, STALLMANESQUELY RIGHT about how every ISP should be run, then don't try to convince some technically clueless Congresscritter, get off your ass and go convince people. By the time you've convinced 20% of the customers that that's what ISPs should do, and convinced 20% of the ISPs, everybody else will get the clue. And if you want to get rich while doing so, as opposed to merely popular like Stallman (:-), one of the best ways to do it is to set up a business and show the other ISPs what a REAL mail server looks like while millions of customers show up at your doorstep (hmmm, that's back to the "get off your ass" bit again), or more realistically, dozens show up which gets you enough user feedback to tweak the service and advertising to attract hundreds of users, which brings in enough cash flow to advertise to get thousands, at which point you've had trouble scaling and have redesigned to something actually scalable, which is a bit tough at $5/month * 1000 users, and then the world beats a path to your door because somebody's finally heard of you.
participants (8)
-
Bill Stewart -
Doug -
Jim Choate -
John Kozubik -
mindfuq＠comcast.net -
R. A. Hettinga -
Sunder -
Thomas Shaddack