Cypherpunks, I offer these two Usenet articles for your amusement. In article 1, I follow up on Bruce Bough's article, and, among many other things, defend his right to vote (questioned by the orthodox Jewish homophobe Dan Hartung). (It's very long and technical, so you can skip it.) In article 2, Bruce Bough follows up on my article and threatens to prosecute me under the Americans with Disability Act for misspelling his name. This is almost as funny as his litanies about his dementia and memory loss. Have fun. Article 1: =============================================================================== From: dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr. Dimitri Vulis) Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.misc,news.admin.censorship,news.admin.policy,alt.config,news.groups,alt.journalism,atl.general,alt.culture.usenet,alt.internet.media-coverage,alt.wired,alt.cyberspace,talk.politics.misc,news.admin.net-abuse.misc,ga.general,misc.news.internet.discuss,soc.culture.russian,alt.flame.jan-isley,talk.forgery,alt.usenet.kooks,alt.grelb Subject: Re: Towards A Usenet Social Contract References: <4rpvfi$smg@doc.jmu.edu> <4rv6m7$3ns_002@mycroft.kenosis.com> Message-ID: <i6a1qD209w165w@bwalk.dm.com> Date: Sat, 13 Jul 96 09:25:41 EDT In article <4rv6m7$3ns_002@mycroft.kenosis.com>, bruce@kenosis.com (Bruce Baugh) wrote:

In article <4rpvfi$smg@doc.jmu.edu>, bumgarls@falcon.jmu.edu (Lee S. Bumgarner) wrote:

...

Is a little premeditation too much to ask for a smoothly working system?

Yes. The _only_ info the voting process needs to know is whether the voter is a unique individual. This is in practical terms not an achievable task. But processes like serialized authenticated ballots at least move in that direction. Voter registration that gathers _any_ info beyond establishing the legitimacy of the address is a step in the wrong direction. Information not in hand can't be abused, and I see great potential for abuse of any sort of repository of information about voter interests, preferences, etc.

Further, any step toward increasing centralization seems to me counter to the fundamental paradigm of Usenet, which owes its survival to its decentralized nature. No system with anything like a real center could have survived the growth of recent years. One of the last things we need (in addition to info that can be put to abusive purposes being collected) is any additional bottleneck.

...

in my opinion, prevents this system from being viable. If we have a registration system, then the cabal would be small, say 20 or so people. They would not be system admins, simply interested readers.

I give you...news.groups. All that's necessary of this concept exists. Further, by functioning in an ungoverned environment, it ensures that what status people have is _earned_ by virtue of their views and arguments. The current system is completely open to addition of new figures to the pantheon. Again, centralization creates the potential for bottlenecks.

I don't trust _anyone_ with the power to establish a "cabal" of this sort. I start with myself. Anyone who holds strong views of matters of controversy faces the problem of bias, and anyone not informed enough to hold views on them has no business selecting authority figures.

I remember how someone recently argued on news.groups that Bruce Bough's votes should be invalidated because he's dying from AIDS. I strongly disagree with Dan's (?) reasoning, which was, I recall, that someone with only a couple of months left to live shouldn't be telling others how to run Usenet after his death. I think we should consider Bruce's opinions as being representative. After all, a Usenet vote is an interest poll, and the voters are just a sample of a larger population. Not everyone who thinks like Bruce Bough is going to die together with him from AIDS within a few months (sigh). Let him vote. The use of numbered ballots (as proposed by Dr. Grubor and implemented by me), will stop the following kinds of net-abuse: * Cabal supporters such as Russ Allberry (spit) e-mailing pre-filled ballots to their mailing lists, sometimes gathering tens of thousands of votes from people who haven't read the CFV; * Cabal supporters forging cancels to censor Usenet articles they claim contain "unauthorized voting instructions". This pretext has been used to stifle campaigning against the proposals the Cabal wanted to pass, as well as to suppress protests against UVV misconduct by Jan Isley (spit) and his cohorts. The use of a simple randomized question about the CFV - find the line that says this and fill in the missing word on the ballot (as proposed by Dr. Grubor and implemented by me), will stop the following kinds of net-abuses: * Cabal supporters such as Stephanie da Silva (spit) vote YES on every moderated newsgroup without reading the CFV; * Cabal supporters such as Chris Stein (spit) vote NO on every unmoderated newsgroup without reading the CFV. There can be no pre-filled ballots under Dr. Grubor's proposal. But Dr. Grubor's proposals don't address the issue of votetaker fraud. For example, we've exposed Jan Isley (spit) as a liar and a forger, who frivolously "invalidated" or "lost" votes from people he didn't like (including myself), and forged cancels for their protests on news.groups. Emory University called Isley's (spit) forgeries "reprehensible" and pulled his plug for net-abuse. The UVV's refusal to use numbered ballots and to ask (simple) questions about the CFV on the ballot is just a lame excuse. They really want to be able to forge cancels for protests posted to news.groups about votetaker misconduct. For example, of the following dozen votes I've cast, I've only received an ack for my NO vote on soc.culture.israel.moderated (fuck you, Jonathan Kamens). Where are the acks for the following ballots: 1. I e-mailed voting@hut.fi and wrote: I vote NO on soc.culture.israel.moderated I received an ack (thank you, Jani). 2. I e-mailed voting@hut.fi and wrote (ballot mark skipped):

Voter name: Dr. Dimitri Vulis

| Insert YES, NO, ABSTAIN, or CANCEL inside the brackets for each | newsgroup listed below (do not delete the newsgroup name):

Your Vote Newsgroup --------- ----------------------------------------------------------- [ NO ] rec.arts.comics.marketplace.forsale [ NO ] rec.arts.comics.marketplace.wanted

So far, I received no ack. 3. I e-mailed voting@hut.fi and wrote:

I vote YES on rec.games.bridge.okbridge

So far, I received no ack. 4. I e-mailed voting@hut.fi and wrote:

I vote YES on soc.adoption.parenting

So far, I received no ack. 5. I e-mailed mtac@infobahn.net and wrote:

I vote NO on misc.transport.air-industry.cargo

So far, I received no ack. 6. I e-mailed ccmp@infobahn.net and wrote:

I vote YES on comp.cad.microstation.programmer

So far, I received no ack. 7. I e-mailed ceg@infobahn.net and wrote:

I vote YES on comp.emulators.game-consoles

So far, I received no ack. 8. I e-mailed smo@infobahn.net and wrote:

I vote NO on sci.med.obgyn

So far, I received no ack. 9. I e-mailed saf@infobahn.net and wrote:

I vote YES on sci.agriculture.net

So far, I received no ack. 10. I e-mailed david.bostwick@chemistry.gatech.edu and wrote:

Give your real name here: Dr. Dimitri Vulis If you do not give your real name, your vote may be rejected.

[Your Vote] Group (Place your vote below in the brackets next to the group) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- [YES ] comp.lang.dfl

So far, I received no ack. 11. I e-mailed david.bostwick@chemistry.gatech.edu and wrote:

Give your real name here: Dr. Dimitri Vulis If you do not give your real name, your vote may be rejected.

[Your Vote] Group (Place your vote below in the brackets next to the group) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ YES ] misc.invest.misc (renames misc.invest) [ YES ] misc.invest.mutual-funds (renames misc.invest.funds) [ YES ] misc.invest.options [ YES ] misc.invest.marketplace

So far, I received no ack. 12. I e-mailed dhartung@mcs.com and wrote:

Give your real name here: Dr. Dimitri Vulis If you do not give a real name on the above line your vote may be rejected.

[Your Vote] Group ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [NO ] soc.religion.paganism

So far, I received no ack. What's going on? Why are 11 of my ballots not being acknowledged? =============================================================================== Article 2: =============================================================================== Path: ...!newsfeed.internetmci.com!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!psgrain!rainrgnews0!news.aracnet.com!mycroft From: bruce@kenosis.com (Bruce Baugh) Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.misc,news.groups,alt.usenet.kooks Subject: Re: Towards A Usenet Social Contract Date: Sun, 14 Jul 96 00:17:16 GMT Organization: Kenosis Design Lines: 29 Message-ID: <4s9eac$1ag_006@mycroft.kenosis.com> References: <4rpvfi$smg@doc.jmu.edu> <4rv6m7$3ns_002@mycroft.kenosis.com> <i6a1qD209w165w@bwalk.dm.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp-u11.aracnet.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII X-Newsreader: News Xpress 2.0 Beta #2 In article <i6a1qD209w165w@bwalk.dm.com>, dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr. Dimitri Vulis) wrote:

of a larger population. Not everyone who thinks like Bruce Bough is going to die together with him from AIDS within a few months (sigh). Let him vote.

Dimitri, I invite you to pick a date, not more than twelve months in the future, beyond which you're certain I will die. I will then post the next day. Not, of course, that I expect you to have the honor to admit now that you're deliberately misreading and misunderstanding my posts, nor to admit in the future that you made a claim demonstrably wrong. Nor, I see, can you spell my name correctly, even though you quote it routinely in reply lines and sig files. People who can't read what's in front of them on screen lose credibility when it comes to proposing sweeping changes and radical innovations in software. Further, you might want to read up on the Americans With Disabilities Act. Slanderous and defamatory statements about the handicapped - and my government agrees that I do have a real problem, though it's not AIDS - open you up to interesting liability. Bruce Baugh <*> bruce@aracnet.com <*> http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce See my Web pages for New science fiction by Steve Stirling and George Alec Effing er Christlib, the mailing list for Christian and libertarian concerns Daedalus Games, makers of Shadowfist and Feng Shui Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be proofread at $50/hour, min $100. ===============================================================================