Re: Files and mail
Dear Mr. Horwath, A written reply will suffice. You have my permission to make all of my files world readable. You can put them in the ftp site. Upon receipt of notice, they will be removed within 24 hours, and you will recieve a signed PGP statement with the new key, stating that the files have been removed. Other Winternet users have already gone to my defense, and copied all of the world readable material anyway. And the whole account might as well be, too. Please do not forward any mail here. You will better serve yourself bouncing the letter back to the sender and informing them of my new address. If I find forwarded mail in my mailbox, I will print hard copies and visit the Attorney General's Office and file a complaint under the Stalking laws of the State of Minnesota. And please...deactivate my WWW pages. I was astounded to find out that during the suspension, they continued to remain active, as I learned in the office Wednesday. That was (and still is) stealing my net.web.goodwill, and creating a falsehood amongst other users. My WWW Pages have found a nice, new, warm sunny home in Austin, Texas. I spent six full hours making a personal appearance, at great personal expense, to the Winternet Office to resolve the situation. My original reply still sits in suspended composition in my mailer. I wasted not a nano-second in preparing my reply to the posting. In legal point of fact, the poster is violation of Minnesota State Law. He has no legal jurisdiction whatsoever. I did not take days to "investigate", nor cite that other things such as "my machines being hacked" and "I'll do it when I'm ready to do it,". I was a simple complaint. It had no validity. Crossposting an article to .1% of the Usenet News Groups does not by the very statistic constitute spam. (And I own two shares of Hormel Corp, so I do know what SPAM (tm) is. As was pointed out in alt.current-affairs.net-abuse The complainer didn't fully read said article. It was timely.(and still is) The crossposting wasn't wasting resources. It is of no one's concern the actual groups posted. They have the right and ability to respond. I asked for no money. I did not stand to profit by the posting. The person who started the whole thing was pretty heavily chastised, by the readers of his own news group. A fast "K" was all that any individual needed for this article. No, Mr. Horwath, you are "way out-of-bounds" this time. And as the time cronology unveils itself, I am sure that will be shown to be a very truthful, factual statement. Dangerous precedents were set here. I will not rest until the whole of the Internet knows and is aware of the situation. Signed Carol Anne Braddock Friday January 6th, 1995 9:40 A.M. On Fri, 6 Jan 1995, Mike Horwath wrote:
You are welcome to your files and mail, I will pack everything up for you as you left it, including your FTP area.
I expect you to try to reach me today in the afternoon at my office and I will fully explain why your account was deleted, with full detail as to why.
I do appreciate the work you did on the shirts for Winternet. I don't appreciate the harassment you have already tried to bring upon me.
When we talk, I think you might understand why this was done. If you do not, then I feel bad, as I must then not be making myself clear. But no matter what, this was policy that you chose to break even after I had talked to you about it. More on this when we talk.
Good luck at your new provider, Larry Leone is an old user of mine and seems to be a good guy, even if a little quiet on the newsgroups :)
A copy of this letter is also going to your new admin so that he knows what is going on.
Larry, Carol Anne was using about 11.5MB of disk that will be moving over from Winternet to MM.
Also, how have you been anyway? Been awhile since I saw you. Oh, and could you install identd on your system? Get back to me on anything, or with questions.
-- Mike Horwath IRC: Drechsau LIFE: Lover drechsau@winternet.com Winternet: info@winternet.com root@jacobs.mn.org <- Linux! Twin Cities area Internet Access: 612-941-9177 for more info Founding member of Minnesota Coalition for Internet Accessibility
[This is hopefully going to be my only message on this matter, questions or comments, just reply to me directly]
A written reply will suffice. You have my permission to make all of my files world readable. You can put them in the ftp site.
Since you are posting this to so many people, they can all see my reply. And this is a written reply :)
Upon receipt of notice, they will be removed within 24 hours, and you will recieve a signed PGP statement with the new key, stating that the files have been removed. Other Winternet users have already gone to my defense, and copied all of the world readable material anyway. And the whole account might as well be, too.
Fine, when I have things packed up, they will be moved and you will be notified.
Please do not forward any mail here. You will better serve yourself bouncing the letter back to the sender and informing them of my new address. If I find forwarded mail in my mailbox, I will print hard copies and visit the Attorney General's Office and file a complaint under the Stalking laws of the State of Minnesota.
You can either take the alias in my alias database or have no forwarding address left, that is your choice. We are courteous enough to forward for you, take it or leave it. And stalking laws? I don't think so. There is a difference in notification and stalking and my email to you is far from stalking.
And please...deactivate my WWW pages. I was astounded to find out that during the suspension, they continued to remain active, as I learned in the office Wednesday. That was (and still is) stealing my net.web.goodwill, and creating a falsehood amongst other users.
They were left there because they are of use to the 'net and until I could hear from you what you wanted done with your files, there was no need to remove the WWW pages or your account. Now that we have your decision, everything will be removed. And stealing? You had them up for public consumption for many weeks. Did everyone who touched your page steal then? So, no, no advantage was taken by us via your WWW pages.
I spent six full hours making a personal appearance, at great personal expense, to the Winternet Office to resolve the situation.
Great personal expense? This is going to be fun. I don't think harassing Chad (my intern) or Doug (my roommate) for 6 full hours a very nice thing to do at all. If you had wanted to meet me there, you could have had one of them call me, or if they did not have the number for where I was at that day (which happened to be my first complete day off in a few weeks), you could have dropped me email stating you were at the office to discuss this. I was only 10 minutes away at a friends house to escape work. I am pretty sure they told you I was taking a day off after they found out from me. I was going to be in, I decided to rest instead. So sue me for it. No Carol Anne, you did not have any 'great personal expense', what you did do was impose yourself on two people for 6 hours. You also then used our basic login on our console machines, which is there for when people come to visit, to post messages to UseNet and to send and receive email. Not very nice now is it? When service was suspended, it meant all service, not just your account on the main machines. Talk about net.good.will...you stole service after it was suspended.
My original reply still sits in suspended composition in my mailer. I wasted not a nano-second in preparing my reply to the posting. In legal point of fact, the poster is violation of Minnesota State Law. He has no legal jurisdiction whatsoever.
What are you talking about now? I hope you don't think I am taking legal action for something, because that would be just funny to hear. Your account was terminated for a breach in our AUP, not because you caused me or Winternet harm.
I did not take days to "investigate", nor cite that other things such as "my machines being hacked" and "I'll do it when I'm ready to do it,".
First day, monday, when I suspended your account, you did not even feel it was resonable to call me when I had written a message to your screen explaing that we needed to talk. Tuesday, after being up for 20+ hours and getting a couple hours sleep, you call and harass me at home even more about the status of your account. I told you I wanted to investigate these instances and that I did not have the time because I was dealing with some hackers who had tried to break in. Again, sue me, this time for being tired. Wednesday, I was going to be into work, which you assumed I would be, but did not bother to call to make sure I was around. I decided I was going to take that day off I had been trying to take and did NOT find out you were in the office until late afternoon Wed. I asked Chad and Doug why you were there, and they said they did not know. If you had wanted to see me to talk about this, you should have spoken up. The machine being down was not used as an excuse, but it is hard to operate like we used to with only one user machine. This is a piece of stress on me, which was never taken out on you or on any other user.
I was a simple complaint. It had no validity. Crossposting an article to .1% of the Usenet News Groups does not by the very statistic constitute spam. (And I own two shares of Hormel Corp, so I do know what SPAM (tm) is.
What you consider spamming, and what others do, is two different things. I explained my views, you have seen our AUP, and it was in my judgement, and later, after talking with my peers, their judgement, that things had gone too far. Should I also bring to light your unsolicited mailings you did to users on Winternet and others out to the 'net? Remember those? Something about selling web pages from your account, which I had told you I would rather you did not do, very politely I might add. Or what about the net cash mass mailing you did to people? That is 2 counts in 2 days (notified on monday, early, of the spamming, notified on wed of the mass unsolicited mailings). Sorry, someone had to put their foot down, and it happened to be us.
The crossposting wasn't wasting resources.
It was innapropiate for the groups that you posted to.
It is of no one's concern the actual groups posted.
It is when others have to read it.
They have the right and ability to respond.
And they did, both to you, you have stated, and to me, as the admin of Winternet.
I asked for no money. I did not stand to profit by the posting.
That doesn't matter, it was still innapropiate to post this message to the groups you posted to.
The person who started the whole thing was pretty heavily chastised, by the readers of his own news group.
Huh?
A fast "K" was all that any individual needed for this article.
Uhuh, we could have done that for C&S also, but it would not have helped.
No, Mr. Horwath, you are "way out-of-bounds" this time. And as the time cronology unveils itself, I am sure that will be shown to be a very truthful, factual statement.
Sorry Carol Anne, but this is a system I administer and I use the AUP to protect all of us accross the 'net. This was not an attack against you. You were not judged unfairly. What you did was break our agreement and for this, you lost your service. Also, you hadn't paid for your account for over 10 weeks, so why are you bitching so much anyway? We had talked about the winternet t-shirts and how we would use the work you did and the monies you would receive as payment. Well, no t-shirts have gone out and at this time, I will be cancelling all orders for them and will redesign them and have them produced externally to what you have done. This is what happens when you hold something over someones head.
Dangerous precedents were set here. I will not rest until the whole of the Internet knows and is aware of the situation.
Then spam again, Carol Anne.
Signed Carol Anne Braddock Friday January 6th, 1995 9:40 A.M.
On Fri, 6 Jan 1995, Mike Horwath wrote:
You are welcome to your files and mail, I will pack everything up for you as you left it, including your FTP area.
I expect you to try to reach me today in the afternoon at my office and I will fully explain why your account was deleted, with full detail as to why.
I do appreciate the work you did on the shirts for Winternet. I don't appreciate the harassment you have already tried to bring upon me.
When we talk, I think you might understand why this was done. If you do not, then I feel bad, as I must then not be making myself clear. But no matter what, this was policy that you chose to break even after I had talked to you about it. More on this when we talk.
Good luck at your new provider, Larry Leone is an old user of mine and seems to be a good guy, even if a little quiet on the newsgroups :)
A copy of this letter is also going to your new admin so that he knows what is going on.
Larry, Carol Anne was using about 11.5MB of disk that will be moving over from Winternet to MM.
Also, how have you been anyway? Been awhile since I saw you. Oh, and could you install identd on your system? Get back to me on anything, or with questions.
-- Mike Horwath IRC: Drechsau LIFE: Lover drechsau@winternet.com Winternet: info@winternet.com root@jacobs.mn.org <- Linux! Twin Cities area Internet Access: 612-941-9177 for more info Founding member of Minnesota Coalition for Internet Accessibility
[all previously included messages left intact] -- Mike Horwath IRC: Drechsau LIFE: Lover drechsau@winternet.com Winternet: info@winternet.com root@jacobs.mn.org <- Linux! Twin Cities area Internet Access: 612-941-9177 for more info Founding member of Minnesota Coalition for Internet Accessibility
drechsau@winternet.com (Mike Horwath) carefully explains all the reasons why is it better to have a Netcom account than a Winternet account!
I was going to be in, I decided to rest instead. So sue me for it.
Big providers like Netcom have many employees and many machines. Things do not screech to a halt when "the guy who owns the machine" takes a mental health day. :)
Talk about net.good.will...you stole service after it was suspended.
Free service offered to the public cannot be stolen, even by prior dissatisfied customers. Big providers like Netcom don't care if someone they don't like logs onto the machine again as "guest".
Tuesday, after being up for 20+ hours and getting a couple hours sleep, you call ... Again, sue me, this time for being tired.
Service at big providers like Netcom doesn't slack off when "the guy who owns the machine" misses his nap...
Wednesday, I was going to be into work, which you assumed I would be, ... I decided I was going to take that day off ...
...or when "the guy who owns the machine" goes fishing...
The machine being down was not used as an excuse, but it is hard to operate like we used to with only one user machine.
...or when "the machine" is broken.
That is 2 counts in 2 days (notified on monday, early, of the spamming, notified on wed of the mass unsolicited mailings). Sorry, someone had to put their foot down, and it happened to be us.
Big service providers like Netcom don't interfere with customer use of the resources they sell, except when network functionality is impacted. Even in such cases, they try to reach an understanding with the user, and terminate accounts only as a last resort. Accounts don't vanish when "the guy who owns the machine" decides to throw a tantrum.
It was innapropiate for the groups that you posted to.
Big providers like Netcom don't pass editorial judgment on the content of material posted by their customers.
Sorry Carol Anne, but this is a system I administer and I use the AUP to protect all of us accross the 'net.
I am sure we will all sleep more soundly knowing that Mike Horwath and his tiny pimple of a machine on the Internet are "protecting" us.
We had talked about the winternet t-shirts and how we would use the work you did and the monies you would receive as payment.
Big providers like Netcom don't make silly little deals with customers for T-shirts...
Well, no t-shirts have gone out and at this time, I will be cancelling all orders for them and will redesign them and have them produced externally to what you have done. This is what happens when you hold something over someones head.
...or cancel those agreements out of spite when they don't get everything done their way. You know, I used to use BBS systems a great deal before large providers like Netcom began offering personal accounts with Internet access at reasonable rates. A BBS is about as far from a common carrier as one can get, and many Sysops disclaim all your rights under the ECPA, read private mail, forbid the use of PGP, decide what opinions may be expressed on various issues, and boot off any user who questions anything they do. Since the Sysop owns the machine, they are legally within their rights to act like this, and as long as there are enough users who will put up with their behavior, they can run a system. Now that Unix boxes are not much more expensive than PCs used to be, every asshole in the world who played Sysop on a BBS now envisions himself as Sysadmin of an ISP. So you have an infestation of tiny service providers, running on toy machines, that coast along for a few years until the person running them either goes bankrupt or gets bored. I certainly wouldn't subscribe to one of these services, because the management mentality and problematical service most of them provide is exactly what I came to Netcom to get away from. Quite frankly, I don't see why Carol doesn't just get a Netcom account and stop quibbling with this twit. Stop letting him waste any more of your time and let him play his administrative power games with newbies who don't know any better. My two cents. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $
On Fri, 6 Jan 1995, Mike Duvos wrote:
drechsau@winternet.com (Mike Horwath) carefully explains all the reasons why is it better to have a Netcom account than a Winternet account!
I was going to be in, I decided to rest instead. So sue me for it.
(Long hilarious list of Mike Horwaths's totally unprofessional behavior deleted To save bandwidth, just read it twice, or better still three times.)
[Netcom] accounts don't vanish when "the guy who owns the machine" decides to throw a tantrum.
[...]
A big problem with Netcom is it that it has no web server, and its ftp server is totally overwhelmed. I use nw.com for my web pages and netcom for everything else. Big bandwidth webservice at reasonable rates Does anyone have a better suggestion? I have been shopping around for a reasonably priced 28KB SLIP connection. Have not found one yet. --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we James A. Donald are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. jamesd@netcom.com
On Fri, 6 Jan 1995, Mike Duvos wrote:
drechsau@winternet.com (Mike Horwath) carefully explains all the reasons why is it better to have a Netcom account than a Winternet account!
I was going to be in, I decided to rest instead. So sue me for it.
Big providers like Netcom have many employees and many machines. Things do not screech to a halt when "the guy who owns the machine" takes a mental health day. :)
no instead things screech to a halt when the 1000th user gets on each client machine
Talk about net.good.will...you stole service after it was suspended.
Free service offered to the public cannot be stolen, even by prior dissatisfied customers. Big providers like Netcom don't care if someone they don't like logs onto the machine again as "guest".
when she was prohibited from that service because of her actions it is.
Tuesday, after being up for 20+ hours and getting a couple hours sleep, you call ... Again, sue me, this time for being tired.
Service at big providers like Netcom doesn't slack off when "the guy who owns the machine" misses his nap...
no they slack off whenever they get a chance
Wednesday, I was going to be into work, which you assumed I would be, ... I decided I was going to take that day off ...
...or when "the guy who owns the machine" goes fishing...
...or when 5 trillion hackers descend on the machine and eat it alive
The machine being down was not used as an excuse, but it is hard to operate like we used to with only one user machine.
...or when "the machine" is broken.
...or when "their network" is broken.
That is 2 counts in 2 days (notified on monday, early, of the spamming, notified on wed of the mass unsolicited mailings). Sorry, someone had to put their foot down, and it happened to be us.
Big service providers like Netcom don't interfere with customer use of the resources they sell, except when network functionality is impacted. Even in such cases, they try to reach an understanding with the user, and terminate accounts only as a last resort. Accounts don't vanish when "the guy who owns the machine" decides to throw a tantrum.
if a user on netcom violates the AUP, their account would be terminated...if those were the terms of the AUP. It just so happens the AUP of winternet allows for this situation. its a bit far fetched to call HIS reaction a tantrum.... If anyone's screaming for mommy its whats-her-name....
Sorry Carol Anne, but this is a system I administer and I use the AUP to protect all of us accross the 'net.
I am sure we will all sleep more soundly knowing that Mike Horwath and his tiny pimple of a machine on the Internet are "protecting" us.
big is better i guess....
We had talked about the winternet t-shirts and how we would use the work you did and the monies you would receive as payment.
Big providers like Netcom don't make silly little deals with customers for T-shirts...
Big providers like Netcom don't have a 'community' to speak of.
Well, no t-shirts have gone out and at this time, I will be cancelling all orders for them and will redesign them and have them produced externally to what you have done. This is what happens when you hold something over someones head.
...or cancel those agreements out of spite when they don't get everything done their way.
uhmm, sounds like the deal was cancelled because she didn't deliver.,..not out of spite
You know, I used to use BBS systems a great deal before large providers like Netcom began offering personal accounts with Internet access at reasonable rates. A BBS is about as far from a common carrier as one can get, and many Sysops disclaim all your rights under the ECPA, read private mail, forbid the use of PGP, decide what opinions may be expressed on various issues, and boot off any user who questions anything they do. Since the Sysop owns the machine, they are legally within their rights to act like this, and as long as there are enough users who will put up with their behavior, they can run a system.
HAhahaha...if you had any idea what you were talking about, you would realize you are totally off base. Winternet is HARDLY a 'bbs'. Its a regional internet service....much as netcom was before they flooded every city with dialups. Any professional knows better than to read private mail...and if this is so...then they aren't worthy of having a site to run as for PGP, this is an individual thing....I'm sure mike has no such objections...i know here at MindVox we don't...in fact, we installed it for the users Who owns netcom's machines?
Now that Unix boxes are not much more expensive than PCs used to be, every asshole in the world who played Sysop on a BBS now envisions himself as Sysadmin of an ISP. So you have an infestation of tiny service providers, running on toy machines, that coast along for a few years until the person running them either goes bankrupt or gets bored. I certainly wouldn't subscribe to one of these services, because the management mentality and problematical service most of them provide is exactly what I came to Netcom to get away from.
Once again, you speaketh from your ass.... Netcom is an abomination.....it is the only one of its kind (not counting delphi etc, since they were conceived under differnent systems) Netcom is a Winternet which has grown out of control. They suck network services off others (irc as one example) and don't take responsibilty for the HUGE number of idiots on their service who maliciously hack anything they can reach....its totally without personality...AND....its slower than molasses...the management is out of touch with the users and they are so overloaded with trouble reports, they don't know what to do with them.
Quite frankly, I don't see why Carol doesn't just get a Netcom account and stop quibbling with this twit. Stop letting him waste any more of your time and let him play his administrative power games with newbies who don't know any better.
Yes....join them carol join them.... join them.... join them.... be like us.... be like us.... be like us.... we will care for your every need.... we will care for your every need.... we will care for your every need.... look deep into my eyes.... look deep into my eyes.... look deep into my eyes.... This has got to be one of the largest loads of crap I've seen tossed on this list in the year and a half i've lurked on it. I'd love to see a response to this...please! oh...btw...i don't have ANY connection to winternet, other than knowing MANY satisfied customers, and having heard alot about them, as a sysadmin for a site in much the same situation. , /\_-\(:::::::::)/\_-\ matthew e. cable - systems administrator . . <((_)) MindVox ((_))> phantom access technologies inc . \- \/(:::::::::)\- \/ wozzeck@phantom.com
On Fri, 6 Jan 1995, I'm Wozz wrote:
Big providers like Netcom have many employees and many machines. Things do not screech to a halt when "the guy who owns the machine" takes a mental health day. :)
no instead things screech to a halt when the 1000th user gets on each client machine
When Netcom slows down, this is not because the asshole in charge is being an asshole. He may well be an asshole, but the size of netcom protects me from having to discover this. This is good for my mental health.
I'd love to see a response to this...please!
You are totally full of shit. Mike Horwath was arrogant and unprofessional. The problems you describe with Netcoms service are entirely accurate. I am looking for better solution. Submitting to the authority of an arrogant and incompetent fool does not seem like a good solution. He is plainly a fool, because if I had acted as he has acted, I would certainly not post this all over the place. Until he posted, I had assumed that Carol was having a hissy fit, that she was premenstrual or something. Now I see why she is upset. --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we James A. Donald are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. jamesd@netcom.com
On Fri, 6 Jan 1995, James A. Donald wrote:
On Fri, 6 Jan 1995, I'm Wozz wrote:
Big providers like Netcom have many employees and many machines. Things do not screech to a halt when "the guy who owns the machine" takes a mental health day. :)
no instead things screech to a halt when the 1000th user gets on each client machine
When Netcom slows down, this is not because the asshole in charge is being an asshole.
I'd hardly call taking a day off being an asshole. Is he supposed to staff the thing 24 hours a day 7 days a week? No...its a small operation, that cannot be expected.
He may well be an asshole, but the size of netcom protects me from having to discover this.
and you like the fact that you have NO idea who's running the place.
This is good for my mental health.
I'd love to see a response to this...please!
You are totally full of shit.
and why is this? there is no support for this statement...
Mike Horwath was arrogant and unprofessional.
hardly...after the fit this woman threw. CC'ing his private mail and interactions with her to COMPLETELY unrelated places .... such as cypherpunks, nicholas negreponte of all people, wired, etc, etc, etc as i understand the situation, the main contention here is that she was trying to sell space on her web pages.....on winternet's machines....without winternet's permission. How would netcom react to such a situation (oh thats right....you're not allowed to have web pages) How about a similar situation, such as you selling the time you don't use on your account to a friend and pocketing the money
The problems you describe with Netcoms service are entirely accurate. I am looking for better solution. Submitting to the authority of an arrogant and incompetent fool does not seem like a good solution.
no...instead, submit to the authority of 100 or so ANONYMOUS arrogant incompetent fools
He is plainly a fool, because if I had acted as he has acted, I would certainly not post this all over the place.
he's not posting this all over the place....Carol had a fit and he chose to respond. I'm afraid the baby here is Carol , + . /\_-\ ==================---------------------- . ` . <((_))> ==============-------------------- ` x . \- \/ ===========------------------ , /\_-\(:::::::::)/\_-\ matthew e. cable - systems administrator . . <((_)) MindVox ((_))> phantom access technologies inc . \- \/(:::::::::)\- \/ wozzeck@phantom.com + ` /\_-\ ===========------------------ . , * ' <((_))> ==============-------------------- + x \- \/ ==================----------------------
Perspective, Perspective, Perspective. You're both right on many counts. Mike is a "fine benevolent dictator". He has many "happy" users. He has now five local Usenet groups of winternet.* But he reneges on deals. The shirts were ready before Thanksgiving. He posseses them as I write. He violates the spirit by which I processed their making (the samples). Many orders for the shirts were made prior to Thanksgiving, I still have the mail for them at squeaky.free.org (good storage place). Then there's the GT story. I organized one for them. Created a sked for more of them. He didn't like the sked. The Users did. There was an incident of much greater magnitude, that drew far less attention. It was my call for WWW crosspost linkages. It was hand posted to 75 or so groups, one at a time. The plus minus ratio of mail was last at 412 positive, and 8 negative. Squeaky has half the mail. There's 50 and growing crossposts that are drawing 200+ accesses a day to that page. Any other page he has on his system is only drawing 40-50 responses at best. I have copies of the daily access statistics /usr/local/ect/httpd/stats/summary If my mail is frozen, so to should all phases of that account, including the WWW Pages. Besides maybe they"have violated acceptable use policy",too! That's just sound administrative policy to shut everything down. You haven't heard about Webbittown, yet. Bruce Sterling owns #9 Blackice Blvd. It's a Web page city of 20,000 individual pages, at a $1,000 a page. Just like Real Estate. Run by doom software drivers. Mike's poor vision is another T1 line, maybe two if he's lucky. They are hacking his machine like crazy, he claims. That means you got some serious enemies, if it's true. That means you don't abuse your fans like me, at a time like that. It also probably means one of his "friends" is his enemy. I have an alt.dream.lucid of having the world's best web server. I dream of people being able to protect their HTML code with PGP. Funtional on top, crypto underneath. Encryption on the fly. This was something that was bound to happen sooner or later. Better sooner than later. Now there's precedent. 10 groups, and the reply's caught in the pine processor 3.91,too! Doc Ozone says pine 3.91's full of leaks. Doc Ozone and I make machines for people who are 'netless'. It's called the tired, poor project. Give us your tired, your poor, your old PC's. Miles, a seven year old is next on the list. We gave Mike a Sparc monitor from one of our equipment forrays. Free,zip, zilch for we got for free zip zilch. He begged for it. It was still sitting in the office wednesday, unfixed for anyone. I equate the thing to a domestic abuse situation. As long as it's minor, as long as it's hushed, it's OK Even this would have been OK if had stayed silent. There is a safety in numbers factor. AOL proves it. And as they descend upon the the net things will change again. The moment I called little tiny Micro Net, I knew there would be fallout. I will not respond to the actual posting unless I'm asked a direct question about the substance of the post. But it's pretty self explanitory, and I cry to think there's a real bitch. Yes, at Netcom, I can now probably get much further, much faster. No I wouldn't subject myself or anyone to Winternet. But I wouldn't subject a newbie to Netcom either. I did it once and was sorry, too. I'm just a punk girl who writes great HTML code. And I hope that it can be protected by cryptograhy, that's my little goal. I hope I have both made you think and feel you are right, because both of you are, in certain kinds of ways. And you know it, too. Now where was I?, oh yeah, Is there like a Remailer for Dummies, quick reference manual? I could have fun learning & doing that. Till My Next Mini-Rant, Love Always, Carol Anne Signature withdrawn at the request (pretty rightfully so) of my dear friends on the Cypherpunk List Coming Soon: The Internet Debut of CENSORED.COM
On Sat, 7 Jan 1995, Carol Anne Braddock wrote:
Yes, at Netcom, I can now probably get much further, much faster. No I wouldn't subject myself or anyone to Winternet. But I wouldn't subject a newbie to Netcom either. I did it once and was sorry, too.
Actually you cannot. No web pages, and their ftp is really bad. I put my web stuff on http://nw.com/jamesd/ Cheap, good bandwidth, but I have trouble getting usage statistics. --------------------------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we James A. Donald are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. jamesd@netcom.com
"I'm Wozz" <wozzeck@phantom.com> writes: [miscellaneous Netcom-honking elided]
It just so happens the AUP of winternet allows for this situation.
Right. And a small service provider can make any "terms of service agreement" his or her little heart desires. Just like the owner of a two line BBS. With big service providers, such things tend to be done in a somewhat more business-like fashion.
its a bit far fetched to call HIS reaction a tantrum.... If anyone's screaming for mommy its whats-her-name....
Well, if I posted a message to 10 newsgroups and some bozo posted a message to a.c-e.n-a falsely implying that it was the beginning of some sort of massive spam, I would certainly not be pleased. If Netcom, after receiving some small amount of flamage on the subject, summarily removed access to my account and made themselves unavailable for several days when I tried to contact them to discuss the matter, and then tossed me off with a flippant "so sue me" when I protested, I would be even less pleased. Fortunately, I can't imagine Netcom even caring about a 10 newsgroup cross-post.
big is better i guess....
In the case of Internet Service Providers, big is definitely better. There are simply economies of scale which are not realized with smaller operations. Netcom has had some problems, but almost all of them were growth related. None of them were intrinsic to the systems and network itself.
Winternet is HARDLY a 'bbs'. Its a regional internet service....much as netcom was before they flooded every city with dialups.
Read again, this time for comprehension. I did not say Winternet was a BBS. Merely that smaller ISPs have many of the undesirable characteristics found in BBS systems.
Any professional knows better than to read private mail...and if this is so...then they aren't worthy of having a site to run
For legal purposes, most BBS systems declare that for the purposes of the ECPA, there is no such thing as private mail on their system. The Sysop is then free to read anything he wishes to. This policy is clearly stated in the user agreements of almost all BBS systems offering access to the public.
as for PGP, this is an individual thing....I'm sure mike has no such objections...i know here at MindVox we don't...in fact, we installed it for the users
Many BBS Sysops forbid PGP and kick users off their systems who use it. They cite fears of encrypted illegal porn and credit card numbers passing through their systems, and potential legal liability.
Netcom is an abomination.....it is the only one of its kind (not counting delphi etc, since they were conceived under differnent systems)
Netcom is the fastest growing and leading Internet Service Provider. Their ability to attract new customers is limited only by the rate at which they are able to increase capacity. Their respect for freedom of expression is absolute and they do not meddle in their customers' affairs. Their prices are reasonable and their user agreement is fair. Works for me. :)
They suck network services off others (irc as one example) and don't take responsibilty for the HUGE number of idiots on their service who maliciously hack anything they can reach....its totally without personality...AND....its slower than molasses...the management is out of touch with the users and they are so overloaded with trouble reports, they don't know what to do with them.
Perhaps an exaggerated description of Netcom a few months ago, but certainly not the current state of affairs. I always get a line when I dial in, response time is reasonable, disk is abundant, and almost all software is available. Speed of network connections to other sites is quite acceptable.
This has got to be one of the largest loads of crap I've seen tossed on this list in the year and a half i've lurked on it.
Everyone is certainly entitled to an opinion, which, in the words of Robert Blake, is one of the two things all humans have. :)
oh...btw...i don't have ANY connection to winternet, other than knowing MANY satisfied customers, and having heard alot about them, as a sysadmin for a site in much the same situation.
The number of satisfied customers is not the measure of a site, any more than the number of people still alive is the measure of a disease. Netcom works with the reliability of the phone company. It is always there, almost always up, and is redundant enough that when something breaks, it is still usable. I pay my $19.50 a month and I get unlimited everything. I'm happy. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $
On Fri, 6 Jan 1995, Mike Duvos wrote:
"I'm Wozz" <wozzeck@phantom.com> writes:
[miscellaneous Netcom-honking elided]
It just so happens the AUP of winternet allows for this situation.
Right. And a small service provider can make any "terms of service agreement" his or her little heart desires. Just like the owner of a two line BBS. With big service providers, such things tend to be done in a somewhat more business-like fashion.
hahah....netcom can make up anything they want to. You do of course, read these agreements before you get on...don't you... Here's a simple solution...don't get on a systems who's AUP you disagree with. You assertion that simply because a company is not netcom's size, that its unprofessional and incompetent is rediculous.
its a bit far fetched to call HIS reaction a tantrum.... If anyone's screaming for mommy its whats-her-name....
Well, if I posted a message to 10 newsgroups and some bozo posted a message to a.c-e.n-a falsely implying that it was the beginning of some sort of massive spam, I would certainly not be pleased. If Netcom, after receiving some small amount of flamage on the subject, summarily removed access to my account and made themselves unavailable for several days when I tried to contact them to discuss the matter, and then tossed me off with a flippant "so sue me" when I protested, I would be even less pleased. Fortunately, I can't imagine Netcom even caring about a 10 newsgroup cross-post.
right....because Netcom is FILLED with assholes....those that crosspost to 10 groups are overlooked
big is better i guess....
In the case of Internet Service Providers, big is definitely better. There are simply economies of scale which are not realized with smaller operations. Netcom has had some problems, but almost all of them were growth related. None of them were intrinsic to the systems and network itself.
so...AOL is better than netcom? at least they have an irc server. and ALL of netcom's problems are related to the systems and network.... they didn't plan their expansion correctly....and as a result...are feeling it now.
Winternet is HARDLY a 'bbs'. Its a regional internet service....much as netcom was before they flooded every city with dialups.
Read again, this time for comprehension. I did not say Winternet was a BBS. Merely that smaller ISPs have many of the undesirable characteristics found in BBS systems.
and Netcom has many of the undesirable characteristics found in big systems like Prodigy and Compuserve... if you honestly find this attractive.....well, enjoy
Any professional knows better than to read private mail...and if this is so...then they aren't worthy of having a site to run
For legal purposes, most BBS systems declare that for the purposes of the ECPA, there is no such thing as private mail on their system. The Sysop is then free to read anything he wishes to. This policy is clearly stated in the user agreements of almost all BBS systems offering access to the public.
well of course.....Netcom will read your mail too if you are accused of hacking. The fact is....the chances of someone reading your mail on Netcom are about 100 times higher than on a smaller system....simply becuase the place is so overridden with root wielding hackers who have nothing better to do than torment others....
as for PGP, this is an individual thing....I'm sure mike has no such objections...i know here at MindVox we don't...in fact, we installed it for the users
Many BBS Sysops forbid PGP and kick users off their systems who use it. They cite fears of encrypted illegal porn and credit card numbers passing through their systems, and potential legal liability.
well......once again.....shop before you buy. You can't make such blanket assertations, because they simply aren't true.
Netcom is an abomination.....it is the only one of its kind (not counting delphi etc, since they were conceived under differnent systems)
Netcom is the fastest growing and leading Internet Service Provider. Their ability to attract new customers is limited only by the rate at which they are able to increase capacity. Their respect for freedom of expression is absolute and they do not meddle in their customers' affairs. Their prices are reasonable and their user agreement is fair. Works for me. :)
Netcom is also the LEADING source of trouble for the rest of the network because of the way they handle their user population. They can't keep up with all their problems. This seems to translate to you as - "They respect me and don't bother me" THe fact is....they don't even know who the hell you are. And....being a matter of scale, as several pointed out... netcom is about 100 times the size of winternet....(approximation)... thus...lets multiply everything by 100, profits, users, problems, etc, etc If one of their user's posted (10x100) 1000 MAKE.MONEY.FAST posts to 1000 different groups.....you can bet that person wouldn't have their account the next day.
They suck network services off others (irc as one example) and don't take responsibilty for the HUGE number of idiots on their service who maliciously hack anything they can reach....its totally without personality...AND....its slower than molasses...the management is out of touch with the users and they are so overloaded with trouble reports, they don't know what to do with them.
Perhaps an exaggerated description of Netcom a few months ago, but certainly not the current state of affairs. I always get a line when I dial in, response time is reasonable, disk is abundant, and almost all software is available. Speed of network connections to other sites is quite acceptable.
this is THEIR network..... there is ANOTHER network out there....its called...the Internet. I've had MANY users at my site connecting from netcom, and insisting that our T1 is overloaded because of the chunky responses they are getting... well, guess what. As soon as they tried from somewhere else....their problems dissapeared. They contribute very little to the Internet .... and that which they do is overshadowed by the harm many of their more immature users cause
oh...btw...i don't have ANY connection to winternet, other than knowing MANY satisfied customers, and having heard alot about them, as a sysadmin for a site in much the same situation.
The number of satisfied customers is not the measure of a site, any more than the number of people still alive is the measure of a disease.
its not? then your opinion doesn't count...right? i mean...you're just a satisfied user
Netcom works with the reliability of the phone company. It is always there, almost always up, and is redundant enough that when something breaks, it is still usable. I pay my $19.50 a month and I get unlimited everything. I'm happy.
If you call netcom usable...you've obviously NEVER tried another ISP...or had several VERY bad experiences with the few you've tried. I urge you to give the whole situation another look. , + . /\_-\ ==================---------------------- . ` . <((_))> ==============-------------------- ` x . \- \/ ===========------------------ , /\_-\(:::::::::)/\_-\ matthew e. cable - systems administrator . . <((_)) MindVox ((_))> phantom access technologies inc . \- \/(:::::::::)\- \/ wozzeck@phantom.com + ` /\_-\ ===========------------------ . , * ' <((_))> ==============-------------------- + x \- \/ ==================----------------------
"I'm Wozz" <wozzeck@phantom.com> writes:
Any professional knows better than to read private mail...and if this is so...then they aren't worthy of having a site to run
For legal purposes, most BBS systems declare that for the purposes of the ECPA, there is no such thing as private mail on their system. The Sysop is then free to read anything he wishes to. This policy is clearly stated in the user agreements of almost all BBS systems offering access to the public.
This may be true of public access BBS systems, but on corporate sites the smart money pulls the other way. Smart corps avoid reading email for the same reason they avoid listening in on voice conversations (except in telemarketing etc.). Likelihood of a corporation being held liable for any abusive use of a system by an employee is drastically outweighed by the likelihood of a costly wrongful dismissal suit should any investigation of private correspondence reveal some private fact (e.g. they are gay, they are having an affair, etc.) that leads to their dismissal (and thus loss of access to the system!). In other words, abuse by managers of their supervisory priveleges is far more likely to come back and haunt the organization than abuse by employees, in legal terms anyway. At a recent seminar on doing business on the internet I stated this opinion to an audience that included at least 20 lawyers. None disagreed, the numbers are clear enough. One added the qualification, which I agree with, that pirated software that the organization directly benefits from is a specific exception where the organization is guilty until proven innocent. But he hastened to add that the rest of the argument stood up. We agreed that a 'software audit' program such as the SPA provides could meet that need without compromising end user privacy. Slowly I believe that Prodigy, AOL, etc., are getting this message, that it costs more to censor than not to. Reading of the week: "Defending Pornography", by the head of the ACLU (yes a woman) who argues that the fight against censorship is equivalent to the fight for women's rights, and historically has always had the same enemies. Kind words on the jacket from Friedan and other mainstream feminists.
as for PGP, this is an individual thing....I'm sure mike has no such objections...i know here at MindVox we don't...in fact, we installed it for the users
Many BBS Sysops forbid PGP and kick users off their systems who
I can't speak to the paranoia of garage system operators but:
use it. They cite fears of encrypted illegal porn and credit card numbers passing through their systems, and potential legal liability.
We work with a lot of large corporate clients using the internet. We have recommended PGP as a means of securing privacy for all corporate communications (note I don't use it from this site as I don't download all mail from here before reading it, a GUI PGP that was usable would go a long way to overcoming resistance) and deal only with BBS operators who fully support user privacy. As I suggest, we have recommended strongly against investigating the contents of mail etc., and have been backed by the lawyers of these organizations who see a nightmare of legal liability even in the *ability* to look. (When does the ability to look become an obligation to record? Go ask your service provider!) It seems to me that, although there have been some misguided prosecutions with serious impact on the livelihoods of some small operators, the defense that the operators did not know what was moving through their site has held up. Criminal liability hinges on knowledge of the act - you cannot be held criminally liable unless you knew what was going on... period. Exceptions to that ('guilty until proven innocent' doctrine that blames the publisher and forces them also to be a censor) are offensive to the principles of both the law and liberalism. I would cite broadcasting law as an example of such an abusive body of law, and note that it was written entirely in this century. The 'common carrier' status is not a silver bullet, it obligates carriers to co-operate with authorities to maintain that status, as it is specially granted. It is actually better to let it evolve by precedent, a 'de facto' common carrier defense, as that way it cannot be withdrawn by a government without special legislation that itself may be overturned by the courts (in constitutional democracies). In other words, keep on using PGP, ditch providers who forbid it, and recommend it to every company you can. Once it becomes clear to Ford and Kraft and GM that a decision to hold a BBS operator responsible for traffic that moved through his system without his intervention, is also likely to deem *them* responsible for employees (and suppliers!) once they have established internally a comfortable precedent of just leaving the mail alone... very expensive and disruptive to overturn... you can be damn sure that some serious campaign contributions will swing over to the privacy advocates. I make these assumptions: that corporate America, as commercial entities, have no interest in knowing about anything that is not directly related to the making of money. It does not want its business complicated by the necessity to become a censor of employee discussions. Piss tests etc. were an example of DoD over-control forcibly imposed on the private sector... with predictable results like the Intel Pentagronk (who ever heard of a serious system being built entirely without benefit of psychoactives?) With DoD spending disappearing, the military-industrial complex shrinking, this economic influence is reduced and we get more overt legislative attempts to exert control like the Clipper, motivated by 'civilian' concerns like 'kiddie porn' (gee Japan has no such laws and it hasn't collapsed yet, has lower incidence of child molestation too...) and 'violent porn' (same story, you can get it in Denmark and they have less rape than here...) and 'stolen goods' (which can be moved around easily enough by a hundred other means). In other words, the same lame excuses that politicians use every time they want to control people. But I don't think business is with the program, I think corporations only react to fear of liability etc. (which is kept heightened by governments with their own agenda) which can be reduced by education and measured by intelligent risk analysis. In my opinion, as the architect of several risk management systems, the latter demonstrates that the danger is less than 'most BBS operators' think, and it arises from different factors than they think, to wit: If a small service provider is prosecuted for moving alt.binaries.snuff through his system, it is not because he carries it: so do 500 other service providers, and they can't prosecute them all. It is because he was careless enough to indicate in non-PGP-encrypted email that he was intending to make a political donation to the prosecutor's opponent. Barring a nationwide crackdown, where the initial prosecution is always carefully chosen for minimum public sympathy, these random prosecutions are going to be motivated by the petty whims of cops and bureaucrats. I see no reason why one would leave one's opinions open to them to read. All that can do is make you a target, and who needs to be a target ? That said, I can understand their fear. If I were operating an internet service today, I doubt I would have posted this to cypherpunks (which I read primarily to protect my own privacy, that of my clients, and advise them on effective means of privacy protection). Now I'm probably on an NSA list somewhere... good thing I'm up here in Canada...! Craig Hubley Business that runs on knowledge Craig Hubley & Associates needs software that runs on the Web craig@passport.ca 416-778-6136 416-778-1965 FAX
On Fri, 6 Jan 1995, Mike Duvos wrote: [ big monolithic service providers like Nyetcom are the best and will crush all you piddly little upstart ISPs ]
Big service providers like Netcom don't interfere with customer use of the resources they sell, except when network functionality is impacted. Even in such cases, they try to reach an understanding with the user, and terminate accounts only as a last resort. Accounts don't vanish when "the guy who owns the machine" decides to throw a tantrum.
Yeah. They only kill accounts when people criticize NetCruiser. :-P Nyetcom is hardly an example of a quality service provider. They suffer periodic long term news and email delays; their service personnel are rude, slow, and unprofessional (read: Bruce Woodcock & the above incident); their security has been compromised countless times; their FTP server is constantly overloaded; their toy software NetCruiser generates nonconformant Usenet articles; their 18 (!) machines are constantly overloaded that it takes a good five minutes to respond to a finger request; they have no http:// support. They are home to some of the most infamous net.kooks and net.cretins (like Tom Servo, currently), and their net.reputation sucks. Frankly, I'd rather have a Winternet account than a Netcom account. ObCypherpunks: sameer's system, the Community Connexion, suffers *none* of these problems. http://www.c2.org or <info@c2.org> for more information. sameer supports PGP and the running of anonymous remailers on his system. Check it out, send him money.
Michael Handler <grendel@netaxs.com> writes:
Yeah. They only kill accounts when people criticize NetCruiser. :-P
Netcom is hardly an example of a quality service provider. They suffer periodic long term news and email delays; their service personnel are rude, slow, and unprofessional (read: Bruce Woodcock & the above incident);
NetCruiser is a "work in progress" and continues to evolve in the right direction. Bruce Sterling Woodcock is history. On the rare occasions when I have interacted with support@netcom.com, their responses have been both helpful and provided in a timely fashion.
Their security has been compromised countless times
This is Unix. Not a problem exclusive to Netcom.
They are home to some of the most infamous net.kooks and net.cretins (like Tom Servo, currently), ...
I suppose I should be pleased that you have not included me by name in the list. :)
Frankly, I'd rather have a Winternet account than a Netcom account.
Fine with me. As long as *I* don't have to have a Winternet account. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $
participants (7)
-
Carol Anne Braddock -
craig＠passport.ca -
drechsau＠winternet.com -
I'm Wozz -
James A. Donald -
Michael Handler -
mpd＠netcom.com