It's 2001, so it must be time for A Modest Filtering Proposal

[Tim May]

At 9:55 AM -0500 2/16/01, Trei, Peter wrote:
>[Apologies in advance for the multiple posting; this had to get
>  to everyone -pt]
>
>Jim (and other cypherpunk node operators):
>
>The spate of "Mail Delivery Failure" messages we've been
>seeing for the last few days are due to messages sent to a
>user "rob at nihilist.com", apparently a very temporary (and
>now dead) web mail address at www.another.com.
>
>I've exchanged mail with the postmaster (richard at uk.another.com),
>and he clearly regards this as Someone Elses Problem, and has no
>intention of ceasing to send the bounce notices.
>
>I strongly advise everyone running a cpunk node to check for, and
>delete rob at nihilist.com. It's not like he/she/it can't resubscribe if
>they want to.
>
>Sigh.... Yet Another Attack now exists against the cypherpunks
>S/N ratio.

This is actually Just an Old Attack. It used to be that either Eric 
Hughes or Hugh Daniel would periodically delete addresses which 
caused problems like this. (I'm talking about the period 1992-1996.)

After the "CDR Era" began, with the main CDR unfiltered nodes echoing 
the traffic sent to _any_ of the other nodes, this pretty much 
stopped.

Since then, anytime anyone brings up the issue of how to fix the spam 
and cluelessness problems, screams, usually from Choate, are heard 
that this is "censorship."

Yes, procmail and Eudora-type filtering offer various ways to not see 
the bounces, much of the spam, etc. But the list is now at the point 
where more than half of the unfiltered traffic is spam or bounces or 
"help me make bombz so i can get yur site shut down" requests.

There have long been several "noncensorious" approaches:

1. Only subscribers can post, plus anything that comes from an 
identifiable remailer. Many mailing lists already work this way, of 
course. The remailer addresses can be entered manually, with CDR 
operators exchanging updated lists of known remailers. ZKS and 
similar privacy systems can presumably be handled in some way.

2. A "magic word" in the text or subject line. Instead of Choate 
adding "CDR:" to all of the signal + noise that reaches his system, 
wouldn't it be more interesting if _authors_ added such a word--even 
CDR, ironically enough!--to their message headers?

(The idea of both of the above is that spammers and clueless bombz 
dewdz would probably not know enough to either subscribe to the list 
or to insert the magic word.)

3. Wider use of downstream-filtered services, like Ray Arachelian's 
service. I have sometimes thought about dropping my subscription to 
one of the  CDR nodes and subscribing to Ray's service instead, but I 
have several reservations. First, whether it will remain in 
operation. Second, what the lag time is. Third, his is a "this is 
what I think is interesting" service, so there are obvious problems 
of his interests not matching mine, or even of my own posts not being 
seen by me because he has elected not to pass them on.

A more interesting downstream filter service would be something 
operated as an automated site, like another CDR node, except that it 
automatically filters out nonsubscribers to one of the main lists. 
(This requires no cooperation with the other CDR nodes, provided the 
whois function can retrieve their subscribers.)

This service should be low-latency, which rules out a human critic 
deciding which posts are worthy of passing on. And it should

The "magic word" approach cannot be used in isolation, as it only 
works if a very large fraction of the interesting list memmbers are 
using the magic word.

If one of you folks out  there does this--sets up this kind of 
low-latency filtering of nonsubscribers, plus inclusion of anonymous 
or remailed or ZKS/Mojo-type posts--then I will subscribe to your 
service.

A more ambitious approach might give options for filtering, at a 
fairly coarse granularity. Not individual posters, but, say, "Don't 
pass on any traffic from toad.com."

But just the "subscribers to any CDR node plus anonymous" filter 
would be the key step in eliminating the spam and bounces and 
unwelcome bombz dewdz.

(Choate can presumably be counted on to start foaming about how I am 
proposing censorship and that if I would like such a service I should 
build one myself. Happily, I won't see his foamings.)

Consider this an invitation for someone to try doing this. And if 
someone is already doing this, you need to advertise more!

--Tim May
-- 
Timothy C. May         tcmay at got.net        Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns