ORBS sucked into a black hole!

[Jim Choate]

On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:

> The only black hole in this conversation are the Choatian posts.
> 
> ORBS/RBL/etc. in principle are making statements about what they
> believe about other people. This is similar to movie or book reviewing.
> People may read my review and stay away from a movie/book, just as they
> read an ORBS/RBL/MAPS "review" and stay away from certain addresses.

Malarky, they actively(!) participate.

What ORBS and their ilk do is collect scans of IP's across the Internet,
some do it directly, some do it through independent 3rd parties, and
direct complaints. The only way ORBS will remove you from the database is
if you allow(!) them to re-scan your MTA and verify to their satisfaction
you are not in any way running an Open Relay. They then make this database
(usually for some sort of fee) available to other groups who then actively
filter submissions to their sites. In other words if I have a friend who I
want to exchange private mail with, ORBS's uses their trumped excuse for
justification to inject their belief system into that. Truly heinous.

Since when did I have any sort of obligation to help them in their
particular crusade? My duties as a citizen and human being are not to
interfere. I'm not saying 'Stop', I'm only saying 'Let me off'.

There is no technical or legal standard to back their actions. There is no
'authority' for them to decide who may configure their software how (and
the fact that they tell a private citizen is particularly irksome, more
angels among men I guess).

Just another fascist bastard.

Freedom for me, but not for thee...


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