ORBS sucked into a black hole!

[Declan McCullagh]

ORBS/MAPS/etc. "participate" by connecting to and reviewing sites,
much like I go out to and watch movies to review.

As usual, Choate fails to grasp the point. I am not saying anyone
has a duty to "help them." 

In fact, as I said in an earlier post, I'm not sure I even agree with
what they're doing. But I do believe they have a right to publish
their reviews of mail relays, just as I have the right to publish
movie reviews -- even if you disagree with what I say in them.

To tell them not to speak their mind about you is censorship no less
than if you attempt to force me not to speak my mind about that
rather awful Operation: Swordfish movie.

-Declan


On Tue, Jun 12, 2001 at 12:10:40AM -0500, Jim Choate wrote:
> 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...
> 
> 
>  --
>     ____________________________________________________________________
> 
>               "...where annual election ends, tyranny begins;"
> 
>                                Thomas Jefferson & Samuel Adams
> 
>        The Armadillo Group       ,::////;::-.          James Choate
>        Austin, Tx               /:'///// ``::>/|/      ravage at ssz.com
>        www.ssz.com            .',  ||||    `/( e\      512-451-7087
>                            -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
>     --------------------------------------------------------------------