[Pigdog] TNIPNATFIIA

[J.A. Terranson]

Please note that I have crossposted a copy of this to cypherpunks, 
since they appear to have been the primary "beneficiaries" of these 
phantasmagorical "subscriptions", as well as Spam-L where this is a topic 
of discussion due to the errant "subscriptions" that materialized out of 
thin air for so many people today.  

I invite you to come on down to spam-l ( http://spam-l.com ) if you 
would like to remove the high piched rhetoric I have quoted 
etensively below, and discuss ways to prevent another disaster like you 
had today with this "reconstruction".

Since i have been unsubbed, I was unaware of most of this attack material: 
it was sent to me by someone still subscribed: I am answering it 
regardless of my subscription status as I don't take well to being called 
a liar, publicly or otherwise.  I am truly curious if you have the moral 
fortitude to allow your listmembers to see this reply.


> > I've known Earl (the listmom) for two decades, and can tell you with
> > certainty that he would not have added any addresses that were not
> > subscribed to the list.

Regardless of how well or how long you may have known Earl, it is an 
absolute *fact* that he he added people who were not subscribers.  Many of 
the addresses he restored included NON-subscribers who had crossposts from 
either cypherpunks or burning man lists.  The most likely reason for this 
is he lost his list and went back through the archives and added every 
"From:" address /she saw in an attempt to recover it. 

Warning Will Robinson:  "From:" does not equal subscribed - Earl made a 
*huge* error here, and is now compounding it by asserting that the error 
is on the newly mass-subscribed to prove that they were never really 
subscribers in the first place.


> > When I got on Pigdog-l in 1994 it required an email verification. One  
> > could not get on to the list without sending the proper command by  
> > email, receiving an authorization token to their own email address,  
> > and sending it back.


Good for Earl.  He did it *right*, way back when it wasn't fashionable.  
The only problem is that (1) this is not 1994, (2) he doesnt HAVE that 
original list, so he's trying to "recover it" by scraping "From:" entries 
in archives, and (3) Earl even admitted himself that

	"[he] re-subbed them all, including some that 
	probably shouldn't be subbed."

that tells us that he KNEW his list was inaccurate when he did it.  

Add to this already incredible clusterfsck the fact that his list appears 
to have been gone for *years*, and that Earl clearly admits that he hasnt 
a clue who was and was not actually subscribed:

	"All: I re-scanned the mail archives to verify that I was 
	only adding people who were subscribed to this mailing list 
	from before we lost the subscriber list. If you're getting 
	this message, that means you were once subscribed to the 
	Pigdog mailing list. If you still can't remember subscribing, 
	or if you think there was an error, or if you were subscribed
	but you since unsubscribed, please let me know and I'll be 
	happy to remove you. I'm just trying to recover the list after
	a series of nasty server crashes, I am not trying to sign up 
	names of people who don't want to be here."

The proper way to do this, if you *must*, is to ask for re-subscriptions 
(see below), NOT to just force people onto your list and then put the onus 
on them to get off.

Earl was at least honest that he wasnt totally sure he knew what he was 
doing.  You on the other hand have absolutely *zero* doubts that you and 
Earl are *always* right and that your subscribers (both voluntary and 
forced) are *always* wrong:

	"I've been a listmom myself for over a decade and know that 
	there is a special place in hell reserved for screaming brainless 
	harpies that think some discussion list would be interesting, 
	subscribe to it, and then the very next day have forgotten that 
	they did so. It's probably more accurate to say that they have 
	willfully "forgotten" because after they have proven themselves to 
	be spammers by bombarding an entire list with whining about how
	they never added themselves in the first place."

This is beyond merely ignorant (as in 'without sufficient knowledge of 
your topic' to argue any point successfully), it is also arrogant and 
wrong headed.  Just because Earl had a COI list in 1994 (and maybe even in 
2005?), doesnt mean he can just add people who havent heard from that list 
in YEARS.

Still, despite a large number of simultaneous complaints, you continue:

	"Having publicly announced (by spamming thousands of people) that 
	they are being "spammed" they find themselves in a position where 
	it is dangerous to their ego to think back in time even one day 
	and ask if that "subscribe" process they did the day before might 
	have something to do with the emails they receive today."

The problem with this argument is it is specious: not a single one of the 
persons complaining they are not subscribers subscribed "the day before", 
or even the YEAR before.  Since you've already called each and every 
person who complained a liar, including me, SHOW ME THE MONEY.  Lets see 
that COI I sent in, whether it was in 1994 or 2009.  No record?  No 
consent.

You continue:

	"Faced with evidence to this effect,"

EVIDENCE? Did you say you had *evidence*???  Lets see it. SHOW ME THE COI!

	"rather than apologize or simply disappear after unsubscribing 
	or being unsubscribed themselves, they become all the more shrill, 
	and accuse the hapless list administrator of the most devious, 
	underhanded motives and demand, in an email broadcast to 
	thousands of unsuspecting victims, to be removed from the list. 
	Sometimes they even claim that the unsubscribe mechanisms do not  
	work."

While your list administrator is most certainly "hapless", the complaints 
I have seen have NOT accused him/her of 

	"the most devious, underhanded motives and demand", 

but of merely lacking enough skill to run the mailing list according to 
accepted and acceptable practices (which conveniently also stop complaints 
about spam.  Gee.  Imagine that?)

You are making some pretty extreme statements about the motives of people 
you dont know - probably because they were never on your list to interact 
with in the first place - for the very reason you complain that the 
spamees are:

	"No, you're an ignorant blowhard who likes to hear him or 
	herself type and who enjoys posturing without regard for fact. 
	Which, ironically enough, makes you an excellent candidate for 
	the Pigdog list." 

According to your own administrators statements and archives, he is trying 
to reconstruct a list that has been dead for *years*.  At the point where 
you lose your list and fail to send mail for a reasonable period of time 
(open to debate, generally considered at *least* annually, plus occasional 
reminders of the subscription), you have lost your *consent* to mail to 
those people.

None of those formerly subscribed people are now subscribers, because by 
losing the list you have unsubscribed them.  Of course, this only covers 
those names that may *actually* have been [COI] subscribers: the people 
that were scraped into your broken list and expected to

	"simply disappear after unsubscribing"

have zero reason to want to help you out by helping you clean your list.  
Why should they: you just spammed them all, and followed it up with a rant 
calling them all lazy, stupid, liars!

Next time Earl or you tries this, at least try and skirt the edge: send 
out an email to those people you think may have been subscribers, and 
explain what happened:

	"We lost our list some time ago, we'd like to reconstitute it and 
reconnect with everyone, but we are not certain that all of the name we 
have were actual listmembers.  If we sent you this by accident, we 
apologize - you will not hear from us again, and you need do nothing for 
that to happen.  If on the otherhand you were a listmember, or would like 
to become one now, please respond to this email, GIVING US PERMISSION TO 
SEND TO YOU."

What you and your friend just did is no different than Gevalia, Amex, or 
Wallace himself.  Your arrogant "You ARE a subscriber, or you WERE one, 
because WE SAID SO" attitude makes you a defacto spammer, eligible for 
block on sight.

//Alif
(Also a listmom since 1994)
-- 
Yours,
J.A. Terranson
sysadmin_at_mfn.org
0xpgp_key_mgmt_is_broken-dont_bother

"Never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public
plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to
the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always
be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by
predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty."

Joseph Pulitzer
1907 Speech