The OCAF's White Paper on Internet Pornography

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cpunks,


regarding this paper;  it's sent out by an autoresponder.  is it illegal 
to make excessive use of the autoresponder?  this would be a type of 
denial of service attack.

i'm wondering if i set up a cron job to request a copy every 5 or 10 
minutes and just send it to /dev/nul, could i get in more trouble than 
say, someone just telling me to cut it out?

opinions?

- -pjf


"Those that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
 safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin (1773)
			  finger for PGP key
zifi runs LINUX 1.3.57 -=-=-=WEB=-=-=->  http://zifi.genetics.utah.edu 


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On Tue, 6 Feb 1996, zinc wrote:

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> 
> regarding this paper;  it's sent out by an autoresponder.  is it illegal 
> to make excessive use of the autoresponder?  this would be a type of 
> denial of service attack.
>
> i'm wondering if i set up a cron job to request a copy every 5 or 10 
> minutes and just send it to /dev/nul, could i get in more trouble than 
> say, someone just telling me to cut it out?

Regardless of the legal merits, this would be called "being an asshole." 
The guy who runs mailback.com is just another common carrier. 

- -rich
 http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~llurch/

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zinc writes:
> regarding this [OCAF] paper;  it's sent out by an autoresponder.  is it 
> illegal to make excessive use of the autoresponder?  this would be a type 
> of denial of service attack.

IMHO scared closed-minded folks such as (apparently) OCAF have every right to
speak too. But on the advice of counsel ;) I am _not_ offering to run an
OCAFmirror hereabouts....

-Lewis	"Don't believe the church and state, and everything they tell you"
		--Mike & the Mechanics

On Tue, 6 Feb 1996, zinc wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> 
> regarding this paper;  it's sent out by an autoresponder.  is it illegal 
> to make excessive use of the autoresponder?  this would be a type of 
> denial of service attack.
> 
> i'm wondering if i set up a cron job to request a copy every 5 or 10 
> minutes and just send it to /dev/nul, could i get in more trouble than 
> say, someone just telling me to cut it out?

This would be bad, but

TAKE A LOOK AT THE DOCUMENT RIGHT NOW!!! The fun starts about a page down.

 http://www.bway.net/~dfenton/noporn.html

Whoever "DWF" is deserves a medal.

-rich

I'd thought that this was a "friendly" site that had been hacked. It's 
not. But the comments are pretty funny regardless.

-rich

On Tue, 6 Feb 1996, Rich Graves wrote:

> On Tue, 6 Feb 1996, zinc wrote:
> 
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > 
> > regarding this paper;  it's sent out by an autoresponder.  is it illegal 
> > to make excessive use of the autoresponder?  this would be a type of 
> > denial of service attack.
> > 
> > i'm wondering if i set up a cron job to request a copy every 5 or 10 
> > minutes and just send it to /dev/nul, could i get in more trouble than 
> > say, someone just telling me to cut it out?
> 
> This would be bad, but
> 
> TAKE A LOOK AT THE DOCUMENT RIGHT NOW!!! The fun starts about a page down.
> 
>  http://www.bway.net/~dfenton/noporn.html
> 
> Whoever "DWF" is deserves a medal.
> 
> -rich

zinc wrote:

| i'm wondering if i set up a cron job to request a copy every 5 or 10
| minutes and just send it to /dev/nul, could i get in more trouble than
| say, someone just telling me to cut it out?

I think that they would try to press charges under the precedent that
a guys modem auto-dialing Jerry Falwell's number was forced to make
restitution.   (Forget the reference, sorry.)

The important difference is that they probably are not being billed on
a per transaction basis, whereas 800 numbers are billed per call.
Would they sue?  Can you sell a jury on the essential difference being
that they were not billed per copy mailed?  I'd expect that they'd
react with a 'cut it out' message first.

Adam


-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume

On Feb 6, 16:44, Adam Shostack sent the following to the NSA's mail archives:
> Subject: Re: The OCAF's White Paper on Internet Pornography
|| zinc wrote:
|| 
|| | i'm wondering if i set up a cron job to request a copy every 5 or 10
|| | minutes and just send it to /dev/nul, could i get in more trouble than
|| | say, someone just telling me to cut it out?
|| 
|| I think that they would try to press charges under the precedent that
|| a guys modem auto-dialing Jerry Falwell's number was forced to make
|| restitution.   (Forget the reference, sorry.)
|| 
|| The important difference is that they probably are not being billed on
|| a per transaction basis, whereas 800 numbers are billed per call.
|| Would they sue?  Can you sell a jury on the essential difference being
|| that they were not billed per copy mailed?  I'd expect that they'd
|| react with a 'cut it out' message first.
|| 

And then they would, of course, use the inflated "hit" count as proof positive
that the Internet citizenry is on their side!  

-- 
==========================================================================
David J. Bianco			| Web Wonders, Online Oddities, Cool Stuff
iTribe, Inc.			| Phone: (804) 446-9060 Fax: (804) 446-9061
Suite 1700, World Trade Center	| email: <bianco@itribe.net>
Norfolk, VA 23510		| URL  : http://www.itribe.net/~bianco/

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howdy folks,

it's been pointed out to me that the attack i mentioned would be unfair 
to others who use this ISP.  i will not be doing any mass mailing and i 
suggest others refrain from doing so as well.

the document is good reading, although it does hurt your head if you've 
had any logic at all.  i guess those years of debate weren't for nothing 
after all...

- -pat finerty
biochem grad student

"Those that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
 safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin (1773)
			  finger for PGP key
zifi runs LINUX 1.3.57 -=-=-=WEB=-=-=->  http://zifi.genetics.utah.edu 


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