Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks

The idea of distributing tokens by clever and complicated 
schemes seems interesting as a thought-experiment, but I 
wouldn't want to have to study the fine art of "cypherpunk 
posting technique" in order to insert my rare comments into a 
discussion thread.  Charging posting fees is also interesting, 
but as already discussed, has many weaknesses.

An easy solution would be to grant unlimited posting rights to 
anyone with more than one month's membership in the list.  
This idea could be called "the endorsement scheme."

If anyone wishes to make an anonymous post, their submission 
would go into a "general pool" along with all the submissions 
from non-members and people who have subscribed for less than 
one month.  The "general pool" would be a webpage somewhere 
which has on the screen an "Approve" button which would bring 
up a "Username/Passowrd" box.

Anyone with more than three months membership in the list 
could apporove messages from the general pool.  If the senior 
member (_any_ _one_ senior member) feels that a post in the 
general pool is worth sending on to the full list, then the 
message gets general distribution, date- and time-stamped:  

   "Determined by --your_name_here-- (not the author) 
    to be of possible interest to at least one member 
    of the list."  (no problem ... Vulis could still 
    approve his "Huge Cajones Remailer" and his 
    "Suck_My_Big_Juicy_Cock" postings, and none of us 
    will ever figure out where they're coming from)

Senior members would never be in any way reprimanded for any item 
that they forwarded, unless through some "call-for-votes" type of 
action their item-inclusion privileges were curtailed (that'll 
never happen).  No one can "disapprove" or otherwise block any 
message from forwarding to the list.

The principle to be followed for which items to approve would be 
"essentially everything."  The idea is to strive to not block 
postings, but to leave "herbal remedy" ads hanging unendorsed.  
Maybe the unendorsed posts could expire if unendorsed after 72 
hours -- of course, the item would be immediately removed from the 
general pool when it received an endorsement and went to the list.

We have to be careful to not cause any legal liability to fall 
onto an endorser for approving an item (eg, source-code) which is 
later determined to be, eg, an ITAR violation, a copyright 
violation, etc.  The endorsement must have an effective disclaimer.

john

It's remarkable how "cypher punks'" only interest in cryptography
seems to be in making up lame pseudo-crypto censorship protocols.

John H West <jwest@eskimo.com> writes:
>                              grant unlimited posting rights to
> anyone with more than one month's membership in the list.
> This idea could be called "the endorsement scheme."
>
> If anyone wishes to make an anonymous post, their submission
> would go into a "general pool" along with all the submissions
> from non-members and people who have subscribed for less than
> one month.  The "general pool" would be a webpage somewhere
> which has on the screen an "Approve" button which would bring
> up a "Username/Passowrd" box.
>
> Anyone with more than three months membership in the list
> could apporove messages from the general pool.  If the senior
> member (_any_ _one_ senior member) feels that a post in the
> general pool is worth sending on to the full list, then the
> message gets general distribution, date- and time-stamped:
>
>    "Determined by --your_name_here-- (not the author)
>     to be of possible interest to at least one member
>     of the list."  (no problem ... Vulis could still
>     approve his "Huge Cajones Remailer" and his
>     "Suck_My_Big_Juicy_Cock" postings, and none of us
>     will ever figure out where they're coming from)
>
> Senior members would never be in any way reprimanded for any item
> that they forwarded, unless through some "call-for-votes" type of
> action their item-inclusion privileges were curtailed (that'll
> never happen).  No one can "disapprove" or otherwise block any
> message from forwarding to the list.

Yeah, sure. Remember - I'm not a "list member" because the cocksucker John
Gilmore didn't like the contents of my submissions, so he unsubscribed me,
and further instructed majordomo to play dead when it sees a request from me.

This list is already much more censored than what you describe by the
asshole censor John "I like to suck big dicks" Gilmore. It also has no
credibility. It's a laughing stock for the media.

But if your proposal is implemented, I'm sure some honorable person(s) would
try to thwart censorship by approving submissions that socksucker John Gilmore
doesn't like, and would find their ability to approve curtailed very soon.

You're also forgetting about the approver's liability. This mailing list has
seen a lot of racist garbage about "crazy Russians" and the "colored race"
from scum like Timmy May and Ray Arachelian. This is what happened to one
such vile racist in California (I don't know whether he's a "cypher punk"):

] E-MAIL SENDER INDICTED
]    Irvine, Calif. [November 14, 1996] (AP) -- A former
] college student was indicted on 10 federal hate-crime
] charges for allegedly sending computer messages threatening
] to kill Asian students.
]    According to federal prosecutors, Wednesday's grand jury
] indictment of Richard Machado, 19, of Irvine marks the first
] time the government has prosecuted an alleged federal hate
] crime committed in cyberspace. . . .
]  [...]
]    Machado could spend up to a decade in jail and face up to
] a $1 million fine if convicted.
]  [...]
]    The grand jury accused Machado of sending a threatening
] electronic message to about 60 University of California,
] Irvine, students on Sept. 20.
]  [...]

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps